Mailday: 1979 Sportscaster Rick Reuschel
The current state of acquiring Chicago Cubs baseball cards for the One Million Cubs Project is through trading. On occasion, I will buy some cards.
There was a $25 EBay gift card in my stocking at Christmas, and I had a few EBay bucks to burn, so I went on a small shopping spree last week.
Rick Reuschel is one of my player targets that I very loosely collect. "Big Daddy" had a long Major League Baseball career and was one of the Cubs top pitchers throughout the 1970's.
Reuschel is a rural Illinois boy, along with brother Paul. The Reuschel brothers also starred at Western Illinois, a university that I graduated from, and also spent three years as the Director of the Leatherneck Sports Network.
The 1977 Topps Big League Brothers card featuring the two Reuschels was also one of my most sought after cards growing up. Rick and Paul Reuschel have always been a sweet spot in my Cubs collecting. On a side note, I am excited to see Paul this week at the Cubs Convention.
Back to Rick Reuschel and this 1979 Sportscaster card. As I scrolled through eBay I had been looking for some Reuschel or Javier Baez cards and landed on this old Reuschel that was not a part of my collection.
After slapping down my EBay Bucks and snagging this for a best offer of $1.25 plus $3.00 shipping it was on its way. The card arrived today, and apparently I did not do my homework on this card set.
The Sportscaster set is much larger than a standard size baseball card. This makes it much more unique. Typically, I am not a fan of the oversized cards, except if it's a rare set or a player I collect. Reuschel checked both boxes. While it's not a rare card (there are a couple to be found on eBay), it's certainly more rare than a standard 1979 Topps card.
The back of the card features a large write up on Rick Reuschel, including an opening paragraph about his Big League brother.
My favorite sentence in this write up is, "Rick has consistently done a yeoman's work for the Cubs, pitching more than 200 innings for five consecutive years."
Yeoman's work concerning Reuschel is quite the understatement when looking back on his career as it spanned from 1972 to 1991.