Backside Appreciation Part 4

In this running theme, I take a quick look at the less commonly seen part of a baseball card, the backside. It could be something informative that caught my eye in a blurb. It could be funny. It could just be a really nice layout.

Today's card is an error (or corrected version) that I didn't even know I had. Well, I knew I had the card, I just didn't know there was an error associated with it. When adding my collection to Zistle, I noticed two listings for the 1990 Score Lloyd McClendon card. Luckily, it also told me what the error was. Here are the two side by side, see if you can spot the difference...

Corrected version on the left, Error on the right

At this point, I don't remember which I had in my collection and which I had in my extras box. I'm just glad that I did end up having them both already. Not that my retirement will hinge on whether or not I had a 1990 Score Lloyd McClendon error, but it's kind of cool to add to my collection from within my collection.

Give up? Or just want to confirm your answer? Scroll down...

Sorry, just wanted to make sure the answer wasn't on the same screen for those who were actually looking and not skipping ahead to the answer.

During McClendon's time with the Cubs (1989-90), he wore #10. He was one of ten to wear it after Ron Santo, but before the Cubs decided to retire it. Fellow catcher, Rick Wrona wore #1 during that time, the number erroneously credited to McClendon.

I don't know that I can talk rarity on junk wax but I have no idea how soon Score corrected their mistake. There are a couple of each variation on eBay for around a buck, but none have sold recently. I bought a lot of Score back in the day and would be willing to bet these are both from my childhood collection.

McClendon has Seattle off to a decent start this year. May he can pull a Pete Carroll and win Seattle another championship and I can retire on a Lloyd McClendon error card! And he'd be living up to his Legendary Lloyd nickname...

Here's the front for those curious:

Break Loot from the Sky Box Part 2

Earlier in the week, I showed off the first part of the goodies I received from participating Chris' (View From the Sky Box) multi-box break. I mentioned one of the reasons I participated was the selection of product he chose as they seemed to fill some gaps in my collection.

I came back to the hobby in 2010, sticking with pretty much just the flagship from Topps. It was until later in 2011 (and really more in 2012 when I started the blog) that I started branching out into other stuff. One of those sets that flew under my radar and escaped any eBay bulk lot purchases and trades thus far was 2010's Topps National Chicle set. I've seen most of the cards before (maybe leading me to believe I already had some, if not all) but I didn't have a single one in my collection. Score!

From what I can tell, the Cubs team set consists of eight base cards and from the box break, I got seven of them. Not too shabby!

Alfonso Soriano & Aramis Ramirez

Carlos Zambrano

Derrek Lee and Marlon Byrd

Ted Lilly and Ernie Banks

The Ernie Banks was a regular base card, but it looks like he has an SP in the set as well. The only base card I missed pulling was Kosuke Fukudome.

Thanks again, Chris for the break. I think I'll get 2-3 more posts out of the loot.

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.

Somebody Please Stop Me!

I've always been a National League guy, growing up watching the Cubs on WGN and the Braves on TBS. As a military brat, I could get those games anywhere I moved with basic cable. At that crucial time when I decided which was my favorite, the Cubs of the 1980’s were much better than the Braves. Fast forward to the 1990’s and boy, did I feel like an idiot.

Ten years ago when I moved to Maine, I knew next to nothing about the Boston Red Sox. But as lousy as they were, for almost as long as the Cubs had been, their fans were just as passionate. The New England Patriots were in the midst of winning three Super Bowls in four years but when the Red Sox went on to sweep the Cardinals in the World Series that year after falling behind three games to the Yankees in the ALCS, New England was electric. I have a loose change 5 gallon water jug fund so that I can make sure I’m part of that in Chicago when the time comes. Any longer though and I might be able to afford to take my whole family!

I’'e always been a pretty big reader. That probably goes back to being a military brat, too. Moving all the time, I got to be pretty good at making friends quickly but there’s something to be said for being able to entertain yourself at any given time. One of my favorite baseball books came from that Red Sox World Series win.

Maybe it was because I've always enjoyed Stephen King books. Maybe it was because I experienced that season myself as a guest in Red Sox Nation. Or maybe, it just gave me hope for my Cubbies.

C’mon, Theo!

I saw the book on my shelf recently and thought it might be fun to try to catch lightning in a bottle for my own team. I’m not going to write a book myself (at least I don’t think I will) but over the past two seasons, I kept track of my favorite team by making a custom baseball card for every Cubs player that appeared in a game.

This year, while I still might do that, I thought I would step it up and chronicle the games as well. I lost my newspapery card template when I lost my hard drive but using the Darwin Barney card in my header as a guide, I made a few tweaks and came up with this:

The format will remain relatively the same with each card but I’d have to update the details for each game. I could probably do this 162 times. Plus playoffs, too, right?  I think we may be a season or two away from seeing more Win flags in the upper right corner than Loss flags, but we’ll see.

I’m not sure if I’ll even end up printing these or if they’ll just end up as a file on my hard drive (and backed up elsewhere!).

I even took the time to make a backside to further detail the game. Hopefully, I’ll be able to come up with two to three highlights for each game or else there might be some wasted space.

Who knows, I may lose interest in this by the end of the month when the Cubs are already 10 games below .500, but I’d love to hear some thoughts on this. Either on the idea (how crazy I am) or the execution (thoughts and suggestions on the cards themselves). Thanks!

Unocal - Cubs Gold Glove Winners

A few days ago I posted an old Unocal print of Ernie Banks that I had gotten signed. Since I had them out, I scanned a few more to show off. 

Early on in this blog, I posted this Cubs Gold Glove Winners print when it had just Bobby Dernier on it.

Shortly after that, I added a couple more signatures before it got lost in the shuffle again. Ernie Banks was obtained at the same time as the other print, through a private signing. I sent this piece to Glenn Beckert through the mail after Dernier but before Banks. Once I had Ernie Banks on it, I was a little less willing to lose it by sending it out again.

But now that I see it again, I may move it to a front burner for Ryne Sandberg, Randy Hundley and Don Kessinger. Ron Santo passed away right after I started working on it which is another reason it got tucked away. But it never would have been complete anyway since Ken Hubbs and Larry Jackson (not an actual Gold Glove Winner) passed away before this print was even made.

The backside has a pretty long blurb highlighting each of the winners on the front. The thing that struck me though was the mention of Larry Jackson winning the Gold Glove in 1964.

The actual winner of the Gold Glove for a pitcher in the National League that season was Bobby Shantz, who split the season between the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. This award was his 8th and final win.

Since this piece was generated, the Cubs have added 6 more players and a total of 23 additional awards. Ryne Sandberg leads the way with seven more after the first two mentioned on the back. Joining Sandberg in 1986 was catcher Jody Davis. Andre Dawson added to his hardware count with outfield Gold Gloves in 1987 and 1988. Greg Maddux three-peated twice from 1990-1992 and again after rejoining the team from 2004-2006. He may have won a few in between with another team but baseball history is fuzzy on that.

Not only did Mark Grace lead the league in hits in the 1990's, but he also racked up four Gold Gloves ('92, '93, '95 & '96). He paid the price for playing for the Cubs. If this guy was a Yankee, he'd be immortalized. Derrek Lee had some success filling those shoes with a pair of Gold Gloves (and a batting title).

And last but not least, Darwin Barney picked up a Gold Glove in 2012, becoming the fourth Cubs second sacker to win the award.

If I had any artistic ability as far as drawing/painting goes, I would semi-seriously consider updating this myself.

How'd That Get There?! Part 2

As some of you know, I’ve been slowly adding my collection to Zistle. Last week I ran a post call How’d That Get There that featured a pair of cards that made me do a double take and ask myself why they were in my collection.  As you can probably tell by the title, I found another couple. I don’t know that this will be recurring theme, especially once I get through entering my cards but I can at least get a few more posts out of it. Maybe I should have called it My Non-Cubs Cubs Cards.

This is probably one of the more well-known error cards. Or maybe that’s the Cubs bias talking. And that late 1980’s, early 1990’s was my heyday for collecting as a kid.

Keith Comstock is clearly in a Seattle Mariners uniform. He never played for the Cubs so this isn’t some last minute “Traded” card. This is just a flat out mistake by somebody at Topps. One that was eventually corrected.

A card I do not have in my collection

Because it’s an error, it generally doesn’t show up in Cubs team sets, but it will stay in my collection. In fact, I’m almost, kind of, sort of on the look out to add one to my Desert Shield Cubs team set. Maybe. We’ll see.

And for the curious, here’s the back:

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!