What Do I Do With This?

I picked up a 1995 Topps Series 1 box recently for no real reason other than its $5 price tag. (You can safely ignore the actual pricetag on the image.) I'm having trouble deciding what to do with it. I don't think it deserves its own blow-by-blow box break, yet maybe I should at least write something about it. There's a poll up on the sidebar now. If anyone is in need of any 1995 Topps cards from Series 1 for their team or player collections, please let me know.

Not a Summer Re-Run

If you've followed this blog for awhile, you might be looking at this post and thinking that you've seen it before. I received a bunch of cards in the mail recently from Night Owl Cards and... wouldn't you know... I needed most of them. Night Owl has one of the most comprehensive want lists around, which makes trading with him very easy. I may or may not have unearthed a bunch of cards on said want list last weekend, by the way.

Here's the first black Wal-Mart card I've received from anyone in at least a year. I really need to find the Wal-Mart cards I'm missing somehow, without stepping into an actual Wal-Mart store.

I think Ryan Franklin is the most invisible closer in the entire league right now. Even though the Cardinals are in the thick of a two-team race for the NL Central crown, Franklin has seen very few save opportunities this season. He also seems to be rather terrible when he isn't getting regular work.

I'm down to only needing a few 2010 Topps base cards, at least until Updates & Highlights or whatever it's called now comes out. Motte just hit the DL recently. Can you imagine anyone getting injured with this kind of pitching motion?

Here's a great 1982 Topps card that I don't think I'd ever even seen before. I love team leader type cards.

Rick Sutcliffe is threatening to surpass all others in the Most Obnoxious Baseball Broadcaster category. He certainly has some stiff competition in the Ex-Cardinals Division in Tim McCarver, however.

Here's an example of a nice photo but a rather ridiculously strange and unnecessary concept, showing Rogers Hornsby on a 1996 Topps design as part of some new insert set from 2010 Topps Series 2.

Night Owl sent over a stack of 2006 Allen & Ginter cards, of which I have precious few. The Larry Bigbie as a Cardinal collection is growing steadily now. I wonder what kind of World Series share Bigbie was voted, especially now that we know what we know about him.

Refractor Edmonds! If you rotate your monitor and tilt it towards the light, maybe you'll see the rainbow. Maybe.

There was also a nice little stack of 1985 Fleer, a set I enjoy quite a bit. Haha, Cubs, not this year!

Airbrushed Fridays: 1987 Topps Traded #81T

First off, here's a video primer for today's post. I shall not be mentioning it further, so it's best just clicked on and admired. I won't disrespect Ozzie like that, though.

Kevin Mitchell was a former MVP outfielder who played for 8 major league teams (and 1 Japanese team) in 14 seasons. He was known for his erratic behavior, the 47 HRs he hit in 1989 (the MVP season) and... oh... that video I wasn't going to mention.

Why did Topps airbrush Kevin's photo? Mitchell was shipped from the Mets to the Padres in the offseason following the Mets championship. By all accounts, it seems like the Mets recognized Mitchell's potential but already had reservations about some of his behavior. He did not last long with his new club, either, and was part of a 7-player midseason deal with the Giants where he would eventually move to the outfield fulltime by his MVP season.

What's wrong with this picture, anyway? The SF cap logo is a little jacked up. His jersey is threatening to disappear before it reaches the lower border of the photo. The background actually reminds me of something that might be used for a courtroom photo. But Mitchell himself... he looks rather sad and contemplative. Perhaps he already sees the writing on the wall that he'll be tossed around through so many franchises throughout his career. Enjoy your time with the Giants, Kevin!

(If you are interested in obtaining a card featured here, please send me an e-mail. If you have a card you would like to nominate for Airbrushed Fridays, please get in touch as well. I will require that I am able to see the card in person, either on loan or as a donation, so that I can examine the card and experience it in all its cruddiness.)

"O" No!!! A Bunch of Cards I Needed

No!!! I made a terribly tragic trade with Ryan of "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog a couple of weeks ago and here are the shocking results!

I sent off a bunch of wayward Orioles cards and in return I got a bunch of these ridiculous looking Sportflics ripoffs! Not only that, but all of them have creases in them! No!!! If I get 7 more of these, I will end up having the entire set!!!

No!!! This is just cruel! It's Ryan Ludwick, formerly of the St. Louis Cardinals. My interest in somewhat re-piqued in the Padres right now as they are the recipients of Ludwick's baseball services, but I also can now safely identify them as a threat to the Cardinals once the stretch run and the ensuing postseason occurs.

What is this?! Buster... Posey? He must be terrible. He sounds terrible! Dick Perez would be ashamed. I bet he is the new Chris Brown! (No, not the rapper singer.) If I get another couple dozen of these Turkey Red cards I might have them all, too!

Da Vinci? No!!! I went to his exhibit at the local science museum last year with my girlfriend, and, man... I know quite a few people who could design better contraptions than him. What's Italian for O-ver-ra-ted?

Brad Penny! A Cardinal!! No!!! What happened to his arm?! Curse you, Topps, for ruining Penny's season by correctly predicting that his arm would fall off... or something would detach from his person. Jerks!!! I ended up with like 80 of these Allen & Ginter cards. I'm running out of space in here! Why do people keep sending me these cards? No!!!

Pujols and Holliday, Back to Back

Some critique: that appears to be a very fake 2008 Topps card that Skip is holding. I'm guessing they decided to mock up something that would be extremely recognizable as Pujols for people with smaller TVs. But what about the rest of the cards? Clearly at least some of them are 2009 Topps cards, as the backs are very recognizable. I think there might be a few regular (or fake?) 2008 cards near the end of the stack as well.

Also, this goes without saying, but... Go Cardinals!

Who Can Turn Down a Free Buffet?

BA Benny's Baseball Card Buffet (yes, that's a real blog name and I think it's awesome) held a free group break back in June and I was lucky enough to get in on some Redbirds. The bulk of the break was packs of 2007 Fleer, from which I'm still missing card 396 (the Albert Pujols team checklist) and some of the inserts and parallels. You can see the details over at my General Want List, which is the list I have put the most work into and hope doesn't get lost among all of the sets I'm hopelessly trying to put together.

If I didn't know better, I would say that Tom Henke stopped by a booth at Busch Stadium one day and plunked down $20 to get his picture taken "at the game" to prove he was there. The only problem, though, is that everyone who spend the $20 would end up with a cheesy photo on their wall like this one. My memories of mid-'90s Cardinals games are fuzzy at best; at worst, they're completely non-existent because I just didn't watch a lot of TV back then. Here, however, I have some "evidence" that Tom Henke pitched for the 1995 Cardinals.

Here's one of the 2007 Fleer parallels that I was previously missing. The die cut "borderless" cards are more interesting that changing silver foil to gold foil at least.

Finally, I talked BA Benny out of a Matt Holliday parallel from a box of 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes that he opened last month. This is the tan version, or beige, or kind of a beige-tan. Maybe it's "sandy beaches". I'm not really sure. I wonder if Upper Deck should have provided samples for each color, similar to what people do for carpets and paint. At least we would know what to call some of these things if we want to use their proper names. Meanwhile, I should really dig up something to send away in return.

Even More Card Show Goodies

After taking June's show off, I returned to the monthly card show this past Saturday and ended up spending the majority of my time digging through bargain boxes. No one should be surprised at that, of course, but I am always glued to a table when there are large quantities of cards at a nickel a piece (or less). In this case, I found one guy who had some cards for a penny and another guy who had an entire table full of boxes at 2 cents a card.

Before I got to the cheapies, however, I picked up half a dozen or so 2009 Heritage High SPs for only $1 each. Unfortunately, I already had a couple of them since this was one want list I forgot to print out and take with me. I have those cards available to trade now, however, so it's not all bad.

I also managed to get ahold of both of the Pujols inserts from the same set for just 50 cents a piece.

Unfortunately, these two cards will stay on my list because I need two copies of each Cardinal in sets that I am working on.

Here's an example of one of the amazing bargains I snagged from the 2 cent bins. This it the short-printed variation of this card that I wrote about awhile back. I also got a Pudge Rodriguez SP from the same set and a Mike Mussina SP from 2006 Bowman Heritage.

These minis weren't a penny, but I believe they were only a quarter. It brings me two more dinosaur cards closer to Total Dinosaur Supremacy.

And, of course, there were the Cardinals cards. I tried to restrain myself and just choose a few from the bargain bins. I actually ended up filling up an entire 800 ct. box (and then some) when all was said and done, snagging a lot of 2 cent cards for people I trade with in the process.

Aside from the refractors that were in the 2 cent boxes (seriously), I was actually a bit more surprised to see mid-'80s traded set cards in mint condition. I ended up with a few cards from the '83, '84 and '85 sets including this elusive Vince Coleman rookie card that I have coveted for years.

This card is no "Fleet Feet", but it's one I didn't own before. There are a ton of Cardinals in the tiny 1985 Donruss Highlights boxed set.

Finally, I usually try to reward myself with at least one autographed or game-used purchase, especially when I'm searching for those sorts of things for others. This completed a 3 for $10 purchase and is a really nice looking card with an on-card autograph that everyone can enjoy.