There have been so many home run hits this year. It seems that no matter what team's stat page you check out, there are tons of players who have crossed the 20 home run mark, or more. Is it now common place that the majority of position players are going to end up hitting 20 home runs, give or take, assuming that they receive a decent number of plate appearances?
I decided to flip through my cards a few weekends ago to check out some of the cards that I had from the big home run hitters during this baseball season.
Of course there is Mike Stanton.....
who is nearing 60 home runs. As a Cardinals fan, I remember the excitement around the McGwire/Sosa home run chase in 1998. I got to see Big Mac's 70th home run in person. It feels odd that there isn't a little more excitement surrounding Stanton's pursuit of number 60. I will be watching this weekend, feels like more people should be too.
The American League has Aaron Judge.
He has crossed 50 home runs and broken Mark McGwire's rookie home run record, which was set with the A's in 1987. Judge is not only leading the AL in home run, he also is leading the league in strikeouts and walks. Pretty cool feat.
As a Cardinals fan I have had fun watching Paul DeJong....
who has 25 home runs, 51 extra base hits, it just over 100 games this season.
Recently I decided that I was going to try and track down a few other players who have enjoyed break out season during this baseball season. I made a list and went out looking for what was out there. The most obvious choice, given I am going with the whole home run theme, would be to try to find a cool Rhys Hoskins card. He was the International League MVP this year, so that's where I started my search.
However....
there are not many of them and they are all off brand, non-licensed, cards like Leaf and Panini. Although someone tried to flip me one of these for my Judge autograph. LOL.
So, I went to the second name on my list, which was Matt Olson from the Oakland A's.
and I was shocked. It was the opposite of looking up Judge cards, or Hoskins cards. I think Judge and Hoskins are fine players, but when you look up auctions for young players and think, "I could buy this card or a very nice Stan Musial card" it's time to just keep moving....
Olson's cards, when I bought this one, were under $10. Has anyone actually look at his stat sheet? They have doubled over the last week, or two, but I still ended up with two of his cards. One for today, another for a different day. Here is the first one......
I love the Bowman Inception cards and could not pass this one up. The art/pictures always seems really well done and you always get an on-card autograph with this set. No stickers stuck on cards. The back of the card.......
What's not to like?
Some quick numbers on Olson and Hoskins, as a Cardinals fan I can tell you they are both better than DeJong. Hoskins is at 48 games, Olson is at 59 games, so there is going to be a little disparity between some of the counting number stats. Olson is at 24 home runs, Hoskins is at 18. Olson's slash line is .259/.352/.651, while Hoskins is .265/.401/.642. Olson is at 2.4 WAR and Hoskins is at 2.1 WAR. Too me, the biggest difference is the fact that Hoskins takes walks, Olson is more of a free swinger.
In a normal world there probably wouldn't be a $100 difference between a Hoskins and Olson autograph, but here we are.....
I have already covered all sorts of Cardinals autographs that I have picked up from this year's Archives set, but haven't really touched any non-Cardinals from the yearly Topps product. So, I actually have recently ended up with a non-Cardinal.....and two other players with connections to the Cardinals. The Archives autograph checklist was deep for the Cardinals this year, even if the former Cardinals players appear in other uniforms.
Non-Cardinal first. I liked this card because it was an Expo and......
I have always really enjoyed the design of the 1986 Topps cards. I tend to like the Archives cards a little better when the player and card design match, Alou is a 1990s and 2000s player, but I was willing to overlook it here based on price and the fact that everyone digs finding Expos cards. Alou was a nice player too, even if he spent a lot of his career successfully hitting baseballs off of Cardinals pitchers.
Card back.
Very nice. Next up is a former Cardinals Rookie of the Year and owner of a cool unibrow....
Moon is probably best remembered for his years with the Dodgers, which took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the team first moved to the West Coast. The Dodgers played briefly in the Los Angeles Coliseum while Dodger Stadium was being built. It had unique dimensions which Moon took advantage of.....
by trying to hit the ball at the short left-field fence which also featured a high screen. In 1959, Moon had 19 home runs, 11 triples, and 26 doubles. Many of them involved that short porch in left. While he was with the Cardinals, Moon won the 1954 Rookie of the Year Award with a .304 average, 12 home runs, 76 RBIs, and 18 steals.
Card back.
Last card. Also a former Cardinals player.
Tito Francona spent 6 years with the Indians and 3 years with the Braves. The rest of his career was spent seven other teams which included the Cardinals, Orioles, Athletics, Phillies, Tigers, Brewers, and White Sox. The Indians used him as a starter and he had a few nice years playing everyday. In 1959, in 122 games, he hit .363/.414/.566 with 20 home runs. After his time in Cleveland, he ended up in St. Louis where the Cardinals used him as a reserve corner outfielder and first baseman. Basically the same things as Terry Francona as a player.
Card back
This card is the blue framed parallel, so we have the serial number on the back of the card. Overall, very happy with my three new Archives cards.
The headset, shirt tucked into their pants, sometimes a clipboard. This #13 character surely became an accountant or something......
Basketball teams always have a few guys on the end of the bench wearing warm-ups. You are not getting in the game when you're scrimmage jersey is a different color than James Worthy....
Who is number 10? I hope he is a grad student, or assistant coach playing along in practice. These freshman will be lucky to ever see playing time.
Hockey has the backup goalie.
No helmet, goofy turtleneck, sometimes a baseball hat that can be found in the team store. Doubtful that this guy ever did anything either.
Baseball has the backup catcher.
No actual catchers gear, some towels and cool wristbands, and it looks like he worked hard stretching. All just to sit on the bench behind Mike Matheny.
Back in 1993 the Cardinals had Tom Pagnozzi as their everyday catcher. He was a Gold Glove caliber catcher, just did not always hit. The Cardinals ran through all sorts of backups for Pags over the years, I think Hector was supposed to bring some pop off the bench. In 1991, while playing with the Cubs, Hector his 13 home runs in just under half of a season.
1992 wasn't so good, so the Cardinals were rolling the dice a bit to bring him in for the 1993 season. Let's sum up the Hector Villanueva year with the Cardinals with a picture and a few numbers.
Hector definitely has that old school catcher's physique, but even if he were in the best shape of his life, he would not have hit/on-based his weight as a Cardinal. Considering the Hector Villanueva era in St. Louis lasted exactly 17 games, 55 at-bats, I am not sure how much we could have honestly asked of Hector.
There were so few Hector Villanueva at-bats that there were only actually two widely distributed baseball cards of the backup catcher. For whatever reason, I only have one of them. So, here is my 1990s Cardinals Hector Villanueva card.....
and there is nothing shabby about this card. The 1993 Upper Deck set had some cool base cards with great photography. Everything that a collector from the 1990s could expect out of one of their sets. The Cardinals don't wear solid red jerseys during the regular season outside of BP, so this has to be from a Spring Training game. The back of the card.....
and the back of the card shows Hector hustling out of the batters box. It didn't last long, but it is cool to have one card of a cool backup catcher like Hector Villanueva in a Cardinals uniform.
A few of my "backups" are probably hoping they can stick around as long as Hector. Any faces you recognize?
There are a lot of sports fans who do not like Tim McCarver and constantly complain about all kinds of things about his announcing. He can be a little bit off at times, which obviously draws the ire of fans.....
and Deion Sanders......
However, this post is about Tim McCarver's baseball playing career. Even that draws some unfounded criticism. I was once told, while attending a Minor League game surrounded by Phillies fans, that the highlight of Tim McCarver's career was running out to shake Bob Gibson's hand after he set the World Series Game Strikeout Record against the Tigers in the first game of the 1968 World Series.....
That was pretty cool, but McCarver had a lot of more good moments in his career outside of calling a 17 strikeout effort in a World Series game. McCarver actually won three World Series rings during his career. Two with the Cardinals in 1964 and 1967, and much to the surprise of many Phillies fans at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, a ring with the 1980 Phillies team.
He was only on the Phillies for a month at the end of the 1980 season, but he did get to appear in a "Welcome Back Kotter" promotional video for a local television station.
McCarver actually spent most of the second half of his career with the Phillies. He had a stop over with the Expos for a year, came back to the Cardinals for a season, played two years for the Red Sox, but ended up with 9 years total as a Phillie.
As a baseball card guy, I have never really been all that interested in McCarver cards. I have a couple hanging around the collection just for the simple reason that they were needed to complete a few of the Cardinals team sets that I have tried to assemble from the 1960s. I recently had the chance to add a McCarver card for the sake of it being a McCarver card. The card is from a cool set too....
I thought about it. Okay.
I have posted a few other cards from the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments set in the past. I also have a Nate Colbert. St. Louis native, and Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock. So, the McCarver card has a St. Louis connection too, even though the picture on the left hand side of the card is with the Phillies, the black and white photo on the right is with the Cardinals.
I have seen at least one other Greatest Moments card with a similar set up, former Durham Bulls great Rusty Staub has an Expos picture with an Astros highlight. I had to do a little research on the caption under the picture "Becomes 1st Catcher in History to Lead Majors in Triples" to see when this happened.......
1966 National League triples leader. Kind of a cool feat for a catcher and goes to show that McCarver did something pretty great things around a baseball field....even if you don't agree.
There were a bunch of 1990s Cardinals players who were frequently injured, but they were tantalizingly good when they were actually on the field. Donovan Osborne was one of those players. He was drafted by the Cardinals in the first round of the 1990 amateur draft out of UNLV, was rated as a top 50 prospect by Baseball America, and made it through the entire minor league system in a year and a half.
Osborne's first two years with the Cardinals, 1992 and 1993, were okay. He was an average Major League pitcher on some teams that were really short on talent. After 1993 he was injured frequently. He missed 1994, but pitched half a season in 1995 and set a career high with an ERA+ of 109 and Ks per 9. Osborne's best year was in 1996 when he helped the Cardinals get within a game of the World Series, won 13 games, and posted what would his career best ERA+ of 119.
His season ended ominously in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series after giving up a bases loaded triple to Tom Glavine, which put the game away for the Braves in the first inning.
Osborne was never the same after that game. He pitched half a season in 1997 and 1998, only 6 games in 1999, and then missed all of 2000 and 2001. The Cardinals actually parted ways with him after the 1999 season, but he resurfaced with the Cubs in 2002. He made 11 relief appearances with the Cubs before he was shut down and released at the end of the year. To get an idea of how much teams thought of Osborne's potential, one only needs to look at his transaction sheet post 2002. Lots of teams were willing to take a chance on having him pitch.
He did actually appear in games for the Yankees going 2-0 in 9 games, which included 2 starts. Osborne's ERA was over 7 though. The two wins were both against the A's within a week of each other, both as a reliever. His starts were the last two games he pitched with the Yankees. The first start was against the Mariners and lasted one and a third innings. Osborne gave up 6 runs on 6 hits with 2 walks. The second start was also against the Mariners, he lasted into the fifth inning, but he still gave up 6 runs. That was the end of his career in the Majors.
Four teams later, with a bunch of Minor League starts, he was officially done in 2006.
Card wise, Osborne never really had that many cards. Especially given that he played in the 1990s and was a high draft pick, there just isn't much that's special or unique about Osborne's cards. Flipping through my boxes of 1990s Cardinals I found a few different possible cards for tonight's post, but I picked more on the card design and brand than on finding something really cool looking. It's just not there.
First up is one of my under appreciated 1990s sets. While everyone was going with foil, gloss, and anything else fancy that card companies could squeeze onto a card, Fleer went old school with their 1996 and 1997 sets with no gloss, no border, just a picture and the players name.
I know a lot of autograph collectors who love this set. The no gloss finish makes a nice surface to sign. I just like the fact that it is really simple and goes against just about every other card release from 1996. The card backs were okay......
but if you notice the card number, 552, the Fleer set was also large. As a collector, you got a lot of different players from your favorite team, not just the usual suspects. For the mid 90s Cardinals that was usually some combination of Lankford, Gant, Jordan, the two Benes brothers, Eck, and maybe Stottlemyre (Throttlemyre). It skipped out on the Donovan Osborne's of the world. The stats are a little different than the set up Fleer had when I was a kid, but I like that they put the SO/9 and H/9 on the back. Kind of different. Color picture at the bottom is also nice, check out the blurb about Osborne's shoulder.....
Next 1990s card is the opposite of the Fleer. It's a 1997 Score.....
The front of the card is kind of meh, which is way different from where Score started in the late 1980s with really bold colored cards. The mid 1990s were really when the glut of cards started, new releases every week, so many similar products. Pinnacle, which made Score, had about four other card products that looked like this set. Was Donovan Osborne in New Pinnacle? Pinnacle Mint? Pinnacle? Donruss? Those were all really the same set with a different border.
The back of the card is just ridiculous.
These cards had the busiest backs in the history of baseball cards. There is a logo in the background and a logo in the lower left hand corner. There are Osborne's pitching statistics in the middle of the card, fielding statistics at the bottom, and two sets of splits on the right side. Then you have the blurb about Donovan Osborne, including a little snippet about his shoulder problems. I feel the ADD kicking in.
I had considered using an Osborne rookie card for this post, 1991 Bowman, but decided to skip over the Bowman cards since I will probably use a few on some other posts where I am limited to just that brand.
I forgot the music on last week's post. I guess I could go 1997 or 1996 on this post. I hit shuffle on my Ipod, kept flipping until a song from 1997 came up, so I will go with that year. Not a household name on this band, but Butter 08 was the two women from Cibo Matto, the drummer from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Mike Mills from R.E.M.
While we are on Cibo Matto, I will stop shuffling the IPod and just run with one of their songs to make up from last week. They were a good mid 1990s group and they had a CD out in 1996. Do people listen to any of these 90s groups anymore, is it just me?
I have not had much of chance to write about this year's Durham Bulls team. My entire summer vacation, it's a month which is a short amount of time for my profession, was spent almost entirely on one giant road trip that stretched from North Carolina to Michigan to Missouri and back home. That left very little time to visit with my favorite Minor League and the inspiration for the namesake of my little blog.
I have still followed along with the team and enjoyed checking out their games on television, listen on the radio, or just looking at the box scores online. I decided to save posting this team set for this specific day after attending a Bulls playoff game last week against the Indianapolis Indians.
The team looked sharp. I had a good feeling about the end of this year's season, so I waited. I figured at worst I could make a post in a week or two and do a write up about another great season. The team ended up finishing off Indianapolis and took care of the Scranton Yankees last night to win the Governors Cup, which is given to the International League Champion.
I am not sure how many baseball fans realize the success that the Durham Bulls have experienced over the past fifteen years. One of my favorite local writers best summarized this morning.
What @DurhamBulls have done since 2002 is amazing on its own & truly mind blowing in context of AAA. 9 finals appearances & 5 championships!
Needless to say I am excited about watching the Bulls play in the Triple A National Championship game this coming Tuesday night against either the Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals), or the El Paso Chihuahuas (Padres). In the meantime, I am going to share out a few Durham Bulls posts over the next week, win or lose Tuesday night, starting with this one sharing the team set.
The design for the set was taken from the 2016 Topps base cards. No, this is not a base card, but it was sitting on my desk at the moment. I also scanned the cards in groups of 3 instead of the usual groups of 9 that I put in my normal Minor League team set posts. First group of cards.....
Pretty good trio of prospects here.
Bauers was in the Trea Turner/Stephen Souza/Wil Myers trade. I know many Rays fans don't like to talk about that one, but Bauers has shown some potential. The power hasn't quite shown up the way many would like, only 13 home runs, but he still has almost 50 extra base hits this year and a strong on base percentage.
Ames throws hard, been around for awhile. Not a ranked prospect, but improved his strikeout rate to more than 11 K's per 9 innings this year.
Adames is the top prospect in the Rays system. Top 20 prospect in all the Minors. He's a really good baseball player who will be around for along time.
Good group here too. Faria is one of my favorite Rays prospects. I need to make a post solely dedicated to just him. I saw his Triple A debut last year and have been following him ever since.
Chirinos flies under the radar. He won 12 games for the Bulls this year in with an ERA of 2.74. Should be a durable Major League starter somewhere.
Casali has been up and down between Tampa and Durham the last few years. I think at some point in the past the Rays had some high hopes that he would become their everyday catcher. He's clearly not that anymore.
Honeywell is the best Rays pitching prospect. Definitely deserves a post of his own. Guy throws a screwball. How cool is that?
Not sure where Hager fits in the Rays future plans. He can play all over the field, but I am not sure if there is a place on a Major League roster for a guy who hits .250 with a .300 on base percentage.
Goetzman has been in the Rays system for seven years. He has limited power, doesn't hit for average, doesn't get on-base. Strictly an organizational depth kind of player.
Kolarek and Kittredge are both relief pitchers in their late 20s and still in Triple A. Kittredge was up for awhile and pitched well for the Rays, so there is chance perhaps. Kolarek has also been up, not successful, but he has a funky delivery and he is left handed. You never know.
Hu has been up and pitched in a few games for the Rays. Seems like he has potential to be a rotation guy somewhere. Not a front line guy, but he'd be something along the lines of Matt Andriese.
McKenry and Marjama are both backup catcher material. Marjama played a few games with the Mariners. McKenry has made appearances with the Rockies, Pirates, and Cardinals. Patrick Leonard was apart of the Wil Myers trade with the Royals. He was in the lower minors when the trade took place, so all these years later he has made it to Triple A. He's got some pop, not sure how/where he fits in with the Rays in the future.
Snell was back in Durham this year. A little disappointed that he ended up back in Triple A, but it seems like he made a positive step forward after returning to Tampa.
Mallex Smith is a really cool player to watch. Reminds me of one of the old 1980s Cardinals players. Speed, good defense, and an electric feel when he gets into games. Seems to make things happen when he plays. The Rays have a crowded outfield, but he offers something different.
Shane Peterson is the old guy on the team. The Rays called him up to play in Tampa this year, but I like to point out that he was once traded from the Cardinals to the A's for Matt Holliday. He's got to be pretty good, right?
A little faster pace. Kean Wong is Kolten's brother. I like Kolten better, so does the stat page. Neil Wagner has been around the Minors for more than a decade. He's pitched games for the A's and Blue Jays. Wagner is 33 and is Triple A. Stanek played college baseball at Arkansas, throws 100, and has an incredible mullet. I saw him a few years back with the USA Baseball team.
Ryan Yarbrough was the best pitcher on the Bulls this year. I was hurt and pained for several days last off season when the Rays traded Taylor Motter to the Mariners, but they got Yarbrough back in return. Jared Sandberg is the manager and Ryne's nephew. He started coaching from the bench this year instead of working the game from third base. Seemed to do well. Albernaz is a former Bulls player. Fan favorite, worked hard, not in the cards for him to be in Majors. He did this though....
He actually ended up coaching the Hudson Valley Renegades, the Rays New York-Penn League short season team, and lead them to the league championship.
Wool E. Bull is the world's greatest baseball mascot. Ozzie Timmons is a former Cub. Kyle Snyder went to UNC and pitched for the 2007 Red Sox World Series winning team. There are at least ten International League baseballs in my house and 9 of them were given to my son by Kyle Snyder, who sorts out the baseballs in the bullpen before the game, and gives the discards to anyone who is nearby. The other baseball was one Tim Beckham gave to me to spite a bunch of middle school kids.
Back in 2016 I said I was going to work on a few set projects and post them on my blog. I made a few handy little pages at the top of the page and started out pretty well. I found cards, I posted the cards, and I crossed them off my checklist. Seemed like a great idea that was going well. There are actually a few finished sets up that tab, but probably not nearly as many as there should be.
So far I have finished the 2001 Archives base set, an insert set from the 2000 Skybox EX-Century set, and the 1990 Upper Deck set. I have a cool Topps Gallery Heritage project going that is actually just about ready for a completed project post and a Bowman Autograph set that is almost also done.
My most frustrating set has actually been the first set project, that I started back in April of 2016, which was the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion cards. Also known as the metal card set.
As of late 2016 I was done to just a handful of cards. I actually found them really quickly and then I was down to just one card. I hate when this happens. One card means that you are going to sit and watch all the different card sites.....waiting......waiting......
A few years ago I put together a 1998 Topps Tek set and I got down to just needing Jason Kendall. It took forever and that was for Jason Kendall.....
for the Molten Metal set I was missing one Pedro Martinez card. There were literally none up for sale on Ebay, COMC, and Sport Lots which are my usual shopping destinations. I went to a card show, in Raleigh, and that felt like a wild goose chase trying to find one baseball card in a really big exhibition hall. It might have been there, but I kind of gave up at a certain point. Not a great idea.
Welp, I finally found Pedro. Not expensive, but I ended up with 10 others cards from the set that are dupes. Can't complain to finally cross this set off after a year and half in the works. Here is the card.
I will do another set project post in the next week or two. Thinking about doing a few more junk wax type sets similar to what I did with the 1990 Upper Deck set a few months ago. 1990s large set with a big whole where I can find a cheap box or wax packs.
I have really enjoyed some of the cards Topps has made over the past several years using acetate, some people prefer the term plastic, over card stock. I think plastic and acetate are pretty interchangeable. In some ways the whole acetate/plastic card media start long ago. Topps has just picked the idea up in recent years and ran with it. I think my first "plastic" set of cards that I really enjoyed collecting were the 1998 Skybox EX-2001 set. These weren't specifically deemed acetate cards, plus the silver part and player picture is actually made out of cardboard on these cards.
These are a modern classic. If you do not own one, I would highly recommend it. I still take the cards out of from this set and look at them from time to time. Fast forward nearly twenty years and we still have some nice acetate/plastic cards that are being produced.
My favorite current patch of acetate cards are the Topps clear parallels that have been appearing in the base set for the past few years. They are limited to a print run of just 10, so they can be a little hard to find, but they are really well done. My favorite was the 2014 Jon Jay card.
The colors on the front of these cards really pop out on the acetate media and the card backs are spectacular with the reverse image of the players done in black and gray.
Just a really nice look. Topps has had other acetate card products that haven't been as nice as the clear parallels, but still I have enjoyed collecting. The Strata cards come to mind. Nice looking set, not everything was acetate or plastic, but still very fun to collect.
Not an obvious acetate card at first spot, but the backs of these cards have some of the same cool features of the Topps base card parallel. Again, not quite as nice as the clear parallel.
Here you can see the signature on the front of the card showing through to the back. Which brings us to our newest entry into the world of acetate cards. I was initially worried about this product. Nothing would be more disappointing than promising collectors an all acetate set and then making it somehow really mediocre. I seriously feared this when I saw the previews for Topps Clearly.
It has it's plus and it's minuses. Here is my first card from the set, there are more on the way.
First off, this is one of those products that you want someone else to open. 50 some dollars for one autograph? Open away, I will buy your $5 Luke Weaver cards off of Ebay. I am also a little disappointed that the cards are in magnet cases with a seal over the top. What is so cool about these cards that they have to be in a case? I get that Topps has done this with Archives Signatures and a few other products recently. Let me hold the card in my hand. Seriously thinking about taking this out of the one-touch.
and the best thing? If you read my other acetate card posts you'd know it's always these cool looking card backs.....
Same basic idea as the acetate cards in the Topps base set, but I love that you can see the player's autograph showing through on the back of the card. This card doesn't have a very clear background, but there is a color background with a Cubs player standing behind Weaver. It's just not totally obvious at first glance... My other Topps Clearly card will be here in a day or two, looks like it has a clean card front aside from the player photo, curious how it will compare to this card.....
Still waiting to find a nicer acetate card than the Jon Jay. This card is not Jon Jay, but still, it's nice.
