A Junkie's Discards

One of the best things about my occasional "Up For Grabs" series of posts (wherein, unlike most of my material, I avoid all pretenses and get straight to the point of trying to peddle my wares) is that it's introduced me to some new trade partners and writers. Right now, my favorite new blog is The Junior Junkie. While it may just seem to be a blog about a player that has no ties to the Cardinals, the writing is compelling enough that it could be about just about anything. Griffey is/was a nice enough player that I don't mind reading about his cardboard sagas (I am from the Northwest, after all...) but the writing goes well and beyond my usual "uhhh I like stuff. [insert player here] is cool!" meanderings that usually have me sticking to trade posts, trade grabs and giveaways. You know, the standard Cards on Cards fare.

Speaking of which, here are a bunch of Cardinals cards that the Junkie sent. (Not, not that Junkie. Let's just call him Junkie Jr?)

When I first saw scans of the new, stupidly online only and overpriced Turkey Red product, I rubbed my eyes a couple of times and wondered if I wasn't looking at this old Topps Gallery set. And then I realized I probably needed more caffeine.

I really need to finally spring for the 2011 World Series deluxe DVD set. Sadly, it's the closest I'm going to get to watching a Chris Carpenter performance this year.

If only they had made Topps Archives base cards look like actual cardboard. I'm guessing it sold enough last year that they aren't going to change it much this time around, but I suspect that the inserts, parallels and hits were doing all of the heavy lifting.

Ron Gant! Gary Gaetti! Dennis Eckersley! The 1996 Cardinals, Tony La Russa's first with the team, was like a union of guys who peaked in the late-'80s. Like baseball's version of a hair metal band, maybe.

Junkie Kong Jr. sent me a barrel full of 1983 Fleer Cardinals. Something seems off about the font on Dane Iorg's card.

See? Look at Tommy Herr's card. Someone accidentally hit CTRL-B when they were typing his name, except that computers probably didn't do anything but play Pong, Hangman and start Global Thermonuclear War back in 1982.

I miss the weird shapes in the background of the first Topps Chrome cards. I wonder what happened to that?

I never minded Skip Schumaker. I actually enjoyed him as a bit player and occasional starter, but I won't miss the bellyaching by the Cardinals hardcore fanbase over whether or not he deserved to be on the field. Are Cards fans actually a bunch of self-important lughead jocks or something? I thought everyone was supposed to love the underdog guys like David Eckstein, Aaron Miles and Skip Schumaker. Okay, fine, bringing Miles back in 2010 was a little desperate.

Man, I do love me some Flair, the set that there's no way I could have ever afforded even when I moved out and on my own. I don't think college kids were supposed to buy high end sports cards, I guess.

Finally, I think my 1990 Leaf team set may finally be complete. I did actually buy a fair amount of this stuff when I should have been putting together a 1990 Topps set like a good soldier. (Okay, fine, I actually put together the 1990 Score set that season and own multiple copies of the 1990 Score Traded set.) These cards were awesome, but I'm not sure the design quite holds up over all this time. Now 1990 Score, on the other hand...