Documents

2008 was nothing special, at least for the Cardinals. 

Nearly ten years ago, Upper Deck tried something that'd never been done before, and hasn't been attempted since. They put together a set that included two cards for each game played in the long MLB season, one for each participating team. Even if you don't try to do the math in your head, that compiles a much larger set than any reasonable person is used to dealing with. Perhaps they were still feverous with whatever caused the Yankee Stadium Legacy set from the same year, but Upper Deck decided to put this concept out in the wild as a separate product. And, of course, they cut some corners. They cut a lot of corners.

I didn't intentionally buy any 2008 Upper Deck Documentary at the time, but I've had bits and pieces of it trickle in via trades and repacks. Jon from Community Gum busted open a whole case of the stuff, and was kind enough to send a whole brick of Cardinals my way. For the first time, I can genuinely say that I've put a significant dent in the team set, although I'm sure I have a long way to go. (The Cardinals want list is still a work in progress at this point, but it's one of my top priorities in 2018.)

If you have been buying cards as long as this blog has been around, you're probably familiar with the Documentary cards, which generally come in two flavors: base, and the rarer gold (labeled with 2008 in gold print, a la the Rick Ankiel image you see at the very top.) Contrary to popular belief, not every card of every player in this set reuses the same image. Some of the more popular players appear on multiple images. Still, with the frequency of repetition and the fact that the player photo never had anything to do with the game being commemorated, Upper Deck Documentary was not a huge critical smash.

Something I was not personally used to seeing was insert cards. I'm not sure if these All-Star inserts were a hobby only thing, or just something so uncommon that you had to buy a whole case to uncover.

Despite all the criticism, it's fun to have a huge team set to chase. Still, I'd rather have a Topps Total or Upper Deck 40-Man any day: two sets that unfortunately existed in a time outside of my collecting window.

Upper Deck Documentary even had hits! While not an integral part of the set, rookie reliever Chris Perez signed a bunch of stickers in 2008. Perez was a talented pitcher whose career was seemingly undone by personal issues.

Thanks again to Jon for sending me these Cardinals Documentary cards en masse!

2x3 Hits

All hits, all the time.

I just got home from the Blazers game (big comeback win against the Charlotte Horn-cats) a little while ago, so this is going to be a brief one. I got hit 'n run by JediJeff again and thought I'd show off some of the goodies of a recent envelope I received. He struck repack gold, so to speak, with some autographed cards he pulled and decided to pass along the good fortune to me. This included an on-card Chris Perez autograph from the ill conceived 2008 Topps Stadium Club set. This is the same set that Erin pulled a Jeff Clement (!) redemption card from which took over a year to fulfill if I remember correctly. Maybe it took Clement that long to realize he used to be a baseball player?

My scanner did something really weird to Matt Holliday's name on this 2014 Topps Chrome refractor. This is Matt Holliday #237 for me.

Another repack auto, this one of Kyle McClellan. This is actually a big deal to me, all kidding aside, as I'm trying to collect a certified autograph of every member of the 2006 and 2011 World Series winning teams. K-Mac was a starter for much of 2011, so he was able to contribute that season in ways that go beyond his one postseason inning that year.

Oh, the wonderful blockiness of an Xfractor! It'll be interesting to see if Rosenthal keeps his job as closer going in to next season. Mike Matheny was pretty loyal to his guy throughout this past season, but next season is a new season for a reason.

This one is really nice! Topps has really stepped it up with the inserts in Chrome recently. I actually obtained another one of these via Listia recently, so I have it up for grabs if there are any offers out there. I think I know of at least one Wainwright collector who isn't strictly a Cardinals fan.

Biggest Win of the Year

St. Louis beat Milwaukee 5-3 last night in what has to have been the game of the year for the Cards so far. Beginning the week 3 1/2 games out of the NL Wild Card spot, I figured that the Cards need to make up a game each week in order to be in good position to pull off a playoff berth. Tuesday night, however, the team may have hit a low point in the season. The results were bad enough, dropping them to 4 1/2 back in the Wild Card and 9 1/2 in the division, but it felt like they let up and completely failed to "play a hard nine" as is Tony La Russa's mantra after Todd Wellemeyer gave up his 4th and 5th runs of the night. 7 runs later, the Cards were on the end of a horrendous blowout.

Moving ahead to last night, the Cardinals still had not scored against the Brewers in the series going into the 6th inning, and were carrying an unprecidented 7-game losing streak to the Brew Crew. Ryan Ludwick, the anonymous baseball hero, hit a solo HR to finally the Cards on the board in the 6th, but it still felt like doom and gloom as there was still a 3-1 score heading into the 7th inning stretch. The Cards managed to load the bases with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th, and after chasing starter Manny Parra, Carlos Villanueva struck out Joe Mather to end the inning. Cue the fist-pumping, the taunting, and the awakening of the Pujols...

Whoops. That's not a good idea, sir.

The Cards led off their half of the 8th with three consecutive doubles, and it felt like the team had just entered Stretch Run Mode. After it was all said and done, and after "Young Pitcher" Chris Perez had struck out the side in the 9th, the Cards were back to where they started on Sunday. Hopefully they can still gain the game I feel they need to make up this week to keep themselves well in contention. The Mets and Phillies are breathing down their necks now, so it's going to be a tough go no matter what ends up happening.

Next up is the hated Astros this weekend in the steamy athletic club known as Minute Maid Park. Hopefully they'll do something equally moronic to make Pujols mad, too.