Sunday Cubs Fact: No HItter in First Game

This has happened only once in the modern era (1900+) of major league baseball, a pitcher throwing a no hitter in his first appearance for a team.

The man to accomplish it was the Cubs Don Cardwell, on May 15, 1960.

Two days earlier, the Cubs had obtained Cardwell, along with my pal Ed Bouchee, in exchange for Cal Neeman and Tony Taylor. As a Phillie, he had an unspectacular 17 - 26 record over 3 1/2 seasons. I guess the Cubs figured he had potential and so they made the deal.

Cardwell's first start was the second game of a double header against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. In the first inning, he retired the leadoff man, then walked the second batter, Alex Grammas. That would be the only runner for the Red Birds. Cardwell retired the next 26 in a row, striking out seven along the way.

The final out was dramatic, as left fielder Moose Moryn made a diving catch of a sinking liner off the bat of Joe Cunningham. You can hear the catch as called by Cubs radio announcer Jack Quinlan here (it begins at the 24 second mark).

The back of Cardwell's 1961 card mentions the no-hitter,



Topps 1960 card of Moose Moryn. I wonder who had the idea to use that pretty shade of pink? Do any of this year's Heritage cards have the same shade?



Unfortunately, the no hitter didn't propel Cardwell onto greatness. He went 7-14 the rest of the year with the Cubs. His best season was 1961, when he went 15-14 for the Cubs. He slumped in 1962 to 7-16.

Traded after the 1962 season, he bounced around with the Pirates, Mets, and Braves. His career won loss record was 102 - 138. But on an exciting day in May, 1960, he did something no other major league pitcher can claim. And that has to be worth something.

As Requested...

Here are a couple more cards to add to the 1969 Update set.

Back up catcher Ken Rudolph



One of the many centerfielders, Oscar Gamble

Topps 1969 Update Set, Cubs

In this post I talked about creating cards for the 40th anniversary of the Cubs 1969 flop. The choices were to make 2009 styled cards or update the original 1969 cards with action shots like today's cards. Thank you to all who left comments. The consensus was to do both. And so I will.

Today, I've got the 1969 cards ready. There are 12 of them, featuring the main players of the team. I've got seven of the eight regulars (no centerfielder -since the Cubs had no decent centerfielder that season; Adolfo Phillips, Don Young, Jim Qualls), two starting pitchers, the closer, the utility infielder, and the manager. I was able to find action shots of most of the players. And most of the pictures are from the 1969 season. It is fairly easy to identify pictures from that year because teams wore the Baseball Centennial patch that season only.

Without further ado, I present the updated 1969 Topps Chicago Cubs:

First baseman, Mr. Cub Ernie Banks, taking a swing at Wrigley. Check his right sleeve for the centennial patch.



Second baseman Glenn Beckert



Shortstop Don Kessinger



Third Baseman Ron Santo



Left Fielder Billy Williams



Right Fielder Jim Hickman



Catcher Randy Hundley



Pitcher Fergie Jenkins



Pitcher Ken Holtzman



Relief Pitcher Phil Regan



Utility man Paul Popovich. This card is my tribute to the airbrushing of the era. The best picture I could find of Popovich was with him in a Dodger uniform, although the shot is at Wrigley Field. So I airbrushed the "LA" off of his hat, just like Topps would have.



And the last card in the set, Manager Leo Durocher.



Three Hall of Fame players (plus Santo, borderline), a Hall of Fame manager, and a lousy second place finish. Damn Mets!

Seeing Double

More from Fleer of the 1990's

Topps did it quite often in the late 1960's. Was it laziness? cheapness? just didn't care? I don't know. But for whatever reason, Topps reused photographs from one year to another. A lot

1968 and 1969 Ernie Banks



1967 and 1969 Glenn Beckert



1968 and 1969 Ken Holtzman



1967 and 1969 Randy Hundley



1968 and 1969 (Deckle Edge) Don Kessinger



1968 and 1969 Rich Nye




Did I say "a lot'? I mean really, A LOT!!

But by the late 1970's the practice had pretty much ended. Thankfully.

So I was pretty surprised when I was going through my Fleer Cubs and found that Fleer had resurrected the practice in 1991 and 1992. There are four cards from the 1991 update set that showed the same (or nearly the same) picture in 1992. I guess they figured they could kill two birds with one stone. Knock out the '91 update set and get the '92s out of the way at the same time.

George Bell. The pictures aren't identical, but from the same at bat. He finished the swing in '92 and drops the bat in '91.



Danny Jackson. Again, not the same picture, but the same delivery, just a second later.



Heathcliff Slocumb. The exact same picture



Dave Smith. The exact same picture.




Fleer, slackers!

WalMart Variation, Early Versions

No, I wasn't playing around with Photoshop. These are real cards!

I like the look of the black WalMart cards. I wouldn't want an entire set of them, but the ten Cubs cards look nice.

I was paging through some older sets and found cards that mimic the WalMart cards. I guess the concept isn't as new as any of you may have thought, although these earlier cards were done inadvertently.

The earliest I could find is this 1976 Nolan Ryan.



Next, this 1981 Topps card of Bob Forsch



Here is a card from 1982 featuring current White Sox radio play by play announce Ed Farmer. (And if any of you have ever heard him do a game, it is not good!)




This card is from 1983 and features Dan Schatzeder, who was raised in the western suburbs of Chicago. Dan is now a teacher at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, IL.



From 1984 featuring soon-to-be Cubs pitcher Rick Sutcliffe



And one more, from 1985 Sox slugger Ron Kittle

Not One Stinkin' Card

My local Walmart is no help when it comes to collecting baseball cards. I went there today just to see what they had and there were Easter baskets in the normal card spot. I asked a clerk where the cards were, but she had no idea. So she called a manager and the response was that they had changed distributors. The old one took everything away. The new distributor will have cards at the store around the 20th, almost two weeks from now.

So during opening week, when you think interest in baseball would be highest, my Sturgis WalMart has not one baseball card in the entire store!

I looked at K Mart. They had plenty of stuff from 2007 and 2008, but nothing from 2009. The entire town is dry. And the nearest Target is just about an hour away.

Luckily, ebay hasn't run dry and I was able to pick up the WalMart variation Cubs cards. I really like the look. Here are the Cubs cards:























Tomorrow I will look at some much earlier versions of the Topps Black WalMart variations.

Holy Trinity, Batman! Its Three In One

Now looking through the Fleer Cubs sets from the 1990's

You have probably seen cards like this. Lopes was traded late in the season and Topps didn't have a card of him as a Cub. So they just used the A's card that was already put together and then slap "Now With Cubs" on it.



Or these, from Upper Deck. Their philosophy, lets just show him in his old uniform and we can update the card in series two.





But this card of Greg Hibbard from Fleer 1993 has something I have never seen.



Three teams on one card! He is listed in the red band on the left as a member of the Chicago Cubs. He is wearing a White Sox unifom. And in the bottom left corner it says "Traded from Marlins." I only have Cubs cards from the '93 set. Are there others that show three teams?

The Hibbard story: This was the expansion year for the Marlins and Hibbard was selected by the Marlins from the White Sox in the expansion draft. On that same day, he was traded by the Marlins to the Cubs for two players. So for one day, November 17, 1992, Greg Hibbard was a member of three organizations.

He had a decent year for the Cubs in 1993, making 31 appearances as a starter and posting a 15-11 record with a 3.96 ERA. He came on strong at the end of the year, earning six consecutive wins. Numbers like that don't come along very ofter for a Cubs lefty.

Yet the Cubs let him go as a free agent and he was signed by the Mariners for 1994. He slumped to a 1-6 record with an ERA of 6.69 and just like that, his career was over. I guess the Cubs crystal ball was working for once.