Expansion?

 Expansion in the sports world has always caught my attention. When I was first introduced to baseball there were twenty-six teams in MLB. The Rockies and Marlins were added 1993 and the whole process was just so fascinating to me. I read everything I could about the player draft, mascot selection, uniforms, team colors, and anything else that I could find in print. None of the luster wore off when the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays were added five years later. 

There have been rumblings about expansion the last couple of years in MLB. I for one would love to see four divisions of four teams each in the AL & NL. Add in a two wild card teams in each league and give the top two teams first round byes and I'd be elated. I Nashville and Las Vegas would make good additions. No?

I'm thinking about expanding also. Recently I was sent a pair of PWEs from Jeff, the author of Wax Pack Wonders, which got my wheels turning. 

Above are a bunch of Cubs cards numbered 672 or higher. Jeff thought he would give me a head start on expanding my Cubs FrankenSet past 671.

You might be wondering why I stopped at 671. Well, there's two main reasons:

1. I originally was going to stop at 650, but I used some page markers for ever 50 cards in the binder. Doing so pushed me to 653 to fill a full page. Argh. I had a bunch of cards pulled that were numbered higher than 653 so I decided to add another 18 cards, which landed me at 671. For what it's worth, I am not a fan of empty pockets. 
2. The higher the numbers the more I thought my set would be dominated by Topps. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was going for variety in players and card designs. 

Jeff sent 14 cards from Topps and the other card manufacturers were only represented by the four cards below. 

Here's a snapshot of what the backend of the FrankenSet checklist currently looks like: 

As you can see, Topps is king when it homes to the "high" numbers.

I'm not sure if I'm going to run with Jeff's expansion idea, but I'm not going to immediately sort these cards into my collection either. I'm going to think on it. It could be fun to chase down another 100+ cards until I get 792, which would be another hat-tip to Topps. We'll see!

Thanks for cards, Jeff! 

What do you think? Should I expand my Cubs FrankenSet? 

What about MLB expansion? Maybe MLB should focus on settling the new CBA this off season and work on "fixing" baseball before diluting the talent pool?

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!

A Purposeful PWE

A couple of months ago I put together an order through sportlots.com to knock out the remaining cards from the 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends set. If I recall correctly I was missing about a dozen cards and after the order I was still missing one, because the seller mistakenly pulled the wrong Chipper Jones card for me. Bummer.

This card has been sitting in a want list all by its lonesome since that time until yesterday. Mark, from My Best Friend collects Chipper Jones, sent me a power packed PWE. I'm not sure if this is a duplicate from Mark's best friend, as his blog name would suggest, or maybe it's from Mark's collection. Regardless, it completes the set for me and I'm feeling a great sense of accomplishment this morning because of it, even if it wasn't of my own doing.

The second card in the PWE was a 1959 Topps card, which are pretty scarce in my collection.

According to the back of the card, Elmer Singleton sported a 0.00 ERA in 1958. I will add that if he hadn't been injured he would have lead the NL in ERA. (Sorry, Joe Buck's man crush of Clayton Kershaw during the NLDS is still firmly rooted in my mind.)

The importance of this card is in its number, #548, which fills a hole in my Cubs FrankenSet. Only four vacancies remain and once those are filled I'll only be looking to update the cards in the folder. The MIA cards are #627, #651, #653 and #661.

Thanks for the PWE, Mark!  I've prepared a few cards for you and they'll go out tomorrow!

Go Cubs, Go!

Click to Pick: NL Wild Card Game

There's not much more than can be said about tonight's NL Wild Card game than what these fine gentlemen have thrown out there.
Some of us are nervous: Wrigley Roster Jenga.
Some of us are putting a winning streak to the test: Once a Cub.
Some of us are poking fun: Pack War.
Some of us are predicting game situations and strategy: Bob Walk the Plank.
Some of us are hoping for magic: Battlin' Bucs.

I, for one, am pretty calm and ready to for the first pitch.  It helps to know that if the Cubs don't make some noise this year, that next year is looking pretty good, too. The Cubs are about a year ahead of schedule in terms of the team's overall development and should be just entering a window of 5 to 10 years of competitive baseball.  Simply put, some of us are just happy for meaningful October baseball.

I'll be out at a friend's house watching the game, but before I go here's my pick to click:

I figure, why not?  He's been hitting the ball hard as of late and often times your post season hero is named Jim Leyritz or Aaron Boone.

Enjoy the game!

I found a taker for my Phillies!

Card's from Brad's Blog

Thank you, Brad, from Brad's Blog. 

My sister handed me five 800-count boxes earlier this summer to use as trade bait throughout the blogosphere, and as a result my trade box went from filling half of one 3,000-count box to nearly spilling out of two of said boxes.  I long for the day when I can fit all my trade-able cardboard back into one box.

So, yeah.  I dumped traded nearly 170 Philadelphia Phillies cards on to Brad, and I hope he finds something phastinating or phun within the package.  (See what I did there?  Hehe.)

Brad's end of the deal was pretty Cub-centric, but everyone knows that I'm fine by that.  Here we go!

He hit on a number of my player collections including Sandberg and Fukudome, but the one that really stood out was this 1996 Pinnacle Brooks Kieschnick.  My 37th unique Kieschnick card!

Rookie cards!  Albert Almora improved during the second half of the season at Double-A and Jorge Soler posted a 0.0 fWAR this year.  Nothing to write home about, but I still think he's going to be a solid middle of the order bat. All in due time!

 Derek Wallace is NOT part of the Cubs future, but I couldn't resist flashing this picture of the former #1 pick from 1992.

Here we have a couple Cubs aces.  Sutcliffe has such a great beard and he is known for pitching lights out baseball down the stretch for the 1984 Cubs, while on his way to winning the Cy Young award.  Spin the clock forward thirty-one seasons and there's another bearded man carrying the staff.

I already have these Ryno's in my collection, but I'm going to try to squeeze them into my Cubs FrankenSet. If nothing else, that's a fantastic double-dip card I can send north on I-55 to 2x3 Heroes.

ARam was given a scoreboard number (16) as a retirement gift this past Sunday when the Pirates were closing out their regular season series against the Cubs.  Here, I have him staring at Big Z and his ferocious swing.  Good stuff. 

Up next we have some cards of my favorite all-time Cubs. I like the multi-exposure shot of The Hawk, but not nearly as much as I love the shininess of the Mark Grace card.   It's beautiful!

I'm glad to have Stadium Club cards still trickling in to my collection.  I had to choose one set to collect each year for the rest of my life it would be Stadium.  No. Brainer. 

 Rizzo!  I've gushed about Anthony a number of times before, so let's just show some cards and then a picture from the Cubs/Royals game the other night.

 From left to right: Rizzo, Walk-off hero Chris Denorfia, and Dexter Fowler.

Green.  All the glorious green!

 This edition of Topps Finest is so LOUD!  In a way it kind of reminds of '91 Fleer.  Yep, I went there.

Red!

Sadly, only one of these Cubs from 2013 is still with the team.

Big Lee Smith on mid-80s Fleer and a few cards from the 1980 Topps set (including floating heads).

 Another Stadium Club card, but this time one of Sliding Sammy Sosa.

 
Here's the card which prompted me to contact Brad about a trade.  

This is my first sepia parallel and it's of local boy Ben Zobrist.  It's pretty sweet looking, but there's something that just feels wrong about having a shiny sepia colored card.  Shouldn't that be an oxymoron or something? 

 My favorite card from the trade is this Beckett and/or Dave & Adam's serial numbered Kris Bryant card, which I didn't know existed.   Fantastic!

I'm guessing Brad was given one of these with his recent order of cards or perhaps it was a promotion to go along with a Beckett subscription?  Either way I feel pretty lucky to add this one to my collection. 

No, Brad.  Thank YOU for the trade!

16 Cards in one PWE?

Yes, 16 cards for one forever stamp.  I don't know about you, but doesn't that seem a little much?  How does the post office let Dime Box Nick get away with such things?

I'm not sure, but I'm not complaining!   This one has been sitting on my desk for over a week now as I've been waiting for a good moment to rip it open.  Nick, such a thoughtful blogger, always hits on my collection needs.  I knew it would contain some high quality Cubs mojo.

Let's dive in with soft cornered vintage.  Is there any better kind of vintage?  No.  No, there is not.

Rizzo!  He's turned himself into the face of the franchise and I couldn't be happier.  Yes, I know Arrieta is having a bullish year and Kris Bryant is the poster child of the youth movement, but Rizzo is one of the biggest offensive producers in the league AND he's one of the main leaders on the team. 

Plus, Anthony plays with snow leopards.  How cool is that?

Swiped from the Twittah

  I think this is a 1960 Fleer and it's a dupe in my collection.  BUT, that's cool, because my other one is my all-time best Cubs card box.  This one will wind up in the FrankenSet!  Woot-woot!

 I'm not sure where to place this Ron Santo card.  I have him in two different Cubs folders: vintage cards and modern day cards.  Yes, Ron Santo is well represented in both binders.
I wouldn't call it a true vintage Santo card, because it was made after he retired Yet, it was made in the late 70s, which is petty dated.  #firstworldproblems  For what it's worth, it's a gorgeous card, but also somewhat perplexing. Why?   Look at the number on the bat nob.  23?  Odd.  Maybe someone like Wrigley Wax has an answer for that one?

 Here's the beginning of a nice little run of Kerry Wood cards.  This was the only Wood duplicate in the PWE and another strong contestant for my Cubs FrankenSet.  A thick Bowman Heritage card from 2005.

And the rest!  Ten new additions in all!

The Kerry Wood Collection now sits at 419.  Awesome!

  This Topps 206 was pobably my favorite, because I like "painted" cards.  The game card from MLB Showdown is a super oddball though!  Nick, I hope you didn't break up a set just for me.  These are hard to come by!

 I think this is a Topps Finest card, at least that's what it mentions in the etched text behind Wood on the front of the card.  The back lists some of the best pitchers from 1998 and Kerry is #2 on the list.

 Other pitching notables include Maddux, Clemens, Glavine, and Pedro.  Nice.

The last Wood card is this wonderful Statistical Standout relic from Leaf.  I like the horizontal stripe on the jersey swatch.  We don't seem them like that very often.

Neither the front nor the back mentions which statistic stands out for Wood.  I'll just go out on a limb and assume it was for strikeouts.  After all, the flamethrower from Texas was the fastest pitcher to reach 1,000 strikeouts in a career.

Lastly, the note.  I love when bloggers use blue painter's tape AND write a quick note.  Nick did both.

 The Biebering?  Wow, did I do that?  Hehehehehe!

Nick, thanks for a great PWE.  I'll keep saving cards for you while take your time deciding on a Bieber victim!  Go Cubs!