Do Simple Better

Sometimes trade packages are overwhelming and become a chore sort, collate, and blog about.

 One of my favorite Maddon-isms from this past year is "Do Simple Better."

 AJ, of "The Lost Collector" blog, did just that.

A surprise PWE always puts a smile on my face, no matter how the day has shaken out to that point.

This guy makes me smile, too. What a fun personality and he's a pretty good pitcher to boot! Hat's to the left, Pedro. Hat's to the left.

I have the base of this Arrieta card and now the gold to go with it. Actually, I may be mistaken but I think this is my first gold parallel from 2016 Topps.


Come to think of it, I don't have much of anything from this year and that's partly my fault. I didn't purchase hardly and packs this year and when I hit a new shop or a card show I'm always shopping for someone else. Plus, I'm not a fan of the design. C'est la vie.

Both of these cards fill holes in my 2016 Cubs teams set. I'm really excited about the Cahill because the guy doesn't have much cardboard, let alone anything of him in a Cubs uniform.

 This card isn't from 2016, but I still needed for my Rizzo collection. Heck, I didn't even know this was an insert set!

Thanks for doing simple better, AJ!  My collection appreciates it!

Cards from Canada & a Set Idea

 Trevor, a blog reader from Canada, sent me a box of cards recently that has taken me some time to make way through. I haven't received so many Cubs cards in one package since the days of those insane JBF bombings! (BWTP knows what I'm talking about.)

I shipped Trevor some baseball cards across the border I was looking to unload AND my entire hockey collection, which consisted of maybe forty cards or so. The box you see above is the exact same box I sent to Trevor and now it's back in P-town, but with many more miles on it. Actually, this box hails from my first trip through the hobby back during the junk wax era. I just can't see to part with it. 😏

Along with the package was a really nice note. Thanks, Trevor!  I always appreciate a good note.

300+ Cubs cards in the box and it was mostly from the junk wax era, as the note mentioned. There were a couple cards from the late 70s and early 80s, and two were from the twenty-first century, but the overwhelming majority were from 1988 to 1993.

Hey, that's right in my collecting wheelhouse!  I found some keepers for my player collections:

My sister has a pretty nice collection of Andre Dawson, but mine is slowly growing closer to the century mark.

Shawon Dunston has always been one of my favorites.

I'm not sure why I like Doug Dascenzo so much. He was never much more than a 4th outfielder with the Cubs, but he did seem to squeeze as much talent out of his under-sized frame as possible.

Ken Holtzman doesn't get much love from the card companies these days and his career was over before entered kindergarten. Yet, I read about him in one of my favorite Cubs books and he's stuck in my head as someone to collect ever since.

Wild Thing!  I'm up to twelve cards in my newly formed Mitch Williams player collection. My mom would be so proud! (She loved the Wild Thing.)

This is my first non-vintage Randy Hundley card in my collection. He's another better than average major leaguer who's long been forgotten by cardboard producers.

Someday Topps, Panini or another company will produce a LARGE set in the likeness of Fan Favorites or Hometown Heroes and I'll be all over it. If I were in control I'd set up internet polls for each team's fan base to vote on twenty players who should be included in the 600 card set, with part of the criteria being that all players who made five or more All-Star games would be ineligible. I think that would eliminate most of the all-time greats, and let's be honest, they see enough cardboard. 

Last cards for the post . . . some Cubs FrankenSet finds!

 The 1991 Topps Archives of Phil Cavarretta from the 1953 set is a first for my collection. I think Trevor included an entire Cubs team set, which was pretty cool indeed. I'm a fan of Turk the Quirk, so the Gold Rush parallel was a shoe in. Also, how cool is it that I now have an O-Pee-Chee card (bottom right) from Canada in my set? Very nice.

Thanks for a great return package, Trevor!  Stay warm this winter in the great white north!

Conlon and Cubs Play-off Shares

Tom R., a friendly reader of the blog, sent me a nice little stash of Conlon cards for my set build.

Of the eighteen cards in the package this one spoke to me the most. I love the stories from the Conlon series.  Let's see what this one has to say:

Here's a link to Mark Koenig's Baseball Reference page if you're curious. I'm not coming to the defense of the Cubs here, but Koenig played in only 33 regular season games of the 154 that season and two of the four in the post season.  That's half a share for playing in 22% of the team's games. It doesn't sound like too bad of deal. No?  On the other hand, it does sound like the Yankees had a point.

Speaking of playoff shares . . . The 2016 Cubs split a pot of $27.6 million 66 ways. A little quick math and we're talking about over $368,000 per individual. Wow. That sounds like a nice little bonus for some of lesser paid coaches and players!

Thanks for the set help, Tom!

Miiiinnnnnnnnnnnniiiiis!

You either love them or you hate them. I don't think there's much in between when it comes to minis and this hobby of ours. Myself? I'm not a big fan and that's mostly because I don't know how to store the dang things.

Although, I do have a couple of vintage minis that are over a century old and they are absolutely the bee's knees.

I stopped by my LCS, after work today, on my way to visit my grandfather. They don't have the World Series bobbleheads yet, but the owner said, "I think I have something you might be interested in."

Yeah!  These are pretty cool!  Twenty-one minis of the 2016 World Series Chicago Cubs. Very nice!

 All of the backs are identical, which is fine by me. But, I did find it curious that I can't find a copyright date or a production company. Odd. No matter, because I've already placed them in a couple of mini pages and they're already being enveloped by the warmth of a Cubs binder. 

But hey, that's not all!  Meet Joe Tinker . . .

Johnny Evers . . .

 and Frank Chance . . . three times over!

I also bought the thirty-six card set of the 1908 World Series Champion Chicago Cubs. I think there were only sixteen different players in the lot, but many of them had different card variations, like the Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance cards above.

There were some repeats backs, but ten different ones in all.

 Even the backs had some variations to them in terms of coloring and fabricated wear.

 Look at all the different shades of Piedmont backs. That's pretty neat. 

These were sold as reprints at reprint prices, which I happily paid. For the record, these would never pass as actually T206s. There's no paper loss, fuzzy corners, stains, creases or holes. All the corners are sharp and the card stock is noticeably thicker than an actual T206.

How do I know?  Well I compared the two!

Vintage on the right!

Here's the Jimmy Sheckard T206 Zippy Zappy gifted me nearly two years ago compared to the reprint. (BTW, ZZ, you rule.)

 Here's the two backs of the cards:

The real deal is much cooler, but the reprint set is a welcome addition to my collection and much cheaper!

I know many of you are tired of hearing about the Cubs, but I had to share this find!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.

Hey, I Was At That Game!

It seems like there's always someone who will chime in with, "Hey, I was at that game!" I live in the midwest, but I know three people who claim to have been at Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. I suppose that's not a completely unbelievable number, but I do live about 2,000 miles from Chavez Ravine and most everyone in my neck of the woods have ties to the White Sox, Cardinals or Cubs.

Here's the moment in that game. Give the video a play, if for nothing more than to here Vin Scully make one of his greatest calls of all-time:

"High fly ball into right field, she is gone!
"In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.
“And now the only question was, could he make it around the base paths unassisted.”

Well, today the FedEx truck stopped by the house and made a delivery. I've been waiting on two Topps Now autos for about a month now and one arrived today. Unfortunately, it's not the one I really want. Bummer.   

This one is only going to stay with me for only a brief time:

I was given the opportunity to go to Game #6 of the NLCS and I'm passing this piece of cardboard goodness on as a thank you present to the original owner of the ticket.

Jeff, one of the best men in my wedding over a decade ago, lives in Texas and is a Chicago Cubs season ticket holder. (I know, right!?) If I remember right he attended the first two games of the NLCS at Wrigley, but he asked me and another buddy (Vince) if we would want to go Game #6.

I'm still not sure how I got so lucky, because Jeff knows lots of people in Illinois who would have jumped at the opportunity. Heck, he could have even sold the pair of tickets on-line for a small fortune.

I've been holding back on paying him for the ticket, to the best game I've ever attended, until I had this card to accompany the check. Hopefully this card serves as memento for the day the Cubs won the NL pennant and he made me and Vince two of the happiest Cub fans on the planet.  Thanks again Jeff!

In other news...

From top to bottom: Gus, Hugo and Holiday

Our cats love radiant floor heating. It's always easy to find the four-legged felines this time of year.  When in doubt, look in the master bath!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend!