If you don't know who Stumpy is, then you didn't collect Upper Deck's Collectors Choice cards in 1996 and 1997. He was the cartoon character on the back that asked a baseball question.
I went over the Cubs cards and found that some of the answers are out of date. In the interest of keeping current, I have decided to update Stumpy.
You can Lou Piniella in 2008 to the list.
While Wilson's RBI record still holds (and may never be broken), his single-season home run total of 56 was shattered by the Three Steroid Stooges, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds.
Myers still holds the lefty record, but Francisco Rodriguez broke Thigpen's record with 62 saves in 2008.
The Cubs picked up six wins in the 2003 post season; Kerry Wood (2), Mark Prior (2), Joe Borowski, and Matt Clement. Clement's win in game 5 of the NLCS was the Cubs last post-season win.
Two players have since worn #99, Todd Hundley in 2001 and So Taguchi in 2009.
1997 Stumpy will be updated in a couple days.
The backs of the T206's all have some sort of interesting fact about the player. There were four Cubs cards that really stood out to me.
Any serious Cubs fan would recognize the error on Dempster's card immediately. Did Topps forget about Cubs great Fergie Jenkins, born in Chatham, Ontario? He too played in three All Star games. But the bigger question is how did a hall of fame pitcher that won 20+ games in seven different seasons only make it to three All Star games?
It's an interesting fact about Koskue, but how many other NL Japanese players have their been? Not too many. That's like saying Rob Mackowiak has the most home runs of any player born in my home town, Oak Lawn, Illinois. Of course there were only 3 MLB players ever born in Oak Lawn!
The three Hall of Famers are Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Hack Wilson. The fourth, not in the Hall, would be Sammy Sosa.
Hard to believe that Zambrano has won over 60% of the games he starts. But with this season's stats figured in, that percentage will be dropping, though Zambrano has looked much better since he returned to the starting rotation.
It was a scary thing in a game the Cubs won easily. In the second inning of yesterday's game versus the Marlins, Colvin was stabbed by a piece of Welington Castillo's broken bat. Colvin was on third base and was watching the flight of the ball over his shoulder when the flying piece impaled his chest. He'll be in the hospital for a couple days, since the bat punctured his chest wall. His season is over.
Colvin was a pleasant surprise in an otherwise unpleasant season. He tore up the Cactus League in March and forced his way onto the roster. He started in only 80 games this season, yet hit 20 home runs and knocked in 56 runs. He was decent in the field too. If you compare his stats to the much-hyped Jason Heyward, you might be surprised. Heyward started 123 games, yet has two fewer homers than Colvin and only 16 more RBIs in an additional 114 at bats.
Colvin's problem has been finding playing time. Soriano and Fukudome's over-inflated contracts meant more playing time for them than they may have deserved and less time for Colvin. It will be interesting to see what GM Jim Hendry plans to do with the crowded Cubs outfield next year. Colvin has shown that he can be an adequate major league outfielder and I'd like to see him in the lineup every day next season.
The most recent blog bat around topic is what you would do as commissioner. Most of my suggestions (expansion, less interleague, no DH) have already been written about by other bloggers, so I didn't bother to put up a post. But Colvin's incident brought one change to mind. I would get rid of the maple bats and go back to ash. As the Tribune's Paul Sullivan pointed out, the bat got Colvin only a few inches from his heart. Do we have to wait until someone is killed by a flying bat piece before the maple bats are banned? Commissioner Wrigley Wax will get rid of them now!
I've got 8,056 Cubs cards from 42 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.
1950s / 1960s: Topps 1968 #50 Ken Holtzman It was going to be hard for Ken Holtzman to top his 1967 performance in 1968. In part-time duty with the Cubs due to Army commitments (he pitched on weekends when he could get a pass), Holtzman was a perfect 9-0. He was back with the Cubs full-time in '68, but wasn't nearly as good. His record was 11-14 and his ERA rose nearly a run.
1970s: Topps 1975 #352 Darold Knowles This card has an ugly air-brushed picture of Knowles because he came to the Cubs after the 1974 season in a trade with the A's. I had a hard time liking him because the player the Cubs sent to Oakland was my all-time favorite, Billy Williams. His 1975 performance didn't help him gain any popularity either. Though he saved 15 games, he was 6-9 with a 5.81 ERA.
1980s: Topps 1984 #176 Lee Smith This card gives a good look at the imposing Lee Arthur Smith. After an All Star season in 1983, Lee was establishing himself as a premier closer in the National League. He was an important piece of the Cubs division winning team in 1984, saving 33 games.
1990s: Leaf 1995 #341 Jim Bullinger This card shows the one thing I remember most about Jim Bullinger: the funky was he wore his stirrups. He wore them really low, with lots of blue and very little of the stirrup stripe showing. I don't recall any other player wearing them like that.
2000s: Topps Team Sets 2006 #CHC14 Juan Pierre This card is from Topps' first year of the 14 card factory team sets. The picture of Pierre is different that the card in the base set. The factory set was released before his base set card (which was in series 2), so I'm assuming that this one is a photoshop job, since he was picked up from the Marlins in an off-season trade. He played in all 162 of the Cubs games and hit .292. He led the league in at bats and hits, but also led in caught stealing. He became a free agent after the season and the Cubs didn't pursue resigning him.
I'll weigh in with my thoughts on the design for Topps base set in 2011:
First, I still think its pretty wild to be even looking at the design for 2011 while the 2010 season isn't even over. Though I like the early preview, it does take away from what used to be one of the first signs of spring, the appearance of the new baseball cards at the grocery store. Of course, you can't find baseball cards at the grocery store anymore, and Series 1 comes out in January, so I guess all of that is out the window.
I do like what Topps has come up with. Having the team logo on the front is always a plus for me. I didn't care much for the team wording that was on the front of this year's cards. The Cubs font that was used just isn't very identifiable to the team. That's not the case for a team like the Dodgers of Cardinals, but for the Cubs, it the circle logo that most identifies the team.
I haven't seen any Cubs players featured on any of the 2011 mockups, but I would assume that the team logo will have a blue border and the arc containing the player's name will also be blue. All of the matching blue always looks nice
The only complaint I have about the design is that the name arc will be very difficult to copy for anyone (like me!) who wants to make their own cards. Curving the letters and getting the variations in shading will be a real challenge. It looks like it will be even harder than the 2010 cards, and they were a big enough pain.
I know there are plenty of bloggers who make cards with older designs, but I don't recall seeing anyone else attempt 2010 cards. Is that right, or did I miss some? I have made several, but getting the player's name to look right was very time consuming.
Here is my 2010 Starlin Castro card. Since the cards seem to have become more difficult to copy, I wonder if that is intentional on Topps' part? Do you thing the are purposely making the designs more complicated to foil us amateur photoshoppers? Or should I just take off my tin foil hat and forget about these conspiracy theories?
Welcome to the modern era for baseball cards! This is the set that changed everything and
ushered in baseball cards as we know them today.
The set is full of so many innovations, things like...
...a large sized card, measuring 2 5/8" by 3 3/4"
...a large set of cards, with 407 players featured
...a color team logo on the card
...season and career statistics on the back
Topps really hit one out of the park with this set.
And sadly for me, this is the only Topps set that I have had to settle for the reprints instead of the real things. There are 28 Cubs in the set, so just by numbers alone, that makes it an expensive set to track down. Add to that some really expensive high number cards, and that leaves me to be satisfied with reprints. And I am OK with that.....for now!
There are very few names among the 28 Cubs that you would recognize. Phil Cavarretta and Hank Sauer you may have heard of. Roy Smalley would be known too, but probably because you know his son, not him. But otherwise, the Cubs were not very good!
