500

Just as Robert is about to hit 1000 posts over $30 a Week Habit, I realized I too was approaching a milestone. If I recall correctly, Robert was my first official follower here at Once a Cub and was also involved in one of my first trades as a member of the blogosphere. Here I am now, almost two years later and this is post #500 for me. And don't forget Robert's brand new blog, Just Another Hockey (Card) Blog, check it out now!

I try to post just about every day but a couple of extended breaks brings my average down to just above 5 posts per week. Still not too shabby. At the time, I didn't know if there was room for another Cubs specific blog but Ive been made to feel most welcome. So much so that I recently expanded into a second blog myself.

Thanks to everybody who follows one or both of my blogs. I know the cool thing to say is I don’t care how many views or comments a post gets and I write this for myself, blah blah blah. But in reality, I love getting a comment notification email or seeing a new follower pop up every once in a while.

I’m trying to get better about that myself. I've been chiming in a little more lately instead of lurking and I just sent out a bunch of emails the past few days asking for addresses or confirming old ones with previous trade partners. A couple of you I couldn't find emails for in your profiles so be on the lookout for comments on your blog. If you feel overlooked, maybe I haven’t found your blog yet, so drop me a line and let me know you’re out there!

It seems a little silly for me to have another contest so soon after I just had one so I’m going to wait a little closer to my actual two year blog-aversary next month. But since I  know a lot of you just like to look at the pretty pictures and skip past the words, here’s the closest thing I could find to tie in to 500.

Asterisk or not, the only two players with 500+ home runs as a Cub

More specifically, a little less controversial, here's an Ernie Banks piece.

Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks hit 512 home runs during his career. Maybe I should have saved this for post #512?

Somebody a little more knowledgeable than me might be able to speak to the distribution but I believe these were gas station (Unocal) giveaways back in the Chicago area in the mid 1980’s. They are printed on 8 ½ x 11 magazine-type glossy paper. I have several in the series but I’m not sure exactly how many there are. This one was signed a couple years back and just recently resurfaced among my belongings. The back has a long blurb that you should be able to click on to enlarge and read the whole thing.

Trade with Plain Gray Swatch

A few weeks ago, Roy-Z from plain gray swatch left a comment offering up a 2013 Topps base Darwin Barney and its Target Red counterpart. In my quest for Cubs rainbows, I gladly accepted. 

Some of my regular readers will note that my older son is falling prey to the hype machine that is the Washington Nationals bandwagon. All I can say is that not even the Cubs have played so bad that they get back to back #1 overall draft picks.

I kid, I kid. The W-Nats' Single A affiliate Potomac Nationals are my local minor league team. I've written previously how I've taken my kids to games and gotten autographs. So I am kind of partial to some of the guys I've seen come up through the system. With that said, I have no problem keeping my son involved in the hobby by picking up some parallels of players we've seen make it to the show.

Roy-Z's blog was new to me so while checking out previous posts, I stumbled across some Washington Nationals TRU Purple parallels which he graciously included. 

Along with those requests, Roy also filled the rest of the package with various Cubs cards and I've scanned a few to showcase. The Ryne Sandberg card below was one I already had in my Sandberg player collection, but is nice to have an extra for the Cubs collection in addition to two other Cubs from the same set that I definitely did not have. These Pinnacle Zenith cards were from 1996, a hole in my hobby life.

Two serial numbered card also made their way into the package. The first, a dual Sammy Sosa/Corey Patterson card from Fleer in 2001 projects Patterson to be a "superstar in waiting." Huh. Also from a time where I didn't collect/follow the game as closely, I don't think that panned out but I am still happy to add this to my collection. The card is numbered on the back 1714/2000.

The other, a dual Alfonso Soriano/Hanley Ramirez card from 2009 Upper Deck, claims they are Cut from the Same Cloth. According to the back blurb, the assertion is based on a rare combination of speed and power and that both had put up most of their numbers from the leadoff spot. Fast forward to 2012, who would have thought that Soriano would be the one still among the league leaders in offensive production while Ramirez was subject to a team's salary dump first? This card is numbered 881/999.

Thanks Roy!

Trade with $30 a Week Habit

First, I wanted to give a shoutout to two brand new blogs. The first is called Golden Rainbow Cards written by Bryan. He just started his blog and contacted me about filling some of my 2013 Topps Want List. He seems to be a Braves fan so don't hold that against him and check him out!

Next, is a very good offline friend of mine that I've turned from a lurker into a blogger. His name is Ty and he's starting a new blog called League Leader in Italics. His introductory post was published today and from what I hear, he'll post a couple times a week. He even joined my Blogger Fantasy League (and you should too!)

Right now, I think I'm their only follower so please give them both a warm welcome to the community!

Now on to the meat and potatoes of the post. A few weeks Two months ago (yikes!), Robert from over at $30 a Week Habit posted about completing Series 2 from last year. He showed off a 2012 Anthony Rizzo Gold parallel card he had and I left a comment that I would be interested in it if it was up for grabs.

Some of you have noticed I've been catching up on emails so I was a little surprised when I saw one from Robert marked as read but didn't remember seeing it. I'm not sure what happened because I subscribed to the post like I normally do after leaving a comment. I just missed it. Anyway, last week I sheepishly sent out a response apologizing and that if it was still available, I was still interested.

Graciously, Robert said he did still have and it showed up in my mailbox yesterday with a couple of other fantastic cards.

 

 

A couple of Gold parallels, Rizzo /2012, Kevin Gregg /2009

Sparkly 2012 Topps Joe Mather

I was a little shocked when this next one came out of the package. Given my apathy towards A&G in general, this is a card I probably wouldn't have purchased myself but am more than happy to have in my collection. One of these days, I'm going to put that indifference aside and figure out which Cubs cards I still need from the A&G sets.



2012 A&G Kosuke Fukudome Mini Jersey



This last card is unfamiliar to me as it came from a time between collecting periods. It is refractory as you can see by the rainbow front in the scan. It also seems die-cut just for the sake of being die cut because the shape doesn't form anything specific that I can tell.

The focus of the card is Major League On-Base Percentage League Leaders. Sammy Sosa was 4th on the list with .437, hence the serial numbering. Kind of weird to think the player with a higher on-base percentage has more cards available. I would think the "better" player would be more limited. But then again, I've never seen an "On-Base Percentage" themed collection so maybe its a moot point.

Sammy Sosa is a huge hole in my Cubs collection just because his playing time didn't coincide with when I collected. Plus all those potential inserts and parallels is a little daunting so I don't even know where to begin with him. 

Anyhow, thanks Robert for the great trade!