In 1959 Ernie Banks became the 1st player ever to win back to back NL MVP awards. Basically Mr. Cub carried this team on his shoulders hitting 45 homers and knocking in 143 run with a .304 batting average. No 3 players combined on the team equaled his output, but that's ok because behind him was a very balanced attack that had 7 players with double digit homers. Of course no one from that list topped 14, but there was a lot of balance as manager Bob Scheffing did a lot of platooning. This was a typical Cub team that was long on power and short on pitching, which is why they finished in the middle of the pack with a 74-80 record. Their rotation was led by a trio of 23 year olds: Bob Anderson (12-13, 4.13), Glen Hobbie (16-13, 3.69) & Moe Drabowsky (5-10, 4.13). Newcomer Gene Couture will have his work cut out for himself trying to get his starters far enough into the game before they hand the ball off to relievers Don Elston (10-8, 3.32, 13 sv) and Bill Henry (9-8, 2.68, 12 sv). With Elston being a righty and Henry being a lefty, Gene will have plenty of opportunity to mix and match for the right situation. Since Chicago was dead last in the league in complete games in 1959 Gene's pen will get plenty of work.
To round out this Topps set I had to add 12 additional cards. I had fun airbrushing and colorizing a few of these cards. I took Bob Porterfield's 1952 Bowman card photo from Washington and changed the cap color and added the "C" logo. I couldn't find a color shot of Ed Donnelly, so I used a nice size B&W shot that had him with a Cardinals cap on. I colorized the cap and his face and added the "C" logo. Bob "Riverboat" Smith who pitched 2/3 of an inning that year and had a robust 81.00 ERA finally got himself a Cubs card. I took his 1958 Red Sox card and removed the pink background and superimposed Wrigley behind him. I also changed his cap color and added the "C". I probably spent more time working on that 1 card then Smith spent toiling on the mound for Chicago that season :) !
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