Dwight Smith Part 2

Earlier this year I sent my Dwight Smith ATCRCS card to a Sportscollectors.net member who was going to see Dwight Smith during Spring Training. I had also sent the 1991 Topps Desert Shield card but he only had the opportunity to get one signed and I made it clear the ATCRCS was a priority.

Then, a couple of weeks ago another member posted that Smith would be making a free appearance at one of the Atlanta Braves Alumni Sundays. I offered a small amount for the helper's time and effort and I recently received the following back:

There are 32 Cubs cards in the 1991 Topps Desert Shield set. Man, those were the days for team set collectors. Variety meant different players not a dozen parallels. I have 18 of the cards and this marks the 6th one I've had signed. I'm a bit behind on my beginning of the year goal to have the set owned by the end of the year but am now ahead of my goal of getting 5 signed. Win some, lose some.

And it feels like it has been a while since I added a new ice cream helmet to the collection. Many of you probably don't think of Dwight Smith when thinking of top Cubs, but as the 1989 NL ROY runner-up and of course, a member of my favorite team growing up, the Boys of Zimmer, I couldn't help but add him. I did a post very early on in the blog showing a bunch of my helmets but I might have to pull them all together into a tab at the top.

The only downside is that while he signed #18 on the Desert Shield card (his # with the Cubs), he signed #7 on the helmet (his # with the Braves). Again, win some, lose some. Guess that's what I get for sending Cubs items to a Braves Alumni signing...

My Newest Project - The Boys of Zimmer

I've made mention more than once that my favorite team growing up was the so-called Boys of Zimmer, the 1989 Cubs. There was a documentary made shortly after the season that I had heard of but never seen until recently and it brought back a lot of memories. Somebody broke it down into separate parts on Youtube although the first couple have been removed for copyright violation. True they didn't even make it out of the first round of the playoffs that year but that's ok.

Inspired by a different poster I saw, I decided I wanted to make my own "movie poster" commemorating this team. I have some mediocre photoshop skills but that's not the problem I ran into. I was having trouble with the overall layout of the poster. With the cards I make, I usually just have a border, logo, name and photo to worry about. The poster had all this x10. Multiple players, the stadium, the marquee, the credits, etc.

So I sought out some help from somebody whose great work I had seen over on the SCN message board. She put in a lot of work turning my vision into reality and along with a couple of other Cubs fans helped make numerous tweaks along the way.

I will have this printed as a 16x20 and try to get as many players from the team to sign it as possible. Some of the bigger names are pictured but everybody from the roster is listed down in the "credits" section including GM Jim Frey, and "Narrators" Harry Caray and Steve Stone. I hope to get the pictured players to sign near there photo and there should be plenty of room in the dirt home plate area and sky for everybody else.

With the 25th Anniversary of this team coming up, I hope there is some kind of appearance that I can knock out a whole bunch of signatures at once rather than continuously shipping it all around the country.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!