Once Lost, Now Found

I have no recollection of Ricky Bottalico as a Cardinal. None whatsoever.

I received a batch of cards recently from longtime friend of the blog The Lost Collector, which are what I used for tonight's post. What I'm really stewing about right now, aside from another pathetic Cardinals loss, is that Ricky Bottalico was somehow an All-Star once? Yes, it's true. There stands his 1996 season with the Phillies, with 34 saves, a very solid WHIP and an FIP considered to be good by most standards. I don't know what to think anymore.

Okay, I admit it, I'm frustrated with the Cardinals right now. I want Peter Bourjos to get more playing time even though his stats don't really justify it. I want to see what he can do as a full-time outfielder while he's actually healthy for once in his life. The thing is, hardly anyone on the team has the stats to justify unquestioned full-time duties right now. Yikes.

I have a lot of J.D. Drew jersey cards, admittedly, but this is one of the more amusing ones. The atomic nucleus design is pretty entertaining, and you see what they did with the swatch right there? Of course, it takes a vital chunk out of Drew's body, but I can almost live with it. I have no idea what the shiny dead space below his name is for, however.

Kolten Wong hit his first big league HR tonight and it was a grand slam! That was exciting. Unfortunately, the Cardinals coughed up that 4 run lead in a hurry and then coughed up another one later in the game, so Wong's big day was all for naught. I do love these blue parallels out of this year's Opening Day set, though.

TLC also sent me a healthy stack of '90s Blazers cards. This is the first time I've seen the basketball counterpart to the insane 1995 Fleer baseball design, and I have to say that it is slightly less insane, I guess? I don't know what it was about the mid-'90s that made card companies resort to the multi-picture collage where one picture is always a smaller version of the big picture, only with a different color palette (thinking 1996 Topps here, guys), but I don't like it.

Here's James "Hollywood" Robinson, about to throw one down on Tony Massenburg, a guy on a poster if there ever was one. This photo appears to be from the final season that the Blazers played at the Memorial Coliseum, which makes me happy. This seems to be an Electric Court parallel. I don't know what that means, but I like it.