Eighties Alphabetically - All Star Game Program

For six seasons, from 1981 through 1986, the All-Star Game Official Program contained pictures of the players that were on the All-Star ballot.  Those pictures have been cut out and from those we have the All-Star Game program cards.  Cards is a loose term because they are just flimsy paper program pages.

Most of the cards are pretty small, much less than half the size of a regular baseball card.  They typically measure at 1¼" x 2".

Four Cubs were on the 1981 All-Star ballot.  None were voted in by the fans, but Bill Buckner was named to the team.

The 1982 All-Star Game was held in Montreal, so the cards are bilingual.  I have no idea why Randy Martz was included in the set.  

We're up to seven Cubs in the 1983 set and Ryno makes his first appearance.  Notice how the picture of Bill Buckner was the same one used in 1982.

The 1984 program had two different styles of pictures. And the same picture of Bill Buckner was used for the third year in a row while Ron Cey's picture was a repeat from 1983

The 1985 pictures for Ron Cey, Jody Davis, Keith Moreland, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, and Steve Trout were all repeat pictures in 1984.

The 1986 program was the last one with these cards.  Only two pictures were repeated (Sandberg and Smith), though the cropping was tighter in 1986.

2023 Panini Select

 Here's another set that came out after the end of the season, Panini Select.  We had to wait until the season was over to get logoless cards of minor league players and retired players.

The set has 300 cards divided into three levels of 100 cards each.  Cards become scarcer as you work up the levels.

 

 

These four are from the first level, #1-100, called Concourse.

 

Two Cubs were in the Premier level, #101-200.

The Diamond level has five Cubs.  I only have four of the cards.  The missing fifth belongs to Ryne Sandberg and it has been impossible to find.  So not only do we have a set that came out after the end of the season, but I've had to add a new card to my most wanted list.

2023 Cubs Calendar Update

 

Let's take a final look at the 2023 Cubs calendar as the year come to an end.

This is the picture from the preview story that I posted last December.  Four of the twelve players were not with the team when 2023 began.  And now that the year is almost over?

Just two more of the remaining eight are gone, Marcus Stroman and Codi Heuer.  And by the way, how bad were things in 2022 that Codi Heuer was considered calendar-worthy?

Half of the players are still with the team at the end of the year and that is actually better than the 2022 calendar that had just four of the twelve still with the team when 2022 ended.  That's progress I guess.

Singles From Santa Chad

In addition to all of the team sets I showed yesterday, reader Chad also sent a nice collection of assorted singles, including the Panini sticker shown above.

 

 

These are all assorted oddball... Leon Durham 1987 Boardwalk and Baseball, Jeff Reed 2000 MLB Showdown, Brooks Kieschnick 1996 Select Artists Proof, Rafael Palmeiro 1989 Broder Baseball Stars, and 1998 Jeremi Gonzalez Williamsport Cubs.  The Gonzalez card is a mystery to me.  Gonzalez played in Williamsport in 1994 and the card mentions that he was the first Williamsport Cub to make it to the majors.  The card isn't a part of the official 1998 Williamsport team set, nor is it listed anywhere in the Trading Card Data Base.

He sent two Sammy cards.  The bottom card is from the Video Replay insert set in 1999 Stadium Club.

Three Jerome Walton cards were include.  The first is from the Pocket Price Guide while the other two are unlicensed Broder cards.

There were four cards of Mark Grace.  I've never seen the top two.  On the top left is a card from an unlicensed set called Baseball Caramel.  The cards all feature pictures of modern players in old uniforms.  The work done for Grace is not very flattering.  On the top right is the a card from 1996 E-Motion XL's insert set D-Fense.

Finally, there was a nice selection of Ryno cards.  These will all be added to my Sandberg player collection.

Thank you Chad for an interesting stack of cards!

Twelve Team Sets of Christmas

Who needs maids-a-milking or swans-a-swimming?  Forget the turtle doves or calling birds.  I've got baseball cards!

Reader Chad was once again most generous to me this Christmas.  This makes the tenth consecutive Christmas that he has sent me a package of cards.  He always send great goodies and this year was no exception.  

Among the items set were twelve different Cubs team sets.  I thought about showing one per day during the twelve days of Christmas between the 25th and Epiphany on January 6.  But why drag it out.  Let's see all twelve at once.

We start off with the four Cubs in the 1996 Aficionado set.  This was the only year that Pinnacle made the set, so thanks to Chad I have all of this brand.

In 2006, American Family Insurance teamed with Upper Deck to issue a partial Cubs team set using UD's template.

This is Upper Deck Classics, from 2005, not to be confused with Donruss Classics, which was put out between 2001 and 2005.  

Upper Deck's 2001 set Decades celebrated the 1970s in all of its funkadelic glory.

Skybox's Dominion was a one-and-done set in 2000, so I have another brand completely covered.

This set, 2005 ESPN, was a collaboration between UD and ESPN.  The set was put out to celebrate the sports network's 25th anniversary, though in 2005 ESPN was 26 years old.

This is the premier edition of First Pitch.  UD put out this set in 2003 as their answer to Topps' Opening Day.  Like OD, the First Pitch set's cards are foil-less versions of the base set.  Upper Deck continued with the brand through the 2006 season.

Pinnacle's Inside set was noted for being packaged in cans instead of wax packs.  These cards are from the 1997 set.  There was another set issued in 1998 and I'll need to get those to complete this brand.

These cards are the 582 Montgomery parallel set.  The cards come from a complete set with the special stamp that were available only to Montgomery subscribers.

This is an odd one, 1997 New Pinnacle.  Instead of putting out a second series, Pinnacle put out a second brand with the creative name of "New Pinnacle."

This is a two-part parallel set to Score's 1997 set.  The parallel from the first series were called Premium Stock while the cards from series two had the name Hobby Reserve.

We wrap things up the a set called World Series Fever, put out by Sports Illustrated in 1998.  

Twelve team sets, 108 cards, and much gratitude to Chad!

2023 Finest Flashback Cubs

 Here's another of the sets that came out after the season ended.  Topps released Finest Flashback on October 18.  Flashback is the Heritage version of Finest.  That begs the question, do we really need a Heritage version of Finest?

2023 Flashback is based on the 1996 set, which was divided into four subsets.  It starts with Bronze (100 cards), then Silver (50 cards), gold (25 cards) and short prints (25 cards), and that makes a complete checklist of 100 cards.

There are six Cubs cards among the 200 in the set.

 

 

These four are from the Bronze subset.

 

Two Cubs are in the Silver subset.  And yes, that is Morel in both subsets.

The Cubs were shut out of the final two subsets.  I guess that is ok because it kept me from having to buy the more-expensive cards.  But it also means that Topps feels the Cubs don't have any players worth spending the big bucks.

Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,336 Cubs cards from 316 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1967 Topps #458 Lee Thomas  Thomas would have been 30 years old when this picture was taken.  Usually the guys from this era look ten years older than their actual age, but Thomas looks pretty young here.

1980s: 1983 Archives Reprints 1952 #153 Bob Rush I bought the cards from this set before I got the actual 1952 cards.  Now that I have all of the real deals, I don't really need this set any more... but I won't get rid of it.

1990s: 1994 Fleer Ultra #169 Willie Wilson The 1994 season was the last of Wilson's 19-season career, most of which was with the Royals.  He played in just 17 games, hit .238, and was released on May 16.

2000s: 2006 SP Legendary Cuts #47 Ernie Banks This is a nice looking card of Mr. Cub.

2010s: 2019 Pro Debut 10th Anniversary #KB Kris Bryant This is from back in the good old days when Kris Bryant was included in just about every insert set.