I Lost Ray, But I Got...Part 4

I recently lost out on a Ray Lankford card that I really really needed for my collection.  Lost would be an understatement.  The card ended up going for more than $180.  Considerably more than my price range for buying the card.

Luckily the seller had a few nice other cards that were also up for sale.  All of the cards I ended up with were less than $5 and could be argued, by some collectors, as better players than Ray Lankford.  Of course, I love Ray.  He was awesome, but some of the other cards were really nice.  So far I have shown off a Juan Encarnacion (member of the 2006 World Champion Cardinals), a Matt Morris (member of the 2004 National League Champions), and a Fernando Tatis (ummm....Two Grand Slams in an inning).  I will post three more cards today which are really nice late 90s insert cards.  First up, the only non-Cardinal of the group.....

I understand that Giambi is caught up in the whole steroid thing, but he was still a good player during the late 90s and early 2000s.  He also managed to bounce back from everything, stick around the league for awhile, and serve as a pretty good role player for the Rockies and Indians.  I even saw recently that he is still putting himself out on the market and willing to still continue his career.  Next.

Scott Rolen was a great player for the Cardinals who had a not so great ending to his career on the team.  The former Phillie, Cardinal, Blue Jay, and Red ended his career with more than 2000 hits, 300 home runs, and ranks as the 10th best third baseman in baseball history according to JAWS.  As a Cardinals fan, he was one of my favorite players on the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Cardinals teams that produced a World Series title, a National League Championship, and three National League Central Championships.  One of the favorite Rolen moments was his Game 7 home run off of Roger Clemens in 2004.  

Final card belongs to another mid 2000s Cardinals great, but pictured as an Angel.  Last card for this evening belongs to none other than Mr. Jimmy Ballgame.  

Big fan of Jimmy Ballgame and was excited to get a really cool late 90s insert of him.  This card is a subset of the regular Donruss Crusude cards.  The print runs run the same as the regular Crusade cards with two sets of the cards, a green set numbered out 250 and a red numbered out of 25.  Edmonds played on all of the same teams that Rolen played on and was eventually traded to the Padres for future Postseason Cardinals hero David Freese.  Before he left Edmonds hit one his own important postseason home runs.