2020 Baseball is Back (For Now)

Baseball is back, but looks a little different this year.  I thought I'd make a few card that reflect the current state of things. Here's Anthony Rizzo sharing his hand sanitizer with Orlando Arcia.

I included Mike Trout because he not only is arguably the biggest name in the game, but he was also vocal about his safety concerns.

When designing these cards, I was thinking about a take on the 1983/1963 style with the players' close-up inside a stylized COVID virus.  I also wanted a horizontal version that took on somewhat of a 1960 Topps look.  I thought it might be cool to have the team logos on a surgical mask, too.  (Maybe a bit of overkill?)

A few firsts for the 2020 season: of course Alyssa Nakken, the first female MLB on-field coach and the designated hitter in the National League.  Also that's an MLB sponsored Black Lives Matters t-shirt. And yes, cardboard fans in the seats.

TBT - Chicago Cubs Breakfast Cereal Edition

Guess what I found in my box of Rizzo's! A 1980 style 3-D Jake Arrieta. 

In the Chicagoland area you can still find boxes of Anthony Rizzo's Cereal at the local Jewel grocery store.  Unfortunately, they don't really have "Free Retro Baseball Cards". But they are packed with 8 essential vitamins and minerals plus the box is a "Collector's Edition".

On the 6th, The A's played host to the Cubbies for a 1980's throwback game. The Cubs wore their light blue pinstripes.  I found this card of Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter. Too bad it is a pre-bearded Sutter. It would have been nice to draw a comparison between the uniforms and the beards.

2014 Custom Chicago Cards

Cleaning Out the Closet: 

Part 1 - Abandoned Projects

I've been pretty busy lately and haven't posted in over a week. So I decided to look over some of the ideas that didn't quite make the cut.

 

Here is my plan to create my own style of cards for the 2014 season. Yeah, I know this wasn't an original idea. The Shlabotnik Report does it (and the 2014 series looks great). The Writer's Journey does it. My idea was to "borrow" this idea and combine it with another idea "borrowed" from The Phillies Room.   The Phillies Room makes just Phillies cards using retro card designs. His 2014 Chachi set is based on 1988 Topps and 2015 will be 1985 Topps.

I wanted to make my own design and just use Chicago teams. I imagined all sorts of things I wanted in a set; team cards (floating head-style for the Cubs, of course), coaches cards (like the 1973-74 Topps), leaders, all-stars, highlights, record-breakers, etc. 

Ultimately, I abandoned the idea. It was more involved than I wanted it to be. I would need to crank out about 75-100 cards each summer. Also I was never quite satisfied with the design. Plus I didn't think it fit in well with the whole theme of this blog.