My First Ozzie Smith Auto

The title says it all. 

As you may recall, I ran into a rare bit of luck recently and pulled a nice Michael Conforto auto. While my eyes initially turned to dollar signs like one of those greedy guys in the old singing frog Looney Tunes cartoons, I was quickly presented with an offer I couldn't refuse. Deep down, I'm in this for the fun of it, and it's honestly more fun to send someone a valuable card (on the rare chance that I get one) who really wants it rather than sell it to some random person I'll never interact with outside of a financial transation. Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown was the one to pounce, and he presented me with my very Ozzie Smith certified autograph, along with a bunch of other cool Cardinals stuffs. (My apologies for the scan, but I wasn't about to bust the thing out of its case and spill some beer on it or whatever.)

1994 Collector's Choice is firmly in junk wax territory even though it came out after I stopped paying attention. That said, the silver and gold signature parallels can be a tough find, especially the gold ones.

Some years ago, some kind blogger interviewed me via email and asked me some questions about the then-current state of the Cardinals. Of all of the players I could've chosen from at the time, I thought I'd sound smart and say that Daryl Jones was the big up-and-comer. I was not right. Gavin sent over this Topps Pro Debut card of the former DJ Tools, along with a pile of other Pro Debut cards that I didn't have. I love minor league cards, I really do. So much promise... and strange names. Daryl's name is pretty ordinary, though.

Just gonna say... '90s style mushroom trip?

Luke Weaver status report: still on the minor league DL with a busted wrist. Could be back soon, though?

This is the real Archives deal. For the cards released from 2012-present, Topps should have just stuck with the Lineage name because they're not at all the same thing as the old Topps Archives. Also, I have to say, I'm not much of a jersey wearing guy, but I would love to own a Cardinals jersey like that one.

Apparently there's an early '90s oddball Orioles set commemorating past players, and they couldn't actually find a Baltimore picture of this guy? Well, he goes in my Cardinals binder. Sorry, O's fans.

Shelby has super duper struggled with the Diamondbacks this year, a season after he was an All-Star with Atlanta who had the strange distinction of going 6-17.

My first Cardinals game seen in person happened to be So Taguchi's MLB debut back in 2002 in Seattle. The Cards are back in Seattle this June for the first time since then, and I've got plans to make it to the entire series.

Fernando "2 Grand Slams in 1 Inning" Tatis has a signature that would make most doctors envious.

Long before there was Panini's Prizm, we had Pacific's Prism. This card is really, really bright!

Finally, Gavin sent over two customs of The Wizard, including this '91 Upper Deck style from Ozzie's memorable trip to the void of Simpsons existence, the dreaded Mystery Spot. Actual real life ballplayers who I'd wish would take a trip to the Mystery Spot: Bryce Harper, Jonathan Papelbon, Brandon Phillips, Kris Bryant, pretty much all of the Cubs roster...

Go crazy, folks! You may have also heard that Gavin caught a little heat for selling some of these great creations of his, so I want to stress that these were sent to me completely free and without any financial incentive. (Not that, uh, we should feel all that sorry for Upper Deck for all their past shenanigans.)

O!

Celebrating a Blazers playoff win with a Listia win. 

I picked this 'Sheed card up off of Listia (yeah, I still use it) the other day, and it was waiting in the mailbox for me tonight when I got home from watching the Blazers/Clippers playoff game down at the local watering hole. The Blazers have now won three straight playoff games for the first time since this guy was the star of the team.

This is a piece of game-worn... (drumroll, please...)... warm-up jacket! If your guess was shorts, sorry, maybe next time?

Late to the Party: Heritage Edition

My annual "I finally bought some Topps Heritage" post. 

Last month's Loot Locker packs notwithstanding, last week was my first opportunity to actually dig in to this year's Topps Heritage set. I don't really sweat the timing of it all, to be perfectly honest. I know that, for example, Gypsy Queen is already out, but it's not like I'm going to be buying much of that. On a quick trip to Target, I snagged a blaster and a $9.99 35-card box (whatever those are called) and was on my merry way.

Big Papi's Chrome insert was in the very first pack. This will probably make some Red Sox fan happy as I don't tend to hang on to these unless they're a candidate for my team or player collections. Ideally, I'm a Heritage master set builder, but I draw a line at chrome-y gloss because it doesn't really fit the spirit of the Heritage brand. (If you have Cardinals stuff like this, then we should probably talk!)

This may look familiar, because I also pulled a King Felix SP in one of my two Loot Locker hobby packs.

It seems like Joey Bats and King Felix always get the SP treatment. It's almost as if Topps thinks no one would chase short printed cards of some team's poor backup catcher.

I was pretty excited when I heard about things like "stand-ups" and "discs" being retail inserts in this year's Heritage set. So, imagine my confusion (and dismay) when I pulled this stupid card that is just pretending to be something. The "stand-up" design is just that - a design. This doesn't fold out or punch out into anything. Totally pointless.

On the bright side, I don't think Topps Heritage on-card autographs are never going to not be awesome. I always gripe about there not being any Marlins fans or collectors out there, but this is the one time it doesn't matter because I'm probably keeping this.

In it's 16th year, this New Age Performers design is kind of a yawner, I'm afraid.

Okay.

The $9.99 hangar-pack-or-whatever actually netted me my only Cardinals card of the day. This is a nice photo, but an even better one would've been of Carlos Martinez giving a home run hitter the requisite cup-of-water-in-the-face.

I didn't know Eddie Mathews ever played for the Astros! I learned stuff.

When you see a card of a star player in the middle of the pack, you just know it's going to be a short print. Pretty predictable, guys.

Tulo has had a dreadful start to his career with the Blue Jays, but at least he's not injured, right? Right?

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Michael Jordan 1990 "White Sox"

The greatest basketball player impersonating a baseball player. 

Before he entertained the idea for real, Michael Jordan apparently did a photo op with the Chicago White Sox, taking batting practice and pressing the flesh. It's the sort of thing that Billy Crystal does every year. Someone got really excited about it and made a baseball card or two out of the blurry photos. Crummy unlicensed cards were pretty popular at the beginning of the '90s, also the era of the Simpsons bootleg t-shirt.

This one comes complete with stats, but that's not the most impressive thing about it. Some SABR geek had the wherewithal to compute MJ's impressive basketball stats into totally legitimate "Baseball Stats". Someone must have had a blast working on that rebounds-to-RBI formula.

Spring Cleaning 2016 is Coming

How do you organize your cards? 

Have I been doing things all wrong? Recently, I began organizing my doubles from sets I am trying to collect by team instead of in number order. I started doing this as part of last year's semi-successful Spring Cleaning trade-off. I've kept things going in that regard, and it's helped me find quick fodder for team collectors when I am trying to stuff a padded envelope.

Some recent blog perusings got me thinking: should I be doing this with the rest of my cards? Should I bother keeping my 2002 cards separate from the 2001 cards? Should I still keep them grouped by set, alphabetically, by year and by card number? There's almost no point to me continuing to do this when I don't collect these sets, unless a lot of people have a lot of want lists for me to look through.

I could even take things further and start recycling cards from certain sets and certain years (hello, late '80 and early '90s!) It's kind of hard to do that in the day and age when someone is literally trying to collect every single Tim Wallach card out there. Maybe someone out there really needs a 1990 Topps Bryan Clutterbuck. And some cards might be more recyclable than others just on the environmental side of things. I'm not sure that glossy UV coating is going to pulp up really well.

In any case, I recently unearthed an old box of weirdness that's going to serve as the launching point for this year's Spring Cleaning efforts. More details to come next week, but I'm going to basically list a bunch of things on the blog here in lots for people to claim, and all you have to do is send me a minimum of one card from my want list. (If you're on that spreadsheet that's been going around, you don't even need to send me anything because I know you're good for it.)

Clowns

The Cardinals are playing like clowns right now, so here are some jokes. 

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

I get jokes.

(Thanks to Waiting 'til Next Year for the, er, humor.)

Cubs Fatigue

Cards from the other side of the rivalry courtesy of @TomSOlson 

I knew it was going to be bad when I was already tired of hearing about the Cubs before an official pitch had been thrown this season. The lovable losers are a lot less lovable these days, with their 7th ranked payroll and frontrunner status this season. Thanks to an impressive staple of talented young players, the team that floated into the NLCS last season on Joe Maddon's magic carpet is expected to win 130 games this season and destroy every team in its path on its way to world domination.

Okay, fine, sorry -- I'm cranky tonight. It's an exciting time to be a Cubs fan, but even tossing the rivalry with the Cardinals aside for the moment, I seriously dread the moment the Cubs actually win a World Series because it's going to rival the Red Sox of the past decade in terms of insufferable fan encounters. Fortunately, many Cubs fans are not insufferable, and I am positive that P-Town Tom is one of them. I've had nothing but great encounters with card collecting Cubs fans and the Waiting 'til Next Year blogger is certainly among the good guy traders I've dealt with. He was also kind enough not to send me any Cubs (or Heywards) in our most recent dealing.

A shiny, colorful Bob Gibson card will certainly help to calm my nerves. This one appears to be an insert from a 2001 Upper Deck set, and it was one that I needed.

The colors on this card are just off (blue and gold?) and poor Stan is reduced to a small photo. This card is super shiny however, and looks to be from a Panini Hall of Fame set that probably came out at a price a little too rich for my blood.

This has to be one of the youngest looking dudes to ever appear on a baseball card. If Nick Plummer comes into your bar, you should probably check his ID.

Here's a minor league card that looks like it may have been signed in-person by former Cardinals prospect Tyler Herron. Cool stuff.

Adam Wainwright is Fired Up! Unfortunately, his performance this season so far has been rather tepid, like a frozen burrito that you tried to microwave that's still cold in the middle. Hopefully Waino can right the proverbial ship, and soon.

Cards with Integrity

A solid trade package arrives. 

True story: I actually own a cracked bat. It's Chris Denorfia's bat, in fact. I've told the story before, but another fringe major leaguer lost the grip on his bat during a game in the waning moments of the last incarnation of the Portland Beavers AAA franchise. The bat ended up in my lap. Somehow in a blur of confusion and half eaten ballpark nachos, the cracked Denorfia bat became mine to keep.

This brings me to the latest bubble mailer of cards that showed up at Cards on Cards Central, from super Tigers fan Julie of A Cracked Bat.

The package contained a bunch of 2016 Panini Donruss Cardinals cards. Without being responsible and actually checking the checklist, I am pretty sure I've got a handle of the bulk of the team set now, which is great. I chose the Tsunami for scanning because he's pretty much the most underrated player around these days.

This looks like someone cropped Matt's head out of a magazine and blew it up to 3x5 proportions. This is not up to SI's usual standards, guys.

From L: Matt Holliday, Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, Yadier Molina and Trevor "The Subject" Rosenthal. Not pictured: Matt Carpenter, who was actually the best player on the team last year by many metrics. (NL doubles leader. Just saying.)

These Triumvirate cards are weird and nice. Or weird, but nice? I guess I need to go out and pick up the rest of the gang so I can put them together like some crappy 2D Voltron or... perhaps it's more apt to say, like Ignignokt and Err. If these weren't so dazzling looking, I would continue making fun of them.

Thanks again to Julie, who can expect a bundle of Tigers stuff in the near future!

Cards from the Bayou

A huge haul from @Teejnola includes another player I had to Google. 

My mailbox has been full of great stuff from Junkies lately. Unlike other junkies I'm familiar with, The Junior Junkie probably didn't have to dig through the reycling bins and scraps at the local construction site to find things of value for this deal.

Some really nice additions to the Carp collection were on hand, including a 2006 MLB Artifacts jersey swatch card and this black bordered mini from the 2008 Allen & Ginter set. This set is still my favorite of all of the Ginter sets because it was the first one I ever got my grubby mitts into.

I've been working on getting a better handle on cataloging my cards lately and have found that the Signature Rookies cards are really tough to find good info about. They tend to come in either "promo" versions, signed versions and unsigned versions, all of which look nearly identical and come with a not-quite serial number. Obviously, this isn't signed, but I'm never going to find it on any of the websites I frequent even though supposedly 5000 of them were printed. That said, I love getting early Chris Carpenter cards. (Not Cris Carpenter... that's another guy.)

This is an absolutely fantastic "gold mirror" parallel Jim Edmonds card, numbered 10/25. It's one of the better additions to my Jimmy Baseball collection of late.

I think we're just about at a stage of Jaime Garcia's career where we can expect things out of him for the first time in pretty much ever. It's nice. Just like this purple refractor is nice.

I'm familiar with Kevin Joseph in that he made some appearances here and there for the 2002 Cardinals team (the one that traded for Scott Rolen only to have him break in the playoffs) and the fact that somewhere I think I have another one of his autos or serial numbered rookie cards.

Ray Lankford is the King, man! Pacific did a lot of weird stuff, but the blinged out die cuts are pretty fun to look at even now.

Luke Weaver seems like he is destined to be another gem in the recently successful pipeline of Cardinals prospects.

This Matt Adams card is thick as a brick! I could probably shatter your car window and steal your spare change with it. It's definitely thicker than some entire packs of cards.

Mullinax... Mullinax... hmm... Jacob Mullinax? Doesn't ring a bell. There's not much out there about him, but he was apparently a 14th round pick that was out of pro baseball after just two seasons. Of course, that's two more than I played.

Purple Piscotty! He's gotten off to a nice start as the every day right fielder.

And we say goodbye for now with an early Pujols. One of these days I'll finally suck it up and track down a rookie year card, but for now I've got my 2002 cards to deal with.