Meet the 2018 Chicago Cubs Organization All Stars

With baseball's midway point we just wrapped up the Major League Baseball All Star break. The home run derby is one of my favorite events of the year, and more so this year with a pair of Cubs in the competition, Javier Baez and Kyle Schwarber. And what a show it was as Schwarber and Bryce Harper had an intense championship battle before the hometown Harper won it in the extra 30 second round.

I've featured custom Cubs cards here in the past as I make them with the Rookies App. It's a very easy and cheap way to create your own cards. Since I have little Photoshop skills I am stuck using the default templates on the Rookies App. 

A fellow Twitter collector gave me the idea to create some Cubs All Star cards. I saw Matthew in Milwaukee (from summer of 74  blog) post his own Jeremy Jeffress Brewers all star card, so I stole the idea and used the same template for the Cubs and took it down to the minor leagues as well.

It's a template I haven't used, but works perfect for the layout of these All Star cards. For the major leaguers I wanted to use a more posed photo. The top banner was for the year and All Star (and League for the minor leaguers), and the all star game logo in the top right. I'll lead off with my favorite Cub, Javier Baez.

And my second favorite Cub, Willson Contreras.

Jon Lester always has an intense game face.

Moving on to the farm teams, only one Iowa Cubs player made the Triple A All Star game, which was played on Wednesday night. It was fairly difficult to find a good photo that fit the template for Alberto Baldonado. It reminds me that I need to find the website for an Iowa Cubs photographer that took and posted hundreds of I-Cubs pictures dating back to the early 80's. About 15 years ago I would print them off and have them signed TTM. I believe his name was Larry.

In Double A the Tennessee Smokies had a trio of all stars including Jeffrey Baez. This is a great photo, and probably my favorite card of the bunch.

Craig Brooks was selected as a pitcher.

And third baseman Jason Vosler represented the Smokies.

Four Myrtle Beach Pelicans were named all stars. I love this action shot of a swinging Aramis Ademan.

Tyler Peyton was one of two Pelicans pitchers named an All Star.

Matt Swarmer was the other.

And catcher Jhonny Pereda was the fourth All Star for Myrtle Beach.

In the Midwest League, Javier Assad pitched for the South Bend Cubs.

Miguel Amaya has soared as a top prospect in the Cubs organization, much like another Cubs catcher (and MLB all star), Willson Contreras did.

First baseman Jared Young was an All Star.

And Brendan King was named to the All Star game in the Midwest League.

These were fun to create, and hope to track down some of those old Iowa Cubs photos to make some customs. I'm playing catchup this weekend, and have several maildays to post.