Up For Grabs Cardinalpalooza: Lou Brock

The Cardinals picked up games on Pittsburgh and Cincinnati again tonight as they have feasted on weaker opponents (Marlins, Astros) lately. Meanwhile, we soldier on and check out the next Cardinals whose cards I'm trying to pawn off on people. The list follows at the end of the post.

Lou Brock's playing days were before my time, but he's been a fixture in the Cardinals organization for as long as I can remember. The team has been fortunate to keep so many players around, either in a sort of "ambassador" capacity or something more formal.

This is one of the rack pack "holofoil" parallels of this insert from this year's Series 1. I also have an extra of the regular insert.

This card may be off center, but it's not as off center as my scanner would have you believe. There's nothing that's going to help that helmet, though.

Action Packed made a run at the still-to-be-developed high end football market back in the day, but it seemed to go over about as well as Sportflics did in baseball. For some reason I completely missed out on their baseball products, which (likely due to licensing issues) seemed to be limited to retired players.

The list:

1978 Topps #170 (very off-center)
1978 Topps (Record Breaker #1) (soft corners)
1979 Topps #665 (off-center about 70/30)
1985 Topps Woolworth's #5 [2 available]
1987 Topps Kmart #13 [4 3 available]
1989 Topps (Turn Back the Clock) #662 [8 available]
1989 Topps (Turn Back the Clock w/ red line on shoulder) #662
1990 Pacific Legends #12
1991 Upper Deck (Stolen Base Leaders w/ Rickey Henderson) #636
1992 Action Packed #2 [2 available]
1998 Fleer Sports Illustrated World Series Fever #6
2002 Topps Archives #109 [2 available]
2005 Donruss Leather & Lumber #145
2005 Upper Deck All-Star Classics #91
2005 Upper Deck Classics #67 [2 available]
2010 Topps The Cards Your Mom Threw Out (w/ Carl Yastrzemski)  #CMT145
2010 Topps National Chicle #222
2011 Topps Kimball Champions #KC-76
2012 Topps Golden Greats #GG-89 [2 available]
2012 Topps Gypsy Queen #297 [2 available]
2013 Topps Chasing History #CH-14
2013 Topps Chasing History Holofoil #CH-14

[updated 10/2/13]

Grich and the Rookies

I'm down to needing exactly 5% of the 1985 Fleer set thanks to another trade from one of my readers. Reader Jeff sent over erstwhile All-Star Bobby Grich and a couple of young upstarts to get me down to needing just 33 of the 660 cards in this set.

Long before he became Erin's least favorite TV broadcaster, Orel Hershiser was sewing his oats in the Dodgers rotation. I think he had some sort of scoreless streak of some merit going in the late '80s. And he pitched for Cleveland, didn't he? CLEVELAND!

Because of my love for the quirkiness that is Dan Quisenberry, I was a bit conflicted during the I-70 Series as an almost 10 year old. I was clearly no fan of Saberhagen's, though.

It wasn't all peaches and cream and '85 Fleer, though. Jeff also sent over a few Cardinals cards, including one I had never seen before. The Pacific Legends set usually contained, well, legends of a sort. I was surprised to see Bob Horner, in a Cardinals uniform no less, in this early Pacific design. These cards are as dull as dishwater, but considering how few Bob Horner Cardinals cards there are, I am glad to find another one to add to the binder.

Up For Grabs Cardinalpalooza: Dennis Eckersley

First things first: I updated several of my previous "Up For Grabs" posts with some cards that I found laying around that should have been included. (McGwire, Mattingly, Morgan and McCovey to name a few.) I still have tons of cards listed on the blog that are available for whatever bits of kibble you feel like sending back, so please go ahead and peruse the archives if you have a few moments in your day or evening.

Dennis Eckersley only spent two seasons in a Cardinals uniform, but he made the most of them, serving as the team's closer for the first two years of the Tony La Russa era. He notched 66 saves at the ages of 42 and 43. Even with some diminished "stuff", he was able to maintain a K rate that was higher than most of his years spent as a starter for what it's worth. As usual, the list follows at the end of the post.

This is a rare example of a set that actually scans better than it looks in hand. It's usually the other way around.

I've professed my love for 1997 Upper Deck before, with their captions that purportedly describe the game from which the photo is taken.

The list:

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado #55
1997 Upper Deck #159
1996 Bowman #64
1996 Upper Deck (Best of a Generation) #375
1997 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #201
1998 Metal Universe #118
1998 Topps #200
2008 Donruss Threads #46

[updated 10/2/13]

Series 2 Thoughts

You've tried all the best and now you're here for the rest. Here's my take on the new(ish) Topps Series 2 product. I picked up several packs in several configurations recently, and rather than bore everyone with a full on pack break I just thought I'd show off a few cards from each.

Hobby Packs (3) - 10 cards - $7.00

Emerald parallels are back. I'm not sure that I'm a big fan of these, but they're here and they're not apparently going anywhere, which means I have screaming loud green versions of Cardinal cards to collect.

Apparently this is the last go around of the '72 minis, which are due to be replaced by a '71 version in the Update set. Is this Topps admitting that this design isn't all that popular while trying to appease people with a more popular look to lure people into buying Update Series cards? Probably?

Here's my first and only Cardinal out of the 3 hobby packs. If this looks familiar it's because we had this insert in Series 1.

One of the most frustrating things to me about Series 2 and its existence is all of the Photoshopped cards. To me, there's no point of showing players in their new uniforms if they're not really wearing them, and there's no point in breaking up a set into two parts released many months apart if they don't use more current photos. Series 1 and Series 2 are probably printed days apart but released months apart.

Target Retail Packs (5) - 60 cards - $9.95

Another "chase" themed insert set. This is a pretty cool photo with the bits of grass flying through the air.

Chasing History again. I think CarGo is criminally underappreciated.

These inserts are a slice of cardboard perfection. Just don't cut yourself.

More '72 minis. It's nice to see Eric Davis get some love from the Topps conglomerate.

Out of the five loose packs, one contained a red Target parallel. I have no idea who Hicks is.

Scary green again.

Here's Wilin Rosario Making (His) Mark. For once there's no "chase" in the insert name.

Target Rack Pack (1) - 36 cards - $4.99

Darvish is still a pretty good pitcher, is he not?

Finally, after five loose packs of zero Cardinals, we get to an actual Cardinals base card. There were Cardinals all over the place in Series 1, so they might be sparse in this set. Joe Kelly is back in the rotation and had a perfectly cromulent outing today.

Here's the rack pack holofoil version of the Musial insert we saw earlier. It's nice to knock these two off the want list right away.

It's weird to see Sheffield as a Dodger. I know he played for all sorts of teams, the Cardinals not included, but this card surprised me a little.

Yelling, screaming, red Angel Mike Trout. Yeahhhh buddy.

All of these cards, minus the Cardinals, are up for grabs. I also have a stack of base cards if anyone has lists that need to be trimmed. Just point me to them and let me know.

Airbrushed Fridays: 2010 Topps #458

The Cardinals have officially hit the skids. Their recent examples of play on the baseball field harken back to the days where the team was doing crazy things like converting scrap heap relievers to starters and batting the pitcher eighth. Which reminds me...

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Todd Wellemeyer is a repeat offender and was one of Dave Duncan's pet projects. He was a hard thrower, but not very deceptive. His results in his time in St. Louis were mixed. He lead the dreadful 2008 club in some pitching categories but by 2010 he was someone else's Colonel.

Why is this a thing? Wellemeyer became the Cardinals weakest link in the 2009 rotation (others who took a stab at this included Brad Thompson, Mitchell Boggs, the recently released P.J. Walters and even John Smoltz) and signed with the Giants in the offseason. After a dozen or so starts, he tried again with the Cubs before retiring in 2011.

Airbrushed Fridays is a weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything other than a hyperlink and a Kentucky Colonel designation, but you never know!

All Filler, No Killer

Sometimes it can be a challenge to come up with material for a trade post. I think everyone in this situation has experienced this. I mean this as no slight, of course, to the very generous Topps Baseball Fanatic, a name which practically speaks for itself. He kicked down a pretty healthy stack of my base needs from the current Topps Heritage set, to which I am very appreciative. Instead of showing off "the best" or a few "cards that intrigued me", I thought I'd instead gravitate to those that have been less fortunate. These guys have been crap.

I think Dustin Ackley's case, if he is to truly end up on the path of the can't miss flop, is one of the most frustrating. He had a very respectable rookie year on a very lousy Mariners team. I don't know if it's been the pressure to produce on a offensively challenged offense for three straight years or the salty seafood air or the garlic fries, but Ackley has been dreadful since that first year. Seattle is in the process of converting him to the outfield right now for some reason, but it's pretty surprising to see that the thing in his game that wasn't supposed to fail him (the bat) has been firing on no cylinders for some time now.

I'm not actively rooting against Brett Wallace or anything. He was the centerpiece in the trade that brought the Cardinals Matt Holliday, and then found himself traded twice more before he hit the majors. Wallace is another guy that was a question mark in the field with a solid bat, but he has a career .681 OPS in MLB and is 5 for 44 this season with Houston. Even the Full Rebuild Mode Astros may not have a place for him.

Technically speaking, Brandon League has only notched 4 of the Dodgers league leading 16 Blown Saves, but I imagine there is always a certain feeling of dread when he enters the game. He's been replaced in the closer's role by a pitching machine Kenley Jansen.

Dee Gordon can't hit anything but singles, but the (former) prospect has managed to 61 bases (and get caught 19 times) in what amounts to a full season's worth of MLB plate appearances. He does play a position of offensive limitation, so maybe he's not as bad as he seems? Of course, he did commit 18 errors last season in just 87 games. Yikes.

Also, the less said about A-Rod, the better.

Anniversary Contest Results!

It's that time! So let's have the envelope, please...

Whoa, that might be too small to read. We had 45 (!) participants... that's a lot of things to randomize as well as screencap. 9 cards in total were added to the pot. Let's bump up the font size a bit...

Congratulations to Night Owl! Your prize will be in the mail tomorrow. And thanks to everyone who has put up with this blog for the past five years!