Random Topps Team Set of the Week: 2011 Chicago Cubs

Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Team Set of the Week:

• Team: 2011 Chicago Cubs
• Record: 71-91, fifth place, NL Central Division.
• Manager: Mike Quade
• Card on the Top: Starlin Castro

The checklist consists of the following players:

• CHC1 Starlin Castro
• CHC2 Marlon Byrd
• CHC3 Aramis Ramirez
• CHC4 Tyler Colvin
• CHC5 Kerry Wood
• CHC6 Ryan Dempster
• CHC7 Carlos Pena
• CHC8 Carlos Marmol
• CHC9 Andrew Cashner
• CHC10 Carlos Silva
• CHC11 Blake DeWitt
• CHC12 Kosuke Fukudome
• CHC13 Alfonso Soriano
• CHC14 Geovany Soto
• CHC15 Matt Garza
• CHC16 Carlos Zambrano
• CHC17 Wrigley Field

The cards in order from the set (the checklist at the end was cut from the back of the package. What, you don't do that?):

Key differences between the team set and 2011 Topps eponymous set:

• The picture used in Starlin Castro's card has the Rookie Cup on it in the retail set, but not in the regular set.  He had two cards in the eponymous 2011 set, and it's the other card that has the Cup:
  
  

• Kerry Wood appeared in the regular 2011 set as a rent-a-Yankee.  He returned to the Cubs as a Free Agent in time for the 2011 season:
  
  

• Carlos Peña is pictured with the Rays for the base set (by the looks of things, Topps photoshopped the Cubs uni on the same picture), and then as a Cub in Update Series.  He returned to the Rays in 2012:
  
  

• Matt Garza made it into the 2011 Topps set with a Cubs uniform, but in their travelling grays:
  
  

So of the 17 players included in this set, only four had obvious picture variances, and two of them were because they played for another team.  They were both included as Cubs in the Update Series though.  So the photoshopped images that were included in the retail set are unique to that set.

Next week's featured set will be the 2011 Pittsburgh Pirates. Hope you'll be here when we compare the cards from the retail set to their counterparts found in Topps and Topps Update Series.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama