How Are Those Bats? (Heating Up)

More cards from Padrographs!

This is a dizzying time of the year to be following sports. We're already four weeks into the MLB season, soccer is soccering, the playoffs kicked off for two major American sports leagues, and there's drafts-o'-plenty. I've been the lucky recipient of a few unannounced packages of cards from Padrographs in recent times, and today I thought I'd show off some of the contents from one I got back in January after getting a nice kick in the pants a couple of weeks ago when yet another generous package showed up.

These cards were heavily focused on 2025 products, and the gem of the bunch is this Albert Pujols Chrome "silver pack" version of his 1990 Topps inspired insert from the flagship set (Series 2?) This particular one is the rare aqua version, numbered to 199 copies. I have enough trouble collecting each of the regular cards for my team collection each year, so this was a really nice find.

Here's a six pack of some more of those 2025 releases. Nathan Church has settled in to be a regular presence in the outfield so far this season after being called up last August. Strop is an international signee that was only 17 when he got his first card (in Mojo! form), so I don't have much to say about him yet. The rest of the dudes are pretty well famous, with two now ex-Cardinal stars, an all-time legend, a Large Mac headed to my Heritage set binder.

JJ Wetherholt not only made the big club out of spring training this season, he's been on top of the batting order for every start he's made (all at 2B, with Masyn Winn firmly entrenched at his natural position.) His batting average is a bit low thus far, but he's more than made up for it with walks upon walks upon walks.

This is one of those Topps Flagship insert things that I think has something to do with those giant Costco boxes. Not being anywhere near a Costco or being willing to pay above retail price for something like that, it's been a couple of years since I've bought one. The "Flagship" design may well be something that was rejected in the process of coming up with the new base set design (or maybe not), but the ones I've seen do offer a nice alternative to what you usually see.

Rod included some nice in-person autos, including early '90s stalwart hurler Bob Tewksbury.

Adam Moffat also signed a card at one point. He was an expansion pick of the Timbers after logging a few years with the Columbus Crew, but only made a handful of appearances with Portland in their inaugural MLS season.

Last up is one of those "cards that could have been" style custom cards. Driessen's lengthy MLB career concluded with part of a final season with the Cardinals, but he has no official cards as a Cardinal or any kind of "sunset card" with his final stats on the back. (I would very much like to own his 1987 card with the Louisville Redbirds someday, though.)

From the Archives

Tall Boys? More like Skinny Boys. Group Break results from one of the hungriest blogs around.

We're just a week or so away from this year's Allen & Ginter's going live's on us, so I figured that I may as well get my last post about 2013 Topps Archives out of the way. I participated in a group break put on by Nachos Grande back in June and came away with most of the Cardinals team set, plus a few extras. I also have a stack of Pittsburgh Pirates' booty if anyone reading this collects that team and is interested in probably not getting a letter bomb in the mail from me.

The short prints in the Archives set are all supposed to be reprints like last year, so it makes receiving a card like this a bit confusing. This is more certainly not a reprint (or a short print), yet Ozzie Smith definitely had a card in the set this is modeled after (and even one in a Cardinals uniform if you count the Traded set.) It certainly would make trying to explain this set very confusing to the novice collector.

Here's one of the real short prints, and if these follow any particular theme, it's that most of the players that appear are not top tier stars. No Bob Tewksbury card could have ever fetched more than a nickel in 1992, and you have to be a pretty serious baseball fan to know who he is today. That being said, I love that he's a part of this set as he was a seriously underrated player in his day. I do remember him, even his pre-Cardinals career, for reasons I can't really explain.

I was lucky enough to pull a "gold" parallel of Shelby Miller's Archives rookie card. Miller has surpassed my expectations for his rookie year, at least so far. It was barely more than a year ago that many Cardinals fans were worried that he was an overrated head case, and it's nice to see that it looks like a highly touted top draft choice is delivering the goods at the big league level. He probably will lose out to Yasiel Puig for the Rookie of the Year vote and still has this year's playoffs (we can only hope) to pull his best 2000 Rick Ankiel impression (yikes!)

Oh, we've seen this card before, but did you know it has an autographed cousin? It was great to get a "hit" from my team, and I'm even more impressed that Topps has found a way to get hits of bunch of lesser known players into their products by way of the Fan Favorites brand. I'm still not that sold on the current incarnation of Topps Archives as a whole, but I consider this year's product to be a bit of an improvement over last year's.

Airbrushed Fridays: 1988 Topps #593

The Radness is coming! The Radness is coming! Watch this space over the weekend for details on that free contest thing that I do every year around this time. Perhaps there will even be a post about baseball cards, if we're all lucky.

Bob Tewksbury was a crafty right-handed pitcher who won 110 games in his career. His best years were his years spent as a Cardinal, which is why it's only slightly forgivable that I posted a picture of a Cubs card here on the blog. He was an All-Star in 1992 as a Redbird, where he went 16-5 in 32 starts with a 2.16 ERA.

Why did Topps airbrush Bob's photo? Tewksbury was a Yankee who hadn't fully realized his promise when he was dealt, midseason, to the Cubs in a trade that involved Steve Trout donning the pinstripes. It didn't work out so well for either side. I can offer no explanation as to why Topps couldn't get him in a Cubs jersey with 7 appearances and 3 starts to choose from. Lazy Topps is lazy.

What's wrong with this picture, anyway? Yeah, that logo... the vague sense of disconnect with reality. Tewksbury is probably lost in thought over his steep fall from his Donruss The Rookies days. Wait, is that two weeks in a row that I've posted a Cubs card? What is wrong with me?

If you are interested in obtaining a card featured here, please send me an e-mail. If you have a card you would like to nominate for Airbrushed Fridays, please get in touch as well. I will require that I am able to see the card in person, either on loan or as a donation, so that I can examine the card and experience it in all its cruddiness.