Future Baseball Plans

The new Cardinals... maybe not the same as the old Cardinals.

I've tried not to dwell on this too much, but my interest in baseball in general has fallen off of a cliff in recent times. When you combine this with the streamlining of baseball card products in the Fanatics era, I could also say my interest in baseball cards is also starting to crater. I can't dispute the idea that the Cardinals lack of success on the field since the end of the 2022 season has contributed to this, but I still think I would have most of those negative feelings even if the Cardinals had been playing more at the level of their 2010s rosters.

While I won't get into my feelings about the state of MLB in general right here, I will show off some cards that Night Owl sent over back in July. Remember the summer? I miss it already. I guess I'm just having those December feelings right now.

I haven't really prepared any changes in the way I'm going to consume baseball games (or not). I haven't really dramatically changed how I collect cards, either. I'm still going to watch Cardinals games, of course, especially as long as there's free MLB TV access to T-Mobile subscribers, although it appears that deal's days are probably numbered with ESPN's pending acquisition of the platform. (Gross.) There are interesting players on the Cardinals roster on any given day, including speed demon Victor Scott II, shown here on the first "true photo" variation I've added to my collection. I wish these weren't such a tough pull, honestly.

I do nearly all of my trading via TCDB and have managed to add a bunch more Cardinals Topps gold parallels in the past year. The original gold bordered look still reigns supreme, as shown here on Miguel Cairo's card from 2004 Topps.

Will Panini continue to run out its zombie baseball products in 2025? What about the other sports? I know that Panini has a lucrative contract with the WNBA that has been extended by several years, so the company itself won't be going away any time soon. Fanatics supposedly has no interest in acquiring them, and I'm doubtful that they would suddenly start cranking out fully licensed Donruss cards even if they did. If anything, Fanatics seems to want to focus on it's core brands and do the laziest thing possible by applying the same design templates to a million cards a year.

Considering Paul Goldschmidt's Hall of Fame track and the six seasons he spent with St. Louis, I don't think the Goldschmidt want list will ever have a finite endpoint, even though he is no longer a Cardinal.

With Willson Contreras moving to 1B this past season, Pedro Pagés has actually caught the most games the past couple of seasons for the Cards. The entire catching situation is a bit murky right now, though, with Ivan Herrera showing star potential as a hitter and next to zero potential as a backstop. Toss in a couple of prospects on the rise and a cult hero in Yohel Pozo, and you've got a quandary on your hands.

JJ Wetherholt is the prospect of the moment. I honestly thought he would get a late call-up last season (maybe in the 40-man September active roster era), and he certainly has a chance to make it difficult to keep him down much longer if he has a big spring. Will the Cardinals be dreadful again next year? Absolutely. The most frustrating thing about this rebuild is that they should have started it years ago, if that was truly their intentional all along.

Night Owl also tossed in some more set-filling needs, including these inserts from the 2025 Topps Heritage set. Of course, they look very similar to cards from other Heritage and Archives sets, but Fanatics (or whoever) apparently decided they needed yet another insert set of random players on old designs.

We end things in true Night Owl trade envelope fashion with a few more minis from Allen & Ginter sets. Each of these names are of players I haven't thought about in a few years.

Allen & Ginter is Coming, Eventually...

Cards from the venerable retro themed set courtesy of @nightowlcards have me contemplating what I want to keep collecting. 

Every year, part of me hopes that the Allen & Ginter set is canceled, just to let me breathe a little and save some books. Don't get me wrong -- I still really like the cards for the most part. But here in 2020, with the likelihood of me finding cards on shelves anywhere hovering somewhere around zero, I'm not sure I have it in me this year. I did find that the set, usually a summer staple, was delayed until mid-September. I'm not sure if that's going to change anything for me in terms of finding cards or being excited to buy the cards (online, I guess?)

Everyone's favorite avian blogger Night Owl did send me a really nice stash of Ginter cards from past releases that will be quickly heading to my binders as soon as I find some time to do some sorting. Here's an array of non-baseball minis, featuring that weird sport(?) that was on ESPN2 a lot when most major sports were shut down, plus a dog, a pirate and some other important looking people.

I did not know that Max Kepler was German until I saw this card. Admittedly, I don't really follow the Twins much, but I have heard that they are good now.

 

Birds! There's even an owl from the Owl.

Even though I feel like 2018 Allen & Ginter was everywhere, moreso than other recent years, I somehow didn't have even a single copy of this card. This is headed to my Cardinals binders in the 'B' section.

Another Twin by was of Night Owl's team, the Dodgers. It's weird that the Dodgers seemed to struggle to find a place for Maeda in their rotation. I guess that's the curse of being loaded with high priced players year after year.

All Over the Place

Some idle thoughts about some random cards. 

I'm all over the place tonight. Sometimes, that is the best frame of mind to be in when writing about cards. We'll see how that goes. Here are a few thoughts about a few cards sent to me by Night Owl Cards.

I'm not going to pretend I like Topps BUNT all of a sudden, but I do want to express my appreciation for serial numbered cards. I am always a sucker for them. I really don't know what Topps was going for with these weird, washed out color parallels in this set, though.

The 2015 World Series seems like a long time ago right now! If you had asked me yesterday what the World Series cards looked like in the 2016 Heritage set (or the 1967 set it's based on), I probably would have shrugged. I do like the designs that look like old TV sets, though, which probably explains why I'm a sucker for that one old Bowman set.

I'm not wild about the non-baseball subjects that have crept into Allen & Ginter in recent years. I suppose it's a sign of running out of ideas, or a desire to cover as much ground as possible. Truthfully, I went ahead and scanned this card because the other two set filling needs I received from the 2015 set were both PED users. I think people's attitudes are starting to gently shift towards not caring so much about this anymore, but I can always find all sorts of excuses not to scan cards for the blog.

Ted Simmons was recently announced as a member of this year's Modern Era Hall of Fame ballot. I hope he gets in. I don't have any specific memories of Simmons as a player, but I know that he was one of the top catchers in the game in the '70s. I did see him play a bit in his waning years on WTBS, so I am obviously and perfectly qualified to cast a ballot.

Ticking Boxes

This is called maintenance mode. 

With the weather deciding to be crummy and a lot of things just procrastinated away when I feel like doing things like going outside, it was probably a good time to get back into sorting through all my clutter and work on filling some sets (both for me and for others.) A lot of times, trade packages like the one I got last month from Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits are the most rewarding but toughest to find words to write about. Like myself, he is a collector of all things Allen & Ginter, only he does a far superior job at it based on his want lists. Packages like these may just be ticking off boxes on a theoretical checklist, but it's pretty satisfying once these things are bindered and complete. Here's a few bits from last year's A&G set and this year's Heritage...

A 2016 World Series participant!

A Cyclops!

A... uh... search engine!

A tomahawk, one of the symbols of Matt's favorite baseball team.

A Kluber!

Blazers & Ginters

Both kinds. 

Reader KO Rob found the blog and recently signed up for the Guilt-Free Basketball Card Club (still accepting all comers!) While I'm still in the process of squirreling away some goodies for Rob, I thought I'd take a look at some stuff he sent my way.

The package was a nice selection of old-school (and middle-school?) Trail Blazers cards, including some Metal cards of some of my mid-'90s faves. The Blazers have had their share of misfortune, mostly on the injury front, but one of the saddest dreams is thinking of what may have happened if Sabas had arrived when he was drafted ('80s) and not when the Cold War was sufficiently thawed.

The Blazers sold the farm to get Kiki, who was a prolific scorer but not much else. Injuries made him a liability on defense, and Clyde Drexler's emergence as first banana probably hastened his departure as much as anything else.

It may be a little loved, but here's an honest to goodness Walton card from the championship season. Nice! Now I have to figure out what to do with this oversized card. I'm not so good at storing these sorts of things. Maybe I can stick them between some books on the bookshelf.

Rob also sent over a healthy stack from last year's Allen & Ginter baseball set. Of all the inserts I received, I thought I'd pick out the former David Arias out of the bunch as I'm in more of a baseball mood than anything else.

I'll end it with this card from the base set. Jonah Keri is one of my favorite baseball writers. Aside from his unbridled love of all things Expos, Keri writes a weekly series of articles called The 30 during the MLB season that you should definitely check out if you're interested in what's going on with the league. It started off over at the sadly defunct Grantland and now appears on SI.com if I'm not mistaken. Or, at least it would, if the season was still going on. Sad.

Gobs of Ginter

A pile of 2015 Ginter rolls in, plus a March Radness update. 

It was a crazy week for March Radness! It's easy to say that every year, but this year seemed especially nuts. Many people's darling pick to win it all (Michigan State) went down in the first round. Texas got beat by a half court prayer. Bill Murray got sad. A team somehow blew a 12 point lead with 44 seconds to go. But all four #1 seeds advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, and a few of your brackets survived as well.

Our leader, Ohio Blue Devil, had the top scores in the first two rounds but sadly fell victim to the Michigan State Plague and is likely to finish out of the running. Tied for second place is RoyalsRandoms and the cryptically named espn28013321, with the former having the overall edge in total number of potential points still available. Meanwhile, Splinter_9 is bringing up the rear, having selected the blog favorite Oregon to go all the way (they still might!) but not finding a lot of luck elsewhere in other regions. (For some moronic reason, I wimped out and picked Michigan State. I didn't feel great about it at the time and I still don't, for obvious reasons.)

But we're also here to talk about cards, and that's where this pile of 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter cards from Nachos Grande comes in. In addition to providing my requisite set bound copies of my favorite players like Matt Holliday and Adam Wainwright, I also got my very first Mike Mills trading card. Mills is one of my favorite musicians, holding it down for R.E.M. for decades. He's currently involved with The Baseball Project, which I highly recommend if you like good music and baseball (and I know you like baseball.)

Waino is more of a country guy as far as I know, but I'm going to leave this video here. Check out Mills & co. doing a number about another former Atlanta Brave, the great Portland native Dale Murphy.

Piles and Piles of Ginter

Some giveaway goodies from @jedijeff13 help me get my Allen & Ginter act together.

Look at me, I've finally got a proper want list going for one of last year's sets that I collect! Although there's still a ton of work to do, I'm no longer totally embarrassed to hyperlink to the list of 2015 Allen & Ginter cards that I need. JediJeff from 2 by 3 Heroes was giving a bunch of stuff away recently, and I sort of jumped in one of the deals at the last minute, which netted me the pile of goodies you see above. I needed something like 60-70 of the cards for my set, which inspired me to finally list out which cards I still need from the thing.

On a related note, I made a trek to the westside version of our monthly card show this past Saturday and swooped in on a stack of $2 hobby-style Ginter packs, which netted me this framed Matt Carpenter relic. Huge! I already had the clearly inferior "full size relic" card of Carpenter from this set, so I was even more excited to pull this. The funny thing is, I had originally passed on these loose packs at the previous card show because I wrongly assumed that they were retail (fewer cards for one thing) and also because I knew the package from JediJeff would be here soon and wasn't sure my want list could handle it all. (It could.) I ended up with another, I don't know, 40-50 so more cards that I needed along with some foil Anniversary stamped cards that I probably don't need but will bury in a box somewhere until I forget that I own them.

If you've got any of this junk lying around and want to help me out, give me a jingle.

The Habit's Leftovers

Coming back around again.

A funny thing happened with me and last year's Allen & Ginter set. As I do every year, I went out and bought some of the new Allen & Ginter product with the intent to put the entire set together. I even did a proper (at least for me) review of what I found, had a good time with it, and planned to do it again soon.

But I pretty much stopped buying loose packs altogether last year. I finally got tired of all of the picked through, dented and mangled packs that jerks manhandle on the shelves and swore off anything that someone could hook their fingernails into. After a certain amount of time, I pretty much forgot about this set and focused on other areas of my collection. Fortunately, Blue Jays fan Robert from $30 a Week Habit came along and put a pile of 2015 Ginter cards into the massive (and mostly empty) master set bucket.

Baa.

This isn't going into my Cardinals binder, but it will definitely take down my needed Keys to the City card list by one. Is this the time to admit that I've never been to the Arch? Or St. Louis, for that matter? (I've never left my mother's basement. Don't tell anyone.)

This one does go into the Holliday collection, which means I need to seek another one out. Such is life.

The Cardinals struggled with injuries last year, especially at the power positions. Brandon Moss was brought in to help, but he struggled. He was brought back for 2016 as he's still under team control, which is interesting.

The lone non-Ginter card was this much needed retail quasi-parallel from the 2014 Topps Heritage set. I'm hoping for a bounceback year from Wacha who, despite making the All-Star team, seemed to struggle with consistency especially in the second half.

What's the Point?

Great news, guys! No more repacks.

Let me get this straight... this is a card from last year's Allen & Ginter set, stamped (and framed because it's a mini apparently) and reinserted into this year's product? Isn't this a little like your mom repurposing the leftovers into something "new" and "exciting" that's probably going to have casserole in the name somewhere to make it sound planned?

I guess they'll start phasing out repacks as a way to sell off old packs. May as well rip 'em, stamp 'em, and reinsert 'em.

I know there were worse atrocities committed here, like the stamping of the dummy ad cards and so forth, but this is still pretty eyeroll-worthy.

September Trade Bait

Are there any Mariners fans out there? Anyone?

Sunday was a fruitful day in the retail pack busting department. I snagged another Allen & Ginter blaster and one of those Topps Chrome rack packs that all the kids have been chattering about. I'm not quite ready to compile my Allen & Ginter list for this year just yet, but I don't usually keep the memorabilia/auto cards unless they're a team or player favorite. Jersey cards are a dime a dozen these days, but I've got one of a young up-and-coming Seattle pitcher if you're interested.

Chrome blasters this year have sepia colored refractors, while it seems that the rack packs have pink bordered refractors. Both are a little strange to me, but I'm sure they'll stand out in any binder.

There's a pink Odor.

It seems like Sabathia's career may be winding down. Also, pink and Yankees colors don't really blend.

Nothing to see here folks... just a regular refractor of a scorching hot hitter.

I might actually throw this up on eBay if I don't get any nice offers. This is a prism version (this year's "X-Fractor" I guess), so it's maybe a bit more desirable?

And here's a gold refractor Padres auto. On card, even! How about that? This one is numbered 13/50 if this intrigues you at all.

Ideally, I'd love to get some Cardinals from this set, but I'm open to just about whatever. Send me an email, a comment or a Tweet... or all three if you really don't value your own personal time.