Today's post goes along with yesterday's on the Update series Kimball Cubs; I've got the final 50 cards in the set.
I've really enjoyed the Kimball Champions set. With only 50 cards per series, it was very manageable to get. The checklist has a nice mix of modern and vintage players, too. So will Topps take the success of this and run it into the ground? Has anyone heard any rumblings about the set showing up again next season?
As far as the final 50 cards go, the checklist included several players who were already in the first 100 cards. This time around, they were shown in their "other" uniform: Hank Aaron as a Brave (his first card was with the Brewers...they probably should have switched those around), Andre Dawson as a Cub, Babe Ruth with the Red Sox, Willie McCovey and Ozzie Smith as Padres, Frank Robinson and Tom Seaver as a Reds, Nolan Ryan as a Met, Reggie Jackson and Frank Thomas as A's, Luis Aparicio as an Oriole, Carton Fisk with the White Sox, and Paul Molitor as a Blue Jay.
Two modern players also got a second card, Vladimir Guerrero, updated with the Orioles and Miguel Cabera, shown as a Marlin.
But only one player was deemed worthy to appear in all three series....
....Ty Cobb, shown twice with the Tigers and once with the Athletics.
I'll finish with a look at all 50 cards from the final series
and for the heck of it, here are the first 100 cards
Cards from Topps 2011 Update series are starting to roll in WW World Headquarters. On tap today, the base Cubs cards.
There are only ten Cubs among the 330 card set. That's a little lower than the past couple years. The one glaring omission is lefty reliever Sean Marshall. Poor Sean gets no respect from Topps. They placed him in the traded set three of the previous four sets, the base set only once. This is despite the fact that he has averaged 62 appearance over that past four seasons. And he has been a very good pitcher, too. Yet in 2011 he gets completely left out. I don't get it?
One good thing about the updated set is that it is easier to peg the dates of the pictures on the cards, since most were taken in the early part of the 2011 season. I was able to make a good guess on seven of the ten.
Tony Campana, picture taken June 4 against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. And if you don't believe me, check this out!
Welington Castillo, May 12. He played in only two games at Wrigley. This looks like a day game; his other home appearance was at night.
Starlin Castro, obviously the All Star Game. This is the fifth inning. Castro pinch ran for Troy Tulowitzki and stole second and third base before being thrown out at home on a fielders choice. The card also gives a good look at the #10 Santo patch, that was moved from his right sleeve, replaced by the All Star patch.
Casey Coleman....Not a clue when this was taken!
Koyie Hill....I could only narrow it down to three dates, May 27-29. That is the Pirates Chris Snyder in the on deck circle. Hill and Snyder caught all three games, all day games. Nothing else in the card helps me get a more specific date.
Reed Johnson, April 21...Johnson hit a walk off homer in the 11th inning against the Padres and this is him celebrating on his way around the bases. The back of the card also mentions the homer.
D.J. LeMahieu, June 20. This is the 4th inning of the game against the Sox at the Cell. A.J. is sliding into D.J, but the double play was completed.
Carlos Pena...not a clue here!
James Russell, some time after May when the ivy bloomed, otherwise, no idea.
Kerry Wood, on Opening Day, April 1. As the team was introduced, Wood got a great hand and the fans welcomed the prodigal back home. Look down the line a bit and you'll see Reed Johnson wearing the Ron Santo hat. All the players wore them during BP and warm-ups that day.
I've got 9,318 Cubs cards from 59 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.
1900s - 1960s: Tip Top Bread 1947 #89 Harry Lowrey Peanuts Lowrey was listed on this card as an outfielder, and in the first four seasons of his career, thats what he was. But in 1947 he was switched to third base, playing 91 games there among the 115 games he played in '47. It was pretty much a one year experiment, and he returned to the outfield for the rest of his career. And his nickname? An uncle hung it on him because as a child, he was pretty small, "no bigger than a peanut."
1970s: Topps 1971 #726 Paul Popovich He was one of my favorite Cubs as a kid, not because he was any good, but because he has the same first name as me. Popovich was the Cubs all purpose utility infielder. In 1971 he played in 89 games. He hit only .217, but he wasn't on the roster for his bat; it was his glove that made his career. The highlight of the season was his first career grand slam, hit off of the Dodgers Cardinals' Jerry Reuss at Wrigley on September 11.
1980s: Leaf 1987 #128 Shawon Dunston The Cubs strong-armed shortstop had his 1987 season cut short by a broken finger suffered in June. That kept him out of the lineup for two months. For the season he hit .246 with 5 HRs and 22 RBIs.
1990s: Score 1990 #73 Vance Law Score gave Law a card in 1990, but it was for the wrong team. He was released by the Cubs in January, 1990 after his average plummeted, going from .293 in 1988 to .235 in 1989. He spent the 1990 season in Japan playing for the Chunichi Dragons.
2000s: Bowman 2000 #389 Tony Schrager I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable Cubs fan, but I must admit that I absolutely never heard of this guy. He was a 6th round draft choice of the Cubs in 1998. He spent the 1999 season in Low-A ball, hitting .270 with 16 HRs for the Lansing Lugnuts. Promoted to high-A in 2000, his average dropped 40 points. He made it as high as AAA, but was out of baseball after the 2006 season.
Anyone who collected cards in the late 70's and 80's would recognize the name Renata Galasso. Though not the first mail order card set seller, she was one of the more prolific advertisers of her era. Her advertising worked on me. The very first Topps complete set I bought, back in 1978, was from Renata Galasso.
The set also came with a bonus; 45 black and white cards of former players. The set was called Galasso Glossy Greats. When I got my set, I remember being ambivalent about these black and white cards, especially since I had 726 full color cards in the same box. I know exactly where my Topps '78 set is; but the Glossy Greats were lost. Actually, they were probably tossed.
Fast forward 33 years and some of those cards are back! I've kept a set of the cards in my watch list for almost a year. The BIN price was a little high, so I though I wait and see if the price would drop. It never did, but the seller had a couple other sets I needed, plus charged shipping on only the first item. So I bought four sets, including the Glossy Greats.
The set was produced from 1977 - 1984. There were 45 cards per release, and over that span, six different sets were issued, making for a total of 270 cards. There were 17 different Cubs cards.
The only Cubs player among those in the set that I saw play was Ernie Banks. All of the others were from much earlier times. That's what I find interesting about sets like this. Sets like this typically feature players from a generation or two earlier, and they are a nice history lesson. I know that I'm getting old, because players in modern versions of sets like this are all players I knew growing up. The "generation or two earlier" is my generation! Oh well, time marches on.
Back to the Glossy Greats.....
The cards are pretty basic looking on the front,
and the back isn't much to write home about, either. But they are printed on a glossy white card stock, which was a novelty back in an era when everything was on cardboard.
Here are the other 16 Cubs cards
