CHICAGO — Mike Noren has created his own almost-Hall of Fame.
Every day this year, the Lakeview resident has drawn baseball cards out of players who have come up short in Hall of Fame voting — examples: Don Mattingly, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker — and other well-known players like Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco.
He calls the collection "Cecil Cooperstown," a nod to the former Milwaukee Brewers great Cecil Cooper and Cooperstown, New York, the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
He will continue to draw a new player — which he posts on Twitter and Instagram — the rest of the year.
"I thought there should be some sort of honor for that class of outstanding baseball player who didn't make the Hall of Fame," Noren said.
Happy 66th birthday to Greg Luzinski! #WhiteSox #Phillies pic.twitter.com/nkSLeoDdr5
— Gummy Arts (@gummyarts) November 22, 2016
Noren, 42, is a Fenwick High School and Stanford University graduate, double-majoring in communications and psychology. As a child, he liked to draw, but he put away that talent for years before taking it up again in 2015, when his girlfriend bought him a desk calendar that challenged him to draw a new type of doodle every day.
Noren also is an avid baseball card collector. He has thousands of cards from the 1980s, but also a 1932 Babe Ruth card and some Cubs Tobacco brand cards from their 1908 World Series championship team.
Wishing a happy 71st birthday to Rick Monday! #Cubs #Dodgers #Athletics pic.twitter.com/iIXjSQDBhe
— Gummy Arts (@gummyarts) November 20, 2016
The Tobacco cards inspired him to draw a T206 Cubs Tobacco set for the players, coaches and executives for this year's championship team. He made the drawing during this year's playoff run and printed 20 sets that he gave to family and friends.
Noren hasn't actively marketed his drawings, but through Twitter he was discovered by the National Pastime Museum, which asked him to create baseball card drawings for Hall of Fame players. He's done about 60 so far, including Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson, but they haven't been unveiled to the public.
Wishing a happy 48th birthday to Sammy Sosa! #Cubs #WhiteSox pic.twitter.com/Nf7tlWCLoS
— Gummy Arts (@gummyarts) November 12, 2016
Noren said each drawing takes him about 15 minutes to an hour depending on how detailed he wants to get.
"It's a great thing to do while I'm watching basketball or baseball," said Noren, who doesn't sell the Cecil Cooperstown drawings and keeps them in a notebook. "It occupies a lot of commercial breaks. I'm always looking for different ideas."
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