2024 Cub #36

 Cody Bellinger crashed into the outfield wall at Wrigley Tuesday night.  He was taken out of the game with sore ribs as a precaution.  On Wednesday he was found to have fractured a rib and was placed on the IL.  Called up from Iowa to replace him was Pete Crow-Armstrong.  PCA wasn't exactly tearing things up in Iowa, batting just .203.

He was a late inning defensive replacement on Wednesday night but was the starting centerfielder on Thursday afternoon.  He struck out his first two times up and looked clueless.  But on his third AB he smacked a home run into a stiff wind blowing in.  The ball was crushed and I know that for a fact because...

... I was there!  My friend with season tickets had an extra ticket available at the last minute and I gladly accepted his offer to go the the game.  And now I can say that I witnessed PCA's first MLB hit and home run.

The home run was also the difference in the game as it was a two run shot that gave the Cubs a 3-1 lead.  

The lead held up and the Cubs won the game, completing a three-game sweep of the Astros.

I used a picture of his home run trot for his card. The font size for his last name had to be significantly reduced to get it to fit.   I'm sure that he will have an actual card in series two.  I wonder how Topps will deal with it.

And the 36 Cubs of 2024 fit into a nice 4x9 mosaic.

2024 Cub #35

The Cubs recalled Matt Mertis from Iowa on Tuesday, taking the roster spot of Garrett Cooper, who was DFA'ed.  Mervis was promptly put into the lineup Tuesday night, and he was 0-3.  He was doing well in AAA once again, and it remains to be seen if he can do the same thing in the big leagues or if he is one of the AAAA players.

I didn't have to make a card for him because Topps included him in the factory set.  I'm assuming that he will also have a card is series two.

2022 Cubs Season Ticket Holder Set

I recently picked up another of the Cubs season ticket holder sets, this one from 2022.  Topps and the Cubs partnered up to create a 15 card set using the 19878 Topps design.   I'm assuming they used that design because it was also used in 2022 Archives.  They didn't have to make anything new, they used something already set to go.

Not only did the use a recycled recycled front, but they got very lazy with the backs.  Look at that.  There is a lot of blank space.

 

 

 

 

 

These are the ten cards of players that were currently with the team.

 

 

The other five cards belong to future stars. Of the five, Jordan Wicks is the only one to make any sort of splash with the Cubs.

1976 Motorola Cubs

The electronics giant Motorola gave away baseball cards at their 1976 dealers convention.  Each pack contained one card and a stick of gum.  It was a pretty novel thing to do back then.

The set features eleven old-time players.  The front has a picture of the player while on the back there was information about Motorola products.

There are two Cubs in the set and I thought I had this set done over a year ago, but nope.  I picked up one card but never got the other.  I realized this last week, found the missing card on eBay, and bought it.

 

The two Cubs are Hall of Famers from the dynasty of 1906-1910.

The two cards are printed on two different types of paper. Brown's is very thin and flimsy.  You can see traces of the back on the scan.  The Chance card is on a much thicker paper.  Also notice how the color of the brown border is different.

2024 Cubs #32-34

 Three more Cubs made their 2024 debut.  All three saw action on Friday.  Two came to the team off of the IL, having recovered from back issues.

 

Jameson Taillon started Friday's game and went 5 effective innings against the Marlins, giving up just one run on three hits.  He'll be a welcome addition to the rotation if he keeps that up, with Justin Steele on the IL and Kyle Hendricks struggling.

Patrick Wisdom played right field on a windy afternoon for the first five innings and then moved to third base for the rest of the game.  The Cubs will need decent production from him with Seiya Suzuki on the IL.

Reliever Colton Brewer pitched a scoreless eighth inning but was touched up for a couple of runs in the ninth.  This is a card that I had to make. I couldn't find a picture of him with the Cubs so I used a screenshot off of the TV broadcast.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 21,727 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: 1971 Topps #175 Jim Hickman Topps had Hickman pose right at the batting cage on a sunny day in New York.

1980s: 1984 Nestles #267 Carmelo Martinez  He didn't play for the Cubs in 1984 as he was traded to the Padres in the deal that brought Scott Sanderson to Chicago.

1990s: 1992 Star Millennium #48 Ryne Sandberg I like the look of the nameless jerseys, especially now with the new smaller font being used.

2000s: 2005 Heritage #204 Kyle Farnsworth The 2004 season was Farnsworth's final with the Cubs.  He pitched in 72 games and posted a record of 4-5 with an ERA of 4.73.  He was traded to the Tigers just before the start of spring training in 2005.

2010s: 2016 Topps MLB Debut Starlin Castro His debut was one for the record books as he drove in six runs in his first game, a record that still stands.

Eighties Alphabetically - Circle K

 

The convenience store chain Circle K partnered with Topps in 1985 to create a set called Baseball's All Time Home Run Kings.  The set has a card for 33 of the 34 career home run leaders as of 1984, from Hank Aaron at 755 to Lee May with 354.  The missing player is Joe DiMaggio, who I suspect did not give his permission for inclusion in the set.

 

There are two Cubs on the list, Ernie Banks in 10th place with 512 and in 18th place with 426 was Billy Williams.  It's nice that the pictures on the cards include team logos, which were lacking on many others of this era.

2024 Factory Set Me vs. Topps

There are five current Cubs players with cards in the factory set but were not included in series one.  I did homemade cards of them for my opening day post, so lets see how mine compare to Topps.

My cards are on the left, while the Topps version in on the right.

My action shot wins! 

Topps has both the ugly City Connect uniform and a screaming shot, so I win times two!

 

I like the Topps bunt shot,  but any card that uses the City Connect uniform is an automatic loser.

 

Wow!  Great minds think alike!

My action shot wins, again!

2024 Cub #31

The bullpen needed some fresh arms so yesterday the Cubs sent Luke Little and Daniel Palencia to Iowa and brought up Hayden Wesneski and Colten Brewer.

They didn't waste any time using Wesneski.  He was brought in yesterday's game in the fifth inning, with the Cubs leading 2-1 at the time.  It turned out to be a great move as he gave up no runs and pitched through the eighth inning.  In the meantime, the Cubs scored three more runs while the D-Backs tallied once in the last frame.  Because starter Justin Wicks didn't last through the fifth, the win went to Wesneski.

Topps included him in series one, so I didn't have to make a card for him (though I was tempted since the Topps card is horizontal).  I will need to fire up Photoshop if the other new arm Colten Brewer gets into a game.

2024 Cub #30

On Monday the Cubs placed Seyia Suzuki on the 10 day IL.  To take his place they called up rookie outfielder Alexander Canario.  Canario played in six games last September and hit a respectable .294.  Craig Counsel wasted no time in getting him into action this year as was used in a pinch runner in the 11th inning of Monday's 3-2 win over the Diamondbacks.