Around The Card Room, Take 17

I got my first job was pushing in carts and bagging groceries at the Dierbergs in Manchester, Missouri during my junior year of high school. Bagging groceries was not very difficult, but I always seemed to end up on shopping cart duty for long stretches of my work shifts. St. Louis summers are hot and pushing in dozens of carts at a time in 95 degree heat with high humidity got old quick. I could have gone back to the grocery store for a second summer, but opted for a more interesting summer job my senior year of high school.  

My mother always played the organ at church when I was growing up. She had a long stint at a church in west St. Louis County where she also served as the choir director. My senior year of high school, one of her choir members had a son who lost his wife to cancer. The family had three children, two boys in elementary school and a daughter who was a two. Needless to say, the family needed some help, especially during the summer when the kids would be out of school. 

Long story short, I was pretty good with kids back in the day before I worked as a teacher. I did some volunteer work around the church with little kids and also did a high school senior project where I went back and worked with my former fifth grade teacher to help out struggling readers. I had one five minute interview where I met the father and the three kids after church and was hired to be a "manny". 

So long grocery carts.

I spent my summer playing games in yard, watching movies, bowling, and swimming. The kids taught me about Nintendo and I tried to teach them about baseball and baseball cards. It was a fun job that I ended up keeping from my senior year of high school through my senior year of college. I do not want to linger too much on the kids, because this is a post about an item from my card room. Let's just hit fast forward and say that all three of them are successful, amazing adults.

One of the best parts of this job was an invitation to the Boeing Leadership Day at Busch Stadium, which is where the father worked. The Cardinals hosted the event annually and would station eight to ten players around the concourse of the stadium a few hours before the game and Boeing employees could walk the concourse, meet the players, and get autographs signed.  

I deferred to the kids on the players we visited and I could have used several different baseballs here for this post, but I went with my favorite. 

Darryl Kile.  

As we walked the stadium and visited the different players, you could always tell the ones who enjoyed interacting with fans and which ones did not. Some of the players would chat up fans, take pictures, and sign everything and anything. Others kept their heads down, signed, and had limited interactions with the fans.  

Darryl Kile was great at the event and definitely fit into the category of being a player who was happy to interact with fans. He signed my baseball on the sweet spot without even asking. I do not really like talking up players at autograph events, but I made sure that I thanked him after he was more than generous with the autograph. 

I got a "You're welcome" and was off to see Fernando Vina.  

Incredible.  

Here is the back, err, the front of the baseball.  

 Look at that Mark McGwire bat in the background.  

Bet that has a good story too.  

98

This is the 98th Blake Snell autograph in my collection and comes from the 2020 Topps Tribute set. I have several other Snell autographs out of this product from this same year, but not this one.  After putting together a large collection of Snell autographs, I am piecing together odds and ends in an effort to reach 100 autographs. 

Here is the front of the card.  

This is another shadowbox style card that did not come through very well in the scan. The picture in the center of the card is set back against the second picture on the right side of the card and the autograph.  I really enjoy the shadowbox style cards and I am happy to add another from a high-end Topps product. 

The serial number is in the lower left-hand corner. Surprisingly there are 99 copies of this card and I have missed out on it for the past four years.   

Here is the back of the card.   

You've got the standard "Congratulations" message, but also a nice little write-up on the bottom about Snell's first Cy Young Award winning season.  I like that the write-up digs a little into the Rays history.   

Overall, nice card that brings me closer to 100 Blake Snell Autographs.  

Monday Morning Autograph - Victor Scott II

There are thousands of autographs in my collection, the majority have never appeared on my blog. Here is a random autograph that I have never posted.  

Today: 2023 Donruss Victor Scott Autograph 

Why Do I Own This Card? 

Panini included Ray Lankford in many of their 2023 baseball products. While I was not delusional enough to think that I could pull a Lankford autograph out of a box of Donruss, I knew that pulling a Lankford base card out of a blaster box was more than realistic.  

I have not pulled a current year Ray Lankford issued card out of a pack of cards since 2002. The local Target stores did not carry packs of Donruss last year, so I had to venture to the Wally World in Morrisville (it's in between Raleigh and Durham) to find a blaster box. I ended up with my Lankford, but also an autograph of Cardinals prospect Victor Scott. The product checklist for 2023 Donruss was really weird to say the least. 

When Did I Get This Card? 

It would have been roughly a year ago.  

Back of The Card 

Victor Scott Highlight 

Victor Scott nearly stole 100 bases in the Minors last year, which is his claim to fame at the moment. However, I have really enjoyed watching him play defense during the first week of the season.  Here is a Victor Scott catch from this past weekend.  

It was hard to fully appreciate the degree of difficulty on this catch by #STLCards CF Victor Scott II in real time, but watching it back gives a real appreciation.

Avisail Garcia exit velocity: 104.1 mph
Distance: 390 feet
Hit probability: 81%
Scott's distance covered: 78 feet pic.twitter.com/ItYrwGbacR

— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) April 6, 2024

44 To Go

It's been a few days.  

I would like to tell you that I haven't posted in the past week because I have been on a fun vacation or a regular at the Durham Bulls games. 

I have been to one game.  

The Bulls lost on a long Tristan Gray home run.  

My Spring Break actually ended last week and I returned to work.  My free time evaporated.  

While I did not find time to type up a blog post, I did find time to find another 1952 Red Man tobacco card. Even found another Hall of Famer, my second in a row.  

Here is the card......

Ralph Kiner is easily the nicest card I have added since I started this project at the beginning of the year both in terms of the card condition and significance of the player. The tab is included and the surface and corners are all above average. I have a few other Hall of Famers on the National League side of the checklist. Kiner is my third behind Musial and Schoendienst, fourth overall when I included Larry Doby from the American League checklist.  

It's Saturday, the sun is shining, and my youngest wants to ride bikes. Sorry, no time to scan the card back. 

2024 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 7

This is the ninety-seventh Blake Snell autograph in my collection and definitely the first with the word "Pentamerous" on the front of the card. Pentamerous meaning something that is arranged in groups of five.  

After looking at the card for a long time, I cannot find anything with five groups of anything. There is a five-sided star at the top and two small five-sided stars next to the nameplate, but that's it. That's also three stars, not five.  There are not five pictures of Blake Snell, or five autographs of Blake Snell, which might have made this a really awesome card.  

Here is the front.  

I am going to stop picking on the name of this card and focus on the fact that it is really nice. My latest Blake Snell autograph comes out of the high-end 2023 Topps Five Star product. The card has thick card stock and a nice, glossy finish. The wooden looking parts on the front of the card have some nice gold foil and are also embossed.  The gold around the edges is obviously more embossed foil.  

A little lost on my scan is the fact that the center of the card is actually translucent. It's hard to tell on the front scan, but you'll see it in a second when you look at the scan of the back of the card.  

Here is the back.  

The translucent front can be seen here with the reversed image of Snell on the left side of the card, the faded portrait image on the right, and the autograph bleeding through on the bottom. The small print is still on the bottom of the card underneath the picture frame. 

Random Ray - 2023 Panini Flawless

It turns out that Ray Lankford had two autographs in Panini Flawless. I added one a few weeks back and won the other in an auction on Ebay last week. I was really excited to say the least. 

Here is the front of the card, which is from Panini's high end baseball product.  

Panini Flawless is roughly $1,500 for a box. Can you imagine pulling a $20-$30 autograph of Ray Lankford in a box that costs that much? Thank goodness other people are willing to spend the money to open these boxes and resell their cards on Ebay for a huge loss.  

I'm excited.  

Back of the card.  

There is no write up on the back, only a Certificate of Authenticity. Well, there is a giant "STL" in the middle of the card, which is something different. I actually don't miss the write up that much, but they should have made the Certificate of Authenticity a little larger.  

Monday Morning Autograph - Eric Davis

I own a couple of thousand autographs, the majority have never appeared on my blog. Here is a random autograph that I have never posted.  

Today: 2015 Stadium Club Autographs Eric Davis 

Why Do I Own This Card?  

Eric Davis is one of the most talented players from the 1980s and 1990s. He was also on the St. Louis Cardinals for a few seasons at the end of his career.  Why wouldn't I want to own one of his autographs? 

I have actually posted other Davis autographs on my blog, just never this autograph.  

When Did I Get This Card?

I pulled this out of a box of Stadium Club towards the end of 2015. It was a nice pull. I took a break from blogging for a few months at the beginning of 2016 and never posted this card.  

Back of the Card 

I love that Stadium Club uses actual card back on their autographs. We get statistics and a nice write-up describing Davis' style of play and one of his career accomplishments.  This is what we deserve on the back of baseball cards.  

The Career of Eric Davis In a Haiku 

Series Champ, Home Runs

Reds, Stolen Bases, Gold Gloves

O's, Cards, Tigers Too