The Ryan Ludwick

I was feeling a bit under the weather today, but I wanted to get a stack of cards off my coffee table and on its way into my somewhat organized collection. I picked up 5 packs of 2004 Topps Heritage off of eBay awhile back and saved them for something to write about when the time was right. Well, the time wasn't really right tonight, and there wasn't a lot to discuss anyway. I took a picture of the only card I really cared about, which is Ryan Ludwick. It's my first Ludwick card. I still don't have anything of his in a Cardinal uniform, and since this isn't a Cardinals card it likely won't stay in my collection anyway. But it's my first Ludwick card.

Ludwick might get dealt this offseason. I can't really fault the Cardinals management if they choose to go that route. It's clear that with the eventual promotion of top prospect Colby Rasmus that someone is going to be squeezed out of some playing time. Ludwick finally played his first full season in the majors this past season, at the age of 30, and responded with a remarkable season that earned him a trip to the All-Star game. He can definitely smack the baseball around, but he's still carrying with him a high probability of what I'd like to call "fluke factor". He doesn't have the best pitch selection skills and there are probably other things wrong with his game that people could point out. Still, he had a great year and I would not complain about him continuing his career as a Cardinal. At the same time, however, if it could improve the team considerably, he wouldn't be a bad candidate to trade. I guess that's all I'm saying. There are, of course, many many scenarios involving that could transpire, trade-wise, that would not please me.

In the five packs, I managed to grab a couple of no-name SPs, an Alex Rodriguez SP variation that has some imperfect corners, and an Ichiro New Age Performers insert. I always get Ichiro cards. Maybe someday I'll find an Ichiro player collector who has a ridiculous amount of unwanted Pujols cards or something. I also found exactly zero Cardinals cards, which is very unfortunate for me. I do like the Heritage cards, though, so I'm not crushed.

The Ducks, by the way, are in another bye week this week, so there probably won't be a post about them. I think my Ducks posts are officially the least commented on blog posts in the history of the internet, but that's okay. I'm off to a card show, hopefully, later today. I hope to pick up some much needed Cardinals cards and maybe a few goodies for other bloggers out there.