Fixed Some More Sportflics

Yesterday I wrote about how I fixed my scan of the 1986 Sportlics Billy Williams card to show his face instead of Tony Olivia's.

That fix job sent me on another fixit project.

This is what many of my scans from this set look like.  Because the Sportflic cards have three pitcures on them, the scans can sometimes look like a jumbled mess.  I decided that each card should actually have three images, not just one.

I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures of the card at different angles to capture all three of the pictures. Then it was off to do some image editing to get the cards at the right perspective.

This is what I ended up with, a look at all three of the images.  Typically in the 1986 set, there is a portrait picture along with two action pictures.  

I wasn't always able to get clear pictures of some of the images, but I think you get the idea as to what the three pictures look like.

Below are the rest of the Cubs cards from the set, with all three images for each.  Except for Ernie Banks, the two action shots are from the same play, so I put them in the order in which they happened.

And since it was a pretty quick and easy process, I made GIFs of the images too, so you can see the action like you were thumbing through a flip book.

Billy Fixed

 

This scan of Billy Williams' card from 1989 Sportflics has always bothered me.  Its from the subset called "Best of the '60s". There are pictures of three players on it, Billy Williams, Al Kaline, and Tony Oliva.  The picture changes depending on the angle that you're using to look at it, which is Sportflics' gimmick.  When I put the card on the scanner bed, the angle gives you the Oliva picture.

It is not acceptable for this Cubs collector to have a Twins player show up like that.  But I've never been able to do anything with the scanner to get the Billy image.

Recently I started playing around with my camera instead of using the scanner.  With the camera you have the ability to adjust the angle at which the picture is taken.  

I can get the picture of Billy to show up, but then the card looks skewed, and that won't do either.  That means I have to add another step to the process and use the perspective tool in Photoshop (actually, I use GIMP, the free open-source Photoshop alternative).

And now I have Billy instead of Tony Olivia!

2024 Cub #45

 The 45th player for the 2024 Cubs took the field while I was on my bike trip.

Reliever Jesus Tinoco was purchased from the Royals on July 16.  He was with the Royals organization for less than a month, as they had just picked him up as a free agent after being released by the Rangers on June 20.  Three organizations in 30 days is not a good thing.

He was recalled from Iowa on July 19 and pitched two scoreless innings for the Cubs that same day.  Here's hoping he can keep up that 0.00 ERA for the rest of the season!

A Forgotten Most Wanted

 ...and I'm back!

This card came while I was gone.  It's always nice to have some cards waiting for you when you're away.

It comes from the Topps 2008 insert set T205.

Why, you may be asking, did I just get a card from 2008?

Good question and I have an odd explanation.

Every so often I'll pick up a random Cubs binder and page through it.  A couple of weeks ago I did that with the Topps 2000 - 2009 binder.  While going through the 2008 cards I came upon an empty slot on a page in the insert section.  Most likely it has been empty since 2008 and I had no idea why.

So I did some digging and discovered I was missing the Fukudome card from the T205 insert set.  The 2008 season was his first with the Cubs and his cards were getting grabbed quickly and at inflated prices.  I'm guessing that I couldn't find a decently priced copy of the card and decided to wait until the prices came down.  I left a slot on the page for the card once the prices dropped and moved on.

And then I forgot all about it.  I forgot about it enough that I didn't even include it on my Most Wanted list.

Well, sixteen years later the price has dropped and I found one on eBay with little trouble.  So now I can say that I am officially and completely finished with the 2008 set.

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,847 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: 1976 Crane Andy Thornton I just wrote about this on May 30, as it was one of my most wanted that I was able to get this year.

1980s: 1984 Fleer #494 Fergie Jenkins Fergie never pitched for the 1984 Cubs or for any team in 1984.  He was released by the Cubs early in spring training.  He was pretty bitter about it, feeling that he was never really given a chance that spring, pitching just two innings.

1990s: 1993 Bowman #468 Willie Wilson  Wilson is captured here at a spring training game in Mesa.  It looks like the Cubs were playing the Giants based on the hat of the guy sitting on the chair in the background.

2000s: 2003 Topps Chrome #330 Dave Veres This card is a career capper for Veres, as the 2003 season was his last in the majors.  In his lone season with the Cubs, he was 2-1 with an ERA of 4.68.

2010s: 2018 Allen and Ginter #5 Kris Bryant  KB always looks so pleasant in his posed shots.

Eighties Alphabetically - Fun Foods

Right off the bat things get confusing with this set.  The pins have a copyright of 1984 and that is how most are listed on Ebay.  But the Standard Catalog lists the set as a 1985 release. I'm going with 1985 since the set includes stats on the back from the 1984 season.

The set consists of 133 buttons / pins.  They are the same small size (1.25" diameter) as the pins put out by Kellys, Sunoco, and MLBPA in the late '60s.  You could buy the pins in packs of three pins.  Complete sets were also available at hobby shops.

I've tried to find out more about the company that made these, Fun Foods.  According the to the boxes, Fun Foods was based out of Little Silver, New Jersey.  A Google search of Fun Foods Little Silver turned up nothing.  It's like the company never existed.  Anyone from the east have any knowledge of Fun Foods?

As far as the Cubs in the set, they pretty much nailed it.  Nine Cubs were included.  Only one of the starting position players was left out, Keith Moreland.  The other seven made it... Gary Matthews, Bobby Dernier, Ron Cey, Larry Bowa, Ryne Sandberg, Leon Durham, and Jody Davis.  The other two Cubs were pitchers Rick Sutcliffe and Lee Smith.

 

 

 

 

Baseball Cards on the Bike Trip

 I wasn’t planning on posting anything until we go home, but….

We had a 30 mile ride yesterday along the Heartland Trail, going from Walker to Park Rapids.  As is our custom, we walked through the downtown area when we got into town.  Park Rapids is the biggest town we've stayed in thus far, and they had a pretty big business district.  They cater to all the people staying along the many nearby lakes.

The first thing you notice is the parking.  In addition to angled parking at the curb, there is parallel parking in the middle of the street.  That's something you see very little of today.

There was three blocks of stores on both sides, which is a lot for a town of 4,200.  We browsed several including the Ben Franklin you see in the picture.

And look what they had… an entire rack filled with packs and sets from the junk wax era. That was definitely a surprise.  And no, I didn’t buy any, though I thought about it.

A few stores later we came to this shop.  Guess what they had….

More baseball cards! Once again I used some restraint and bought nothing. 

What are the odds of finding two stores with baseball cards in a town of 4,200.  Whatever they are, I beat them.

Bike Trip 2024 - The Paul Bunyan Trail

 

Mrs. WW and I are on the bike trail again this year.  Last year we did the longest rail trail in the US, the Katy Trail.  This year we are on the longest paved rail trail, the Paul Bunyan Trail in Minnesota  (the Katy Trail is crushed limestone).  The map above isn't very clear, but if you click on it you should get a larger, more readable version.

We start a little south of Brainerd at Crow Wing State Park.  We then work our way north.  Along the way we'll take a two day detour back and forth on the Heartland Trail.  We finish up at Lake Bemidji.  We're in no rush, doing 30-35 miles per day and the total ride will be about 185 miles.

I looked to see if there were any major leaguers from the cities we ride through.  I didn't find many.  This is Minnesota, which has a pretty short baseball season compared to some west coast and southern areas.  Also the towns we are going through are pretty small.

I found three players from the towns and they were from the two biggest towns, Brainerd near the start of the trail and Bemidji at the end.

Pitcher Todd Revering is from Brainerd.  He played in two games for the A's in 1992

Another pitcher, Kerry Taylor, is from Bemidji.  He was with the Padres for 37 games in 1993 and 1994.

The third and final player is another pitcher from Bemidji, Bryan Hickerson.  He had the longest career of the three, making 209 appearances between 1991 and 1995.  He spent time with three teams, breaking in with the Giants and ending up in Colorado.  In between those two, he spent two-thirds of the 1995 season with...

... the Cubs!  This card from the 1995 Illinois State Police set is the only card of Hickerson with the Cubs according to the TCDB.

His record with the Cubs wasn't great.  He was 2-3 with an ERA of 6.82 over 38 games.  He was traded to the Rockies on July 31.  In return the Cubs got "future consideration" or the classic "player to be named later."  I searched through the Cubs transaction after that to see who they got eventually.  I couldn't find any transaction with the Rockies.  Is it possible they got nothing in return?  With the Rockies he had an ERA of 11.88 over 18 games, so maybe they felt the Cubs deserved nothing in return.

Speaking of return, we'll be back home on the 21st and I'll probably start posting again on the 22nd or 23rd.

First One In Over Two Years

 

 This listing showed up last week on Wednesday for the short-printed no position version of Darwin Barney's card from 2012 Heritage.  I've been tracking the sales of the card since 2012 to try and get a sense of just how short-printed it is.

The card was sold the same day at the BIN price of $95.  The buyer didn't try to get the card by making an offer.  The BIN was hit immediately.  And no, the buyer isn't me.  I already have two copies of the card (one for my Heritage set, the other for my Barney collection).

This is the first time the card has been listed and sold on eBay since June of 2022.  I'm sure that is why it was sold so quickly... whoever bought it was on the hunt for a while.

The card has been sold 49 times on eBay since 2012, but just five of those sales have been since 2018.  The market has really dried up.

I also track the sales price and the 49 sales have an average price of $97.85.  The seller was pretty spot-on with their BIN price.  The prices have a range of $200 for the high to $24 for the low (and I was the lucky purchaser at the low price).

The Impossible Insert Set for PCA

 Today I have the last 2024 series two insert set and with this one, it is impossible for PCA to be included.  Well, I'd like to think that it is impossible, but in today's crazy world, who knows?

In a set called "Women in Baseball, I'd like to think that we won't see a PCA card.  Rachel Folden has been with the Cubs organization since being hired by the Cubs in November of 2019.  She worked with the Cubs teams in the Arizona Instructional League before being promoted in 2024 as the hitting coach for the AA Tennessee Smokies.  

You'd think that this would be my first Topps Cubs card that features a female, but it isn't even the first one this year.

Remember seeing this from just a few days ago?

 

And there were women in some of the other First Pitch cards.

However, Folden is the first female Cubs employee to have a Topps card, as far as I am aware.  It will be interesting to see if she continues her climb through the organization and ends up on the big league staff some day.