Trading with Night Owl Cards

Night Owl Cards and Cards on Cards did an inter-blog swap recently, and here are the highlights of the Cardinals side of the spectrum. Not only did I rid myself of a number of those pesky Dodgers, but I gained many Cardinals cards that I didn't already own. This is what we call a win-win situation. Night Owl Cards already did a nice write-up of the stuff I sent out, even though I sent my package last. I'm just not very timely, am I?

2006 Upper Deck All-Time Legends - Lou Brock (These were apparently the requisite inserts in the Series 2 Fat Packs this year. I also got a Rogers Hornsby from this set.)

2007 Fleer Ultra - Chris Carpenter (Who would win in a battle, Feel The Game or Own The Game? These seem to be a pretty abysmal "tribute" to the 1987 Fleer design, but on the other hand, the Own The Game inserts are always incredibly gaudy.)

2005 Topps All-Star Stitches - David Eckstein (Wow, I never would expect to get relic cards in one of these blind trade team swaps. This speaks to the generosity and general awesomeness that some of the fellow card bloggers possess, and I think it's great. Okay, sure... few people are going to get much cash in their pockets for an Eckstein jersey card, but I still am awed by tiny pieces of possibly touched-by-player jerseys. Even when they're orange...)

2006 Topps Opening Day / 2006 Bazooka Max Action Jim Edmonds - (Two Edmonds cards I needed for the collection. Nice.)

1975 Topps - Rich Folkers & Alan Foster (The 1975 set seems to be a favorite of the Night Owl Cards blog. I believe the only '75 Cardinals card I owned previously was Bob Forsch's rookie card in mini version.)

1982 Donruss - Julio Gonzales (This appears to be an uncorrected error card. Donruss ran out of Z's for Julio's last name.)

2006 Upper Deck - Josh Hancock (I didn't really know if there were any Josh Hancock Cardinals baseball cards. Being the long reliever "mop-up guy" is really a thankless job without much prospect for future advancement. His death wasn't emotionally as striking to me as Darryl Kile's, but seeing him on a baseball card was really eerie and sad to me.)

2007 Topps - Adam Kennedy (Photoshopped cards are beginning to bother me a lot more than old airbrushed cards. At least the airbrushed cards were funny. Kennedy never wore #2 with the Cardinals, for one, and all the logos and lettering look off anyway. When you put out sets in several series, there is absolutely no reason to fake a player's new team photo. Just leave the guy out of the current series and wait until you get a real picture to put him in. Good god, nobody is clamoring for another Adam Kennedy card that can't wait a few months.)

2006 Upper Deck - Aaron Miles, Series 1 and 2 (I prefer the way Upper Deck handles, or handled team changes over Photoshopped stuff. I don't see what's so wrong with keeping the player with their old team until new photos are available or just excluding them altogether, though.)

(Ha! Something is amiss here. It seems that Mr. Miles gained an inch but dropped 5 pounds in the transition from the Rockies to the Cardinals. It must be that mountain air...)

2006 Ultra & Ultra Gold Medallion - Mark Mulder (Mulder wants to pitch for San Diego now. As bad as it makes me feel to say, if Mulder is able to figure out how to pitch like a normal major leaguer for the Padres, it really does not make me feel great about him, the Cardinals medical staff or the Cardinals coaches.

2006 Topps MLB 2K6 - Albert Pujols (I received quite a few nice Pujols cards. This one represents my favorite video game series. I'm a loyal 2K Sports guy, ever since being wowed by the 2K games that came out for the Sega Dreamcast.)

1983 Fleer - Gene Roof (Roof looks wistful and seems to be yellowing like an old newspaper.)

1994 Triple Play - Ozzie Smith (Here's an Ozzie card that I didn't own. I bought a lot of Triple Play packs in 1992 and 1993 because of their budget price, but by 1994 I was more interested in hanging out in record stores, talking to girls and skipping classes that I still owe many thousands of dollars for. I should have just stuck to collecting cheap cards.)

1974 Topps - Scipio Spinks (Spinks joins Stubby Clapp and Basil Shabazz on the all-time Cardinals names list.)

2004 Bowman Heritage - Brad Thompson (Poor Thompson is doomed to spend his entire life inside an old television set, his face frozen in youth, wondering when he'll ever be a permanent fixture in the Cardinals rotation.)

2006 Topps - Postseason Highlights (The only thing that makes me able to endure endless replays of Endy Chavez's catch robbing Scott Rolen is what is represented on the bottom half of this card. Yadi, the HERO. The 2006 NLCS was incredible.)

Thanks, again, go out to Night Owl Cards and the rest of the generous trading bloggers out there. I'm always up for trades (and blind team trades) - I should be able to work something out with just about anyone, save for a couple of teams that I'm running low on.