Secret Weapon Autograph

Topps did a cool thing a few years back with the Archives autograph of former Cardinals player Jose Oquendo.  If you are not familiar with Jose, he played for the Cardinals for the better part of a decade starting in the 1986.  The Cardinals manager at the time, Whitey Herzog, frequently used Oquendo as a starter.  However, you never quite knew where he was going to turn up on the field earning him the nickname "The Secret Weapon".

During his first season as a starter with the Cardinals during the 1987 season, Oquendo played 37 games in right field, 32 games at second base, 23 games at shortstop, but also appeared in games as a third baseman, left fielder, center fielder, first baseman, and he also pitched an inning.  In 1988 Oquendo appeared at all nine position including catcher which brings me to my latest card from the 2012 Archives set.  Here is a look at the front of the card.....

I like that Topps used the 1988 design for Oquendo's card considering what they did with the Oquendo autographs.  There is a nice action shot of Oquendo on the front.  If you search Oquendo's 2012 Archives autograph on a site like Ebay or COMC you will see that there are many different pictures on the card fronts....

The difference with the Oquendo cards takes place on the back of the cards.  Specifically on the top right hand corner of the card where the player position is listed.....

My latest card has Oquendo's position listed as a 1B.  I have picked up a few of these cards over the last few years, not all, but several.  It's a pretty cool idea by Topps to make different Oquendo cards for all of the different positions during the 1988 season.  That's all of them.  I wish the pictures on the fronts of the cards matched the player position on the back of the card.  I would love to be able to collect the entire set of Oquendo Archives autographs, but they are not that cheap, given you are collecting Jose Oquendo cards.  Plus, there are a few that rarely pop up.