Five More 1991 Topps Desert Shield

Sorry about the missing posts the last two days. I neglected to hit "Publish" and have been away from the computer to check. Oh well. This post was meant for Thursday.

With the end of the year coming up, I need to make some headway on some of my Resolutions from the beginning of the year. I'm not doing very well...

A quick eBay search a week or two ago brought up a seller who was breaking his 1991 Topps Desert Shield set up. The seller must have put in a lot of time and effort into this set and all of his cards seemed to be in great shape, including centering. He had a bunch of Cubs listed, seven of which I needed. I lost out on two of them to higher bidders but if you read the title, you'll know I came away with five, all for the minimum bid.

I don't think I'll complete this set by the end of the year with a few big names left out there, but I'm really glad to knock these two out for quite a bit less than what I thought I would pay. Especially for their condition.

These other three put me over the half way hump as I now have 18 of the 32 cards from the set (not including the Keith Comstock error).

I was a little concerned when I started to scan the cards as I noticed something about the backs. On some, the Topps 40th Anniversary logo is faded into the background and others were much bolder. I know there have been forgeries for this set, but I thought it had more to do with the foil stamping on the front. But after looking at a bunch of other cards from the 1991 set and getting an opinion from someone who is collecting the set, I'm more comfortable with the purchase. This seems to be a pretty common thing within this set. Hopefully...

Tom Goodwin

Tom Goodwin signed with the Cubs prior to the 2003 season after 12 previous seasons in the Major Leagues with 5 different teams (and a second stint with the Dodgers). Used mostly off the bench, Goodwin was also the fourth/fifth outfielder with Moises Alou, Corey Patterson, Sammy Sosa and Troy O'Leary.

Nothing sticks out in particular about his regular season for me, but I do remember him from the playoffs that season. Off the bench in the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves, Goodwin went 1-2 with a double and a sacrifice fly. The sacy fly tied up Game 2 in the 8th, before the Cubs faltered in the bottom half of the inning. But the Cubs took the series from the best team in the National League to meet up with the Wild Card Florida Marlins in the NLCS.

Goodwin came off the bench again in Game 3, this time with a pinch hit triple. The Cubs were down by one but Goodwin scored when the next batter, Randall Simon hit a two run home run. The Cubs gave up a tying run in the bottom of the 8th but held on to win in extras. And we all know how the rest of the series went...most Cubs fans have nightmares about it. Five outs away from their first World Series since 1945.

Goodwin is now the first base coach for the New York Mets after replacing Mookie Wilson in 2012.

2013 Baseball Fantasy League Final Tally

Sorry so blurry...

With the baseball fantasy season now over, I thought I'd give everybody who didn't participate a recap and hopefully entice a few more of you to come out next year. For those that need a refresher, I setup a Yahoo Fantasy League at the beginning of the season with a $15 buy-in. The prize pool included seven different 2013 blasters split among for the top 3 placers and for the team with the best record at the end of the regular season. The blasters were distributed as follows:

1st Place - Pick One
1st Place - Pick One
2nd Place - Pick One
3rd Place - Pick One
1st Place - Pick One
2nd place - Pick One
Best Regular Season Record - Gets what's left!

The blasters included Topps Series 1, Topps Series 2, A&G, Bowman, Heritage, Gypsy Queen & Archives. The season long winners of each of the ten statistical categories will also be taking home a repack ($5 value).

But before I get to the prizes, I'm going to set the scene a little bit because there were some pretty exciting matchups once the playoffs rolled around. Participation was pretty good among fellow bloggers but a couple of offline friends/coworkers signed up to help me fill a few spots and their lineup changes were a little more sporadic. That showed up in the standings though as all six playoff spots were filled by bloggers.

At the end of the "regular season", Larry (unclemoe) from My 2008 Topps Set Blog entered the playoffs as the top seed. This earned him a first round bye and guaranteed him one of the seven blasters no matter how he finished.

Second seed went to Roy-Z of plain gray swatch fame (among other blogs), who also earned a first round bye. Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year wrapped up the third seed and took on sixth seed, Ty from League Leader in Italics. I qualified as the fourth seed and Brian from Play at the Plate won 9 of his last 10 matchups to be my first round competition as the fifth seed.

No offense to Ty, but Tom took him out pretty easily in the first round, winning 8 categories to Ty's 2. Brian on the other hand, took me all the way to the tie breaker after splitting the 10 categories with 5 apiece. Unfortunately for him, the tiebreaker was who had the better record head to head over the course of the season. During our three weekly matchups, I went 17-12-1, winning the tiebreaker and advancing to the next round.

Roy dominated the offensive categories this season winning 4 of the 5 over the course of the season. But Tom, who is taking home three repacks for pitching categories, put up another dominating week, earning a finals birth with an 8-1-1 victory over Roy in the semifinals.

My matchup against unclemoe was just as tight as my first round matchup. The final score was 5-2-3. With those three ties, that could have been losses and knotted us up at 5-5, I would have lost the tiebreaker as unclemoe beat me 7-22-1 in three regular season meetings. Yikes! But with a guaranteed blaster for the season's top record and three repacks coming his way for category wins, I don't feel too bad!

So if you've been doing the math (4 repacks for Roy, 3 for Tom and 3 for Larry), you'll see the top three seeds wrapped up all the category wins. There's probably some correlation there...

If you thought these matchups were close, wait until the finals and consolation finals!

With the top two seeds knocked out, they still had a shot at third place, which also means a blaster.

The pitching categories were pretty clear cut but check out the offensive ones! One run difference, tied in home runs, one RBI. Luckily for unclemoe, he would have won a tiebreaker, too had things gone a little differently. And don't feel too bad for Roy because he'll end up with more cards than anyone with 4 repacks for his category wins. Granted they're repacks, but still, he gets his buy-in back plus a little more.

And now the finals. Two Cubs fans battling it out for the Fantasy League title. Maybe Tom and I can get a meeting with Theo and let him know which direction the Cubs should go?

This matchup was like any good playoff series, it went down to the wire. Unfortunately for me though, the final score was Tom 6, Me 4.

To Tom's credit, he led the whole week and the final score probably shouldn't have even been this close. I started four pitchers on Sunday, netting 0 Wins. I was hoping I could catch him in Wins and ERA or WHIP but I didn't foresee a Henderson Alvarez no hitter when it came to adding/dropping players for Sunday's games. D'oh!

Thanks to everybody who participated this season. Packages will go out sometime this week. Hopefully, with enough interest we can do it again next year and even add a few more players which could mean bigger, better prize packages. While I already know what boxes the winners have selected as their prizes, I can't wait to see what they get for cards!

Final Prize Summary:

1st Place (Tom) - 3 Blasters

2nd Place (Matt) - 2 Blasters

3rd Place (Larry) - 1 Blaster

Regular Season Best Record (Larry) - 1 Blaster

Runs - Roy

Home Runs - Roy

RBIs - Roy

Stolen Bases - Roy

Batting Avg. - Larry

Wins - Larry

Saves - Tom

Strikeouts - Larry

ERA - Tom

WHIP - Tom

Alberto Gonzalez

Alberto Gonzalez signed with the Cubs as a free agent this past off season. What seems like an eternity ago, the Cubs began the season with Gonzalez as one of their rotating second basemen. Why, you might ask? Didn't Darwin Barney win a Gold Glove last year at that position?

Yep. But in a meaningless, final Spring Training game, Barney was chasing a foul ball and ran into the stands/fence/wall, putting a gash in his leg that required 5 stitches. And sent him to the 15-day DL.

Gonzalez played in 11 of the first 13 games of the season, splitting the time between starting and coming in off the bench. Unofrtunately for Gonzalez, once Barney came back from the DL, he was waived and ultimately sent to Triple-A Iowa.

Just a few weeks later, the Yankees came a calling and a deal was worked out for a player to be named later and some cash money. I looked (quickly) but still don't see what the Cubs ended up getting, if anything yet.

The ATCRCS card above and the 2013 Team set card below were signed by Gonzalez with a little help from an SCN member when the Yankees visited his local team back in July. He helped me knock out a couple of former Cubs on the Mets and Yankees so I'll have a few more to show off in the coming days/weeks.

This guy gets really pumped for his double plays! Ah, the optimism of playing for the Cubs in April...

Where Are They Now? 2010 Pro Debut Part 7

This is part seven (of eight planned) of this running series where I take a look back at the future Cubs represented in the 2010 Pro Debut. You can view previous posts here:

Part One - Ryan Flaherty and Brett Jackson 

Part Two - DJ LeMahieu and Brooks Raley

Part Three - Chris Archer and Hak-Ju Lee

Part Four - Rebel Ridling and Trey McNutt

Part Five - Welington Castillo and Jay Jackson

Part Six - David Cales and Casey Coleman

The Cubs selected Josh Vitters with the third overall pick in the 2007 draft and he was a top 100 Baseball America Prosect from 2008-2010. He's been gradually making his way up the chain and made his Major League Debut last August in a late season call up.

He's had a rough year in 2013, working through some injuries and playing in only 28 games in Triple-A Iowa. He was shut down early and it was announced in late August/early September that he would not be part of September call ups despite being on the Cubs 40 man roster. Hopefully the extra rest has him ready for 2014.

James Leverton was drafted in the 8th round by the Cubs in the 2008 draft. He went a combined 10-14 in 2008-09 in low and high Single-A before turning it around in 2010. Between three teams, Leverton went 10-1 with a 2.75 ERA. So of course the Cubs released him for 2011.

He started that season with the New Jersey Jackals of the Canadian-American Association (an independent league) before signing a minor league contract with the Florida Marlins. Yeah, they were still the Florida Marlins back then. He's been rising through the ranks since, spending most of this season out of the bullpen with their Triple-A affiliate, the New Orleans Zephyrs.

The card above was signed during Spring Training prior to the 2012 season with a little help from someone who 'graphed the Marlins. 

PWE from 2x3 Heroes

I dropped the ball this week for showcasing a One Game Wonder, but I think I'm out of photos to use for the remaining guys. Somehow, some way I'll find one to use for an ATCRCS card but until I might have to post without showing a card.

Luckily, Jeff from 2x3 Heroes saved the day by dropping an unexpected PWE on me this week.

With my handy new scanning and tagging system, I was able to determine I needed one of the cards he sent but another couple were definite upgrades! Score! Speaking of which, one of the upgrades was a 1992 Score Ryne Sandberg:

I think Score kind of gets a bum rap and was overshadowed by Upper Deck but in hindsight, they were a pretty good brand. Full color photos on both sides, bright colors, clean lines, no foil. My original card was a little rough along one edge so this one is a keeper. It is one of those cards that you see a million times and keep meaning to upgrade but never get around to it.

Another upgrade was this Play Hard insert from 2013 Opening Day. The one I pulled from a pack was miscut along the back. I thought it might have been my scan/crop job but after going to rescan it, I determined the card itself was bad.

I didn't do a breakdown of this card but the play featured was during a Cubs-White Sox game on June 18, 2012. As you can probably see, Castro was safe on the pickoff attempt. The back of the card is a testament to the fact that Starlin Castro plays hard. Topps says so, so it must be true. 

The final upgrade was this 1987 Topps Glossy All-Star card. The one I have is yellowing but this one looks as good as I'm sure it did 25 years ago.

A new addition to the collection is this 2007 Bowman Heritage Prospects card of Ryan Norwood. This came out during a hiatus from the hobby so I don't have many others from this set. The Cubs drafted Norwood in the 9th round of the 2004 draft but he topped out at High Single-A in 2007.



Thanks Jeff, you'll have some White Sox coming your way soon.

First Pitch Friday - Golden Tate

So here I am, getting a start on yesterday's post by branching out and featuring somebody from a different team. If you missed yesterday's post, check it out as I'd like to hear your opinion!

I've mentioned previously that a fellow collector from the Seattle area has been helping me get a few ATCRCS signed for my collection and I have been making him some Mariners cards for some of their new guys. With football underway, I have also been sending him some Seahawks cards for guys that have been appearing at the team Pro Shop for free autograph signings.

Just this past week, Golden Tate was the scheduled guest so I sent a pair of cards (plus extras for him & Tate). Rumor has it Tate really liked them and asked for a business card to have more made. Score! Of the two I sent, one is the first pitch card below:

Tate was drafted out of high school to play baseball by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 42nd round of the 2007 draft. He chose to attend the University of Notre Dame instead and was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the 2nd round of the 2010 NFL draft. Not only that, but Tate was also re-drafted in baseball as well, this time by the San Francisco Giants in the 50th round in 2010.

The other card I sent is part of a very basic design that I've been using for the other free Seahawks signings. It's just a matter of changing out the name, position and photo.

I also created a "PASS" custom from his Notre Dame days but I did not send this one in for the signing.

And last but not least, I ran this latest design by the message board on SCN and have come down to these two "finalists" for something new. Let me know what you think.