Gifts from Rod of Padrographs

As mentioned previously, Rod from Padrographs was kind enough to dig his way out of the Portland snow to send me a package that included an Arvydas Sabonis autograph, a former NBA player and favorite of mine from the Blazers. What I didn't expect was the nice assortment of Cardinals he included in the mailing. Here are some highlights...

There were several "All-Century Team" playing cards that I had never seen before. I couldn't really tell anything about them other than the year 2000 printed on the back. I'm not sure if this is a Cardinals-specific issue or if it's comprised of players from all sorts of teams. What I do know is that the photos look great, which was unexpected from a set of playing cards.

2008 Donruss Elite Extra Edition - Shane Peterson (As a rule I don't buy unlicensed cards, but this was still a nice surprise. I certainly won't turn down any offers of Cardinals players in these sets. This particular release is interesting because it already includes Peterson's 2008 stats on the back. We'll check back on the guy in a few years and see if he makes anything of himself.)

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes Charcoal (I think?) - Ozzie Smith (Another nice surprise - an Ozzie for my collection, and a parallel one at that! Now I just need the 83 other colors that Baseball Heroes was released in.)

2008 Upper Deck SP Authentic - Albert Pujols (I'm not always a fan of higher end cards because they usually take the life out of the game - i.e. the background, the green grass, the sunshine. This is a nice design, though, and Albert is about to crush another line drive into the white void.)

2008 Topps Heritage High Series - Todd Wellemeyer (The Cards still haven't completely solved their rotation issues, so they'll no doubt be counting on another big year from Wellemeyer, who at least so far can be counted as one of Dave Duncan's biggest successes.)

A huge surprise here! Autographs of Mike LaValliere. These cards both came out the year I got into collecting cards, and I recall as a kid really liking to say LaValliere's name outloud. That's all I really recall about him, though. That, and he helped introduce me to "traded sets" as he soon ended up on the Pirates as part of the Andy Van Slyke for Tony Pena deal.

Big thanks again to Padrographs! Make sure you check out the blog to check out autographs of Padres players you may or may not have heard of.