Heritage is Here!

My 2012 Heritage Cubs have arrived! Brentandbecca ripped into 82,944 cards and 17 of them are mine. I'll take the next 3-4 days to go through what I've got. Today it'll be the base cards.

The Cubs have 13 players in the set. Twelve were in the low numbers and only one was in the high number short prints. That's good for the wallet. Topps has all the big names included; though "big" is a relative term, since the Cubs are in a rebuilding mode (again!!) and some of the usual big names are gone.

Allow me one gripe about Heritage: They try to capture the same type of photography used on the original cards. Lots of the early '60s cards used head shots, and so does Heritage. That's fine. The problem for me is that most of the Heritage head shots are taken at spring training on team photo day. All we see in the background is blue sky. Check the originals. They were taken at the ballpark, mostly in the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium. For me, a baseball card needs a ballpark in the background. The seats, the scoreboard, the ads on the wall---they add character to the card. The Heritage cards lack that. Blue sky=boring.

My suggestion...with today's technology, Topps can photoshop a background. How cool would it be to see Kerry Wood in the Polo Grounds. Well, see for yourself...



...This took me 20 minutes with my 14-year-old version of Adobe PhotoDeluxe. I should think the pros at Topps could come up with something decent.

OK...Kerry Wood wouldn't be wearing a home jersey in New York, so how about putting him in Wrigley Field, circa 1960s



I'll step off of my soapbox now and show you the cards...and count the blue backgrounds while you're looking.



This is the non-error Barney card. The error cards are still over $100 with no sign of dropping.



Don't forget about the super-super short print no-position at Wrigley card.



Here's the Kerry Wood card, again the non-error (and non-Polo Grounds) version.



Former Cub Carlos Pena is the third Cub player with an error variation card. In 1963, Cubs first baseman Ernie Banks had an uncorrected error on his card. The back said "Complete Major and Minor League Record" but Ernie never played in the minor leagues. That's a really nitpicky error since it is technically correct...the card does list his complete minor and major league record. The Pena error version of the card also states "Complete Major and Minor League Record." It too is going for over $100.



Anthony Rizzo came to the Cubs from the Padres and is suppose to be the first baseman of the future. The photoshop job on the hat is not done very well; the C looks odd.

Here are the rest of the players...nothing too noteworthy...and lots of blue sky.




















The one card Brent didn't include my team set was the rookie card, #54, that includes a Cub prospect named John Gaub. I'll have to hit up Sportlots for that one.

Tomorrow, I'll have the inserts and extra cards.

Early Spring...Early Ivy?

The past two weeks have been unusually hot here in SW Michigan. We've had several record highs. The furnace has been turned off and we even had to put the AC on in my classroom a couple days. Most years we'd be happy to touch the 60s in late March; this year has seen the 80s several days.

The warm weather has done some crazy things to the trees around here.



This tree next to my deck usually blooms in early-mid May.



Same for our maple trees. I've never seen them bloom so early. Seeing the trees greening up got me thinking about the Wrigley Field ivy.



The home opener is always an exciting day, but the brown ivy always tempers my excitement. Wrigley Field doesn't look like Wrigley Field until the ivy turns green. That usually happens in early May. The Cubs come home from a road trip and boom...there it is...beautiful green ivy.



I know that Chicago has had the same warm weather that we have had, so the big question is will the ivy be green on Opening Day?

I sure hope so!

2009 OPC Inserts

Credit for these goes to Night Owl. He included a 2009 OPC insert of Derrek Lee in a stack sent my way. Naturally, I had to get all the cards in the set. It was pretty easy, since only three Cubs were in the set.

The cards were an insert set to Upper Deck's 2009 series one. They obviously borrow from Topps' 1975 design. In addition to the regular cards, there were parallel minis. This borrows on what Topps did in 1975. However, these are OPC cards and OPC didn't put out a mini set in 1975...so why did Upper Deck add minis?

Here's what the regular cards and minis looks like together.

Upper Deck was really pushing the OPC name in 2009 because in June they came out with a complete set of OPC cards, a 600 card series.

This time they has a slight Topps 1976 look. The set was originally supposed to mimic the 1971 Topps set. I think this was when Upper Deck was claiming that since they owned the OPC brand name, and since OPC put out cards licensed by Topps in 1971, that gave UD the right to copy use the design. I also believe that Topps brought a suit to stop Upper Deck. It seems that at the time Upper Deck was trying to drag Topps into court as often as possible. It was pretty futile on their part, since Topps has prevailed in every case.

Stir up the hornets nest enough times and your going to get stung. Upper Deck has been pretty much stung into irrelevance.

Trading with Tribe Fan Tim

In January I got an email for a reader and Indians fan named Tim. He was looking to trade for some Indians cards and I was happy to oblige. I packed up a box of Indians and sent them off to Ohio.



Last week I received an envelope full of Cubs in return. Many of the cards are already in my collection, so they will be added to WW Jr's. But there were a few that I had never seen before.



These are from Classic Baseball, 1991. This was a brand/set that I had never heard of. Apparently, from 1987 - 1993, these were put out as part of a baseball trivia game. This was the era of Trivial Pursuit (That's not Moops you jerk, its Moors), and there seemed to be trivia games for any particular topic.



Take a look at the questions on the cards. Do they seem very difficult? I thought they were kind of easy.

This is the third trade package that I've received this year and with each one, there have been some cards that are totally new to me. They've given me some new sets to chase and I appreciate that. Expect to see a bunch more of these cards from Classic in a few weeks!

Two New Schedules, 50 Years Apart

I've got two new schedules for my collection, and they are only separated by 50 years!



This is the Cubs 1962 schedule. I've had this on in a saved ebay search for over two years. My collection begins with 1961, the year I was born. But I was hadn't able to come up with a '62 schedule. One finally showed up on ebay a couple weeks ago and I set my sniper at a higher price than usual...I didn't want this to get away.

I was lucky enough to get it for a better price than some of my other schedules from the '60s. And now I can delete the saved search.



The back of the schedule has an ad for Silvercup bread. They are also on the '61 and '63 schedules. Wonderbread got the back in '64 and '65, and then Burney Bros. had the next two years. In 1968, a schedule sponsor more familiar to me took over the back, Old Style. All the schedules I had as a kid had Old Style ads on the back.



Here is the Cubs schedule of games for 1962. This was an expansion year, as the Mets and Colt '45s joined the National League. This was also the year the season expanded by eight games to the now familiar 162 games. You can see that the Cubs played the Colts in Houston on April 10 for the franchises first game ever. And how did that game turn out? The Colts clobbered the Cubs 11-2.

One other interesting tidbit: According to the schedule, the Cubs didn't play any away games in 1962. Instead, they played "abroad."That's unusual terminology that I never noticed before. I went back and checked the 1961 schedule and it too uses "abroad." So do the schedules in the '58-'60 roster books. They became "away" games on the '63 schedule.



Here is my other new schedule, the Cubs 2012 version. I got this by emailing a request to the Cubs. Within four days I got a package with 10 schedules and several stickers, plus a handwritten note from the Cubs Ambassadors. Nice touch.

Its interesting, but understandable that they put manager Dale Sveum on the front. Most of the name players (Lee, Zambrano, Ramirez) are gone.



Starlin Castro was on this early version that I got back in September, but with his offseason allegations of misconduct, he disappeared and the new manager took his place.

Its the third time a manager has been on a schedule....



...Jim Frey was on the 1986 version (he was #8, Keith Moreland, who replaced Ron Santo in the radio booth is #6))...



....and the 2003 schedule had Dusty.

With these two additions, I'm up to 121 different schedules from 1961 - 2012. I'm looking for two more from 2012, the WGN TV and WGN radio schedules. If anyone in the Chicago area finds one at a store and can grab a couple for me, I'd be most grateful!

Opening Day Cubs

While I wait for Heritage to arrive, I have the chance to show the Opening Day Cubs, all three of them. This is the 15th year that Topps has put out an Opening Day set, and you have to go back to 2001 to find such a short Cubs checklist. Last year there were ten Cubs, so the drop to only three really hammers home the point that the Cubs are in a rebuilding year.







All three Cubs have cards that are identical to their series one base card.

I've really grown to like Opening Day because of its low-frills features. The cards lack the fancy foil printing, which means you can actually read the names.



Compare the Flagship Castro on the left with the Opening Day on the right and you can see what I mean. When I make custom cards, I'll use Opening Day as the template.

There were a couple insert sets that also included a Cub on the checklist

Geovany Soto is celebrating a pinch hit walk-off homer he hit in the bottom of the 13th against the Giants on June 30....though I think its a stretch to give him the "Superstar" designation.

Starlin Castro made the fantasy squad. According to the back of his card,

he is only the second shortstop in history to hit .300 in each of the first two years of his career. The other is...

...hall of famer Arky Vaughan. Arky so impressed the Topps writers that they

misspelled his last name....unless I'm sitting on a super rare shortprinted error card!

Night Owl Delivers

Night Owl is putting together a 1975 mini set and I had an extra that I sent his way. A package of Cubs came my way.



Greg earns some bonus points for using the blue painters tape!



Here's the nine Cubs, to be shared by WW Jr. and me.

A couple highlights...



Welington Castillo, better known as Beef, on a Triple A All Star card. Beef is in the hunt for the backup catcher position.



This is a mini OPC card Upper Deck 2009. Though I was collecting again in 2009, I didn't go after any of the regular size or mini OPC inserts.....until now. There were three Cubs in the set, so that means hunting only five more cards between the regular and minis.

Thanks Greg for the cards, and a new set to grab.