Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 19,569 Cubs cards from 285 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1960 Topps #248 Del Rice The Cubs signed Rice in October, 1959, after he had been released by the Braves.  Both pictures show him in a Milwaukee uniform.  Topps thought that this was a good deal for the Cubs and gave him a card in the third series.  He played in just 18 games for the Cubs and was released in early June.

1980s: 1986 Topps #46 Billy Hatcher  Chillin' in the dugout.

1990s: 1993 Flair #17 Chuck McElroy This is from the premier year of Flair.  It was Fleer's first attempt as super-premium cards.  McElroy was a middle inning reliever with an ERA of 4.56. He was not super-premium.

2000s: 2008 Just Minors Darwin Barney Duel Signature Silver Two signatures on a card that is worth about five bucks.

2010s: 2016 Topps Now Postseason #CHC-8 Javier Baez  Seems like it was just yesterday that Javier Baez was on a team that would go all the way.

70s Saturday - 1979 Kelloggs Cubs

 The final Kelloggs set of the decade has a couple of pretty decent Cubs pitchers.

 

We also get a 3-D look at the Cubs pajama road uniforms.

A Kyle Hendricks Relic Card, Finally

Kyle Hendricks has been in the big leagues since 2014.  He's had some really good seasons and has performed well in the post-season.

He's also a very quiet person and doesn't have a blazing fastball.

It's not surprising, then, that he didn't have a relic card until 2021.  It took eight seasons, but Kyle Hendricks has finally made it into my rule-following relic collection.

This comes from 2021 Tier One.  

I now have relic cards for 93 Cubs players that have a relic in a year they played for the Cubs, showing them with the Cubs.

Arismendy Alcantara	Dexter Fowler	Gary Matthews, Jr.
Albert Almora	Kyuji Fujikawa	Fred McGriff
Moises Alou	Kosuke Fukudome	Bill Mueller
Adbert Alzolay	Nomar Garciaparra	Jose Nieves
Jake Arrieta	Matt Garza	Mike Olt
Javier Baez	Mark Grace	Corey Patterson
Darwin Barney	Mark Grudzielanek	Joc Pederson
Francis Beltran	Jason Hammel	Felix Pie
David Bote	Ian Happ	Juan Pierre
Kris Bryant	Rich Harden	Mark Prior
Damon Buford	Brendan Harris	Aramis Ramirez
Marlon Byrd	Kevin Hart	Anthony Rizzo
Jeimer Candelario	Kyle Hendricks	Addison Russell
Victor Caratini	Jason Heyward	Jeff Samardzija
Andrew Cashner	Bobby Hill	Kyle Schwarber
Welington Castillo	Rich Hill	Jorge Soler
Starlin Castro	Nico Hoerner	Alfonso Soriano
Aroldis Chapman	Todd Hundley	Sammy Sosa
Hee Seop Choi	Brett Jackson	Geovany Soto
Tyler Colvin	Jacque Jones	Matt Szczur
Willson Contreras	Eric Karros	Ryan Theriot
Juan Cruz	David Kelton	Josh Vitters
Yu Darvish	Craig Kimbrel	Darryle Ward
Wade Davis	Bryan LaHair	Todd Wellemeyer
David DeJesus	Junior Lake	Randy Wells
Ryan Dempster	Derrek Lee	Rondell White
Blake DeWitt	Jon Lester	Jerome Williams
Jason Dubois	Ted Lilly	Kerry Wood
Jim Edmonds	Kenny Lofton	Carlos Zambrano
Carl Edwards	Greg Maddux	Ben Zobrist
Mike Fontenot	Carlos Marmol	Julio Zuleta

The '69 Cubs and the 69 Cubs

 Allow me one more post on the 69 Cubs.

You may be familiar with this team picture of the 1969 Cubs.  It was sold at Wrigley Field and featured floating heads of the players.  Topps used these for the team photo cards in several of the sets in the 1970s.

I felt like I had to make a 2021 version of this with the 69 Cubs.  

It would have to be a bit different than the original, though.  I had to squeeze 69 floating head instead of the 33 on the 1969 version.  That means much smaller heads on 2021.  I was able to find headshots of 64 players wearing a Cub hat.  Bonus points if you can name the five players that I had to photoshop into a Cubs hat.

The '69 picture has facsimile autographs but I skipped those on the 2021 model.   I used a script font for a couple of reasons.  First, trying to track down autographs of some of the lesser-knowns would have taken a very long time.  Then I'd have to play with each autograph in Photoshop to get it usable for the picture and that would have also taken a very long time.  Finally, you can read the names of the players on the 1969 photo.  In 2021 that wouldn't be the case as so many players have unreadable signatures.

The Cubs arranged the players in a random order.  I put mine alphabetical order, in columns, so that it would be easier to find a certain player among the 69.

The manager and coaches were included in 1969.  I left them off of my modern version because this was a photo for the 69, not the 69 plus staff.

Enough blabbering... let's get to the picture!

Recapping the 69 Cubs

 

Here are the 69 Cubs of 2021, the team that will never come close to being as beloved as the '69 Cubs.  Twenty-one of the cards were made by Topps while I had to come up with the other 48.  I hope that there will never be another season when less that a third of the Cubs players have actual Topps Cubs cards.  

Actually, I guess there will be a season in a few years when none of the Cubs players have a Topps card.  I'm not looking forward to the day when it is Fanatics, not Topps, making the cards.

The Last of the Homemade Cubs

 Here come the last six of the 48 homemade Topps cards I had to make so that each of the '69 Cubs have a card.

 

 

 

Interesting story with the card for Dan Winkler.  I got an email from a friend of his requesting some copies that he could give to Dan.  I had to let him know that I don't make physical copies but sent him the digital version so he could make as many as he'd like.

Tomorrow I'll wrap up the 69 Cubs of 2021

The 1934 Cubs Scorecard

 I recently picked up my oldest Cubs scorecard to date, the 1934 version.

I'm not super-picky with the condition of the older scorecards that I buy.  In fact, I kinda like the ones that are a bit worn or written on.  This one is great.  It tells me the exact date of the game and the fact that it was Bobby's first big league game.  The writing on the side says "ball game at Cubs Park."  Apparently Bobby's parents weren't buying into the new (well, 1926 new) corporate name of the park.... "I'm not calling it Wrigley Field; it's still Cubs Park to me!"

I tried to us Photoshop to clean up the card a bit.  It's whitened up somewhat, but still has that aged look to it.