Red and More Red, But Mostly Blue

Adron Chambers hits a walkoff winner in the 14th, but the worst was assumed while writing this trade post.

It's been a rough go of it of late to be a Cardinals fan, not that I'm looking for sympathy or anything like that. They can't seem to beat the Pirates (the Pirates!) to save their lives, and we're deep into the season at this point. Hall of Fame blog Cardboard Junkie and Cards on Cards have exchanged cards a few times over the years, so why don't we take a look at some of the cards dayf sent of players from my two favorite franchises to cheer things up a bit around here?

Fan Favorites was Topps Archives done right, only about 10 years ago. This Willie McGee approximation is a lot more indignant looking than his original 1990 Topps counterpart.

Well, howdy there!

This is a really nice looking relic card. Yeah, I know, your pockets are flush with J.D. Drew memorabilia and you can't get anyone to swap you so much as a single Pixy Stix for any of it, but this looks like excellent design work if you ask me.

On the other hand, this is truly awful. But I love Scotty Rolen and his perpetual scowl. When healthy, he's one of the best, most complete third basemen of the last twenty years.

Meanwhile, it was a rough day for Portland Trail Blazers fans as well. The naming rights to the Rose Garden were sold to some health care company. The Blazers arena opened nearly two decades ago and was fairly unique across major pro sports as having no corporate naming deal. I will never call it anything but the Rose Garden and will dare not speak its ugly new name here.

Dayf sent a nice group of older Blazers cards (are basketball cards "vintage" if they're pre-Jordan?) including a bunch of 1980-81 Topps tri-paneled gems that I may have future plans for. Instead, I scanned the Lionel Hollins card above with a photo from the championship year.

This guy was into dogfighting before dogfighting was cool. You hear that, Mr. Vick? Oh wait, dogfighting was never cool.

Sabas was the best. Here's a card that can truly cheer me up.

Oh no, oh sorrow! Brandon Roy was part of the epic Greek tragedy that was the Portland Trail Blazers of the last decade or so. Well, he was pretty great before he tried to steal the Holy Grail, hit a booby trap instead, and watch his knee turn to dust. I do have to say that I really like the Murad set.

Sergio Rodriguez was a curiosity for a brief time, a Spanish pro ballplayer whose draft rights were bought by Paul Allen when he suddenly became interested in basketball again. Now that Allen's off promoting his new album and hitting the night clubs, he's apparently letting his cyborg team president do things like completely screw up traditional Blazers things that fans enjoy.