Airbrushed Fridays: 1975 Topps #453

Enjoy the World Series tonight! Game 3. Friday night!

Who is he? Claude Osteen, sometimes known as "Gomer", was a southpaw starting pitcher who broke into the big leagues with the Reds at 17 in 1957. He tossed a few innings in between writing book reports and trying to get enough credits to finish high school it would seem. Osteen's best years were with the Dodgers, where he would make the All-Star team 3 times. He logged more than 3400 innings, a prime example of someone one of the modern blowhard broadcaster analysts could site when talking about the so-called wussification of baseball and how innings limits and pitch counts are causing cancer.

How did he get here? Osteen was first traded to Houston after a long run in Los Angeles for fellow all-star Jim Wynn, but he didn't make it to the end of his first season. The Cardinals picked him up for no one of significance for the final weeks of the 1974 season, but by 1975 he was already off to the Chicago White Sox for his final MLB season.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: None

Airbrushed Score: 10

Comments: This is really not good.

Good Luck Ducks, Week 9: Work To Do

The Ducks look forward towards a strong second half.

The streak is still alive. Oregon pushed their winning streak over the rival Washington Huskies to 12, thanks in part to the return to the lineup of a healthy Vernon Adams Jr. I'm sure that if calling "re-do" on a season was possible, Adams would be the first in line. Not every issue solved itself at once, as the Ducks squeaked out a relatively low scoring win up north, but there were some things to like about the win. It also gave them a much needed boost of confidence heading into a bye week where they could lick their wounds.

Last season's sudden star Darren Carrington finally made his season debut after his playoff drug-related suspension. He did not disappoint, catching two bombs from Adams in what was hopefully a sign of things to come from a deathly silent vertical passing game. The defense looked improved, but it was facing a Huskies line that has struggled to move the ball with consistency.

The North division title and, by extension, the Pac-12 title game appears to be out of reach at this point with Stanford holding a 2 game advantage in the loss column over the 4-3 Ducks. In fact, if Washington State happens to win out, it would be the Cougars and not the Cardinal headed to Santa Clara to play for the conference crown. Oregon can still finish strong and get in a good bowl game if they play as well as they did against Washington. A win tonight (Thursday night?!) in the desert vs. Arizona State certainly seems doable, with the Ducks win streak in this series standing at 8 games. It seems unlikely at this point that Oregon would have much of a shot at Stanford, but I wouldn't count these Ducks out of anything else right now.

Oregon's last visit to Tempe (2012) was over at halftime.

Game time is 7:30 PDT with national coverage on ESPN. Go Ducks!

I'm Just Gonna Leave This Here

A certified autograph of a La Russa favorite.

Tony La Russa certainly had his favorites. When he came to manage the Cardinals in 1996, guys like Dennis Eckersley, Willie McGee (briefly with Oakland in 1990) and Mike Gallego mysteriously appeared on the roster. Mark McGwire, famously, was acquired during La Russa's second year.

Gallego was a member of those pennant winning Oakland teams and scratched out a pretty solid career for a guy who couldn't hit his way out of a wet paper bag. Thanks to Cardboard Collections for this fine addition to my Cardinals collection!

Nineties! Nineties! Nineties!

The awesome power of the '90s, unleashed!

I've had a hard time finding any group breaks to join of late, but I did manage to stumble upon a rather unique one back in September. Thorzul has been known to scour the lots of eBay in search of interesting wares, and this time he hosted a group break consisting mostly of '90s baseball inserts. The Cardinals are almost always a hot ticket in group breaks, but the '90s wasn't exactly a great time for the club that everyone seems to hate these days. My collection isn't really brimming with '90s inserts, however, so I didn't hesitate to sign up.

The Legend of Rick Ankiel was more of one of infamy, although his return to the game as an outfielder in 2007 has been known to induce chills among Cards fans. Ankiel was a '90s draft pick, but this card falls just outside of the decade.

Rene Arocha wasn't around long, but he was one of the early Cuban defectors to really make his mark.

1992 was kind of a dead period for me and card collecting. My busiest year of high school fell around this time, and my social calendar must have been pretty booked or something. I came back around for a last hurrah at some point in 1993.

This might be my first serial numbered Cardinals Diamond King. It's strange that a card numbered to 10,000 is harder for me to track down than something numbered to 99 from the last few years, but here we are. Dick Perez seems to have given Brian Jordan an extra tall cap.

Once again falling outside of the '90s, but still honoring the decade's ridiculousness with its design is this 2005 Own The Game insert.

I was able to add a few cards to my Edmonds collection thanks to this lot. I'm now up to 497 in the ol' collection, if anyone was counting. Anyone besides me, that is.

I think I got Bipped here, guys. I ended up with 16 of these. That's a lot.

Black Gold Topps cards were short lived, thank goodness. These were supposed to be the freaky-deaky ultra cool cousin to the Topps Gold parallels, but they ended up being not much to look at. I wish I could tell my '90s self about this so I saved some of my drool for something more worthwhile.

Finally, there was some weirdness that seemed really out of place in this lot. I received a couple of David Freese 2013 Topps Chrome "Connections" Die Cuts that were a little different than the one I already owned. Both of the cards are apparently unsigned certified autograph cards. If you zoom in, you can see the "Topps Certified Autograph Issue" banner on the front, and similar verbiage is on the back. I'm not sure if the QC at Topps is just that bad or if Mr. Freese decided to send a bunch of cards back to Topps HQ stamped "return to sender". Someone on COMC is trying to get $200 a piece for a couple of these sad cards. I'm keeping one and have an extra to do something with, I guess. Something tells me I'm not getting $200.

Sign This Guy

Fingers crossed.

What you see above is my latest Listia acquisition. Although Jason Heyward arrived in St. Louis as far from the perfect ballplayer, he's very young and was a very good fit with the team. He might be the best defensive outfielder in the National League, and after a slow start at the plate he started hitting the ball well. He's going to command a massive paycheck, but it's not my money!

Sign him.

And, seriously, this is one of the nicest looking autographed cards I've ever owned. My time and effort put into lugging letters with cards in them around the city feels much rewarded after getting my hands on this.

Super Serial

The player and team collections get a huge boost with all kinds of serial-numbered goodies.

Last week, we took a look at some of the Blazers cards sent to me from Jon of Community Gum, including a Clyde Drexler rookie card (aka Christmas coming early.) The larger portion of the package contained baseball cards, and I've saved those for last because this is ostensibly a baseball blog. Suffice it to say, my shoeboxes containing my fancy cards (i.e. serial-numbered, memorabilia-laden or otherwise "valuable") became overstuffed really quickly thanks to this.

This is a great looking card, even though the subjects are stuck in small arrow-shaped windows. This would have been so great if it was Brad Lidge instead of the stupid Rocket, but I guess Donruss couldn't predict the future. We just passed the 10th Anniversary of Pujols/Lidge, which is well worth a revisit if you like seeing objects (and egos) destroyed.

I'm not at all familiar with this 2002 Topps Ten set, but I found the bat card intriguing as they actually put the familiar UV coating onto the bat piece (in the back at least) rather than just leaving a spot cut open for it. I would probably really enjoy watching How It's Made about fancy baseball card construction.

Donruss isn't clear about what sort of torch is being passed (or to/from whom) but all I know it's that this card is shiny and serial numbered and I didn't own it. And now I do. Nice!

Here's one of the few unnumbered cards in the lot. It's from a 2003 Leaf set that is a throwback to the 1960 Leaf design. I don't think I have any 1960 Leaf in my collection. I should probably change that.

The Co-Signers set was kind of a weird mess, with players sharing cards and someone always lurking in the background like a ghost. This one is numbered 05/15, which likely makes it both the rarest Co-Signers card I own and the rarest one I have of Edmonds.

I've expressed my love from the short-lived Moments and Milestones set here before, but it's time to mention it again. It's a confusing set with a dizzying array of numbers that are largely meaningless, but it's left a pretty impressive stable of affordable fairly low numbered cards of great players in its wake. The common ones are numbered to 150, but I got several of the /25 variety.

I feel like everything in this post is just "hey, look what I got!" Well, hey, look what I got!

They barely... barely squeezed Albert's large head into the frame on this card. That said, it's great to get a card of two of the best from the championship 2006 team.

Anthony Reyes ultimately had a short career, but he'll always be remembered fondly for shutting down the Tigers in Game 1 of the 2006 World Series. I was really happy to get this card because I actually recently bought a copy of it for Erin (she has collected Reyes since he broke into the league) and really wanted one of my own.

Speaking of guys that Erin collects, here's a blue Yadi refractor from 2012 Bowman Chrome. It's possible I have another one of these kicking around that I should give to Erin, but I need to get some sorting done before knowing for sure. I desperately need to get to sorting, especially after receiving this heap of shiny Cardinals!

Good Luck Ducks, Week 7: The Streak is on the Line

The Ducks hit the road to try to respond after Couging it against the Cougs.

In a down season, it can be a dicey thing to declare that you've hit rock bottom. Had I only known what horrors would await this Ducks team, I would have had a better sense of humor about the Utah beatdown. I was already nervous that this could easily be the year the hated rivals to the north at the University of Washington would finally win a game against the Ducks, but did I see the loss to the Cougars coming? Well, I knew they were an able-bodied team with a penchant for throwing the ball. I knew it was possible. I just had no idea that the Ducks were capable of losing a game like that.

That game, last week, was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my Duck fandom. I was already reeling from the ugly loss-in-progress by the Cardinals at the hands of the dreaded Cubs, but it looked like Oregon was in full win-ugly mode. But then, they managed to do what so many feeble college teams have done before them: snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was a horrendous loss. Not just because it was the Cougars or because it was at home, but because it was just the football version of listening to someone let the air out of a wounded balloon. When WSU was knocking on the door of the end zone with time left to run one play to put the game into overtime, it was obvious that the Ducks were doomed. A team with no passing game to speak of is doomed in college overtime.

This week, the Ducks head up to Seattle for some #Pac12AfterDark at Husky Stadium. Washington doesn't appear to have much of an offense this year, but they've been in some close games this year and haven't always come out with an L. They have years and years of quack-based oppression to deal with, so this could get out of hand. It could also be a surprisingly close game. Really, I have no idea what will happen and I'm just rooting for bowl eligibility at this point. Quarterback help is probably still a couple of weeks away with the bye week coming next after this, and by now every coach in the conference knows that Oregon can only reliably move the ball forward by using their backs and screens. Remember the forward pass? We miss that.

What we should be talking about this week is Kenny Wheaton, and how's gonna score. Because he's always gonna score.

"Work hard. Believe. Dream big."

Game time is 7:30 PDT with national coverage on ESPN2. Go Ducks!