I Love The 90s Cardinals #2- Placido Polanco

Skipping to the other end of the decade for my second 1990s Cardinals post to write up one of my favorite players from that era.  The late 1990s were not kind to the Cardinals after the 1996 trip to the National League Championship Series.  The pitching thinned out and the team had a hard time cracking the top half of the league.  Still, a lineup featuring Mark McGwire always made things entertaining.

McGwire was the most popular Cardinals player on the field for good reason at this point for good reason.  Home runs.

As a baseball card collector, 1999 was sort of a golden year to be a Cardinals collector.  There was the huge enormous glut of McGwire cards.  They were everywhere.  So much shine and gloss.  Too many expensive cards.  Looking back on it now it's fun to go to card shows now to pick up his cards that were $10 and $15 inserts twenty years ago from the dollar card bins.  

Loved the Gold Label cards from the late 1990s.  Probably one of my favorite products of that era, the rehash job Topps has done doesn't compare to the original.  

The Cardinals had some pretty popular players around the baseball card hobby beyond Big Mac.  Two of the more highly sought after prospects around the hobby at the time were J.D. Drew and Rick Ankiel.  Drew's first cards actually came out in 1998, loved his Fleer Update card, but the craze spilled over into 1999.  He had a terrible year, baseball card collectors still were all over him.

I stopped going out of my way for J.D. Drew cards at some point in the middle of the summer.  I moved on to being an Ankiel collector.  Seemed like a solid pitching prospect.  He had a bunch of Minor League stuff throughout the summer in products like Best and Just Minors.  His first "real" card was his Fleer Update.  

I am 99.9% certain that I ended up with a copy of this card the first day that the Fleer Update set was available for sale.  There were some other young players beyond Drew and Ankiel that were worthy of my time back then.  I dabbled in Fernando Tatis and Edgar Renteria cards.  Of course there were always Ray Lankford cards.  

My favorite Lankford card from 1999 was his Essential Credentials card out the Skybox EX-Century product.  Tough card to find at the time.  

I haven't seen a copy of this card in forever.  Happy that I have it in my collection.  It's one of my favorite Lankford cards.  

There were plenty of scrubby players that filled the rest of the roster, I will get to them at some point in the near future.  For now, I want to focus in on the young players on the Cardinals roster.  There was one other really popular Cardinals player with a rookie card that year, rookie second baseman Joe McEwing.  Super Joe really deserves his own post.  

Which brings me to Placido Polanco.  Not sure anyone really cared about his cards at the time he came up with the Cardinals at the end of 1998, he didn't really hit.  He reappeared in 1999 and did a little bit better, but if you've ever spent anytime watching Tony LaRussa teams you know that he likes the utility players.  Can't have a LaRussa roster until you have a light hitting infielder who can play everywhere.  

Sort of think it's Tony giving himself a chance long after he finished playing....

The Cardinals had McEwing play great for a half a year, they dumped him for Jesse Orosco.  Polanco stayed on the Cardinals.  The Cardinals had Adam Kennedy, who was a highly thought of 1st round draft pick, they dumped him for Jim Edmonds.  Polanco stayed on the Cardinals. 

During his time on the Cardinals, LaRussa played Placido at every single infield spot which is probably a huge reason he stuck around as long as he did.  He also eventually started to hit, but that was more in the 2000s, this is a 1990s post.   

What about the baseball cards?  Placido Polanco actually first showed up on a baseball card in 1998 in the Leaf Stars set.  I don't actually own a copy of that card.  I know it is surprising.  One day I will fix this problem.  He did have a few 1999 cards, but it's not like he popped up in a ton of sets.  There was one in the Sports Illustrated set, pictured above with J.D. Drew.  That was a nice looking set, but my favorite 1999 Polanco card was probably his Pacific base card.  

It's a really simple card, but I like that it's got a frameless action shot of Placido.  The little rookie diamond on the bottom is a little bit busy, but the rest of the card is quality.  He has another Pacific card in the Crown Collection set which is an action shot from, going out on a limb, the same at bat.  I will put that card up in a minute.  Meanwhile, here is the back of the Pacific base....

I am not saying that this is somehow a great looking card back, but Pacific always had a nice blurb about the players.  I'm surprised that Polanco stole 19 bases in a season.  Not really a fast player, so kind of interesting fact. 

Last card.  Here is the Crown Collection card.  Again, same at-bat as the Pacific base card.  

I really do like this card, it's one of those really simple card products that has some good photography.  However, I think it might be a little overly simple, especially for Pacific.  Come on, I went die-cut cards and foil.  Serial numbers too.  

I have a lot of favorite Cardinals.  I feel like I probably put that in half of my posts every month, and with Placido it was a short run with the Cardinals, but he was an enjoyable player to watch.  I'm glad that the Cardinals got Rolen, was a little bummed out that they included Polanco in the deal, but you have to give something up to get something back.  

Always kind of enjoyed the few years that he played with the Tigers.  My father in-law and brother in-law are both big Tigers fans and I felt like Polanco gave us a common player to root for back in the day.  Even if he beat the Cardinals every once in awhile....

We all know that the Cardinals got along just fine in the end.  

and a song from 1999 on my IPod.