More Cards from Play at the Plate

I received another batch of Cardinals cards from Brian of Play at the Plate fame a couple of weeks ago. I had no idea what to expect in the signature padded manila envelope and, of course, I was pleasantly surprised. Inside were a bunch of needed Cards cards from 2009 Updates & Highlights, including my first Mark DeRosa card in a St. Louis uniform. There hasn't been a ton of talk about bringing DeRosa back, which seems strange in contrast to how much he was talked up when acquired for Chris Perez last summer. I think his untimely wrist injury will end up costing him millions of dollars, but even more importantly (to a Cards fan, anyway) I think it may have also ended up costing him a return to St. Louis next season.

This Ryan Franklin card seems to be one of a number of slightly out of focus all-star cards from Updates & Highlights. I definitely appreciate the efforts in getting these players pictured in the actual all-star festivities, but these cards definitely stand out as being a little off when compared to their regular counterparts.

Ahh, Slurpee coins. 7-11 used to include little coin-shaped discs along the bottom of their Slurpee cups and some of these were baseball themed. I had no idea that they tried this again in 2000, but this Mark McGwire disc was licensed by Pacific Trading Cards. Maybe it never touched the bottom of an actual Slurpee, but this is still really awesome. I'd love to see these things come back again next year. For that matter, I would love to see a new Sportflics set. I know that 3 cards for 60 cents seemed really expensive back in 1986, but at the right price point I think a new Sportflics set could be pretty awesome. I'm sure someone could even figure out the logistics at adding in the seemingly necessary grab bag of inserts, parallels, autographs (imagine signing one of those ridgy things) and relics.

Brian also included two Turkey Red inserts from Updates & Highlights. I'm only missing something like 130 of these. This may have been what provided the motivation for this trade, but I have no idea anymore. In any case, I definitely have a package on its way out the door for Brian.

Here's another McGwire card. This has a very fancy recessed gold logo in the lower center of the card and commemorates one of McGwire's historic HRs in 1998.

Oh, boy, Scotty Layfield! He's pretty much the symbol of early-'00s Cardinal collecting for me. I still have no idea who the guy is, but he's got cards galore from an era in which I paid zero attention to sports cards whatsoever. Every team has hundreds, if not thousands of these guys, however, and I am not one to turn down an unwanted Cardinal, no matter how little known.

Thank again to Play at the Plate. Make sure you check it out if you haven't already.