Five Random Cubs Cards

  I've got 21,195 Cubs cards from 316 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1954 Bowman #29 Johnny Klippstein Can you imagine a set today that has just the player's signature with no other graphics?  You'd have no way of knowing his name!

1980s: 1984 Donruss #266 Dickie Noles  An unflattering picture matched his unflattering 1984 season.  Noles was 2-2 with an ERA of 5.15 when the Cubs traded him to the Rangers in early July. In Texas he posted a 2-3 record with the same 5.15 ERA.

1990s: 1996 Bowman #274 Bobby Morris  Bad design here - his name is almost unreadable with the dark uniform in the background.  Injuries derailed his career and Morris never rose above AA.

2000s: 2008 X #20 Kerry Wood  Did Twitter have to pay Upper Deck to use the brand name X?  

2010s: 2011 Topps Chrome #193 Darwin Barney  I've got 16 different versions of his card!

Comparing the Main Brands - 2004

 Year - 2004

Main Brands -  Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Upper Deck

Number of Players Included Among All the Sets: 41

Players Included in Every Set: 8

 The total number of Cubs players surpassed the 40 mark, the first time that had happened since the pre-strike season of 1993.  But just eight players were in all four sets.  Smaller Donruss (400 cards) and Fleer (500 cards) sets had something to do with that.

Kudos to Topps and Fleer for including some off-season acquisitions, Derrek Lee and Latroy Hawkins.  Upper Deck was the only set to have a 2004 Cubs card for Greg Maddux in the base set.

I Dominated Dominator

This is the green /25 version of Billy Williams' card in the 2023 Donruss insert set Dominators.  It is also the ninth of ten possible versions that I now have.  The only one  that I'm  missing is the black 1/1.

The nine cards fit together nicely in a 3x3 mosaic.

2023 Cubs #47 - PCA

 Touted Cubs prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong was called up on Tuesday and later played in the game that night as a pinch-runner. PCA came to the Cubs from the Mets in the Javier Baez trade.  The Mets drafted him #1 in the first round of the 2020 draft.  He was injured early in the 2021 season, and was not playing when he was traded.  It was a risky trade, but it seems like the Cubs gamble paid off.

He's moved quickly through the Cubs' system, with the two A teams last season and this year in AA and AAA.  He's with the big team now as a late inning runner and defensive replacement.  It don't think the Cubs are expecting anything from him offensively, yet.  But who knows?