'Graphs and Such

 

Cardinals cards and autographs (what else?) from @padrographs include some familiar names and cards. 

 

Rod from Padrographs bestowed upon me another generous package of cards several months back. As you might expect, there were even some signed cards in the bunch. Let's take a look at a few of the non-signed ones.

I totally missed out on last year's Finest Flashbacks craze. It came out fairly early in the pandemic at a very reasonable price, until people went super nuts over it. I'm glad to at least have secured one of the base cards from the set, which is modeled after the first Topps Finest set from 1993.

Portland Beavers cards are always appreciated here! There are several of the team sets I still need, especially from the team's final years in what was then called PGE Park. Dirk Hayhurst is better known for his career in writing about baseball than the brief time he spent in the big leagues.

Here's a nice refractor version of one of the Cardinals draft picks from 2020. He had Tommy John surgery earlier this year, so it may yet be a bit before he starts ascending the ranks of the minor league levels.

As promised, there were signed cards, too. Alan Benes, of course, is the lesser known younger brother of Andy Benes. Alan was a top prospect in the mid-'90s but ended up having his promising career derailed by injuries.

Craig Wilson was a part-time player in parts of four seasons with the Cardinals.

Let me say this: "Sugar Bear" Rayford does not really look much like a professional baseball player. He was, however, and spent all but a small part of his career with the Baltimore Orioles. I believe this is his only baseball card with the Cardinals, or at least the only one that comes to memory.

Jim Lindeman spent several years as a bench bat with the Cardinals, most notably as the fourth outfielder on the pennant winning 1987 team.

Lastly, here's one of a former Cardinals farmhand. I'm guessing Rod got ahold of most of these through TTM exchanges, but how does one go about tracking down Ricardo Bautista?

This was some really cool stuff from Padrographs.

Let's Get Repulsive

Cardinals of all shapes, sizes and years. 

 

Fellow Cardinals collecting blog All Cardinals All The Time shared another batch of Cardinals dupes with me a few months back. As usual, this stack of cards did not disappoint. It's not every day I get to add a card from the '50s to my collection, let alone one of Eldon "Rip" Repulski. Are there any Repulski super-collectors out there? I know he has relatively few cards, so I just want to know if there's someone out there hoarding copies of this 1955 Topps card, for example.

We jump (leap?) forward into the '90s with an autographed card from the 1997 Donruss Signature Series set. As I've said before, I love that this set offers collectors a chance at some really affordable autographs on the secondary market. I'm not the biggest autograph seeker myself, but if I were I'd be more drawn to this set (and TTMs) than new Bowman cards or something high end.

This might be the first time Dan Cholowsky has ever gotten a mention on this blog, but as it turns thirteen next month, I'm not sure that I would bet on it.

We go from a former top prospect who didn't pan out to a guy who has worked out well so far since his initial call-up last year. I don't know many that have doubles of Topps Now cards just laying around, so I'm guessing this was part of a bulk purchase. I'll sometimes look for cheap Topps Now cards to add to my collection, but they're often from a separate set. This might be the first one I own from the main set in their daily on-demand series.

Topps has certainly done the tobacco mini thing better, but I can never complain about getting more Pacific cards. It would be fun to open a box from one of their sets someday, although I'm always afraid that cards from this era are going to be permanently fused together.

With with minor league baseball (the pieces that Rob Manfred didn't destroy) returning tomorrow for the first time since 2019, it's only fitting to show off a young Ray Lankford AAA card here. So many minor league card photos end up looking like photo day at the local school.

Someday I will have all of the Walmart, Target, Meijer (?) and Walgreens parallels that I want. This is not that day. It's good to get another one for the team collection, though.

Mitchell Boggs isn't exactly a household name, but he was a part of the 2011 championship team and briefly held down the closer role that Jason Motte would eventually take over for their stretch and playoff runs.

I usually like Fleer Ultra inserts, but this is kind of an odd one. If I recall, I think the whole 2005 Ultra set sort of sticks out like a sore thumb in the otherwise attractive run of the Fleer product that dated all the way back to 1991. Of course, Upper Deck would end up taking it over and killing it off over the next couple of years.

Another Treasure Trove

Another fantastic assortment of eclectic Cardinals cards (and a few Blazers!) 

 

I've been doing this thing, whatever you want to call it, for more than a dozen years now. It's getting tough to pick out new titles for posts and new superlatives to describe bundles of cards. I try to switch up the verbiage every so often. It's the least I can do, especially when you're getting hammered with "trade post" this and "trade post" that.

This latest batch of truly exceptional cards came to the Pacific Northwest (which is not entirely on fire at this point) from Bob of The Best Bubble. Bob really likes his fun oddball cards and bubble gum-related photos, and I encourage you to send some stuff his way if you have anything like that. I often struggle to find things for collectors who have collections that extend beyond the tradition team, player or set territory, but I will try to find what I can.

Most of the cards in the package were of the Redbird variety, but there were a few nice Trail Blazers cards as well. For some reason I like these weird Donruss starburst green and yellow parallels (not the official name, of course.) They do clash with the Blazers color scheme quite a bit, but that's okay.

Inserts and numbered cards from the '00s are almost always a success with me, and this Timeless Treasures Scott Rolen card certainly fits that caterogry. I just wish they could have dedicated a little more retail space for the photo here.

Wacha Wacha Wacha! I've... got nothin'.

Bob sent some interesting unlicensed Todd Zeile cards that I'd never seen before. The prospect hype was pretty big with Zeile at the time, though not in the same category as Todd Van Poppel or Ben McDonald. These days, graded Bowman Zeile cards would be tearing up the online auctions before he ever played a meaningful game. Back in 1990, we got what they used to call "Broders". They would usually cost something like a dollar a pop.
 

Also in the package was a healthy chunk of the 1989 Star St. Petersburg Cardinals team set. I decided to pick this guy to scan, because he's kind of goofy looking. I think I might have seen him at one of my dad's company picnics back in the day.

Soup's on, Suppan! This is from the short-lived (?) Upper Deck Epic set.

Back to the Blazers here with a die cut Scottie Pippen insert. I think Pippen's cards got a bit of a bump over the summer from the whole Jordan documentary thing, but I doubt that did anything to his non-Bulls cards. That's okay, though. You can give them all to me. Except the Rockets ones. Nobody wants those.

This set is always one of the best examples of where to pick up a signed card on a budget. It's also a great example of how well autographs work on matte finish cards.

This one is even better looking than the plain white/grey look of that previous Leaf set. I think they may have even instructed the players to sign in a certain place on the card. What do you think? I am pretty certain this is my first signed card of Ray Lankford, one of the Cardinals biggest stars of the '90s. It was a nice little shock to see this one.

I always appreciate the vintage cards that come my way, no matter what the condition may be. I love how you can still see remants of his original Cincinnati cap behind the weird airbrushing there. Even weirder is the fact that Grammas didn't play in the majors with the Redlegs until after he was traded back to Cincinnati the year this card was issued. I'm not sure if this is some weird scouting photo or what, but he had already completed two seasons with St. Louis at this point. (Feel free to let me know if I'm missing something here.)

Before the Memphis Redbirds were the long term Cardinals AAA affiliate, there was the Louisville Redbirds. Unsurprisingly, the uniform is pretty similar to their then-parent club.

Here's another one of those numbered cards from that Epic set, this time featuring an even more familiar face in the former Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter.

Note to self: Chrome cards from this set do not scan all that well.

We finish things up with a couple of signed cards from Signature Rookies. I wonder how many signed cards Brian Barber himself owns.

The last one is another signed card. It's the lesser known Benes brother. If I had to sign 2100 cards, I would lose my mind. I don't know how these guys do it. (Of course, some of them don't... do it.) Was Brian Barber's playing career shortened because he signed nearly ten thousand cards and his hand nearly fell off?

A Trade Fit for a King

I may have messed with royalty with my latest trade. I worked out a deal with The Diamond King and, shockingly, still haven't sent my end of the deal yet. I really hate doing these kinds of posts but I am so far behind that I am hoping my posting this will motivate me to actually get the return package in the mail. The smaller trades I've been pretty on top of lately, but I've struggled lately to get the bigger packages out the door. I keep telling myself that if I just take some time off from work I will get all of this done, but...

Oh, sorry. Hi. You don't want to hear my excuses. You just want to see the cards. I received some shockingly nice vintage from The King, including this late period Lou Brock card. I really need to work on my older Cardinals wants (pre-1980) but... there's that whole time crunch thing.

Even better? Check out this Gibby card. I love it. Gibson had already amassed more than 200 victories by the time this card came out. This is a good one.

Cody Haerther was a 6th round pick in 2002, but he failed to crack the majors. He finally reached the AAA club in 2008. Someone at Topps must have decided that Haerther was about to have a big break in 2005 because I received not one but two "first year" cards of his from that season.

Here's a goldie. There are tons of goldies in this year's Update set, in case you didn't know. And I like goldies. You can send them to me, if you'd like.

Here's one of those fancy pants Chrome cards from the Heritage line. Or perhaps this was a Heritage card in the Chrome set. How would I even know?

It's a new card for the Ozzie binder. That's right: I have a binder full of Ozzies.

Shelby Miller was relegated to backup mop-up guy duty (and emergency starter?) in the playoffs this year. He may get a shot at the rotation next year, especially if Jaime Garcia isn't fully recovered from his recent injury woes.

This was the impetus of the trade, a certified autograph of the Cards' current starting second baseman. Descalso has a nice arm but a questionable glove and isn't the most gifted at the plate. Still, I am comfortable with him as long he's buried somewhere very deep in the lineup.
 

I also received a very nice stack of Portland Trail Blazers cards, including this pretty sweet team card from my want list. You can barely see him, but there's a flash of the old Bullets jerseys in the photo on the right. The current Washington Wizards jerseys were modeled after that look.

I guess Upper Deck has been in the "predictor" game for quite awhile. I have a feeling "Uncle Cliffy" scored 35 points in a game that year at some point, though I don't feel like looking it up. He was quite an offensive force in the '90s.

This is just ridiculous. There's a lot going on here. Martell is an ex-Blazer I root for. He's dealt with some nagging injuries over the years and failure to meet up to lofty draft expectations, but he's still young. (And doesn't that sound like every Blazers player drafted in the last 5-10 years or so?)

Birds of a Feather

After going through all of the 30 Teams posts and having a chance to reflect, I would have to say that were I of a different mindset, I don't think I could go wrong rooting for all bird teams. I've always had a soft spot for the Blue Jays, and Baltimore is a team on the rise and is right now in the thick of the wild card race. They also are sitting just 5 games behind the division leading Yankees. Speaking of which, big time Orioles fan Jason of Hobbs' Knights sent over some set filling needs as well as some fun Cardinals cards in exchange for some bird cards that he prefers.

It seems like Gypsy Queen has been everyone this summer. I managed to completely miss this set last time around, so it's tough to say whether this year has been an improvement or not.

I do like this. Flashy framed cards like this remind me of the lost, lamented Upper Deck Masterpieces set.

Mitchell Boggs has been the club's second most dependable reliever (next to Jason Motte.) It's been a rough year beyond those two.

As I mentioned, there were some set needs in the package, and that included a couple of Heritage short prints. Maggs is looking like he'd already retired by this point.

I guess it's better to be pictured in a slightly fuzzy photo on a newspaper than to be seen on the side of a milk carton... I think.