Parallels

Some of my Topps Cubs binders are a bit overstuffed, so last week I did a little reorganizing. to clear some room. I decided to make the Topp binders strictly the base cards and inserts.  The parallel sets were going to go into their own separate binder.

I found that I had a total of 14 different parallel sets.

They started with the 1984 Nestle set.

My next parallels came nine years later, in 1993

I've got the Gold, Marlins, and Diamondbacks versions of the cards.  Gold was available for other years, too, but for reasons I can't recall, I just went for the 1993 gold.  Gold parallels were introduced by Topps the year before.  I suppose that some day I'll get the '92 set since it was the first.

Expansion in 1998 meant more parallels.

Here's the Devil Ray and Diamondback cards.

My next step in the the parallel universe was in 2009.

The Walmart blacks were quite the thing that year.

Two years later Topps went parallel crazy.

I ended up with the Diamond, Cognac, gold,black versions, and limited factory set versions.

Things calmed down a bit the next year.

My 2012 parallels are the gold and mini.

After that I decided to ditch any future parallels.  No regrets for that decision.

PSA Master List Update

With the addition of the 1964 Venezuelan, I now have 105 cards on the PSA Master list for Billy.

My completion rate remains at 76% though.

PSA recently added a five more items to the list, which is now up to 138 items.  Luckily for me, I already had a couple of the items added.

The full box of the 1969 Transogram was already in my collection, on my shelf.

They also added his 1974 O-Pee-Chee card.  Seems like it should have already been on the list since they already had every other OPC card.  In fact, I bought this card a year ago assuming it was on the list.  Now I can finally include it.

So I've added three to the list, but PSA added five and I'm stuck on 76%.

Another for the Billy PSA Collection

After three months of nothing, I was recently able to add another card to my Billy Williams PSA Master Collection.

This is the 1964 Venezuelan version of Billy's card.  You can see that it is in pretty rough shape.  There is some serious paper loss on the back.  The front is yellowed.  It has creases.  And I don't care.

This was the first of these to pop up on Ebay in months.  The condition was poor but the price was right.  In fact, I saved a few bucks with a Best Offer.  As an added bonus, the seller is from Venezuela, so I got to follow the Fed Ex tracking from Caracas to Sturgis.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,511 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: 1970 Topps #670 Ron Santo  So how close was the photographer to Santo when the picture was snapped?  Was the bat right in front of him?  

1980s: 1983 Team Issued Jody Davis  This set was given away at Wrigley Field on September 3 and 4.  Adults got the cards on the 2nd and kids got them on the 3rd. The Cubs split the two games with the Astros.  Jody was 2-4 on the 2nd and 4-4 on the 3rd.  Baseball card days agreed with Jody in 1983.

1990s: 1994 Fleer Ultra #458 Glenallen Hill  Glenallen is rockin' the flip down sunglasses.  They always seemed so cool to me.  

2000s: 2004 Topps #480 Todd Walker The Cubs picked him up as a free agent and he put up decent numbers as the Cubs second baseman in 2004.  He hit .274 with 15 HRs and 50 RBIs.

2010s: 2011 Topps #38 Ryan Dempster After three decent seasons as a starter, in 2011 Dempster started breaking down.  He posted a record of 10-14 and an ERA of 4.80.  This was also his last full season with the Cubs.  He was traded to Texas during the 2012 season and the Cubs got Kyle Hendricks in return.  Nice!

Added Lights

We decided the Christmas tree was a little to bare looking, so we added lights!

The Tree is Decorated

We've got our Christmas tree up.

It's decorated with the only ornament necessary

Can't top that!

So Long Soler

It looks like its so long to Jorge Soler.

He's off to Kansas City in exchange for closer Wade Davis.

I'm not surprised by the deal.  I'm not disappointed either.

Soler was decent, but he has really become the odd man out.  The Cubs have too many outfielders and someone had to go.  As long as Soler still has some trade value, moving him makes sense.  Getting a closer in return helps, too.

I don't think the Cubs ever felt they'd be able to re-sign Chapman.  Rondon didn't seem very good when he came back from the DL at the end of the year.  Davis is a decent option.