A Pair From The Best Columbian

There have been only twenty players from the South American county to have appeared in a Major League game.  Of the position players, there are only five with more than one thousand plate appearances.  If you ranked those five players by total plate appearances the third, fourth, and fifth ranked players would be Jackie Gutierrez, the Orioles and Red Sox infielder from the 1980s, Donovan Solano, and Jolbert Cabrera.  The other two are players have a little more name recognition and notoriety....

They actually played opposite of each other in the 2004 World Series.  The second greatest player from Columbia......

and the greatest......

which is not really a fair representation of Renteria's Postseason career.  He had several clutch moments including a series walk off hit in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.....

as well as a Series clinching hit in Game 5 of the 2010 Series for the Giants.  Edgar appeared for the Cardinals in eight different Postseason playoff series, but he never managed to end up on the winning side of a World Series with the team.

Besides being one of the best Columbian baseball players, it's not a stretch to say that he's one of the better shortstops in the history of the Cardinals franchise.  He's not Ozzie Smith, not Marty Marion, but he's probably in the running for one the spots after those two players.

So, I was happy to see Edgar pop back up on Topps cards last summer.  I know that is not a completely unusual thing to have retired players on new card releases these days, I was a little surprised at Edgar's appearance.  He was really a pretty quiet person during his playing days, never really spoke out things, did not give a ton of interviews, and really seemed to keep to himself.  I am not going to complain though.  I recently had a chance to pick up two really nice autographs of the former Cardinals shortstop.

The first card is from last year's Topps Archives Signature set.  Edgar also signed for the Topps Archives product last year, though he is pictured as a Marlin on that card.  I still picked one up shortly after the set was released.  Since Archives Signature is a buyback product, with all sorts of different older cards from throughout the different players' careers, I decided to be a little picky about the card I ended up with of Edgar.  His autographs in this set are really affordable, so I figure that I could sit back and be patient.  

I feel like I did well by waiting awhile.  This 2002 Topps Heritage card is a lot better addition than a League Leader card from a base Topps set, or a card from the second half of his career which was spent wondering the league with the Tigers, Braves, Reds, and others after he left the Cardinals.  

Last card this morning.  

The scan really does not do this card justice.  It's very modern in design, but has a little less luster posted here.  This is from the Tribute set, it's one of those products I do not actually open myself, but more than willing to trade or buy people's singles.  The card is on a thick card stock and the front of the card has a nice finish.  The line in the scan just above Renteria's signature appears to be random from this view, but actually offers a really great contrast, in person, between the half of the card with Edgar's picture and the signature area.  

A very nice card, easily the best Renteria card in my collection.