Cardinals with Flair

Here's a quickie trade post tonight (it's still "tonight" for me) while I watch the end of another classic Yankees/Angels ALCS game. This series has been extremely entertaining for an American League series if you ask me. Awhile back I spotted a few Cardinals in a 2006 Flair Showcase box break post at Roll out the Barrel. Always eager to give up some spare Brewers cards, I contacted Ed and he felt generous enough to part with a couple of shiny Cardinals from the set and some extras (including some much needed Heritage cards not pictured here.)

Skip Schumaker, aka "The New Second Baseman", aka Double Nickels as I like to call him, is featured with a nice rookie card logo on the back of his leg. I don't think this set is very large, so it was somewhat surprising to me that Schumaker was part of it as he did not really become a regular part of the Cardinals lineup until the 2008 season.

This Scott Rolen card is an amazingly cool die cut insert from the same set as the two cards above. Apparently these are pretty rare, so I am pretty happy to get my grubby mitts on this. Glove-shaped die cut cards seem like something that should have come from the '80s, but I don't really remember a lot of oddly cut baseball cards back then other than the occasional disc-shaped food-related baseball "card".

I've sort of neglected the Goodwin Champions set, partly because of the wafer-thin retail packs and partly because this set seems to be Goudey II (The Do-Over.) The paintings are obviously a lot nicer looking than 2009 Goudey, though, so I do appreciate the cards. Even moreso, I appreciate this nice black bordered mini. It has a "Gypsy Queen" design on the back, and I'm not going to pretend that I know what that means.

I love bat cards. I'm not exactly sure why, though. They just seem to be a little less common than jersey relics and probably a little less creepy as well. Hopefully Glaus can pull it together next season, although he'll definitely be playing for someone else at that time.

Thanks again to Ed!