Break Loot from the Sky Box Part 3

Today I’m back with some more new to me cards from the charity break Chris over at View from the Sky Box ran a little while back.

In 2011, I was still finding my way back into the hobby but I wasn’t paying much attention to the unlicensed stuff. So when I saw Chris had included 2011 Playoff Contenders from Panini as one of his boxes, off the top of my head, I was pretty sure I didn’t have anything from that set. As it turns out, I was wrong but that’s ok.

2011 Playoff Contender Starlin Castro

The lone Cubs player in the 50 card set was Starlin Castro, a card that had indeed made its way into my collection somewhere along the way. I think I may have been buying high on anything/everything Starlin Castro back then. Whoops. And let me take the wind out of your sails by stealing your joke about lack of Cubs in the "Playoff Contender" set. Hardy har har. 

But the good news is that there was also a rookie/draft insert set that included a few Cubs prospects. I haven’t taken a look at the full checklist to know if I got a complete Cubs team set, but I did manage to get three up and comers.

In case you can read the foil-y names, from left to right we have Dan Vogelbach, Matt Szczur and Zeke DeVoss. 

And last but not least, my one big hit from the break came from this box as well.

I’m not real familiar with Dillon Maples other than recognizing him from the Bowman set in 2012. I did a little digging and found this nice write up from Bleed Cubbie Blue from back in January. Let’s hope he can get healthy and come back strong!

Thanks again for the break, Chris!

PWE from 2x3 Heroes

I don't know if it's practiced efficiency or some kind of Jedi mind trick but Jeff from 2x3 Heroes managed to sneak 6 cards into a PWE and past the postal scale with a single forever stamp. Mine always seem to get bumped up to the next ounce. Nice work!

First up, we have a pair of this year's Heritage Cubs cards. Starlin Castro finally gave us Cubs fans something to smile about in Wednesday's game against the Pirates. He seemed to have found his bat from 2011 and Darwin Barney's Gold Glove from 2012 all at the same time. Chris Rusin just missed out on making the Opening Day roster, but he'll be up with the club again before you know it.

Also from 2014, but from the flagship product, Jeff managed to find an Ernie Banks mini for me. Nice! As for Aramis Ramirez, he always seemed to have MVP Potential but never quite got there. He received MVP votes in four different season with the Cubs but only got as high as 10th. Until his first season in Milwaukee where he squeaked up to 9th.

Jeff also managed to find two cards for my new niche collection, cards with Wrigley's ivy in the background. Since they are both pitchers and less likely to have a bunch of games as Wrigley, I thought I'd do a little digging to see if I could find the games.

First up is a 1989 Fleer Dennis Martinez. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Martinez pitched in six games against the Cubs in 1988, three of them at Wrigley.

The first game was in Montreal so we can skip that one. The second one was a dominant 9-1 complete game at Wrigley. But if you look at the game date in the chart above, you'll see the date was April 19th. Now look back at the card and any Cubs fan can tell you that the ivy isn't that green and lush that early in the season.

Two months later, the Expos returned to Wrigley and Martinez got drubbed for 7 runs in only 3.1 innings. His next game against the Cubs is a head scratcher. If you just look at the line above. He pitched 7.2 innings, only gave up two runs, the Expos won 8-4, but Martinez didn't get the win. That must have been some late inning rally for the Expos. But it was in Montreal so it doesn't pertain to the card.

His last game at Wrigley in 1988 came in late September. The Expos fell to the Cubs 5-4 but Martinez escaped without taking the loss. Narrowing the card down to two games (June 19 and September 20), I'm going to guess this photo came from the June game. I don't know what the production process on cards was like back then, but September seems too late in the season to be included. And of course, this is assuming the photo used even came from 1988.

And finally, we have a 1991 Upper Deck Juan Agosto. Look at that perfectly lined up pant striping and stirrup. And that pouty duck face.

Agosto made four appearances against the Cubs in 1990, split evenly between Wrigley and the Astrodome. Unfortunately for Agosto and the 'Stros, the Cubs came away winners every time. Unlike the Martinez card, the full ivy doesn't really help me narrow down the game so it's a tossup between the May 27 and Aug 14 games at Wrigley.

Either way, I'm pretty sure the Cubs were 2-0 on these cards. Bonus!

Thanks for the cards, Jeff!

Break Loot from the Sky Box Part 1

A few weeks back I ran a contest to promote my new blog. The winner, Chris from View from the Sky Box was new to me so after checking out his blog, I saw he was running a multiple branded group break. I love the idea behind group breaks but as a team collector with a pretty sizable collection, unless the product is brand new or potentially loaded with Cubs hits, its hard for me to pull the trigger.

With that said, the selection Chris was offering was pretty amazing. It's like he saw the holes in my collection and specifically picked boxes that would fill them. Apparently he was having a hard time filling the break but like I said, his blog was new to me and I joined when I saw it.

I'm going to start with the newest and work my way backwards, spreading this out over a couple of posts.

Of the three team bags full of Cubs cards, the three Archives from 2013 were part of maybe a ten card group that I already had in my collection. But with a three card team set, that's hard to avoid. Remakes of card sets I grew up with, these will stay in my extras collection that I keep for potential autograph opportunities. The 2013 Cubs roster didn't have many potentially long term players on it so I can understand how card companies would have trouble deciding who to include beyond the big three. 

Speaking of which, Panini selected the same three for their 2013 Triple Play release. These three cards were all new to me. Call me cheap but I didn't buy any packs and didn't want to pay $3.00 shipping for a three card team set that would cost me a buck. I figured somewhere along the way I'd end up picking these up in a trade or from a dime box but now I can cross them off my list.

More to come in future posts. Thanks, Chris, for the break!

Close but No Cigar (2014 Donruss)

The title is not a reflection on the product itself, but rather, my attempt to ID the original source photos like I did for Cubs cards last season and am doing for the entire 2014 Topps set on my other blog. I guess I should have said "spoiler alert" or something to that effect.

First up, we have Anthony Rizzo.

One of the stars of the team, Rizzo has over 1200 photos in Getty Images from 2013. Because he's wearing the home ponstripes, I can throw “Wrigley” into the search and we cut that number in half. But after sifting through those, no such luck.

I decided to try another trusty photo site, AP Images. They had just under 500 images of Rizzo from 2013 and an even more manageable 132 when I added “Wrigley” to the search.

Below are two photos from that group that have the same background fans as those on the card. So I’m pretty sure I nailed the game, and maybe even the same at bat. Because we all know over the course of a game, fans get up and move around.

We've got the fan in the floppy hat behind Rizzo that is obscured by the AP watermarks on the photos. The guy directly above him with the sunglasses. And the female fan in the red shirt right at Rizzo's eyeline among others.

As the title says, close, but no cigar. My guess is that the photo on the card was the third in a sequence of quick shots. Now that I had the game date, I went back to Getty and redid my search. However, all of the Rizzo photos from that day were taken from the third base side.

With less commentary on the process, I experienced similar results with Travis Wood.

Here’s a pretty close one. But unless they added some bushiness to Wood's beard while Photoshopping out the logos, this is not a match.

Here's the right amount of beard, but not the right pose.

While it’s a little hard to tell because the background is much blurrier than the Rizzo, I think this is probably a game day match based on this fan:

Hardly conclusive, but I think I'm right.

And finally we have Starlin Castro.

As best I can tell, this one is a match. Success!

Had I found the original source photos for all of them, they would have gotten their own posts. But now, this post has gotten long enough so I won't be breaking any of them down. Maybe I'll do the Castro another day since I did find a match.

Until I got to the Castro, I was starting to wonder if maybe Donruss paid for exclusivity and the original source photos were pulled from the site. Now I don't know what to think. I also wonder if Topps has the same "rights" to Getty images as they do MLB logos or if Donruss wanted to reduce the likelihood of using the same photo and went with another photo agency.

All of these AP photos (and I'm assuming the photos for the cards I did not find) were taken by the same guy, David Durochik, a Chicago based photographer. I’m sure like any other job it has its tough times, but aside from playing for the Cubs, being a game day photographer ranks right up there for me as a dream job. And to have some of your work end up on a baseball card? Awesome.

Fiddlin' Around

I've been fiddlin' around on Photoshop again trying to find a little inspiration. While I generally try to stay away from blatantly copying other designs, I really liked the Gold Futures inserts from 2012 Topps so I used it as my starting point. The Strasburg below is the base insert but they also came as jersey cards where a swatch would replace the team logo.

As most of you know, I collect Cubs cards and will try to get them signed when I can. So I tweaked the design a bit to make an autograph-able version. But sometimes I give myself too many options and can't make a decision, which is where I hope you come in.

Below are twelve different versions of the same basic card. Three border choices, with four different backgrounds within each. I've added a facsimile signature to show how a blue sharpie might clash or coordinate with each combo. At the end, there is a tiled grid that will give them to you all together instead of having to scroll back and forth.

First up we have the black border, most similar to the original. But the swatch area has been replaced with a signature area and the position and jersey number have moved down to join the name. The left card has a black and white background behind Starlin Castro. The right side maintains the original color background.

Below, the left side tints the background blue, while the right side tints it red (both Cub colors). 

Next up, I tried to differentiate it a little more from the Gold Futures cards by changing the outside border to Cub blue and you'll see a little marbling to give it some texture. The backgrounds are the same as above, black & white, original color, blue tinting and red tinting.

Thinking it might be a little too blue, I also tried a Cub red outside border with the same four backgrounds. I tried changing the gold border to red with the blue borders and blue with the red borders, but I still liked the gold better.

And the tile. If I did this right, you can click on it and it will blow it up to your full screen.

The easiest to do would be the original color background (first column of the grid). The other three backgrounds all require the same amount of effort, more but not horrible. I don't want to taint anybody's opinion so I'll wait to get a little feedback before I let you in on which one(s) I favor.

Because it is so similar to an existing design, this more than likely won't be my 2014 Cubs team set, but I'll probably still use it for random stuff. Thanks for looking!

PWE from 2 by 3 Heroes

I'm going to start having JediJeff from 2 by 3 Heroes pick out my boxes and packs for me because he has a knack for pulling cards from the right side of Chicago that he ends up sending me anyway. This is the look I imagine on his face when he pulls yet another Cubbie:

1981 Fleer Jerry Martin

This card is in great shape and a definite upgrade to the one I previously had.

1994 Topps Stadium Club Steve Trachsel

If there was a "dapper" category for baseball cards, this Steve Trachsel might be among the finalists.

2013 Topps Chrome Starlin Castro

My first and only 2013 Topps Chrome card. Eventually I'll pick up the rest but for now I'm happy with this one.

And the card I alluded to at the beginning:



 A nice on card autograph from former Cubs player and current radio announcer, Keith Moreland. Despite the lack of logos, I like the idea/theme/look of the card. And I had to say that because even though it says Chicago in the upper left corner, I'm about 99% sure that photo is from his time with the Tigers. That dark blue color doesn't match up to any of his other teams (Phillies, Orioles, Padres) and even if the color was darkened by Panini, the Cubs didn't have grey jerseys during Moreland's time with the team. Home jerseys were striped and road jerseys were blue.

I don't know where Panini gets their images from but I did a quick search on Getty since Topps uses them. Oddly enough, they had photos of Moreland in a Phillies uniform and a Tigers uniform, but not a Cubs uniform, his longest tenured team. Here's a photo of Moreland in a Tigers uniform and why I think its a match:

Moreland in 1989

AP Images had a few black and white images of Moreland as a Cub and a couple of non-usable color ones (he's in the background or back turned.). And US Presswire (USA Today Images) had nothing on Moreland.

You want more Moreland you say? Come back tomorrow!

Thanks Jeff!