A Boatload of Arrieta

Last week I mentioned that I picked up some 2016 Heritage inserts.  Two of the cards were of Jake Arrieta.  As I was putting them into the binder, I discovered that I have a boatload of Arrieta from the set.  There are nine different cards for Jake.

First is the base card.  Then you've got League Leaders.  With his amazing 2015 season, he ended up on three of those, wins, ERA, and strikeouts.  All of those led to a Cy Young Award and another card.  Following those are a Then and Now and a Now and Then.  Last are the two recent additions, the disc and standup.

Prior to 2016, Arrieta had a total of three Heritage cards, 

.....a rookie card from 2011, a 2012 High Number card, and a base card from 2015.  

One good amazing season later and he adds nine more.

All I've Got of Him: Bill Hands

The '69 Cubs lost another teammate last week as pitcher Bill Hands died on Thursday.

Hands never got the recognition he should have, as he won 54 games from 1968 - 1970.  Jenkins and Holtzman overshadowed him, but for three seasons he was an extremely reliable starter.

The lack of recognition means a lack of cards too.  I have just 12 cards of him, and that includes two of the 1968 card (one is autographed).  The four non-Topps cards are 1971 Dell Today's Cubs, 1969 Jewel, 1969 Topps Stamps, and Chicago Heroes playing cards set.

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,691 Cubs cards from 120 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1969 Milton Bradley Fergie Jenkins We start with an ugly, black and white, logos removed Milton Bradley card.  There isn't much good to say about these.

1980s: 1984 Team Issued Dennis Eckersley The Cubs gave these cards away on August 8, 1984.  It was a good day as they finished a four game sweep of the second place Mets and extended their division lead to 4½ games.

1990s: 1991 Donruss Traded #22 Mike Harkey This is card #22 in the set.  It doesn't happen very often where you  get the card number on the front of the card.

2000s: 2002 Topps #324 Nic Jackson Jackson was a 3rd round pick of the Cubs in 2000.  By 2003 he made it to AAA.  Injuries derailed his career as he played in just 32 games from 2004 - 2006.  He was recently hired by the Cubs as a scout.

2010s: 2011 Topps Manufactured Glove Leather Black #RS Ryne Sandberg  This comes from the days when I chased just about everything from the Topps set including the manurelics.  I don't feel like I've missed anything now that I've stopped.

Gotta Finish '16 Before...

...I can get started with '17.

I'm waiting for Brentandbecca to send me my 2017 Heritage.  I don't mind the wait because I discovered that I wasn't finished with 2016.  Oops.

Heritage is one of the few brands that I try to get all the cards and the inserts.  When I was putting my 2016 Cubs set together, there were a couple inserts that I overlooked.

I have no idea how or why.  I discovered my mistake as I was reviewing the 2017 checklist.  Both skipped sets were retail-only, one at Walmart and the other at Target.  Maybe that's why I skipped them. Being retail only, I wouldn't get them from Brentandbecca, as he busts cases from Topps.

The discs are from Walmart.  These are based on a test product from 1967.  There are 15 cards in the set and 1/3 of them are Cubs.

From Target comes these Stand Ups.  The basis for these was a 1968 test product that was never released.  Why didn't Topps wait until this year's Heritage?  I was also disappointed when these came that they are fake standups.  There aren't any perforations to make them stand up.  It is just a flat card.  This set too has 15 cards and the same three Cubs.

Now I believe I'm done with 2016 Heritage and I hope the 2017 cards arrive soon.

The 2017 Binder

Each year my Topps set ends up in a blue binder and on a shelf at the WW World Headquarters.  For consistency I used the same blue baseball card binder.  There is a pocket on the bottom of the spine, so I create a label for the spine.

I used either the card pack(1969 - 1989, 2010 - present) or factory set box (1990 - 2009) as my design inspiration.

Here's what I'm using for this year's binder:

That's the basic logo used on the packs, hangars, and blasters.  I toyed with the idea of keeping Kris Bryant in, since he is on the pack, but it just didn't look good.  Sorry Kris!

My Topps run now spans 49 complete sets, from 1969 - 2017.

This is the bottom shelf, with the sets from 2010 0 2017.

And here is a look at the full Topps shelf.

Series One Uniwatch Edition

I've been reading Paul Lukas' Uniwatch blog for nearly ten years. I enjoy learning about uniform from the past and present.  He usually has interesting content.  I've even contributed to the Ticker a few times.

I found a few things from Series One that might be of interest to any other Uniwatch readers.

This is the only card among the 350 with visible stirrups.  Uniwatch is a fervant supporter of stirrups and I am too.  Some of you may remember that years ago, when WW Jr was in Little League...

...I got him a pair of stirrups. (FYI...he is now a junior in high school and no longer plays ball).

The other item for Uniwatch is that Topps has...

...ditched Chief Wahoo on Indians cards in the flagship.  They are using the block C for the team logo instead of Wahoo.  Uniwatch has been rallying for Wahoo's demise and should be please by Topps' action.

Wahoo was used last year, and all the other recent years as the Indian's logo.

A Couple More Observations from Series One

Today I've got a couple random observations from Series 1:

Grunt Face is Gone:  Topps did a much better job of picking the pictures used for many of the pictures.  Too often over the past couple years, the cards showed the pitchers with ugly "grunt faces," the look just as they released the ball.  It was not very flattering.

 

Using more photos like these this year, we see the pitchers looking a little more normal.

Not Much of Wrigley:  Besides cards of Cubs players, I was able to only find two more that are from a game at Wrigley Field.

Way back in the day Wrigley was featured quite often as Topps used photographer based in cities with teams in each league.  Now using pictures from Getty Images, Topps has many more pictures to choose from.