A Little More on Red Barn

 

My Red Barn discs were featured yesterday.  I'll bet most of you have never heard of the Red Barn chain.  At one time it had between 300 - 400 restaurants, mostly in the Midwest.  The chain was gone by 1988.

The Red Barn discs were given away at a Kenosha, Wisconsin store.  This is the site today.  The Red Barn building is still there, but it has been repurposed as a Mexican grocery store.

There was a Red Barn in my hometown of Oak Lawn, Illinois when I was growing up.  It was about a mile and a half from our house.  But I don't ever remember eating there.  It was in the opposite direction from where we'd usually shop.

The Oak Lawn Red Barn does have a bit of history, though.  On April 21, 1967 the town was hit by a devastating tornado, killing sixteen people.  The Red Barn was in a area that saw heavy destruction and loss of life.

It wasn't leveled, but it did suffer some major damage.  Our house is southeast of this and the tornado moved northeast, so thankfully our neighborhood was unscathed.

The restaurant was repaired and reopened.  The building later became a real estate office.  Today the building is gone and a car dealership is on the site.

75% of the Red Barn Cubs

 One of the more difficult MSA disc sets is the 1976 Red Barn issue.  

As far as I can tell, the discs were given out at just this one location in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  

The set consists of the 70 players that were in all the different MSA disc sets from 1976.  Four or five of those are Cubs.  The questionable Cub is Andy Thornton.  He has discs in the sets that show him as both a Cub and an Expo.  The TCDB shows him with the Expos in their listing of the Red Barn set.  Is it possible that there is a Cub version for him?  I have no idea. I've never seen his as a Cub, but since these are so rare, that doesn't really mean anything.

I have three of the four for-sure Red Barn Cubs.  

I've had the Cardenal and Morales for a while.  I recently was able to get the Rick Monday.  I saw it in a listing for a lot of nine Red Barn discs.  I asked the seller if he would sell me just the Monday and he agreed.  The missing Cub is Bill Madlock.  I hope to find one soon... but I'm not holding my breath.

2011 - Scorecard Extra or Gameday?

 The 2011 and 2012 Cubs program was missing from my collection.  I hadn't seen either one listed anywhere.  In 2010 the programs were called "Scorecard Extra."  The name had changed by 2013 to Gameday.  So I had no idea what the programs from the missing years were called.

I was able to pick up a 2011 program to answer that question.  Make your guess now.... Scorecard Extra 

or 

Gameday.

And the correct answer is...

Neither!  The program has a different name, Vine Line Game Day Edition.  Vine Line was the name of the Cubs monthly magazine.  It makes sense to combine it with the gameday program.  The same staff probably created both.

The mystery left for me is with the 2012 edition.... was  it called Vine Line Game Day Edition or just Game Day?

2021 Diamond Kings Cubs Base Set

 The 2021 version of Panini's Diamond King set came our two weeks ago.  It includes just four cards among the 170 players on the checklist.

 

 

It an interesting assortment, with two of the current biggies (Baez and Bryant), a prospect (Marquez), and a Hall of Famer (Sandberg).

As usual, the logoless cards do not look good.  The E on Baez' name looks like a C.  As long as they were doctoring the pictures, they should have added some fans into the Bryant card.

The 1943 Cubs Program

 I was able to add a 1943 program to my collection.  It is in really great shape for an item that is 78 years old!

The cover has nothing to do with Cubs baseball and everything to do with World War II.  This is my first program from the war years.  In addition to the cover, there are a couple of other war-related items inside.

The words to the national anthem are on page one.  The programs I have from just before (1941) and after (1946) do not have the lyrics.  This was added as I assume the anthem was song more often at ballgames during the war.

Note how the Oscar Mayer ad talks about the possible scarcity of their hot dogs.  Meat was rationed so hot dogs may not have been so easy to come by.  Mayer also mentions how popular the product was with the soldiers.... "Our Fighters Like 'Em Too."

Finally, kudos to the art department for showing the hot dog with mustard, relish, and onions, but no ketchup.  That's a real hot dog!

Five Random Cubs Cards

  I've got 19,236 Cubs cards from 284 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1971 Dell Today John Callison Callison played in just 103 games for the 1971 Cubs and hit a pathetic .210.  His best days were behind him.

1980s: 1981 Topps #352 Dick Tidrow  Tidrow was one bad looking dude!

1990s: 1994 Pacific #115 Rick Wilkins This card is from Pacific's debut set.

2000s: 2000 Pacific #80 Manny Alexander The RNG grabbed a second consecutive card from Pacific.  I can't say that they improved their look much since their debut.

2010s: 2015 Panini National #3 Billy Williams

2021 Bowman Insert Cubs

 I've got Cubs from two Bowman insert sets.  Actually, I've got future Cubs from two Bowman insert sets.

 

The well is most certainly dry when you have just two prospects in the top 100 and your best ranks at 70.  There are some lean years on the horizon.

Will these three help turn things around?  Time will tell.