Five Random Cubs Cards

I've got 10,979 Cubs cards from 72 different brands listed on a spreadsheet. A random number generator picked five cards, one each from the past several decades.

The RNG completely ignored Topps today...don't think that has happened very often.  

1950s / 1960s: 1969 Milton Bradley Ted Abernathy  This card is from Milton Bradley's baseball game.  I wrote about the complete set here.  I'm guessing that the picture on the card is from Abernathy's time with the Braves in 1966.  He was in his second go-around with the Cubs in 1969 and was the #2 man in the bullpen.  He pitched in 56 games and was 4-3 with 3 saves.

1970s: 1978 Hostess #5 Bruce Sutter  The RNG made a newsworthy pick with a card from the dearly departed Hostess company.  The Cubs closer is posing at Candlestick Park.  Sutter made the '78 Hostess set based on his break-out season in 1977.  For the '78 season he had 27 saves and picked up the win in the All Star game.

1980s: 1984 Nestles #787 Bill Campbell  I said that the RNG didn't pick any Topps cards today, but this one is pretty close.  It's from the Nestle set, which was put out by Topps and has the same Topps designed except the Nestle name replaced the Topps name in the upper right hand corner.  Soup didn't even play for the '84 Cubs...he was traded to the Phillies near the end of spring training in a multi-player swap.  Bob Dernier and Gary Matthews were a couple of the players that came to the Cubs--both played major roles on the division winners.

1990s: 1992 Conlon #344 Jimmy Lavender  I feel kinda funny about placing a card with an 1915 no hitter in the '90s, but since that's when the card came out, so that's where it gets placed.  Jimmy Lavender had  a short, six year career, and he finished 13 games under .500. But on August 31, 1915, he no-hit the Giants.  He struck out eight, walked only one, and the Giants managed to hit the ball out of the infield only twice.

2000s: 2005 Donruss Elite #157 Ernie Banks  This card is from my Banks player collection. It from the Turn of the Century parallel set.  You can see that on 250 of these were made.  Donruss gets plus points for using the older Cubs logo on the card.  

Oddball Barneys

I picked up a couple oddball Darwin Barney cards last week....

This card was from the 2007 Peoria Chiefs team set.  The card has a 2007 copyright on it and Barney's 2007 stats, so it must have been released after the season.  

The Cubs drafted Barney in the 4th round of the 2007 draft.  He started at Mesa in the rookie league before heading to Peoria to finish the season.  The picture has to be from Mesa, since the Chiefs don't wear uniforms that look anything like that.

I've got a Tristar card of Barney that shows him with Mesa, but it has a copyright of 2008.  I guess that makes this one his first card as a pro.  I wasn't aware the card existed until I stumbled upon it on Ebay a couple weeks ago. It doesn't show up on Beckett's master list.

Here's my other pickup and it too isn't on Beckett's list.  I learned about it from another Cub blog, Collecting the Cubs.

It's from Sega's Card-Gen set and is available only in Japan.  In fact, you can only get the cards by playing special Card-Gen arcade game.  You play the game and it spits out the card.  THere are 400 different cards in the set, including eleven Cubs.  For now, I just wanted to add the Barney card.

Topps made the cards for Sega, so it has a somewhat familiar look to it.  Well, at least the front does.  The back is not as familiar....

....unless you can read Japanese.

These two cards bring my Barney collection total to 79 cards.  

Billy Made Some Money Signing for Leaf

It looks like Billy Williams was a busy boy for Leaf, signing a bunch of stickers.

This is from Leaf's Best of Baseball set.

I know, Leaf doesn't have an MLB license and the C on his helmet had to disappear.  Buy hey, if I can pick up an authentic autograph card of my favorite player, a hall of famer, for ten bucks, then I can live with the doctored helmet.

This is my second Leaf autograph card of Billy from 2012

I nabbed this one after the National...

...and this one a month or so ago....2011 Leaf Moments of Greatness.

I wonder how many stickers Leaf had Billy sign?  And how much does he get paid per sticker?  I got each of these cards for no more than $10.  Does Billy just get a few bucks each?

Ok, I really tried, but I just couldn't stand it any longer!!

Ahhhh!  Much better....just don't tell MLB!

2003 Transactions

I stumbled upon these two as I was looking for Cubs relic cards.

 

They come from the Topps 2003 Traded and Rookies set.  Both of these players spent a short time with the Cubs, but had a big impact.

The Cubs signed the 35-year old Karros as first base insurance.  Rookie Hee Seop Choi was given the position and Karros was there just in case.  Well, Choi got hurt in June and was pretty lousy when he returned.  Karros ended up platooning at first with a mid-season acquisition Randal Simon.  After the season, Choi was sent to the Marlins for Derrek Lee and Karros was not re-signed.  Karros did show a lot of class by taking out a full page ad in the Tribune,

thanking the fans for a wonderful season.

Kenny Lofton was one of several players the Cubs pilfered from the Pirates during the 2003 season.  The Cubs were in desperate need of a center fielder when Corey Patterson went down with a season ending injury on July 6.  Lofton (and Aramis Ramirez) was acquired two weeks later.  The Cubs were 49-50 before the trade and 38-25 after Lofton's arrival.  His speed at the top of the lineup was one of the reasons for the success.

He too was let go after the season.  Corey Patterson was expected to fully recover and he was the Cubs golden boy.  Unfortunately, he had a decent 2004, but went south quickly after that.

1980 Baseball Immortals

Another recent oddball pickup...

From 1980 - 1988 TCMA released a set called "Baseball Immortals."  The set consisted of all of the players in the Hall of Fame.  It was first released in 1980 and then updated each year with any new HOF inductees.

There were eleven Cubs in the initial 1980 set.  You can see on the card the pennant that has the year the players was inducted into Cooperstown.  Billy Williams was added late in the sets run, after his election in 1987.

Though over 30 years old, the cards are pretty easy to come by.  I got all of them except for the Williams card through Sportlots, and most were only 18¢.  The Billy Williams card wasn't available through Sportlots or Beckett Marketplace.  One did show up on Ebay, but I had to pay nearly a buck for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tile Tuesday: 1992

To make today's tile I set the...

...wayback machine to twenty years ago, 1992.  We are smack dab in the middle of the junk wax era.  It was from this year that I've got the most Cubs cards.  There are 482 cards in today's tile, all of my 1992 Cubs cards.  And I'm sure that these are just the tip of the iceberg.  I only collect team sets and I like to have at least ten cards in a set.  I'm sure there are plenty of smaller sets that I've not bothered to chase.

As it is, the cards are arranged by the set name.  Included are Action Packed, Ernie Banks Player Collection, Bowman, Classic, Andre Dawson Player Collection, Donruss, Fleer, Fleer Ultra, Leaf, Pinnacle, Ryne Sandberg Player Collection, Score, Stadium Club, Star, Studio, Team Issued, Team Issued Old Style, Topps, Topps Kids, Triple Play, Upper Deck, and Billy Williams Player Collection.

 

 

 

Ryno Update Patch

After getting my 2012 Update Cubs in one big shipment, I was left with only one card to chase...

....the Blockbusters Hat Logo Patch card of Ryne Sandberg.  The card is the companion to the 

....regular Blockbusters card.  Again I have to point out that the headline in 1982 was not "Cubs Get Sandberg" but "Cubs Get Bowa."  The card is a bit of revisionist history.

Topps did a good thing with the Hat Patches this year...they really cut down on them.  They didn't show up until the Update set, being left out of Series 1 and Series 2.   I think they could skip them completely next year and most collectors wouldn't miss them.  I know I'm tired of them.