Five Random Cubs Cards

 I've got 21,847 Cubs cards from 317 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

1900s - 1970s: 1969 Topps #43 Joe Niekro The righty pitched in just four games for the 1969 Cubs before being traded to the Padres.

1980s: 1989 Score #223 Rich Gossage  The Cubs released Gossage just before the start of the 1989 season.  They were still on the hook for his $1.25 million salary.  

1990s: 1991 O-Pee-Chee #135 Jerome Walton It seems odd to me that OPC left the Topps logo on the cards in 1991.

2000s: 2003 Elite #2 Mark Prior I bought this card for my rule-following relic collection.  I wish that the pinstripe was placed vertically when the card was made.

2010s: 2012 Bricks and Ivy Geovany Soto The Cubs went the artistic route with this design, having a black and white photo with just a limited amount of blue and red.

Eighties Alphabetically - Fritsch

 The Fritsch name has been around the baseball card business as a seller since 1970.  I somehow got on their mailing list and receive their catalog a couple of times a year.

The got into the creating side of the business in 1977 with a set called "One Year Winners."  The name pretty much explains who you'd expect to see in the set.  A second set came out two years later.  

Their third and final version of set came out in 1983.  There are 118 cards and of those, six belong to Cubs.

 

 

Most of these guys played in the early 1960s, well before my time as a Cub fan began.  I must admit that I had never heard of any of the six before I saw their cards.

There are a total of 56 games played between the six players.  Elder White played in the most, 23 games, while George Gerberman and Don Prince each played in just one big league game.  The oddest of the six would have to be Al Lary.  He played in one game for the Cubs in 1954 and then 15 more in 1962.  I guess you have to admire his tenacity in trying to get back to the majors after that single appearance in 1954.

A Few More Series Two Insert Cubs

 I've got some more Cubs inserts from series two.  In each case there was just one Cubs player on the checklist.  Want to guess which player got the majority of the cards?

Mega Stars is a more limited insert set and has a checklist of 20 players.  There are guys like Kershaw, Altuve, Ohtani,.... and PCA.  Really?  Baseballcardpedia estimates that just 375 copies of each of these cards was made, so I had to pay far more than usual for an insert set.

Why look who we have in Home Field Advantage... PCA again.  Coming into the 2024 season he played in a whopping total of five games at Wrigley Field.  I'm pretty sure he hadn't figured out any home field advantage in those games.

Surprised to see him again?  This card comes from City to City.  The ORD is the airport code for O'Hare Airport.  The letters were the designation for airport when it was known as Orchard Place Field and they were never changed when the airport was renamed in 1949.  

This is getting ridiculous, isn't it.  And this was another of the harder to find sets, so once again I had to shell out more than usual.

Finally, someone other than PCA!  Hoerner is the lone Cub in the 25-card set and he deserves to be in it by virtue of his Gold Glove performance in 2023.

I'll have one more inert on Monday and it is from a set that it would be impossible for Topps to place PCA into.

2024 Significant Statistics Cubs

Longtime baseball fans most likely have memorized some milestone numbers.

For me, it would be 714 or 755, 56, 1117, and 512 -- Ruth and Aaron HR totals, DiMaggio's hit streak, Billy William's one-time NL record for consecutive games player, Ernie Banks' HR total.

Topps has an insert set dedicated to numbers which they called Significant Statistics.  Two of the 25 cards are Cubs cards.

 

While the numbers are significant to Topps, they meant absolutely nothing to me.  Do you have any guess what Swanson's 20 and Stroman's 5.0 signify?

In 2023, Swanson led the majors in Outs Above Average, +20.

Stroman's 5.0 is for Barrel % Allowed, meaning only 5% of the hitters he faced in 2023 were able to get the barrel of their bat on his pitches.

I enjoy numbers, but yikes, do we really need OAA and B%A?

2024 Cub #44

 A spot opened up on the Cubs roster on Sunday in the most Cub-like way.  Then again, when you see the last name of the responsible player, it makes sense.

On Saturday, reliever Colten Brewer had a bad outing.  In frustration, he punched the dugout wall after being removed from the game.  He broke his hand and was placed on the 60 day IL.  Cub-like, but then again, what do you expect from a guy with the last name of Brewer.

Taking his spot in the bullpen is rookie Hunter Bigge.  He is 26-years-old and has been in the Cubs organization since being drafted in the 12th round of the 2019 draft.  Slowly but surely he worked his way through the Cubs system and finally made it to the big leagues.

He made his debut last night in the ninth inning in Baltimore.  The Cubs had a 9-2 lead, so it was a perfect, no-pressure situation for an MLB debut.  He responded with a perfect 1-2-3 inning and notched his first career strikeout too.

A total of 44 players have now taken the field for the 2024 Cubs.

2024 First Pitch "Cubs"

 Topps brought back the First Pitch insert set in 2024 series two.  It is a set that was made from 2015 - 2017 but has since been on the shelf.

There are just five cards in the set and two of the five are "Cubs" cards.  I have to put Cubs in quotation marks because the cards don't belong to actual Cubs players, but instead are celebrities throwing out a ceremonial first pitch at Wrigley Field.

 

Dansby's wife Mallory is a star in her own right, playing on the US national soccer team along with the Chicago Stars.  Showing my age, I didn't have a clue as to Myke Towers.  The back of the card says that he is a rapper and songwriter.  

2024 Series Two Heavy Lumber Cubs

Heavy Lumber is one of the harder-to-find insert sets.  Heavy Lumber can mean heavy prices.  Sadly for my wallet, there were two Cubs cards in the second series. 

 

Ryno and Sammy.  The Sandberg was easier to find, but it was more expensive because there are still lots of Sandberg collectors out there.