More Great Stuff from Ike's Cards

I received another great package from Ike's Cards the other day after asking about a couple of Turkey Red inserts that they pulled recently. I haven't bought any cards in several weeks now (shocking, I know) because I'm in a bit of a financial bind, but I've been trying to keep the trade things going. Those packages are a lot more rewarding that any pack you could buy in the store, anyway.

I'm loving the 2009 Heritage set a lot more than I thought I would. Chris Perez doesn't look too thrilled, however. Perhaps he's bummed out because he will be spending another opening day at AAA. Or it could be that he's not thrilled about the "action" shot of him wearing an old spring training jersey number. Are there others out there as picky as me about uniform numbers?

Holy Sawatski! I received three amazing 1964 Topps cards in the package. Sawatski is the one guy I don't know anything about. According to his Wikipedia entry (sorry, I know that look...) he was a journeyman catcher who went on to become the president of the Texas League.

Ray Sadecki was a swingman who I got to know a bit about in David Halberstam's excellent book October 1964. I definitely recommend that book to anyone who likes baseball. You really don't need to be a Yankees or Cardinals fan to enjoy it.

Bill White really needs no introduction. This is awesome. I believe this is the first non-flashback/retro/whatever card of his in my collection to date.

I also received a David Eckstein 2007 Topps "red back" card. These were fairly annoying hobby pack parallels that don't really look good unless you're a fan of a team that likes the color red. Lucky me, I suppose. This serves as a reminder that I should go through and find out which Cardinals I'm lacking red back cards for. I'm glad that there wasn't anything like this in 2009's product line.

Speaking of variations, here's a very serious Yadi from 2007 Heritage. The more rare version has Yadi's name in yellow letters. Again, it's fairly silly, but it was modeled after an actual variation from the 1958 set.

Finally, there's smilin' Lou Brock. It looks like Lou is posing at a community park somewhere, but there appears to be a light fixture behind his head, so it might be something more official than that. Then again, where are the fences?

Thanks again to Ike (and Tony) for another great package. I'll have to get something together soon to send back.