Heritage on Parade

This is the first installment of a series of posts documenting the goodies I snagged in Smed's Spring Cleaning. Oddly enough, I did some spring cleaning of my own today around Casa de Cards on Cards. I didn't discover any hidden baseball card treasures or anything... just some clothes I assumed I already parted ways with. This is just going to be a gallery of 2011 Topps Heritage cards that I found to be interesting, which means that most of them will be Cardinals related. Go figure.

It's nice to see a couple of photos of Gibby that I'm not totally sick of. He did play baseball for a long time in an era where there were plenty of photo opportunities, so I'm hoping more photos will circulate for some of these legendary players who played in more of a modern era than guys like Ty Cobb.

It's tough to say what the future holds for Skip Schumaker. I like Skip, but I think my interest in him as a player waned when he went from the 25th man that you always wanted to see more of to an everyday player, with not a whole lot of punch in his bat. Those types of players are still pretty valuable if they can play stellar middle infield defense or can play almost any position on the field late in games. Unfortunately, Skip can't really do either. With Allen Craig beginning to take hold as the Next Great La Russa Position Conversion, Schumaker seems relegated to backup duties on a team that is in no short supply of backups.

It's so weird that I have a spot in my binders for Lance Berkman.

New closer Fernando Salas is now on his second year with the new-fangled RC logo. Good job, Topps. He's in one of the 2010 Bowman sets as a regular RC (not one of the prospects.) He's got an interesting face.

Albert Pujols hit a home run today, a bright spot in a game dampened by Kyle McClellan failing to retire Madison Bumgarner at all before allowing a grand slam to Andres Torres.

Jon Jay is looking more and more like the best 4th outfielder the Cards have ever had. He can play all three outfield positions very well, and has a quick lefty bat that has provided some late innings punch. As long as Holliday, Berkman and Rasmus don't miss any extended time, Jay should end up with some pretty nice numbers. His production seems to decline when relied upon as an everyday guy, though.

Holliday limped his way through 9 innings today. I hope his sore quad isn't something he's going to be dealing with all season.

There is no chance of Colby Rasmus ever not looking awkward, kind of like this sentence.

Chris Perez is probably the last person I'd ever want to be in a bar fight with.

Creeeepy.

I think Vernon picked up this Angels hat at a gas station.

I don't know why I'm such a fan of these four-paneled "in action" cards, but I am. Something about this card also makes me giggle a little bit.

My want list will be updated before I go to sleep tonight as I've knocked off a ton of needs here, along with a few other packs I've purchased recently. If you see names instead of just numbers, you'll know that it's updated.