Bargain Archives

I have been slowly working on assembling a few Topps Archives Cardinals autographs from this past season.  I posted a copy of my Andres Galarraga Archives card a few weeks back featuring the Big Cat with the Birds on the Bat.  As I pointed out at the time, the Cardinals players that were included in this year's Topps one per autograph box (one card per box too) were really known for playing elsewhere.

Maybe you do remember some of these players as Cardinals, so I can at least safely say that their best days were spent elsewhere.  Probably a safer statement.  My latest Cardinals Archives autograph fits that description well.  Here is the card.....

Sorry the scan is a little fuzzy.  My scanner seems to not like these cases.....

Mulder is best remembered for his time with the Oakland A's, but was traded to the Cardinals before the 2005 season.  He helped the team reach the playoffs that year before falling to the Astros in the National League Championship Series.  He started out as the ace of the Cardinals rotation in 2006 even hit the first home run at the current Busch Stadium....

At some point Mulder's shoulder pretty much fell off and he was not really ever heard from again.  He did get a ring for being on the Cardinals roster that year.  The pitching challenged team also ended up adding spare part Jeff Weaver from the Angels to deal with injuries to players like Mulder.  

Not that I am ever happy to see a player get injured, but that whole Jeff Weaver rental worked out pretty well as I recall....

Needless to say the Mulder Cardinals year's were not his best, but he was still apart of a World Series winner, so it's nice to add a copy of a Cardinals autograph to the collection.  As an added bonus, the person selling this card had a few other Archives autographs on the cheap.  

Here are my other three cards.....

Damon on the Rays is kind of cool.  As a Durham Bulls guy I kind of have become a pretty big Rays fan.  Similar to Mulder, Johnny's best days were spent elsewhere, but it's not like he was terrible during his time in Tampa.  I am pretty sure that his Rays cards in Archives are his only certified autographs in that uniform.  Cheap card, can't pass it up.  

The next two are cool 80s players....

I remember Baines as a White Sox, A's player, and with the Rangers.  He and Willie McGee, briefly, were also my favorite players on the 1990s A's teams.  Truth be told, at the time, I was not really a huge fan of McGwire and Canseco.  Especially Canseco.  Annoyed the hell out of me in Middle School.  Baines was cool though.  

Tony was in the humongous Fred McGriff, Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter trade, plus he was on the Blue Jays when I was a kid.  The Blue Jays were always a cool team in my book.  I liked the unis and a bunch of the players on that team.  Tony kind of bounced around for awhile, again always liked him.  I am pretty sure he has some other autographs out there besides this one.  This card was just kind of there....