Sunday, April 15, 2018

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 15,612 Cubs cards from 133 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.


1900s - 1970s: 1969 Topps Stamps Ron Santo  These were not inserts but sold separately.  You got 12 stamps, a team album, and some gum for a nickel.  Santo was one of the ten Cubs in the set.


1980s: 1989 Topps Big #60 Damon Berryhill  I consider the Big set as Topps first attempt at something Heritage-like.  The oversized cards matched the size of the original Topps sets of the early '50s.  But apparently size doesn't matter and the brand lasted only a few years.  It seems to be the design that is more important and Heritage has been a hit since its release.


1990s: 1993 Stadium Club #285 Mike Morgan  Morgan had the best year of his career the year before this card came out, going 16-8 with an ERA of 2.55.  He was never close to that again.  In '93 he dropped to 10-15 and his ERA ballooned to 4.03.


2000s: 2007 Topps Update #57 Carlos Marmol  Marmol was lights-out as the 8th inning guy in 2007.  He had 96 strike outs in 69 innings.



2010s: 2016 Topps Holiday #13 Aroldis Chapman  A guy from Cuba pitching in the snow... go figure!








4 comments:

  1. I think the larger size actually hurt Topps Big (and '89 Bowman). People don't want cards which won't fit in standard 9-pocket pages and sleeves.

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    1. I agree. Although, I'll make an exception for over-sized vintage!

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  2. topps I agree, too. I'll bet that is why Topps went with regular sized cards for Heritage.

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  3. I seem to remember this coming up in a Beckett column in 1990 when Bowman went back to normal size versus the oversized 1989 cards, the 9-pocket issue and the toploaders were the complaints. The only other time I can think of where oversized cards were produced as a mainstream set were the Gameday football cards in 1993 and 1994, which they had the same issues and complaints.

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