Card Draft Keepers

I participated in my first card draft back in May, hosted by the venerable Thorzul Will Rule. I managed to snag a few things that I might add to the trade bait pile or send to friends, but as you'd imagine I mostly went for things that would fit nicely into my own collection. I'm going to show off some of those things here and leave the rest up to your imagination.

Before I get to the good stuff, I have to admit to being a sucker for the old Kellogg's lenticular cards. I don't own nearly enough of them. I recently pounced on a couple of Ozzies for my Ozzie binder, and knew that the next logical step would be to acquire more Cardinals.

Wait, what am I talking about? This is the good stuff! Who cares about shiny hits when you can dig these groovy 3-D Super Stars of yesteryear. (Okay, "groovy" might be a stretch. This was 1981. As in, Reagan's first year in office.)

J.D. Drew had already moved on to the Braves by the time Donruss put out this jersey hit, but they kept him in full Cardinal gear to match the swatch. I assume that's what this means, anyway. We're left to a lot of blind faith in these situations, as everyone knows.

This shiny gold Big Mac card is numbered to 5000, but it is still a nice little gem from the late '90s. As with many cards of this era, it doesn't scan as well as we wish it could.

I can't believe that I have a card of Albert Pujols that's 11 years old! It's hard to imagine that he's been around that long, although if you ask most Angels fans I'm sure they'd say he's playing like he's been around for a lot longer than that.

Not an attractive card. I could have sworn I already owned this, but when I checked my records it was still listed as a need.

This one intrigued me because you don't often see players with swatches from different teams that they've played for. At least, I haven't seen this much. It's just too bad that they're both grey. And probably from a souvenir David Ortiz jersey that you can buy at the mall. Way to make me cynical, cruel world!

I love Chris Carpenter, as is well established. Considering some of the more ridiculous pairings that Ballpark Collection has to offer, I can say that this one isn't too bad. We get a nice Johan pinstripe from his good ol' Twins days.

Finally, on a lark I snagged an unopened 1989 Donruss cello pack in the draft, curious to see what the exclusive Grand Slammer insert would be. To a lesser extent, there's always that automatic "could be a Griffey!" reaction you get from opening certain things dated 1989.

Here's my Grand Slammer. Didn't get a Griffey.