Filling in the Schwarber Gap

Surprise!

So, that wasn't the way the plan was drawn up.

Only three games in and one of your big boppers is done for the year.

On to Plan B.

Luckily, the Cubs have options.

Once Javier Baez is healthy, I can see a four-headed monster rotating between third base, second base,  and left field.

There's not the same pop that you get from Schwarber, and they're all right handed hitters, but I think that they could fill the gap nicely.

The wildcard is Matt Szczur.  He's gotten off to a really nice start this season.  He's also out of options, so either he stays with the Cubs or could be lost to another team.  I'd like to see him stick around and be given a shot at left.  I think he could be a pleasant surprise.

However, I'm happy to have no more surprises, too!

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,154 Cubs cards from 108 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1977 Jewel Ray Burris  Burris was a workhorse, starting 39 games and pitching 221 innings.  He was 14-16 on a team that was 81-81.  

1980s: 1988 Starting Lineup Talking Baseball Lee Smith I never understood how Kenner had a license for the Starting Lineup figures but not for Talking Baseball.  They ended up with some ugly looking cards

1990s: 1994 Upper Deck #492 Karl Rhodes With the home opener tomorrow, it is nice of the RNG to remind us of Tuffy's 1994 Opening Day...three home runs off the Mets.

2000s: 2006 Upper Deck American Family #12 Sean Marshall I haven't found much about this set, sponsored by American Family Insurance.  I'm assuming that they were given away at the ballpark, but the schedule and media guide don't mention them.

2010s: 2015 Topps Update #220 Addison Russell Variation The Cubs rookie was making his fans happy.  Looks like it was a pretty cold day at the ballpark.

The 1988 Cubs

As I write this on Friday afternoon, the Cubs are sitting at a perfect 3-0.  It's been 28 years since that has last happened, 1988.

The 1988 team was in rebuild mode, with Jim Frey taking over as GM and Don Zimmer as skipper.  The team actually had four future hall of famers...

 

 

And the core of the group would go on the next year to win the NL Eastern Division.  There was some talent.

But in 1988, after winning the first three in April, and five of the first six, they fizzled and lost ten of the next twelve.  They ended they year in 4th place, 77-85.

I'm counting on much better results from the 2016 team.

A Post Post

In the comments of the post on Marketside cards, it was pointed out that Topps and Post did a set together in 2002.  That was news to me, so I did some poking around.

I have all the original Post cards from the early 1960s.  Those are great cards.

I didn't have any of the Post cards from their second go-around in the early '90s and early '00s.  The 90s cards were licensed only by the players, so they are logoless.  That may have been my reason for staying away.

But the cards from the '00s were licensed by both MLB and the players.  In fact, they were done in concert with Topps ('01 and '02) and Upper Deck ('03).

With all of that now known, I decided I might as well have a complete run of Post.  It was off to Sportlots.  There were a total of 11 cards and I was able to get them through three sellers.  My Sportlots quest is always to find the way to get the cards with the fewest number of sellers.

It took only a week from placing the order to have all 11 in hand:

 

1990 - Mark Grace and Ryne Sandberg

 

 

1991 - Repeat

1992 - Ryno only

1993 - Repeat

1994 - Ryno retires, Grace replaces

2001 - Ernie Banks 500 HR Club

2002 - Sammy Sosa

 

2003 - Sammy Sosa, base and MVP

The Wrigley Marquee Has Returned

One step closer to the home opener on Monday.

After spending the winter being refurbished, the Wrigley Field marquee was re-installed yesterday.

The work took all day.  They started with the bottom piece and worked their way to the top.

I must say that the work their doing on the old ballpark looks great.  It will be great when it is all finally finished in a couple years.

I did a double-take when I saw this piece come off the truck...

Were they taking part of the sign back to the original green color??  No.  The green is the back of the sign.  It will now be visible on the concourse, so they painted it.  Nice touch, actually.

One thing I will need to do is to make a new banner for the blog.  The one I've got now will look out of date.

Heritage Collectors Are Insane!

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post on an Ebay listing for a 2012 Heritage Darwin Barney No Position card.  It was the first time the card had been listed in nearly two years.  It had a BIN/BO of $250 and the seller accepted an offer of $175.

I thought that the buyer was nuts, since the previous 36 sold for an average price of $86.

Now it looks like the buyer got a bargain.

Heritage collectors are insane...because...

Last week another Barney No Position was listed.  The seller wrote a thread about it on Blowout.  He listed it for a BIN/BO price of $299.  I decided to watch the auction, figuring that it would be sitting there for years at that price.

It sat there for a couple hours.

Heritage collectors are insane because the card sold for $200.

I guess there were some collectors that decided to pounce after a two year drought, some collectors with deep pockets.

I couldn't spend $200 on an Ernie Banks rookie card.  I love him, but I can't ever imagine a situation where I'd spend $200 on a card of Darwin Barney.

If you're curious, I've been tracking the card since the set was released four years ago.  Here are all the sold copies from Ebay.  I'm missing the price on a few that went BO...this was before I knew about Watchcount.

3/17/2012	$122.50
3/18/2012	$117.89
3/20/2012	$99.99
3/28/2012	$72.99
3/31/2012	$99.99
4/2/2012	$67.76
4/3/2012	$90.00
4/7/2012	$76.76
4/10/2012	$74.57
4/25/2012	$60.00
4/26/2012	$99.99
4/26/2012	$79.99
4/29/2012	$73.00
5/6/2012	$99.99
5/6/2012	$98.77
5/19/2012	$110.00
6/28/2012	$200.00
7/2/2012	$115.39
7/8/2012	$117.65
7/10/2012	$103.27
7/21/2012	$76.00
7/29/2012	$76.56
7/30/2012	$75.55
8/29/2012	$86.01
9/19/2012	$100.00
10/2/2012	$63.01
11/17/2012	$49.26
2/16/2013	$39.99
2/16/2013	$59.00
4/10/2013	BO
4/30/2013	$47.00
7/10/2013	$32.99
8/18/2013	$33.33
9/10/2013	BO
9/28/2013	BO
12/14/2013	$27.95
1/20/2014	$24.00
2/27/2016	$175.00
4/3/2016	$200.00

I am also proud to say that the cheapest price on the list, $24 on January 20, 2014, belongs to me.  It was a second copy I bought for my Heritage team set.  I couldn't resist the low price.  I'm thinking about listing it now.  Seems like I should cash in on the insanity.

Nailed It Again?? Nah

Didn't nail it, I bought it.

I figured there'd be no way I would get the Schwarber card in a second Marketside Pizza box.  It would take several boxes before I might get the card.

The pizza isn't cheap and it isn't all that good, either.  So for the price of one box plus shipping, I bought the card.

Lazy way out?

Sure.

Probably the cheaper way out, too.