Reader Eric sent me an email alerting me to a recent Ebay auction for this picture from the Topps Vault.
It's a negative of utility catcher Gene Oliver. When I saw the picture, several things raced through my head. First, I saw that Oliver was hatless. If a Topps photographer asks you to take your hat off, that is not a good sign for your career. Topps thinks you're expendable and might be moving to another team.
Second, I noticed the uniform. It's the style the Cubs last wore in 1968. But Oliver came to the Cubs during the 1968 season and his only spring with the team was 1969. The picture came from spring training, as you can tell by the small grandstands over his right shoulder. What that means is that the Cubs wore their old uniforms during spring training 1969 and didn't break out the new ones until the start of the season. That was pretty common back then, but it is also something you need to keep in mind when trying to determine the date of a spring training photo.
Lastly, what struck me is that Topps should have used the picture for Oliver's card.
Instead, this is what they did, taking an old picture of him when he played for the Braves and doing a little airbrushing. Oliver's card is #247, which put it in the 3rd series. I'm guessing there wasn't enough lead time to get the new picture on the card. Spring 1969 pictures didn't start showing up until the 5th Series. Oliver was released by the Cubs in September, 1969 and never played in the majors again, so the picture was never used.
I took it upon myself to do what Topps didn't. I put the picture in a Topps 1969 card.
That is what Gene Oliver's 1969 card should have looked like. As always, Topps, you're welcome!
But I think I like this one better. I made it a couple years ago when I was updating all of the 1969 Cubs.
I'm an elementary school teacher and social studies is one of my favorite subjects to teach; I love history. So when I saw that there was going to be an insert set on the history of Topps, I knew I would have to have it. It cost me just a few bucks, and I've got the set.
The history isn't very detailed (you can't fit that much on the back of ten cards) and it's not as hard hitting as Mint Condition or Card Sharks. But you can still learn a few things about Topps.
I've seen some of these on different blogs, but I haven't seen anyone put up the complete set. So I will.
The cards are in order, #1-10, front, then back. Read your assignment carefully. If you finish early you may have some quiet free time at your seat until recess. If you have any questions, raise your hand and I'll come around to help you. Any questions? Good, then you may begin reading.
Class dismissed; but be ready for a quiz tomorrow!
When I was a kid, Topps was pretty much the only game in town. There were other cards, but to me they weren't "real" baseball cards. Only Topps was the real deal (that may be why the whole Topps monopoly doesn't really bother me). So I didn't pay too much attention to the 3D cards that Kelloggs put out. And the Hostess cards, well, they were on the bottom of a box of Ho Hos. Again, not real cards. So I didn't bother with them either.
Not to long ago as I was browsing through Ebay, I saw this card....
...one of my favorite Cubs, Bill Buckner, from Hostess' 1977 set. I never saw the card before. And in looking at it, I realized that I have misjudged Hostess. Their cards were the real deal, too.
Why??
Because Hostess was just as bad at doctoring up hats as Topps was. Buckner came to the Cubs from the Dodgers before the 1977 season, so Hostess had to take a picture of Buckner as a Dodger and change it into a Cubs hat.
You don't see trade posts here too often. It's not that I'm against them, or that I'm anti-social, but because I've got such a narrow collection focus, I just don't have the opportunity to do much swapping.
In collecting Cubs, I typically buy just the Cubs players I want/need. And with the sets I collect, I buy the complete set. That leaves me with nothing leftover. No leftovers is great when you're at the dinner table, but lousy if you want to trade baseball cards.
When Topps 2011 came out, I decided to buy a several packs. I needed a pack for my wax collection; the rest were just for fun. I knew I would be buying a complete set, so just a few packs would be enough to satisfy my craving to rip.
Among the cards I got were a few of the Platinum Diamond Anniversary cards. I didn't have any special plans for them, and I new that Nachos Grande was trying to get the whole series, so I let him know that they were on their way south.
In return, I got a bunch of Cubbie blue.
This one of Ernie Banks came complete with the blue tape on the toploader. Nice touch....and a nice card of Mr. Cub.
These three are various Upper Deck products, and all new to my collection. I have a few other Spectrum cards, and completing that brand may be on the horizon.
The rest of the cards were an assortment of Masterpieces, Heritage, Goudey, Collectors Choice, and Topps. They'll find a home in WW Jr.'s growing collection.
Here is Derrek Lee's card from the 2011 Topps set.
I wonder why Topps included him in the first series? Knowing that he was a free agent and would be moving to another team, why not save him for series 2?
A recent comment from rynobooks wondered if the card was an actual photograph or if it was Photoshopped. I've seen the same question in a couple other blogs, so I decided to put on my detective cap and see if I can come up with an answer.
I'm sure the reason to assume Photoshop is because the picture was taken at Wrigley.
Wrigley Field has been the scene of some bad airbrushing in the past, so it's not out of the question that Topps took a picture of Lee in Cubbie Blue and doctored it.
I've seen a blogger mention that Lee seems to have blue spikes, which could also be a sign of a doctored photo.
Well, after some digging around, here's my conclusion:
The picture is real.
My evidence: Derrek Lee did play for the Braves at Wrigley Field. In fact, the three games on August 20-22 were his first as a Brave. The Wrigley fans gave him a very nice ovation his first time at bat on the 20th, which was a nice moment. So it is entirely possible that a Topps photographer got a picture of Lee at Wrigley.
This is a picture I found from the game on August 22. Notice a couple things: In both the photo and the card, he's got the black sleeves and high wrist bands. The spikes look to be the same also. Everything seems to match up between the two.
Also, the card looks pretty good. I'm not sure that I'm willing to give the Topps artists that much credit to say that they doctored the picture. I would lean toward Photoshopped if the Lee card wasn't taken at Wrigley. It seems like it would be much harder to take a Cubs home white pinstriped uniform and make it into a Braves uniform. It would be much easier to change a Cubs gray road uni to a Braves uni.
I started the Flick Friday feature as a way of getting to watch some baseball during the winter. But now that spring training is in full swing, the Cubs are already fighting with one another, and opening day is less than a month away, today's movie will be the last one. I've got several more baseball movies in my collection, so maybe next winter I'll pick this up again.
Today's flick is A League of Their Own, which tells the story of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. The movie is a fictionalized story of the actual league. None of the characters in the movie were real people, though the teams featured were actual teams in the league.
The movie revolves around the best player on the team, Dottie Hinson (GIna Davis) and her relationship with her sister Kit (Lori Petty), her manager, former big league star Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), and the rest of her Rockford Peaches teammates. It's a well-told and believable story.
There is plenty of baseball action in the movie, and the actors did a nice job. They were more believable than many male actors in other baseball movies (Tim Robbins....I'm looking at you!). The set designers also did great work recreating the ballparks. Everything about them looked authentic; you really felt like you were in 1943.
CUBS CONNECTION Huge! In fact, without the Cubs, the AAGPBL and the movie wouldn't exist. The league was the brainchild of Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley, who feared a loss of baseball revenue during the war. In the movie, the chewing gum magnate becomes the fictionalized candy bar magnate Walter Harvey. Wrigley's original plan was to have the league use major league stadiums when the MLB teams were on the road. But he didn't get much support from the other owners, so the league turned to smaller, Midwest towns.
The original tryouts for the league were held at Wrigley Field in May, 1943. The movie shows this by using Wrigley Field in the tryout scenes. Some things that weren't at Wrigley in 1943, like the message board under the scoreboard and the sky boxes, were covered up, while other things, like the lights, bleacher baskets and the TV camera shed, were shown.
Here is a panomara shot of Wrigley
In this picture you can see the TV camera shed and a tarp covering up the scoreboard message board.
The character of Jimmy Dugan was loosely based on a former Cub, Hack Wilson. Dugan is shown to have hit 58 homers in a season (Wilson hit a then-NL record of 56). Both players had their careers derailed by a problem with alcohol. Dugan had a 53 second experience at the urinal trough; I don't know if Wilson did.
And Dugan had the most famous quote of the movie.
During the war years, there weren't too many baseball cards made. So in creating cards for a few of the players, I used the design of Play Ball's 1940's era sets.
Here is my monthly look at complete set prices, taken from the first five completed sales listings on Ebay on March 1.
There were some really high-end sets from 1969-1971 this time, so the average price for those years went way up.
I also received an interesting email about this feature. A public defender from Florida contacted me about my price charts because he was defending a client accused of stealing a '69, '70, and '71 Topps baseball set. The lawyer was looking for an approximate value of the cards. I didn't feel inspired to help someone who stole baseball cards, so I just gave the lawyer the label link for the prices. I also told the lawyer that I hope the kid gets the book thrown at him. I guess I wasn't being very sympathetic.
So for all of you collectors who are interested in the prices, and you lawyers who are too lazy to do a little research on ebay yourself, here are the March 1st set prices:
