Purple Billy

I had some birthday money to spend so I went out and picked up this,

the purple version of Billy Williams' 2016 Tribute card.  LIke with the green, the purple doesn't really compliment the colors on the Cubs uniform.  Oh, well.

There are still red (/5) and black (1/1) versions of the card out there, but I have no plans to end up with either of them.

All I've Got of Him: The 2016 NL MVP

I might as well show all I've got of Kris Bryant since last night he became the Cubs first NL MVP since Sammy Sosa in 1998.

MLB Network tried to make the presentation dramatic, but it was useless.  Bryant was a landslide winner, getting 29 of the 30 first place votes.

Bryant was very humble after he won, too.  I really like the way he conducts himself both on and off the field.  Though the last two NL MVPs are from Las Vegas, he and Bryce Harper seem to be exact opposites of one another.  I'll gladly take Bryant.

I've already got 73 of his cards and I'm sure that number will continue to skyrocket each year for the next several.

When Grandpa Was A Kid

David Ross has been on my radar for just the past two years.  I know him as the gray-bearded Grandpa Rossy.

But Grandpa used to be a kid.

This came to me via one of the most generous bloggers out there, P-Town Tom (of the newly renamed Eamus Catuli! blog).  He emailed me a couple weeks ago and said he had an extra Ross certified auto.  He needed one and found a second at a price too good to pass up.  He knew the card didn't meet my certified rules (the card is from 2004, long before Ross became a Cub), but wondered if I'd like it anyway.

Some rules are made to be broken, and I gladly accepted Tom's generous offer.  Certified autographs of a back-up catcher are rare, if they exist at all.  There was little chance Ross would make it into my certified collection.

But I have additional Cub autographs besides the certified cards.  This will be a great addition to that group

Thank you Tom!!!

A Landscaping Project at the WW HQ

This is something Mrs. WW and I have been talking about for a while.  After the events of this post-season, we finally decided to go ahead and get it done.

This is the front of the WW HQ.  Notice the half wall of brick.

You know what a brick wall means to any Cub fan... you've got to cover it with ivy.

And that is what we will be doing.  We recently bought two Boston Ivy plants.  That is the same ivy that grows on the outfield walls at Wrigley.  It will take a couple years, but eventually that half wall will be covered in beautiful green ivy.

Our street numbers are 605.

We plan to add the numbers to the wall and grow the ivy around it.

It will be our own little slice of Wrigley in SW Michigan.

I6 Cubs It is

I stopped at the secretary of state's office after school yesterday.

First, I wanted to find out why I lost my 16 Cubs plate.  It turns out that the person that had the plate renewed it on the same day I placed my order.  They got preference over me.  Bummer for me.  The clerk said that she had never seen that before...two people ordering the same plate on the same day.

This is what I ordered.  The clerk said that no one currently has the plate and that it should be all mine.  I'll believe it in 3-4 weeks when the plate arrives at the WW World Headquarters.

Stupid Secretary of State

No, this is not a post about Hillary.

This is about the Michigan Secretary of State office.

The day after the Cubs won the World Series, I went to the SOS office to renew my plates.  I have 07 Cubs and 08 Cubs.  The plan was to drop 07 Cubs and replace it with 16 Cubs.  I checked the SOS website before going to the office and the 16 Cubs plate was available.  I ordered it at the office and they said it was available.

All was good, until Saturday.  I got a letter from the SOS saying that the plate I ordered was already taken by someone else.

No!!!

I'm not sure how that could have happened.  Apparently their system is not updated in real time.

So now I need to come up with another plate.

My first choice, Cubs 16 is also gone.

So I've come up with these two, which  are both available (if you can believe the website)>

I'm leaning towards the top one, since I prefer to have Cubs spelled correctly.

Any other opinions or other plate options?

And if you're reading this and live in Michgan, stay away from the SOS office until I get there this afternoon!

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,493 Cubs cards from 109 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1964 Topps Stand-up Billy Williams  They've got Billy looking like a left-handed second baseman on this.

1980s: 1988 Topps #186 Rafael Palmeiro  He was an All-Star with the Cubs during the 1988 season and a Ranger after the season.  GM Jim Frey needed a closer and getting one would cost the Cubs Palmeiro or Mark Grace.  Grace stayed, Palmeiro went.

1990s: 1997 Score #460 Mel Rojas  What a bust of a free-agent signing this was.  The Cubs signed him for three years, $13.5 million.  They got half a year out of him, an 0-4 record, an ERA of 4.58, and just 13 saves in 54 games.  In August he was traded to the Mets.

2000s: 2007 Donruss Elite Green #9 Darwin Barney  This makes two straight weeks that he RNG picked a card from the Barney collection.  Darwin's card partner Mitch Canham didn't have Darwin's success.  He never made it to the majors and had just brief spells in AAA.

2010s: 2104 Donruss Breakout Hitters #18 Anthony Rizzo  I created my own version of this card when it came out in 2014.  If you're showing brick on a Cubs card...

...you need to show ivy, too!