2017 Gypsy Queen Cubs

I haven't read too much on the blogs about this year's Gypsy Queen.  Are people getting tired of it?  I'm ambivalent about it, but my collector's OCD means I will get the Cubs set.

I did.

There are 320 cards in the set, including 20 of the dreaded and contrived short-prints.  The Cubs landed nine players on the list.  That is a low number of Cubs compared to other brands.  Schwarber was missing, as was Baez, Contreras, and Heyward.

Included would be all the others you'd expect...Arrieta, Bryant, Hendricks, Lester, Rizzo, Russell, and Zobrist.  Also included was newcomer Wade Davis, in a photoshop special.

 

 

 

 

Gypsy Queen also includes some retired players and there was one Cub...

 

Ryno.

Where's Kyle??

Topps really had a thing for Kyle Schwarber last year.  He was included in just about every product last year.  And that includes set released after Topps knew that Schwarber was going to be out for the season.

The love seems to continue again this year.  Look at the box and packs of this year's Gypsy Queen.

Topps loves the guy so much that they made him one of the two faces of the product.

They love him so much that he was included in....guess how many Kyle Schwarber cards there are in 2017 Gypsy Queen...

Five???   Seven????   Ten????????

Nope.

The answer is.....


NONE!!

He's not in the base set, not in any inserts, doesn't have an autograph or relic card.

The face of the product is faceless.

I wonder how many other times Topps has included a player on the package but didn't make a single card of the guy?  I'm thinking never.

By the way, is it false advertising to show him on the box but not include him in the product?

The Official Cubs Flag

On Monday the Cubs raised flags for their 1907, 1908, and 2016 championships, along with the 2016 NL pennant.  It was a nice ceremony and it's great to see those flags flying.

But they missed a flag.

Did you know that the Cubs have an official team flag?  Apparently the team forgot.

This page is from my 1947 official program.  The Cubs flag has red stars for each NL pennant and blue stars for each World Series victory.

For years the Cubs flew this flag off of each of the foul poles.  They were removed when the team started retiring numbers and flew flags for those players instead.  That means its been at least 35 years since the offical Cubs flag flew over Wrigley Field.

While the team may have forgotten about it, I haven't.

Updated, with another red and blue star, the official Cubs flag!

The 2017 Cubs Schedule

A phone call to Wrigley Field and a wait of a couple weeks netted me the Cubs 2017 pocket schedule.  I could have bought them on Ebay, but really, why pay for something that is free?

This is the first time since 2012 that the schedule does not have an embroidered look to it. The cover includes the team's new slogan "That's Cub."  I really am not a fan of the slogan.  Every time the team makes a mistake I can hear the opposing fans saying, "That's Cub."  Its just too easy to turn the phase around into a sarcastic mock.

They didn't ask me, but I went ahead and made an improvement to the cover.  I removed the slogan and replaced it with something that you can't really mock.

Better?? 

My schedule collection now numbers 57 season's worth.

2017 Topps Factory Team Set

As they have since 2006, Topps has made team sets for each of the 30 MLB teams.  I recently picked up the 17-card Cubs set.

Like Opening Day, this set gives us a sneak peak at some cards that will be coming out in series two.  There are four players in this set that didn't have a card in either series one or Opening Day.  Three of the four are newcomers and they were photoshopped.

 

The returning player without an earlier card is...

...John Lackey.

The rest of the guys have been seen before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 14,823 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: 1958 Topps #221 Jerry Kindall This is the only Cub card among the 27 in the set with a pink background.  Kindall has a very tough look on his face.  It doesn't match well with the pink.

1980s: 1983 Team Issued Coaches The fish-eyed lens gives this card a weird look.  Pictured are (left to right),...Fred Koenig, first base; Ruben Amaro (who just recently passed away), third base, Lee Elia, manager, Duffy Dyer, bullpen; John Vukovich, bench, and Billy Connors, pitchers.

1990s: 1997 Fleer Ultra #163 Brant Brown The card lists him as a first baseman, but it was as an outfielder in 1998 that Brant Brown had his 15 minutes in the spotlight.  It wasn't good.

2000s: 2002 Team Issued #564 Don Cardwell Reprint  Cardwell earned a place in Cubs history by throwing a no hitter in his first appearance as a Cub.

2010s: 2012 Archives #52 Geovany Soto Four years after winning the NL Rookie of the Year, Soto had turned into a catcher that couldn't hit his weight.  The Cubs traded him midway through the 2012 season.  

Green!

I didn't really think I'd ever see one, let alone get one.

In a post from July, 2015, I showed these:

These the autograph and auto/relic cards of Darwin Barney from Team USA 2007.  I also wrote in the post that there are /2 green versions of each card, that I've never seen one and didn't plan to add them.

Well...

I saw one, made an offer, and got it!

You can see that this is the auto/jersey card and it is 1/2.

So now all I need is the green autograph and I'll have the entire set.  Who knows how long it will be, if ever, before one shows up.  It took six years before I saw the one I got.  But there's no rush and no pressure.