Cybernetic Ghosts of Cardinals Past From the Troll

Our good friend and yours, the bacon-loving Collective Troll has hooked me up with a stunner once again. A relatively innocuous unexpected trade package turned into a wonder of Cardinals vintage goodies, the likes of which I rarely if ever get to touch with my own card collecting hands.

Behold! It's an Ozzie Smith Turkey Red insert of the 2010 Topps variety. This goes straight to the Ozzie Smith binder (he gets his own), so I will still need to track one down for the 2010 Turkey Red set.

Behold! It's an Ozzie Smith rookie card... well, no. But it's a Card (My) Mom Threw Out, original back style, from the 2010 set. My actual factual Ozzie Smith rookie was not thrown out by my mom. That story is way too sad to tell right now. I still need the more common back variety of this card for my Ozzie collection.

Behold! A Bob Gibson vintage Topps Deckle Edge card. Okay, this is something to really get excited about. This is vintage, not faux vintage. I really like that the facsimile signature is in blue to make it look as if the card was really a signed photo. This is something that manufacturers (okay, just Topps) could take note of today if they really wanted to make something look nice.

Behold! It's a Mike Shannon 1965 Topps card. This one is in great shape. I'd like to think that this is better than what you might get from the Topps Million code machine. Shannon is a goofy but lovable radio broadcaster for the Redbirds these days, and I try to catch him in bits and pieces sometimes on the weekend when the TV broadcast is blacked out.

Behold! A vintage Tim McCarver card, and a fairly pricey one at that. Did you know that, according to my girlfriend, the term "pricey" is Pacific Northwestern in origin and basically nobody else outside of the GPMA (Greater Portland Metro Area) has ever heard it spoken? McCarver has a more prominent broadcasting gig, but unfortunately makes my ears bleed on a regular basis.

Behold! The guy responsible for starting free agency and making guys like Matt Holliday and Ryan Howard extremely rich. Why does this card look about 79435 times better than 2009 Topps Heritage? Do I really need to ask?

Thanks again to the very generous Troll, who has so many quality blogs that his blogs have begun keeping their own blogs. Seriously.