So Many B's

Piles upon piles of cards from a fellow Allen & Ginter collector.

Braves fan Matt, who runs the blog Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits (hereafter referred to as BBBBB) reached out to me a couple of times this year to get ahold of some of my unwanted Ginter goods. The timing was a bit unfortunate as my Spring Cleaning deal (still some teams available! even though I guess it's fall) was well under way and I had already disposed of most of my non-baseball specific insert stuff. However, I had some Braves goodies to send back his way and just a few cards from other sets that he was collecting. It was a good trade. It was... maybe a bit lopsided. There's already a PWE on the way to BBBBB, and any Ginter extras that come across my desk will be thoroughly considered.

First of all, this is a large stack of cards, bigger than a Traded set! As much as it is one of my main goals to collect all things Ginter, I feel like you all probably don't need to see an Enny Romero or Adam Eaton base card from 2014. You'll just have to trust me on this one. Of course, the binders will be satisfied, no doubt.

Let's just dig right in to the good stuff. This is a shiny Bowman's Best card of Bo Hart, circa 2003. Bo Hart was a viral video before YouTube existed, and he left the game quicker than you can say "Gangnam Style". Still, the summer of "Three Nights in August" will always be alternatively known as "The Summer of Bo Hart".

Here's a wonderful trio of 2015 Ginter minis. Rookie Sam Tuivailala's name is pronounced something like this. He is flanked by black bordered Matt Carp and Yadi.

More Bowman's Best. Pujols looks young and mobile here. He's busting up all the record books these days, albeit in a much less mobile fashion.

I've determined that Chris Carpenter is a great player to collect on a budget (unless you want autographs, but that's another discussion.) Injuries and a relatively short career in terms of full seasons accumulated made this so, but he was a heroic member of two championship teams. He is missed.

Just a couple of days before receiving this, I actually plunked down a bunch of Listia credits on one of these. That card had a white jersey swatch, however, so this grey version is another nice addition. Of course, there's no way I'd ever trade this even if it looked identical to the one I already had. I'm weird like that.

I'm not gonna lie. I completely forgot about John Nelson. Nelson was a September callup in 2006 who appeared in more games (8) than he did in front of the plate (5), but he probably earned some World Series shares out of the experience. Good for him.

I think I've already made clear my stance on the buybacks from this year's Allen & Ginter set, but that doesn't mean I don't want them all if they have to do with the Redbirds. I just don't know how to catalog these really.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding who will be on the 25-man playoff roster, but after being MIA for most of the season there's virtually no chance Wainwright's name won't be on it. This will make the upcoming series with the Cubs/Pirates (probably Cubs) all the more exciting.

The John Nelson

In keeping with my tone last night, I am going to go ahead and rip this card apart. Now, keep in mind, I actually saw and requested this card, and it will go into my prized boxes of Cardinals top loaders like any other card that is arbitrarily assigned a value higher than a few bucks. Jon of Community Gum was nice enough to send this my way, along with a stack of Cardinals 2012 Topps Minis. (I am sparing you the minis because they're just going to look like any old regular 2012 Topps card to you internet folks.)

John Nelson was an 8th round draft pick with a promising enough future. Drafted as an outfielder, the Cardinals converted him to a shortstop position at which his "pop" with the bat would be a little more valued. He had a very productive 2004 season in AA, at which time Upper Deck probably got him to sign a bunch of pieces of glorified Scotch tape, eagerly awaiting the day he'd break through. He got his first call to the bigs  during his age 27 season, in 2006, where his 5 official plate appearances landed him a World Series ring. At age 28, playing behind David Eckstein and a sundry of utility players, John Nelson couldn't sniff the roster again and found himself flipped to the Cubs organization. He couldn't hack it in the Pacific Coast League, let alone on a major league roster, and at his age his time was running short. Upper Deck had other ideas about him, though, as is evident by the glowing write up on the back of his card.

I had completely forgotten about John Nelson, and I nearly fell asleep reading about him. I don't understand the autograph selections, sometimes. I realize that certain players aren't available and others come at a cost prohibitive rate, but how did they get excited about a utility player who was too old for his level of ball and hadn't yet solved AAA pitching?

I'm always up for Cardinals "no name" autographs, though, so drop me a line if you have anything like that and want to work something out.