Group Break Results In Four Cards

Cardboard Collections holds a lot of group breaks, and some of them are rather affordable. Those are the kind that I prefer. One such break was held back in April where I had the opportunity to snag some 1996 Finest cards, some 2004 Fleer Platinum, and some Pacific Invincible cards. There were also some junk wax era cards to round out the lot. In addition to the Cardinals, I also had Padres cards which I will be sending along to another blogger. Here's a few of the Cardinals cards.

I wish retro uniforms were utilized a little more often by the Cardinals. I know they are pretty traditional as a franchise with keeping things clean and simple, but I like a lot of their older unis, aside from those polyester road greys from the late '80s/early '90s that bridged the gap between the powder blues and what you see on the field today.

Someday I may have to go back and collect all of the Fleer All-Star Team sets. I remember these being (or at least seeming) really difficult to pull when I first started collecting as a kid in 1986. I would love to open a box of Fleer '86, come to think of it. I wonder how affordable that would be, now that the luster of grand fortunes made off of Jose Canseco/Eric Plunk rookie cards is long gone.

All I can think of is the Pat Benetar "Invincible" song now. Great. Now it's stuck in my head.

Airbrushed Fridays: 1974 Topps Traded #270T

Here it is: the triumphant return of Airbrushed Fridays after a bit of a layoff. The layoff itself wasn't intentional, but the regular Friday posts were the first thing I consciously let go of when I realized this whole blog thing needed a reboot. I haven't quite hit the reset button yet, but some more subtle changes are in the offing that hopefully will lead to me getting back to what I always wanted to do here: get rid of cards while I acquire things I enjoy.

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Ron Santo was a nine-time All-Star catcher third baseman and Cubs lifer. That's about to be slightly disproven by the existence of this card, however. Santo was revered as a longtime team broadcaster as well, and he will be inducted into the Hall this year.

Why does this card exist? Ron Santo was traded in a deal that saw current White Sox broadcaster (and former longtime Cubs broadcaster) Steve Stone head across town in the opposite direction. Santo would struggle through his worst season as a pro before calling it quits. It's also easy to forget that the White Sox had orange hats at one point. I wonder if they'll make a return someday during a retro game?

Airbrushed Fridays is a regular, 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 stack of David Wright "Topps of the Class" filler cards, but you never know!

I Wasn't Prepared For This

I'm not sure how long 2012 Bowman has been out, and I guess I don't really care. I picked up a pack on a whim, even though it cost me $2.99, because I hadn't made any retail purchases in quite a long time and a little curiosity bug bit me. What I didn't expect is to see what is, quite possibly, my favorite Bowman design of the modern era - or at least for as long as I care to remember. I'm not saying that I'm going to go full blown nuts and try to collect this beast, but I am liking what I have seen so far.

Here's the pack in full:

149 - Evan Longoria (Longoria is still looking to rebound from his worst season in MLB and an injury that cost him some time.)

182 - Prince Fielder (This is the first Tigers Prince Fielder card as far as I'm concerned. I'm actually starting to detest Photoshopped cards more than anything else right now.)

BCP12 - Rafael Ortega Chrome Prospects (Ortega was a free agent signee out of Venezuela. So... when is this international draft we've all been hearing about supposed to happen?)

BCP11 - Philip Wunderlich Chrome Prospects (Any relation to that quiz they give new pro football players?)

155 - Ben Zobrist Gold (These are skinny this year. Sometimes they are thick.)

45 - Adam Jones International (That's what these are, right? International?)

BP108 - Luis Angel Sanz Prospects (Another free agent signee from Venezuela.)

BP96 - Greg Billo Prospects (Ladies and gentlemen, the 835th pick of the 2008 MLB Draft!)

111 - Ricky Romero

193 - Yoenis Cespedes (When Cespedes was signed for 36 million dollars by Billy Beane's A's, I think some heads exploded. Are his cards collectible? If so, can I interest you in some other Oakland cards I've been unintentionally hoarding? Pretty please?)

Mucking Around

I'm trying to avoid the cliched pitfalls here by not apologizing for the lack of recent posts and not offering up excuses like "life got in the way" when I don't try to explain why it's been so long since I delivered images of baseball cards and related musings about each to the internet. I'm not going to do it. I will say that this space is due for a bit of an overhaul, cosmetically speaking, much as how my collecting interests are about to get a lot more focused. Let's just say that my original intent for starting this blog will become crystal clear in the near future.

This post features images of cards received from a JABOs group break back in April (or was it late March?) I ended up with a discarded wrapper from the 1978 O-Pee-Chee set, which I was happy to see. I have never opened a baseball pack older than 1981, though that could conceivably change sometime this year. I ended up with a couple of "pack fresh" OPC cards from both 1977 and 1978. I may trade them off if I manage to find actual card collecting fans of the Giants and/or White Sox.

I've probably stared at this card at least a dozen times. I've probably posted an image of it three times over. It just fascinates me that Topps was able to nail the horizontally-oriented photo that was deemed Stadium Club worthy, yet the snapshot shows Lankford was horribly fooled on the pitch he's swinging at or he beat the ball straight into the ground. Either way, it's a little embarrassing.

I can remember the exact place, time and circumstance where I witnessed Rick Ankiel's very public pitching meltdown. It still strikes me as tremendously sad, which is pretty silly considering the billions of young men who never get a chance to throw baseballs as hard and/or crazy as they can for millions of dollars.

I guess I chose to scan this because Ben Johnson once played for the Portland Beavers. I had no idea at the time that he had gone through the Cardinals system.

This R-Class (whatever that means) set design seems like it probably came from the Upper Deck reject pile. Do card companies ever hold contests asking loyal fans to design their next set(s)? I imagine that this would be a pretty popular thing.

I've probably posted an image of this card on this blog in the past, too, but it's Ozzie and I ended up with four copies of this... so what the hell. This should serve as a reminder to everyone reading this that I have many thousands of Cardinals dupes that could surely use a good home.

Ah, 1989 Bowman. On the surface, it seemed like a tribute to one of the original oddball sized sets in cheap junk wax form, but this is also the starting point for Bowman becoming "Home of the Rookie Card". This also means the first appearances on cardboard of completely insignificant players you're not likely to ever hear from again, like poor Don Heinkel. Sorry about that, Don.

Is It Inevitable?

What are you looking at? I didn't go anywhere. You went away! It was you!

I'm starting to wonder if we're facing the inevitable World Series rematch come this October. Last season's series between the Cards and the Rangers was so thrilling that you wouldn't ordinarily expect the teams to meet up again. Nearly everyone expected the Rangers to repeat as AL champs this season, however, and they've held up their end of the bargain so far. The Cardinals recently snapped a four game losing streak but I definitely feel that they have the offense and pitching to make it back to the Series again. Of course, you wouldn't have to look past last September to see a time when several teams' lofty expectations were turned upside-down in just a few short weeks, so you never know. It's only mid-May.

I bring this up because I'm showing off some cards I received from Play at the Plate. I've probably received the largest total number of packages from the Rangers fan than anyone else I know, and that probably even includes friends and family members.

I keep forgetting that Tony La Russa is no longer managing the Cardinals, or anyone for that matter. If you asked me who the St. Louis skipper was and gave me less than 3 seconds to answer (or caught me in a less than sober state) I probably would reflexively say La Russa and start grumbling about his surliness. But I can't discount the fact that he was a winner, and brought many wins (and multiple rings) to the Redbirds in his 16 seasons in the dugout.

More Ozzie cards for me! I really need to get to work on my want lists.

Edgar Renteria might finally be done as a baseball player, but it's never completely clear when someone is retired these days.

I've never seen this set before. Weirdness. It's a Standing "O" apparently, but not an actual O.

Skip Schumaker can be a polarizing figure, both among the Cardinals loyalists and the baseball card fans in 2012 who have to deal with that squirrel card. He does seem to have a knack for pulling a key base hit out of thin air from time to time and he's one of just three players that were on the 40-man roster for both World Series wins.

A shiny gold card of a Gold Glover.

These last two cards will pay a nice tribute to the end of J.D. Drew's career. I always appreciate bat cards as there seems to be far fewer of them than the jersey cards. And, personally, I'd rather own a piece of a equipment used in a game than something a dude actually wore for some reason.

It's amazing to think that in 2002, St. Louis fans probably didn't have any idea who the star of their team would be for years to come and probably thought it might still be J.D. Drew, even after an astonishingly great rookie season from their now former first baseman.

5 on the 5: 2012 Topps Heritage

The latest installment of Topps Heritage has been out for awhile, but it's something I always collect and I figured I should write something about it. Here are the first (and thus far only) packs I've purchased this year. Usually, I will buy five (or more) packs together, but these were purchased on separate occasions. The first and last packs were impulse buys at Rite Aid while the middle three are of the Target variety, with a chance to get exclusive red bordered parallels.

Pack 1:

140 - Max Scherzer (My first Heritage card of the year features a St. Louis area native.)
282 - Jeff Francoeur
236 - Salvador Perez (First Heritage card of a guy I've never heard of!)
314 - Alexi Casilla
398 - Craig Kimbrel

444 - Brandon League (All of the cards above number 425 are short printed, apparently.)

288 - Chicago White Sox (The team card. A classic.)
92 - Austin Romine

391 - Matt Moore (They can airbrush and Photoshop players into new uniforms, but they can't do anything about faces.)

Pack 2:

244 - Jason Motte (My first Cardinal card of the set features the closer.)
241 - Johnny Cueto

197 - Ian Kennedy (Cartoons on the back!)
269 - Justin Morneau
330 - Jorge Posada
35 - Chris Sale

9 - 2011 NL Strikeout Leaders (Floating heads!)
134 - Jim Leyland
243 - Jordan Pacheco

Pack 3:
387 - Ricky Nolasco
61 - Aubrey Huff
337 - Adam Dunn (Is Dunn done being terrible?)

328 - Elvis Andrus (I like the cloudy sky background.)
361 - Alex Rodriguez
12 - Jim Johnson

1 - Miguel Cabrera Stick-Ons (These are 1:8 pulls according to the odds on the wrapper. It doesn't do kind things to Miguel's head. Since these are very thin and count as a card, I wonder if it's easy to tell without opening when packs contain these.)
195 - Desmond Jennings
335 - Bobby Abreu

Pack 4:
293 - Tim Stauffer (Former Portland Beaver!)
179 - Shaun Marcum
175 - Matt Garza

286 - Tom Milone / Addison Reed / Matt Moore / Dellin Betances Rookie Stars (I don't really know what's going on with these Rookie Stars cards. You'll recognize Matt Moore's goofy mug from a full sized card I pulled earlier. I've read elsewhere that certain players appear on multiples versions of these. I wonder if the original 1963 set did anything like this.)
423 - Neftali Feliz

11 - David Price Stick-Ons (Goofy.)

151 - Pittsburgh Pirates (Piratey.)

208 - Brett Pill / Adron Chambers / Thomas Field / Drew Pomeranz Rookie Stars (Adron Chambers has yet to crack the big league roster this season. He was passed over in favor of Rule 5 draft pick Erik Komatsu and the similarly pint-sized Shane Robinson. Komatsu has since been DFA'd and Robinson had a hot start to cement his place on the team as an extra outfielder and top pinch-hitter.)
283 - Brad Lidge

Pack 5:
197 - Ian Kennedy (It's just my 5th pack and I already have a double?)
225 - Aroldis Chapman
349 - Alex Gonzalez (What is it with ACL tears all of a sudden?)
384 - Blake DeWitt (DeWitt was DFA'd today. He's still young, so it will be interesting to see who picks him up.)

22 - Edwin Jackson (I felt like the Rafael Furcal trade was the single biggest thing the Cardinals did to improve the team to get their incredible run started last season, but the Edwin Jackson move really helped stabilize the rotation. I won't really miss seeing Edwin labor on the mound. He truly belongs in the AL East if you ask me.)

BF-EW - Early Wynn Baseball Flashbacks (I haven't been too excited about the Heritage inserts in recent years, but this card is really nice looking. It might have something to do with the colorization - assuming it's a colorized photo, of course.)
294 - Mike Scioscia
317 - Jason Donald
113 - Kerry Wood

And there we have it. I will be collecting this set, but I won't have a want list ready for quite some time. Check back this summer, perhaps.