So Close You Can Taste It

Baseball is almost back! @daniel24303 with the Cardinals hookup. 

 

First off, here's a reminder about the big contest going on this month. I erroneously mentioned that the games would start on Thursday (because they always start on Thursday), but due to what I can only assume are health and safety reasons, Friday is the big day. You have a little extra time to get your bracket filled out.

Back in December, Daniel from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop sent over a really nice batch of Cardinals goods. Let's check out some of those cards.

Die cut cards are always appreciated. This 2004 Donruss Jim Edmonds card comes from the land of plentiful numbered inserts. I wish Topps would serial number their inserts, but they don't want a lot of people figuring out their print runs I'm sure. (They print a lot of cards, especially in 2021!)

A white Chrome refractor? How cool is that? The all-black base design of the 2007 set afforded Topps some room to play with their colored parallels.

Luke Weaver was on one end of a swap between my team and Daniel's team. I'm guessing if Weaver was in a D-Backs uniform here, he would have been less inclined to trade this.

Here's a really nice low numbered (18!) Matt Carpenter jersey piece from the 2017 Topps Triple Theads set. Most cards with larger memorabilia pieces tend to relegate the player to secondary status on the card, but I think the photo placement here works well.

My wallet really can't afford to get in on the '90s refractor game, so it's always nice when someone has a spare one to trade to me. I doubt a Scott Cooper card of any kind will set you back much, but some of these refractors can get really spendy.
 

I wonder what exactly happened to Sam Tuiavailala. He was a solid reliever for Mariners and put up good numbers for a couple of seasons after starting out with the Cardinals, but I haven't heard of him connected to baseball in any way since he was released out of the blue a year ago. I can't blame anyone for not wanting to play sports competitively in the current environment, but it still seems strange.