I Went To Baseball Games!

Yup.  I went to several Cubs games this year.  I actually personally bought tickets for the first time ever this past year.

Normally I only go to games when other people offer up an extra ticket, which is fine by me.  But, when the Cubs give out exclusive baseball cards and they offer up a 6-game packet that would net you the full set over 4 of those games, then why not?

Well, because you never know what life will throw your way is why not.  Out of the 6, I went to 3.1 of them and only 1.1 of those netted me cards.  For one of the giveaway days, I decided to take an extended 4th of July weekend and visit my brother. For another, I tragically had to deal with my new puppy’s hospitalization and passing.

That .1 game was a game I meant to go to and took the day off of work to attend, but the people indirectly pay my salary scheduled a very important client call that I needed to be on without a sea of drunk fans in the background.  Soo…I went to the stadium, met Andy for lunch at Wrigley after getting our cards at the door (very happy Connie’s pizza is no more at Wrigley, by the way), and then had to leave to get back on the bus and back home before my call.  I didn’t see the first pitch, but I got the last set of 20 cards.

All in all, we have the second half of the giveaway set.  This actually differs from the set that the season ticket holders get, because those have a foil stamp on them.  These do not.  Still, this version is limited to 10,000.

Abra los ojos

Here’s one of them.  Only 3 out of the 40 fit into my player collections, so this will be short.  If I were to show this card without any explanation, you would likely believe I was merely showing a Topps Heritage card since the photo is so similar.  Observe:

Uf!

See?  Pretty close to the same.  I definitely like the other giveaway version more.

Bound for the Hall

So, the name of the set is Cubs Topps Archives.  I bet you can guess what the overall theme of the set is.  The card backs all mimic the same design, but the fronts are like another iteration of CYMTO, Archives, Heritage, and the like.

pfft, Braves. That’s not the Cubs

Compare to the Heritage version and the match isn’t nearly as close.  I still prefer the 2013 card.  I even think it’s better than this Topps Gallery card below.

pfft. Drawings. That’s not even real people.

And more than this Fleer knock off below

Not their tradition

Yup.  The Cubs one is the best out of the group.

“Do you see the colors, too?  Trippy”

Lastly we have the 1972 design.  Greg didn’t have a mini version in this year’s set, so I can’t compare it to anything in my collection so far.  Except…

The “Bronze” parallel?

Okay, it’s not really a comparison as much as it is a picture of the same card.  Each card has a ticket counterpart.  I’m not planning on collecting these stubs.  I just happened upon this one from another game I went to this year.  It’s not from one of the giveaway games (I can’t afford such good seats and my tickets didn’t have pictures), but rather a different game offered to me by a former co-worker.  My old boss had season tickets.  And yes, I asked about his set. And no, I ain’t getting it.

The hunt continues for those as well as the cards from the first half of the giveaway set.