To bookend Thursday's Post of the Devil, today I've got the Post of the Angels.
We start with this 1964 rookie card of Billy Cowan. It looks like both players had their photograph painted over. My assumption is that the original photo showed the players wearing the hat of a minor league team. The paint job put them in Cubs hats.
Cowan was a regular in 1964 and hit .241 with 19 HR and 51 RBIs. They seem like ok numbers for a rookie, but the Cubs must have thought otherwise because in January, 1965, he was traded to the Mets for veteran George Altman.
But Topps' 1965 card has Billy still with the Cubs.
Fast forward to 1972 and now Cowan is a member of the California Angels. At home in Anaheim Stadium, the Topps photographer lines him up for this famous pose....
...centering the Big A's halo right above Billy's head.
Did Cowan know what the photograph was doing? Was it Billy's idea in the first place? I often wondered just what happened.
Then a few days ago, while browsing through my 1972 set, I happened upon this card.
It looks like the photographer has Clyde Wright in the same spot as Billy. It's a cheesy fielding pose, which seems strange since Wright was a pitcher. I don't remember any other card of a pitcher posed to pick up a groundball.
I wonder if an upright picture was taken too? Could there have been another halo card?
When I noticed the second card, it made me assume that the halo shot of Cowan was all the photographer's doing. His master plan: Line a few players up in the same spot, take some posed shots, and then get the money shot with the halo.
Sound like a plausible theory?
School starts tomorrow and its been a busy weekend with little time for baseball cards. All I've got for today is this card of the Cubs interim skipper Mike Quade, which came from the 55 card premium team set that Topps put out in 2008.
Is the Cubs recent success due to the the manager honeymoon phenomena (see Orioles and Buck Showalter) or is Quade the reason? Where does PCL manager of the year Ryne Sandberg fit into the equation? It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Jim Hendry has some work to do. The rest of you can enjoy your day off!!
It's been a long time since I've done a Sunday Cubs fact, but I heard Pat and Ron talking about this on Friday and found it to be interesting.
The Mets entered the National League in 1962. Since that time the Cubs and Mets have played a total of 687 games. With yesterday's win, the Cubs have won 343 of the games, the Mets, 342, and there were three ties.
Yep, that's right. After 49 seasons of play, the two teams have nearly split their games right down the middle! And if the Mets win today, it will be a 50/50 split.
In the sixties, the two teams were battling each other to stay out of the cellar. When division play came in 1969, a pretty fierce rivalry was struck between the two. The Mets got the Cubs in 1969, but in 1984 the Cubs turned the tables. I miss the days of 18 games against division foes. Now that the two teams are in different divisions, they only play each other 6-7 times a year. WIth only one visit a season to New York, the Cubs / Mets rivalry is dead.
I wanted to find cards of players who suited up for both teams. As I was trying to come up with a list, I checked out the Mets 1962 roster, the team that lost a whopping 120 games. Guess what I found.....there were 11 players on that roster that also played for the Cubs sometime during their career. That helps explain why the Mets were so bad!
Nine of the eleven had a card from their time with the Cubs. The only two without were catcher Chris Cannizzaro and pitcher Bobby Smith. Here are the other nine '62 Mets in Cubbie blue:
Here is my monthly look at complete set prices, taken from the first five completed sales listings on Ebay on September. The prices do not include shipping costs.
There were some high-end 1970 sets sold along with some relatively cheap '71's.
| YEAR | Sept. 1 | August 1 | July 2, 2010 | 12 Mo. Average |
| 1969 | $735.83 | $1,088.66 | $784.86 | $926.58 |
| 1970 | $852.25 | $757.25 | $875.50 | $781.73 |
| 1971 | $585.99 | $677.49 | $696.00 | $770.13 |
| 1972 | $850.47 | $870.72 | $887.04 | $831.59 |
| 1973 | $299.31 | $333.76 | $310.06 | $335.15 |
| 1974 | $187.30 | $146.60 | $247.74 | $204.66 |
| 1975 | $261.65 | $335.00 | $208.60 | $270.14 |
| 1976 | $119.66 | $154.90 | $157.29 | $154.51 |
| 1977 | $121.16 | $96.40 | $90.48 | $116.41 |
| 1978 | $80.72 | $63.96 | $79.80 | $85.29 |
| 1979 | $83.20 | $88.50 | $69.19 | $74.56 |
| 1980 | $49.07 | $54.27 | $49.27 | $57.83 |
| 1981 | $32.11 | $25.46 | $21.20 | $25.70 |
| 1982 | $36.94 | $40.10 | $43.12 | $35.70 |
| 1983 | $33.20 | $27.51 | $36.77 | $30.46 |
| 1984 | $20.00 | $23.62 | $17.65 | $18.12 |
| 1985 | $30.34 | $24.26 | $25.90 | $25.72 |
| 1986 | $13.29 | $12.02 | $13.12 | $11.84 |
| 1987 | $6.82 | $6.74 | $9.85 | $8.11 |
| 1988 | $8.78 | $9.60 | $8.89 | $8.84 |
| 1989 | $10.03 | $7.45 | $8.98 | $8.78 |
| 1990 | $16.29 | $11.03 | $11.79 | $9.45 |
| 1991 | $10.11 | $7.71 | $8.95 | $7.96 |
| 1992 | $15.08 | $9.43 | $6.27 | $9.25 |
| 1993 | $15.15 | $11.92 | $17.39 | $17.56 |
| 1994 | $17.60 | $19.96 | $15.31 | $19.11 |
| 1995 | $27.85 | $24.02 | $27.19 | $30.05 |
| 1996 | $14.62 | $23.39 | $18.82 | $16.72 |
| 1997 | $40.62 | $45.48 | $42.39 | $48.32 |
| 1998 | $37.00 | $24.21 | $61.51 | $40.94 |
| 1999 | $18.59 | $26.55 | $23.11 | $23.86 |
| 2000 | $17.84 | $19.04 | $26.97 | $18.55 |
| 2001 | $58.50 | $39.51 | $58.34 | $45.22 |
| 2002 | $23.96 | $37.79 | $29.19 | $31.91 |
| 2003 | $22.62 | $28.96 | $34.37 | $34.48 |
| 2004 | $27.09 | $25.65 | $25.46 | $23.56 |
| 2005 | $29.25 | $19.16 | $27.21 | $21.26 |
| 2006 | $21.56 | $21.20 | $19.41 | $19.15 |
| 2007 | $16.37 | $14.36 | $13.49 | $14.19 |
| 2008 | $31.36 | $30.29 | $19.40 | $21.02 |
| 2009 | $33.38 | $50.30 | $37.80 | $40.31 |
| 2010 | $30.00 | $25.59 | $34.69 | $32.22 |
I really do like Ernie Banks and Ryne Sandberg. They are among my all-time favorite Cubs. But, I think Topps likes them a little too much.
In looking through this year's base cards and inserts I've got nine new Ernie Banks cards and ten Ryne Sandbergs. That's way more than any active Cub. And that is too many.
So next year, Topps, please add more Jenkins, Williams, Santo, Sutter, Dawson, and Grace. How about a Dave Kingman or Bill Buckner. Heck, even throw in a Sosa or two. But ease back on Banks and Sandberg. Thank you!!
Here are the nine Ernie Banks...Base SP, Tales of the Game, 1954 and 1956 Cards Your Mom Threw Out regular and original back, Series 1 and Series 2 Hat Logo, and Turkey Red.
The ten Sandberg cards were Base SP, Legendary Lineage, 1983 and 1984 Cards Your Mom Threw Out regular and original back, Series 1 Hat Logo, 1985 All Star Logo, 1989 All Star Logo, and Turkey Red.
You are reading Wrigley Wax post #666.
From Revelation 13:18...This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.
The beast's number is 666. But how many Cubs players had card #666? A quick check of the spread sheet gives me two.
Topps 1972 Hector Torres
Topps 1994 Steve Buechele
Neither of these two had beast-like seasons with the when their card was #666.
The Cubs traded Torres to the Expos on Opening Day, a day when the Cubs were playing the Expos. That must have made things pretty convenient; the traded players just traded locker rooms. His 1972 stat line with Montreal was 197 AB, .155, 2 HR, 7 RBI.
In 1994, Buechele's numbers were 387 AB, .242, 14 HR, 52 RBI. It was also his last full season in the majors. The Cubs released him in July, 1995. The Rangers picked him up, but less than a month later, they too released him.
For Cubs players, being #666 is not the mark of the beast, but instead, is the mark of the bust!
Back in July I wrote about my quest for all of the Cubs hat logo patches from Topps this year. I had all eight from Series 2 and three of the four from Series 1.
The missing Series 1 card was Ernie Banks. And it wasn't going to be easy to get. I found two available from the Beckett Marketplace, but the asking price seemed too high. So I decided to just bide my time, waiting to win one from Ebay. The problem was that none were showing up on Ebay. For over four months, not a single one was offered. I was starting to get impatient!
But a couple weeks ago, one finally popped up. I set my bid program up and sat back and watched and waited. Just before the auction ended, the bids started going up. And in the end.......I lost!
But, the final price ended up higher than what Beckett was asking. So I guess the Beckett price wasn't all that out of line. As soon as the auction ended, I went straight to the Marketplace and bought the card. I didn't want to wait another four months for one to show up on Ebay.
And now, I've got it.
The joy of a completed set! All four Cubs are now in my binder.
The weird thing about the Banks card is that his name is spelled wrong. They left off the "s" at the end. If this was a Jeff Samardzija card, I could understand the mistake. But Ernie Banks?
Come on Topp, get it right! (how does it feel to have the "s" left off of your name!!)
