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!

Some 2014 and Some "2014"

Before I show off some new card pickups, I'd like to point out that with the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning today, the Cubs will have officially used all 25 men on their roster. Two games and a pitch is all it will take this season. Will this be the third year in a row with a team record for players used? Granted, each of the first two games went in to extra innings, but that's still a little ridiculous.

In yesterday's game they used 23 players, including four more Cubs debuts. The only two left out were Opening Day starter, Jeff Samardzija and today's starter, Jason Hammel. That makes eight new potential ATCRCS cards if/when I get back to making those.

The good news? Cubs pitchers have only given up five runs (four earned) in 25+ innings. The bad news? Cubs batters have only scored three runs in 26 innings. This will make for a heck of a card in my new custom set.

OK, on to the cards.

Sometimes I do a eBay search, follow some links and suddenly an hour has gone by. I have no idea how I came across these but they all came from the same seller with no additional shipping beyond the first win. Gets me every time.

The first lot was for five of the 2014 Heritage Box Topper/Loader Advertising Panels. And that's kind of how it was listed, no names of any of the players featured. I think it caught my attention because the main picture had a Cub.

Peter Bourjos, Andrew Lambo, Stolmy Pimentel, Chris Rusin

Edwin Encarnacion, Buddy Boshers, Matt Shoemaker, Juan Uribe

Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Yasmani Grandal, Logan Morrison

Jered Weaver, Taijuan Walker, James Paxton, Marco Estrada

There were two copies of the last one in the lot. I placed the minimum bid and ended up being the only one. Does anybody know how many different ones of these there are? I didn't see any other Cubs featured but if somebody knows of any, please let me know. All of them had the same back:

These last two cards fall into the "2014" category. With quotes. Or maybe that should be an asterisk. These are 1965 Topps buy backs, foiled stamped with a 50th Anniversary logo.

Frank Baumann and Dick Ellsworth

I was really happy when I won them for the minimum opening bid of $.99 each but when I got them I was a little disappointed. Not with the seller, but with myself. It was kind of that same feeling I got when I picked up a couple of those blank back 1/1 cards Topps sells directly through eBay. Why did I buy these?

The cards are in pretty good shape corner and edge wise. The centering and crookedness are a little off (that's not my crop job) but without the 50th Anniversary stamping they probably would have sold for more at a card show.

I'm still pretty happy with the pickup overall though. For about $5 total, I got a pair of cards that were teenagers before I was born, a pretty neat panel with a Cubs player and a few extras for trade bait. Plus, the auction ended on Sunday and I had these in hand, from California to Virginia, after Wednesday's mail delivery. Not bad!

Here are the backsides for the buy backs. No additional stamping.

A Quartet of Pitchers

I'm trying to keep up with the amount of players the Cubs are using this season. These four pitchers have been around a couple of weeks now so it was about time I got to showing them off. 

This Blake Parker photo is from a game back in June against the Seattle Mariners. The Cubs won 5-3 in extra innings with Parker pitching the bottom of the 11th to get his first (and so far only) Save for the season. The throwback uniform makes it a little cooler, if I do say so myself.

Henry Rodriguez wore #63 with both of his previous teams, the A's and Nationals. But coming to Chicago he had to settle for#62, as closer Kevin Gregg wears#63. The photo comes from the June 23rd, 14-6 whooping of the Houston Astros. Rodriguez is currently on the disabled list with the Iowa Cubs after being DFAd in mid-July.

Chris Rusin started and got the win in the Cubs first shutout in St. Louis since 1997 this past Friday night. There was also something about him being the first lefty to throw 6+ shutout innings in St. Louis for the Cubs since sometime in the late 70's. As in, probably just the second in my lifetime. Crazy. I can't remember the year but the last one to do it was Ken Holtzman.

And although he didn't end up with the win, he also blanked the Giants over 7 innings in a 1-0 victory. Not too shabby when you do that to the defending World Series champs (Giants) and your #1 rival (Cardinals). That said, this photo is from his season debut in which the Cubs lost 8-7 to the A's. To be fair though, Rusin only gave up 3 of the runs and thus, did not get the loss.

Pedro Strop came over to the Cubs with Jake Arrieta in the deal that sent Steve Clevenger and Scott Feldman to the Orioles. This photo is from his Cubs debut, a scoreless 8th inning on July 4th in a 1-0 loss to the A's. Note the special hat.

Strop has made 18 appearances so far for the Cubs, 17 of them scoreless. Unfortunately for him, his ERA rose significantly because of a 5-run third of an inning against the Brewers. 

These are cards 37-40 in the 2013 team set. Still have 9 more to go!

Chris Rusin & Brett Jackson

Way back in September, I had the opportunity to go to a Cubs game when they came to play the Washington Nationals. My 2012 custom team set was still fairly new and I had a great time getting some signed. One that didn't come out that great was from rookie pitcher Chris Rusin. Not his fault, the Sharpie dried out while waiting.

The Original

I mentioned yesterday that I had a little help at the Mounted Memories Sun Times show and Rusin was one of the VIP guests. The price was right so I printed out another copy and sent it off. I also included my newest design. Amazing what a good pen will do for an autograph!

New & Improved!

Brett Jackson was also a guest at the show. His 2012 team set card came out great from September and he was a little pricier than Rusin so I just sent in one of my newer design. Its worth noting that Jackson has a pretty nice signature for a player in this day and age. 

These are the first two from this design that I've gotten signed and I must say I'm very pleased with how they came out. This design was also printed out on photo paper rather than the glossy cardstock I've previously used. I don't think this will be a finite set but rather an ongoing one and make whoever I think I can get one signed from. I bet they'll look good in a binder.

New Customs

I've been away for far too long. Well, from posting here anyway. I've still been reading what everybody else has been writing but I've also been cooking up a few things of my own in the meantime. I've been adding to my collection in my absence so I should be getting back to posting fairly regularly in the near future, although probably not daily as I once was.

One of the things I've been working on is a new custom card design. I'm not sure this will be the design for my 2013 Cubs set as each one takes a lot longer than the 2012 set, even with a template. But these have been fun to work on!

The gray area with the faded Cubs logo is where I anticipate getting an autograph. I'd be curious to hear what you think about the player obscuring part of their name and/or the omittance of the first name altogether. Let me know what you think!

Tony Campana, the Michael Jordan of bunting

Pitcher Chris Rusin legging out his first career hit (a triple!)

James Russell found something to celebrate in 2012

Matt Sczcur, future Cub

Again, let me know what you think!