This Time It Counts, Yet Again

There was a fun moment during last night's All-Star festivities where Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina and Ozzie Smith were all together that would have made for a great baseball card in the style of '80s Fleer SuperStar Special cards. Even though most "subset" cards tend to be looked down upon as inferior to a player's regular card, I always loved these Fleer offerings. Some of them are downright silly.

This shot of Wade Boggs and "Hero" is clearly from an All-Star appearance, though probably not during the game itself. Truth be told, I never liked either player on this card, but I still held it in high regard. I should make these cards a regular feature on this blog. It's funny, but I don't think the Boggs mustache would look all that out of place in today's game.

The big game is tonight. I plan on having fun watching Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. I will be astonished when Ryan Franklin takes the mound. And I'll root like crazy for the National League, because the streak is ending tonight. It has to!

Michael Young had better not ruin it again.

Joel Youngblood: Traded Legend

With all the flurry of news and deals surrounding this year's non-waiver trade deadline, I started reminiscing about this card and this guy in general. Could a player play two games in the same day for different teams these days? It doesn't seem like it. It seems like the league approval process takes awhile now, and often players that get traded don't even seem to show up in the lineup the day following when they are traded. Youngblood was traded nearly 16 years ago to the day, but since it was on August 4th I wonder if the trade was a waiver trade deadline deal. If trades worked the same way back then as the do now, I guess that is how it happened. For some reason this card stuck with me, however. and only after consulting Baseball Reference tonight did I realize that Youngblood was briefly a Cardinal at one point. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any cards capturing him with the Birds on the Bat.


Youngblood was the beneficiary of some "Record Breaker" cards thanks to his feat of recording base hits for multiple teams in the same game. Until today I had never seen his '83 Topps Sticker montage, which shows a full picture of him with the Expos and an inset picture of his previous life as a Met. (This image comes courtesy of, and fully stolen from www.rndng3rd.com.)

Youngblood signed in the offseason with the Giants following the 1982 season. In conclusion, I think he just hated team collectors.