1989 Red Foley Cubs

The Foley collection was pretty consistent. The cover has been almost identical for each of the first three years.  The number of stickers has been the same (130) and the sticker design has not changed either.

The number of Cubs has been constant too, five each year.

The '89 set marks the first appearance of a young Greg Maddux.    And Paul Noce was left out of the set!

All of the pictures come from two ballparks, either Wrigley or Shea.

FIve Random Cubs Cards

Before I get to the random Cubs cards, there's some unfinished business from yesterday.

Who is the mystery Cub that was included in the 1988 Red Foley set over Sandberg, Durham, Smith, and Palmeiro?

That is infielder Paul Noce, who hit .228 in 70 games for the 1987 Cubs.

Now on to the random Cubs cards.

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I've got 16,809 Cubs cards from 198 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1969 O-Pee-Chee #4 RBI Leaders This card is in my Billy Williams collection.  You can't go wrong when a card has three Hall of Famers and two of them are Cubs!

1980s: 1988 Leaf #9 Andre Dawson  Two Canadian cards in a row!  Leaf was Donruss' O-Pee-Chee.

1990s: 1991 Post #22 Mark Grace  The lack of logos make this card very unattractive.  Plain blue hat and plain blue jersey equals ugly card.

2000s: 2004 Topps All Stars #12 Kerry Wood Wood made the All Star game as a replacement for an injured player.  Ironic, since he was usually the injured player.  He pitched the bottom of the fourth, giving up a lead-off single and then retiring the next three hitters.  Two of the three outs were strikeouts.

2010s: 2014 Allen & Ginter Full Sized Relics #AD Andre Dawson  A second Dawson card... this time a relic.  You don't see many bat cards any more; most are jerseys.

1988 Red Foley Cubs

The 1988 version of the Red Foley sticker book came with the same number of stickers as in 1987, 130 stickers.  The design was the same, although I use the word "design" very lightly.  There really wasn't a design.  The stickers feature just a picture of the player and a number.  The number is the only way to tell which year the sticker was issued.  You have to match the number to the checklist.

Team stickers were a new addition to the 1988 set. The Cubs sticker doesn't use any Cubs logo, but is a Foley original.  The set is licensed by MLB, so I wonder why they didn't use the Cubs actual logo?

In addition to the logo, just four players were on the checklist. 

Most would recognize three of the four, Dawson, Moreland, and Sutlicffe.  But who was the fourth?  Ryno was not included.  Jody Davis, Leon Durham, and an up and coming rookie named Rafael Palmerio were left out too.

Who was it that took their place?

I'll post his name in tomorrow's post.  Leave your guess in the comments, but no Googling to find the answer!

1987 Red Foley Cubs

Red Foley's initial launch came in 1987 with this book.  The set consisted of 130 stickers and of those, five were Cubs.  I've got the stickers below.  I've got the little stickers shown a bit larger so you get a good look at them.

Red Foley - Asked and Answered

My big question from yesterday was "Who is Red Foley?"

Matt from Once a Cub was kind enough to send me the answer.

He sent this bio of Red Foley from the 1991 sticker book.  Reader Brent also added a comment with similar information.

This is what Red looked like.

Red went to work at the New York Daily News right out of high school, in 1947.  He retired from the same newspaper after a 34-year career, in 1981. 

Along with his writing duties, Foley worked as an official scorer for both New York franchises.  He started in 1966 and continued scoring until 2002, over 3000 games.

It would be safe to say that the guy knew baseball.  Adding his name to the sticker book would certainly give it some credibility, especially to those on the east coast.

Red Foley Stickers

A few weeks back I had several posts with Panini Stickers.  In addition to Fleer, Topps, and Panini, there was one other major sticker brand in the late '80s and early '90s.

From 1987 thought 1996, stickers were included in Red Foley's Best Baseball Book Ever.  This is the 1987 book and you see that there were 130 stickers included.

The big unanswered question is "Who is Red Foley?"  There was a country singer with that name, but he died in 1968.  I wonder if the book says so?  Maybe I'll have to buy one to find out.

The stickers in the book were pretty small, just 1½" x 1¾", for the first six years (1987 - 1993).  In 1994 the stickers grew to regular baseball card size.  They stayed that size the next year too, before shrinking a little (2" x 2¾") in the final year, 1996.

Not only were the first stickers small, but they were very plain too.  All that was on them was a picture and a sticker number.  That is a very minimalist design!

Most years there were five of six Cubs stickers.  That lasted until the end of the run, when the Cubs shrunk to three, two, or one.

I'll go year by year over the next several posts to give you a look at all of the Red Foley Cubs.

Billy Buck

Very sad news yesterday, as Billy Buckner died at the age of 69.

I must have some subconscious thing for Cubs named Billy, as Billy Williams is my all-time favorite Cub, and Billy Buckner is #2.

Buckner came to the Cubs in 1977.  By then all of the '69 Cubs were gone and the team was not good.  After Billy Williams was traded, I didn't connect with a Cub until Buckner arrived.

He was gritty, playing hurt yet playing hard.

And he could hit!  His average with the Cubs over eight seasons was .300, right on the nose.

This is one of my favorite cards of Bill Buckner.  He's in his home whites, but they are not white.  Look at all the dirt on him.   That is Billy Buckner.

Here's a couple of my other favorite Buckner cards...

This is his first Topps card as a Cub, from 1989. 

A Fan Favorite autographed card that shows the white pinstripes on the road unis... nice!

How about a relic card with that same uniform!

Here's a look at the 56 Buckner cards in my collection