Droppin' Dimes

As the Cardinals season stumbles and sputters to the finish line, let's take a look at some... cards.

Nick runs one of the finest blogs around in Dime Boxes. When someone's interests are as varied and as broad as Nick's apparently are (is there anything he doesn't collect?), it's bound to make some compelling reading material. I was fortunate to do another card swap with Dime Boxes and snagged a number of interesting cards for my collection.

Here are just a few.

This was easily my favorite card in the whole bunch, which is why I'm showing it to you. Do you think I keep all the great ones hidden away from prying eyes such as yours? Of course not! Along with being an unlikely addition to my Brendan Ryan collection, it's just an absurd idea for a trading card. Hooray! These guys are injured! Check them out! They're on display at the local (Springfield) freak show. While no doubt a few turned out just to see a former All-Star in Mulder on a rehab assignment, I'm not sure that Ryan made many waves. He was coming off of his rookie season as a part-time infielder, after all.

The Season of McCarver has gone, well, okay. Tim McCarver retired from his day job at Big FOX to join the FOX Sports Midwest broadcast booth for a couple dozen games or so. It didn't go horribly wrong. I think sometimes the otherwise unlistenable national guys can be a little more endearing and less embarrassingly obvious when scaled down for a regional audience. Except for Thom Brennaman, The guy just wakes up unbearable.

I like seeing old, non-HOF Cardinals on modern cards. More of this, please! (Ahem. Logos would have been nice.)

And finally, Kolten Wong has been a bright spot this season as he's way ahead of where he was a year ago when he was just getting his feet wet. This is one of those short printed Futures uniform variations that the kids are so crazy about these days.