I Wish You Were A Cardinal....Part 1

Edgar Renteria spent almost half of his playing career wearing the birds on the bat.  He was in St. Louis for a total of six season which included the best season of his career in 2003 when he hit .330/.394.480 with 13 home runs, 100 RBIs, 47 doubles, and 34 stolen bases.  Yet, the average baseball fan, when asked about Renteria would probably bring up two things.

This from the 1997 World Series.....

and then at the other end of his career in 2010 he had this home run for the Giants in the 2010 World Series.....

Both were great moments in Renteria's career, but I obviously prefer his time in St. Louis.  He did not have the postseason heroics with the Cardinals that he had in other places, but he was still a really good player on some of the best Tony LaRussa managed teams.

One of my favorite moments of his time in St. Louis was this grand slam off of Mark Prior.  

When I heard that Edgar Renteria was going to be in Topps products this year I was naturally excited.  My heart sank a little bit when I saw he was going to be a Marlin on his Topps Archives card, but I was still more than happy to go out and try to find a copy of his autograph.  He was never a great signer and has a really limited number of certified autographs.  

This is the front of his Topps Archives autograph.......

It's a 2001 design, Edgar was a Cardinal that year, but we get a Marlins picture.  Hmm.  Renteria's signature has also regressed a little bit over the last decade plus since he last signed some baseball cards.  Still, I am happy with the card regardless of the signature quality.  

Back of the card.....

which shows all of Edgar's playing stats.  Some pretty nice numbers there at different points in his career.  He really bounced around a lot after leaving the Cardinals for the Red Sox.  Card wise, Topps did a really good job of getting the small details right on the backs of these cards.  The stock is a little different, but the rest of the back is a perfect recreation.  They even got the Topps 50th Anniversary logo up at the top of the card in between the player name and picture.