Alec Mills Follows the Autograph Rules

I've added another card to my autograph collection.

 

This card of Cubs pitcher Alec Mills comes from 2021 Immaculate Collection.  It's logoless and its a sticker. The signature is a real mess too, but it follows my collection rules.

By my count there have been 144 different Cubs players that have had a certified autograph card issued in a year that they played for the Cubs, showing them as a Cub.  I've got at least one autographed card of all 144.

Terry Adams	Jason Dubuois	Bryan LaHair	Anthony Rizzo
Arismendy Alcantara	Carl Edwards	Tommy LaStella	Henry Rodriguez
Albert Almora	Kyle Farnsworth	Junior Lake	Aramis Ramirez
Moises Alou	Mike Fontenot	Derrek Lee	Henry Rodriguez
Adbert Alzolay	Kevin Foster	Jon Leiber	Chris Rusin
Jake Arrieta	Dexter Fowler	Jon Lester	Addison Russell
Javier Baez	Kyuji Fujikawa	Cole Liniak	Jeff Samardzija
Darwin Barney	Kosuke Fukudome	Greg Maddux	Rey Sanchez
Francis Beltran	Sam Fuld	Dave Magadan	Ryne Sandberg
David Bote	Sean Gallagher	Dillon Maples	Kyle Schwarber
Milton Bradley	Nomar Garciaparra	Carlos Marmol	Scott Servais
Roosevelt Brown	Matt Garza	Sean Marshall	Jorge Soler
Kris Bryant	Leo Gomez	Alec Mills	Alfonso Soriano
Scott Bullett	Tom Gorzelanny	Scott Moore	Sammy Sosa
Freddie Bynum	Kevin Gregg	Matt Murton	Geovany Soto
Marlon Byrd	Angel Guzman	Rod Myers	Steve Smyth
Jeimer Candelario	Jason Hammel	Thomas Neal	Matt Szczur
Victor Caratini	Todd Haney	James Norwood	Ryan Theriot
Andrew Cashner	Ian Happ	Roberto Novoa	Keegan Thompson
Larry Cassian	Brendan Harris	Will Ohman	Ozzie Timmons
Frank Castillo	Kevin Hart	Augie Ojeda	Steve Trachsel
Welington Castillo	Kyle Hendricks	Mike Olt	Duane Underwood
Starlin Castro	Jason Heyward	Ryan O'Malley	Jermaine Van Buren
Ronny Cedeno	Jose Hernandez	Kevin Orie	Josh Vitters
Rocky Cherry	Bobby Hill	Angel Pagan	Todd Walker
Matt Clement	Rich Hill	Bob Patterson	Todd Wellemeyer
Steve Clevenger	Nico Hoerner	Eric Patterson	Randy Wells
Buck Coats	Micah Hoffpauir	Corey Patterson	Turk Wendell
Tyler Colvin	Cesar Izturis	David Patton	Jerome Williams
Willson Contreras	Brett Jackson	Joc Pederson	Kerry Wood
Juan Cruz	Reed Johnson	Carlos Pena	Travis Wood
Yu Darvish	Jacque Jones	Billy Petrick	Michael Wuertz
Wade Davis	Matt Karchner	Felix Pie	Carlos Zambrano
Blake DeWitt	David Kelton	Lou Piniella	Rob Zastryzny
Rafael Dolis	Brooks Kieschnick	Mark Prior	Ben Zobrist
Scott Downs	Craig Kimbrel	Brooks Raley	Julio Zuleta

Five Random Cubs Cards

  I've got 19,738 Cubs cards from 300 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1973 Jewel Ron Santo  A picture of the team captain from his final year with the Cubs.

1980s: 1982 Donruss #504 Doug Bird  The nickname for Bird listed on baseballreferenc.com is "the Fidrych" .  I had a different one for him in 1982 - "Flip the," because that's what the fans wanted to do to Bird and his 9-14 record.

1990s: 1994 Panini #158 Sammy Sosa Poor Sammy, no longer on the HOF ballot.

2000s: 2006 Bowman Heritage #96 Mark Prior This is the second time in three weeks that the RNG has picked a Prior card from 2006.  Why do we have to keep being reminded of his horrible 2006 season?  It was his last as he was 1-8 with an ERA of 7.21.

2010s: 2016 Topps Rookies #19 Kyle Schwarber  This is the Target version of the card.  There is also a Walmart version, which shows him at Wrigley Field.

70s Saturday - 1976 Shakey's Pizza Cubs

The 1976 Shakey's set wasn't a national set.  It was produced by the Washington State Sports Collectors Association in 1976 and sponsored by five local Seattle area Shakey's.  Cards were given away or sold at Association shows.

You can see on the back that the sponsoring restaurants are listed.  I wonder if one of the owners was a collector?

The cards were the standard size and the set was made up of 158 Hall of Famers and Baseball's Greatest Players.  Nine Cubs were included.  King Kelly is listed on the back as a Cub (they were actually the White Stockings when he played) though the card shows him in a Boston uniform.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recapping the 2021 T206 Cubs

 With the final wave of the set now in hand, let's take a look at all the Cubs cards from the 2021 version of T206.

There are a total of seventeen Cubs cards in the 500-card set.

 

 

 

Six are retired players, included two players that also had cards in the original T206 set.  Here's a good one --- the George Browne card is his first non-reprint card in 110 years. He was last included in the 1911 Turkey Red set.  

 

Two Cubs prospects were included

 

 

Four of the seventeen are now ex-Cubs.

 

 

That leaves these five as the only players still on the roster.

The Final Wave of Cubs from 2021 T206

 The final wave of 2021 T206 has rolled in.  There were two Cubs out of the 50 cards.

 

Two Hall of Famers!  

I may be stretching it a bit, but Zach Davies would be mentioned some where is the Hall of Fame for being the starting pitcher when he and three additional relievers no-hit the Dodgers on June 24.

Tomorrow I have a recap of the Cubs in the complete T206 set.

Carousel Complete!

 I've finally knocked off my last two remaining sets of the 1976 MSA disc sets, the Carousel Snack bar set.

I've been looking for the Jerry Morales disc for over a year with no luck.  An Ebay seller had an auction for 110 Carousel discs.  The listing didn't have pictures of all the discs nor did it have a complete listing.  But with 110 of them I figured there was a good chance that Morales was included.  I emailed and asked two questions - did the lot include Morales and would you consider selling it separately.

The answer to both questions was yes.  I paid, the seller shipped, and I have the set wrapped up.

Carousel was one of ten different MSA disc sets from 1976 and I now have nine of the ten set completed. The only one left is the Crane Potato Chip set.  I need the Andy Thornton disc.  That one too, I've never seen.  Thornton has discs with both the Cubs and Expos.  The Montreal disc is fairly easy to get.  The Cubs one, not so much.

Another Conlon All-Star Set with the Same Mistake

 You'd expect the Smithsonian Institution would have better fact-checking.

Remember the Conlon 1933 All-Star set that I showed several days ago?  It commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first All-Star game.  It also has cards of players that weren't on the All-Star team and left out actual members of the team.

In 1988 Wide World Sports issued their version of the set.  Unfortunately, they used the same same 48 major league players as the original set. That means they made the same mistake.

The design of the cards is a bit different than the 1983 set. The cards are standard size and have less information in the upper right hand corner.

1988 Sporting News Conlon Collection

 Wild World Sports cranked out the final three Conlon series in 1988.  Each set was just 30 cards instead of the 60 in each of the first two series.  The card design was the same with the exception of a new logo added to the bottom left corner.

There are just four Cubs card among the 90 in series three, four, and five.  Can you name the four?

 

 

You are correct if you named...

.... Charley Grimm, Babe Herman, Charley Root, and Riggs Stephenson.

Five Random Cubs Cards

  I've got 19,735 Cubs cards from 300 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1952 Topps #164 Walt Dubiel

1980s: 1988 Topps #336 Ed Lynch Lynch was out of baseball in 1988.  He returned to the Cubs in 1994 as the general manager.  Among his worst free-agent signings was that of....

1990s: 1997 Finest #274 Mel Rojas  Rojas was definitely not a Finest acquisition.  Ed Lynch signed him for over $13 million for three years.  Rojas didn't even make it through the entire 1997 season.  He and his 0-4 record with an ERA of 4.42 were shipped to the Mets in early August.

2000s: 2000 Topps Combos #6 Ernie Banks  What a shame to Mr. Cub, a real people-person, on the same card as a self-absorbed steroid user.

2010s: 2013 Season Ticket Holders #28 Greg Maddux This card was printed on tickets for the game on May 31 - 31st for #31.