Wroad to Wrigley Wednesday - 2015 Iowa Cubs Part 1

In this new series, I’m going to be showing off some of my minor league team set pickups. I was going to present the team set with minimal comments but thought it would be fun to talk about whether any of these players from the set had “made it” yet.

There was a checklist card but to build a little suspense, I'll save the back for the last post in this series. The coaching staff makes up the first couple of cards and I think I’ve got a full post just on these guys. So I’ll spread this out a bit.

Manager Marty Pevey played 13 career games for the Montreal Expos in 1990. One of those games was against the Cubs, but alas, not at Wrigley.

Pitching Coach Mike Cather pitched part of three seasons with the Atlanta Braves from 1997-99. He made 6 career appearances against the Cubs, the first of which was his only appearance at Wrigley Field. The result? Cather’s first Major League loss. After getting the final out of the 7^th inning, check out the sequence of events.

Groundball to second, out, Groundball to second, out. Single to the left side. Error to the left side. Error to the left side. Ground ball to second, out. Get it together, left side! Tough way to take a loss!

Hitting Coach Brian Harper played from 1979-1995. His Wrigley debut came on September 20, 1982 as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m a little confused by the boxscore on Baseball-reference…

Does that mean he was announced as a pinch hitter, the Cubs brought in a new pitcher and then the Pirates pulled Harper back for Dave Parker? Anyone?

Anyway, the next night, Harper struck out in a pinch hit appearance at Wrigley for an actual debut.

Assistant Hitting Coach Leo Perez is the first coach to have actually been a Cub at some point in his playing days. Well, a minor league Cub, making it as high as Advanced Single A Daytona. It looks like he may have been a catcher, but also tried his hand at pitching in a couple of game in the Arizona Fall League.

Finishing up the field staff is a dual card of Athletic Trainer Scott Baringer and Strength & Conditioning Coach Ryan Clausen. While its probably cool for these guys to have a baseball card, I’m not sure I see the point? Both had also previously worked together with the Cubs Double A organization, the Tennessee Smokies. Which means if the Smokies did the same thing, I might have multiple cards of these guys. I can't remember from when I scanned them.

The last card in the set is #36, Cubbie Bear, the mascot of the Iowa Cubs.

With 36 cards in the set, and 6 out of the way, that leaves 30 players that I’ll feature over the course of 2-3 more posts.