Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,904 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1958 Topps #135 Moe Drabowsky It's easy to spot a picture of a Cubs player taken in 1957, as this one was.  That year was the only season that they had white piping on their hats.

1980s: 1987 Fleer #575 Chris Speier He really is getting down low to make this throw.  He almost looks like a pitcher.

1990s: 1993 Baseball Card Magazine #88 Sammy Sosa The magazine did a pretty decent job of reproducing the 1968 look, especially with the limited technology that was available back then.

2000s: 2000 Fox Sports Net #7 Eric Young These cards were give away by the Cubs at Wrigley on August 15.  Young batted leadoff that day and was 1-4 as the Cubs fell to the Cardinals 4-2.  

2010s: 2018 Factory Team Set #CC15 Albert Almora The 2018 season was his last decent season, as he hit .286 as the Cubs starting center fielder.  After that his averages were .236, .167, .115, and .223.  But despite the mediocre at best career, he will always be the guy that scored the go-ahead run in the 10th inning of game 7 of the 2016 World Series.

Eighties Alphabetically - KAS

 A few weeks ago I had the discs from the Chicago-area potato chip company, Jays.  And last week it was a disc set from 1985.

Today's set combines both of those as we have a potato chip disc set from 1985.  It is from another local chip company, not a national brand.  KAS was big in the St. Louis area, with their products made at a factory in Centralia, Illinois.

Their 1985 set was also produced by MSA.  It was smaller than the Jox set, with just 20 players on the checklist.  However, the KAS set has the same two Cubs as the bigger Jox set. 

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,901 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1974 O-Pee-Chee #584 Ken Rudolph The career back-up is shown at Candlestick Park, and that is where he spent the 1974 season as the Cubs traded him to the Giants in October, 1973.

1980s: 1980 Topps #381 Cubs Team The 1980 team was not very good and it started at the top.  Preston Gomez, who hadn't managed since being fired by the Astros during the 1975 season, was hired as manager.  He brought with him a career win/loss percentage of .392.  How could any general manager look at that and think to hire the guy.  Gomez didn't last the season, and was fired after just 90 games.  But he did do better than his career percentage as his time with the Cubs was .422.

1990s: 1990 Score #176 Lloyd McClendon  This shot gives you and idea of just how high the field was crowned.  Look at how much of the batboy in the background is hidden.

2000s: 2000 Bowman #121 Sammy Sosa  Love that Sosa autograph!  It looks like it was done by a second grader.

2010s: 2010 Topps #520 Randy Wells Seems to me they cropped this a little too tight and ended up losing most of both of his arms.

Eighties Alphabetically - Jox

When the running craze hit America in the 1970s, running shoes became the thing.  And they had to have stripes on them like Adidas shoes.  America's biggest shoe retailer at the time, Thom McAn, launched their own athletic brand to capture some of the market.

They called their line "Jox," but you don't have to be one to wear them.  And yes, they had stripes on them.

Thom McAn took a one year plunge into the card market and issued a disc set in 1985.  It was an MSA produced-set so there were no logos on the pictures.

The back of the disc was the same on each of the 47 in the set.  The two biggest names from the 1984 division winning Cubs were included in this 1985 set.

A Side by Side Look At The Three Levels of 2024 Finest

 So what do the three levels of this year's Finest look like?  Let's see them side by side.

Each of the levels has a slightly different background.  Also, the player name in the first level is right justified, and then it moved to the left in the second and third levels.  You can also see that for players with cards in multiple levels, different pictures were used for each card.

The backs have the same template in all three levels.  As I mentioned in previous posts, the level name is below the card number.  For players with multiple cards, the paragraphs were different on each card.  I was glad to see that because I was afraid Topps would get lazy and use identical backs.

2024 Finest Cubs - Rare

 Today's cards are the rare cards in this year's Finest set.  The rare are seeded one every three packs and are #201 - 300 in the set.  Initially I wasn't sure if I wanted to pick up the five Cubs cards because I thought they would be too expensive.  That wasn't the case, luckily, and I paid in the range of $3-5 for each.

Again, you can tell which subset a card belongs to by looking just below the card number.

 

Bellinger and Steele's only cards in the set were rare, while these are the second for Morel and Imanaga and Crow-Armstrong's third.

2024 Finest Cubs - Uncommon

 I wrote last week about the 2024 Finest and the three 100-cards levels in the set.  I got the common cards pretty easily.  It took a little time but I now have the cards from the second level, which Topps calls "uncommon."

Topps made it pretty easy to tell which of the three levels a card belongs to by putting the level name under the card number.  A less-easier way is by the design of the background on the front of the card.  I'll show all three of the different fronts in a couple of days.

I don't know if this was done with any of the other teams, but there are exactly five Cubs cards in each level.  Below are the five uncommon Cubs.

 

 

This is the only card in the set for Canario, Hoerner, and Swanson.  PCA and Imanaga ended up with cards in all of the levels.

1996 Sportflix Fixed

 We are at the end of the line with these posts as the 1996 edition was the last one for Sportflics / Sportflix.  

These are the only two Cubs among the first 96 cards in the set that featured the dual picture technology.

Sammy Sosa was the lone Cubs card among the 30 that have the UC3 technology.  These cards have a 3D look to them.  The set also has 24 rookie cards, but none of them are Cubs cards.

The producer of Sportflix cards, Pinnacle, decided to end the line after the 1996 set.  I'm sure the cost of the cards was a factor.  Within two years, Pinnacle went out of business.

Two More From the Most Wanted List

 I picked up two more cards off of my Most Wanted List.  They are the third and fourth I've gotten this year.  Four cards in nine months is much worse than last year's card per month, but I'm happy to be able to take care of anything of of the list at any time.

They are both from the 1985 TCMA 1949 Play Ball set.  

Look at the scene behind Jeffcoat.  The bleachers look so bare.  There's not addition, no ribbon screen, no video board, not advertising.  The apartment building has no rooftop seating either.  It's a totally different look now, and I'm not sure its for the better.

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,895 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1942 Play Ball #40 Stan Hack  This isn't really from a 1942 set, but from a TCMA 1985 release.  They created a set as if Play Ball did have cards in 1942, using a design similar to the 1941 cards and players from that era.

1980s: 1986 O- Pee-Chee #384 Steve Trout Some times when the RNG picks a card from OPC you have to just take my word for it that the card is an actual OPC card since many times their front was identical to Topps.  But not in 1986... you can clearly see this is from O-Pee-Chee's set.

1990s: 1991 Topps Traded #105 Bob Scanlan Scanlan made his MLB debut with the Cubs in 1991 and appeared in 40 games.  He pitched mainly out of the bullpen but also made 13 starts.  His record was 7-8 with an ERA of 3.89.

2000s: 2003 First Pitch #172 Mark Prior  Prior lived up to all the hype in 2003 as he went 18-6.  But he was never the same after that year, winning just 18 more games over the next three injury-filled seasons.

2010s: 2011 Pro Debut All-Stars #12 Hak-Ju Lee  The Cubs traded Lee in January of 2011.  He went to Tampa along with four other players including Chris Archer in a deal that brought Matt Garza to the Cubs.  He never made it to the majors but did play six seasons in Korea's top league.

Eighties Alphabetically - Jiffy Pop

Baseball and popcorn are perfect partners, so it makes sense that Jiffy pop jumped on the baseball card bandwagon in the 1980s.  They issued an MSA-produced disc set for three years, from 1986 through 1988.  As usual, there are no logos on MSA items, so we get the ugly airbrushed caps.

Each year the set had a checklist of twenty players and each checklist has one Cub.

2024 Cubs Season Ticket Holder Set

 The Cubs once again teamed up with Topps to produce a set exclusive to season ticket holders.  Prices for the 15-card set on eBay have been much higher this year than in the past.  I guess the season ticket holders are looking to recoup some of the cost of their tickets.  

As an aside, yesterday the Cubs announced the prices for 2025 season tickets and there is an average of a 6.7% increase per ticket.  Making that increase worse, the Cubs will have just 79 home dates next year as two games being played in Tokyo in March are being counted as home games.  

Back to the cards...

There are 15 cards in the set and most are current players with a couple of prospects tossed in.  Michael Busch and Shota Imanaga are included and shown in actual Cubs uniforms (from pictures taken during spring training), not a photoshop job, so kudos to the Cubs for that.

The design is the 1984 Topps design with the Cubs season ticket holder logo added.  The backs are also the 1984 design.