Ouch!

Injuries are taking their toll.

As the saga of the long season continues, it seems like trainers and medical staff are making more on field appearances than the manager at this point. Yadier Molina, far and away the most valuable player of the team, became the latest to go down with a significant injury last night. He'll be out until late in the season with a torn ligament in his thumb. As someone who is extremely adept at handling the pitchers, playing defense and finding places on the field to put the baseball with his bat, he will be sorely missed. You could probably split the guy into three and have three extremely useful players. Opponents won't miss him, however.

Night Owl sent over a bunch of 2013 Opening Day Stars inserts after he found his way into a bunch of discounted blasters. I really like these cards. King Felix is attempting to fill up as much of the cardspace as he can with his massive torso.

I got to hear a rather amusing story (these things happen when your team is losing 8-1) about how Fredbird came to be during tonight's TV broadcast. Something about a grumpy Gussie Busch and feeding the San Diego Chicken copious amounts of alcohol until he was entertaining enough. Hilarity apparently ensued.

The Cardinals just had to go out and get their own mascot at that point. Topps really wanted us to make sure that we know Fredbird is in fact a mascot and not a relief pitcher or even a bullpen catcher on these 2014 Mascot inserts. Good to know.

Here's another '75 mini from Night Owl's backup stash. It will look like a regular sized card as Blogger cares more about aspect ratio than relative image size, apparently.

Four Cards in Five Words or Less

Minimum verbosity.

Inka binka, bottle of ink.

Always injured.

Two-time All-Star.

Best player in the NL.

Thanks to 2x3 Heroes for another mighty fine PWE!

Last Call for Trade Bait

Get 'em while I got 'em!

I was thinking I wasn't quite getting the response I was hoping for with my Trade Bait link and haven't updated it in awhile. It turns out that part of the lack of response could be that the link has been broke for who-knows-how-long. The other reason is that, of course, a lot of these cards just aren't that interesting or were a lot more interesting a year or two ago.

Go here (or the Trade Bait link on the sidebar) to peruse what's left. I can even drop them in a PWE for you and we'll figure out the rest later. Otherwise, I'm taking them away to do something else with them and I'll have to decide if it's worth it to come up with a fresh batch.

Also, if I owe you anything, or if you just feel like I owe you something, or it's just been awhile since we traded, feel free to leave a comment here or an email there.

Thorzul Group Break Results

Any time you wind up with a serial numbered Chuck Finley card, things are golden.

Late in the spring, Thorzul held a group break where he divvied up a bit lot of craziness that he purchased online. I haven't participated in many group breaks lately (too many Cardinals fans and not enough money to go around, I guess) but Thorzul knows what he's doing and I happened to read about it at the right time. The Cards cards did not disappoint. I'm just showing a few of them.

Would it have been so crazy for Topps to actually use a border color that was generally well received as their base color? I know, I know, that would open up the doors to the concept of white parallels inserted into retail packs, but that's a fair trade-off. I'm sick of white bordered cards. Really sick.

I've been slowly cataloging my Waino collection and am pretty happy with the way things are turning out. Once I finish his cards off on Zistle in the next day or so, I will have all of my PCs online, scanned (if necessary) and up-to-date. How's that for efficiency? If you're bored and you have cards, I strongly suggest you check out any of the links at the side to see if I need any of those cards that you are hanging on to for no reason.

This might be the juiciest card in the lot as Yadi cards can be pretty pricey these days. Alas, it's going to Erin's collection and I'll have to go find my own someday. This is a photo variation of Molina's All-Star card from last year's Update set.

Finally, a pair of 2014 Gypsy Queen jersey cards were found among the assortment. I don't really understand why Topps has felt the need to do both framed and full memorabilia cards. This is happening more and more in A&G now as I've heard. The framed cards look nice. If you're going to bother making them, just roll with that.

Both of these jersey cards feature new Cardinals acquisitions, which means that the mystery piece of memorabilia has nothing to do with St. Louis. That's okay, though. As long as they didn't come from some shirt hanging up in a mall store, I suppose...

Trading with Waiting 'til Next Year

Cards were exchanged. Good times were had by all.

I'm "celebrating" the first night where it's officially too warm to cool down my dwelling properly, and I thought I'd pull out some more cards to scan and file away. P-Town Tom sent over another batch of 2012 Triple Play cards for Erin's set and tossed in some Cardinals as well, because that's a thing that I do. By the way, make sure you check out the group break at Waiting 'til Next Year if there's still time (is there?). It'll cost you less than a large sandwich at a mediocre fast food chain.

Erin was too eager to put her Triple Play cards in their proper place (binder), so I'm left with just some Cardinals to show off. At this point, there are literally thousands of miniature Cardinals cards out there that I don't own, but that doesn't mean I don't want them all. I do! All of them!

Oh Jhonny Pheralta. Yhou hhave shuch phower, yhet yhou shwing at ehvery dhamn phitch! Yheesh.

Clearly Amazing

Quality you can see through!

This was another Listia pickup, something that I spent far too few credits on for it to be worth it to the seller. Things like this make me feel a little bit bad. Even though he shares space with a couple of other guys, this clear acetate 2014 Topps parallel (#4 out of 10) immediately becomes one of the crown jewels of my burgeoning Adam Wainwright collection.

I'll give some credit where credit is due, especially with the Dodgers taking 3 of 4 from the Cardinals in St. Louis. With apologies to Jordan Zimmermann, who is a fine pitcher of his own right, this is a crazy time to be dumping low numbered Clayton Kershaw cards right now. And, of course, I wasn't even thinking of him when I bid all of my available credits on this card.

Airbrushed Fridays: 1976 Topps Traded #85T

Oh Mickey, you're so fine. You're so fine, you blow my mind. Hey Mickey.

Who is he? Mickey Rivers, or "Mick the Quick" as he was often known, was a speedy center fielder who played throughout the '70s and the first half of the '80s. He also probably had to suffer through a few Toni Basil moments throughout the latter stages of his career.

How did he get here? After beginning his big league career with the Angels, Rivers was traded to the Yankees straight up for Bobby Bonds. It was in New York where his career would really blossom, as he made his only All-Star appearance with the Yankees. He also won two World Series rings on those Reggie Jackson era teams.

Repeat offender? No

Other versions of this card: 1976 Topps #85

Airbrushed Score: 5

Comments: Oscar Gamble thinks they did a fine job with this one.