Cardinals From COMC

I have very specific places that I try to find my baseball cards.  New releases, autographs that are $5 or more, higher end singles are usually off of Ebay.  Almost all of my lower end cards come off COMC.  I usually add cards to my cart for a few weeks, usually as I am sorting out cards, and check out every couple of weeks.  COMC has flat rate shipping, which keeps cards that cost fifty cents really close to that price after shipping is factor into the overall cost.  Ebay, not so much.  

I find some really great looking cards on there, brings back a lot of good memories from long ago.  The brands and sets are fun to look at, as well as the different players.  

I made a post on the last day of 2017 about what I wanted to accomplish this year in terms of my collection and the different posts that I make in this space.  My goals were simple.  I had four of them, so let's run through them really fast, and then get to some baseball cards.  

1. I wanted to assemble fewer current year sets.  I have done really well with this goal.  So far, I have put together a Topps Series 1 base set and a Topps Heritage set.  There was also the 1983 inserts from the Topps base set, but I considered that a set project.  I am not sure how many sets have been put out between Topps and Panini, but I have missed a lot of them.  Verdict: Thumbs up  
2. More single cards. Just scrolling through my past months posts, I would say that this has also been fairly successful.  Some of my 1990s Cardinals posts are more player focused posts, but my last few posts, minus those Cardinals posts, include a single card of an NC State player, a single card of a Durham Bulls player, an Evan Longoria relic card, a Madison Bumgarner autograph, and a pair of posts about some new Rays prospects/players who have appeared for the Durham Bulls this year.  Verdict:  Thumbs up 
3. More projects.  I have posted one, granted I completed that one project, but I can still do better here.  I have wondered if this isn't a great topic to write about as this year has gone on.  At different points I have averaged a post per day in this space.  In recent year, I have been posting two to three times a week.  Roughly a dozen posts per month.  Makes it hard to squeeze in the other posts about single cards.  I feel like those posts take longer to write, so they get squeezed in the whole time management thing.  You know, wife, kids, and work all come before writing about baseball cards under the guise of a giant wooden bull landmark in a nearby baseball stadium.  Verdict: Thumbs down 
4. More Durham Bulls and Cardinals posts:  I have done well with making my 1990s Cardinals posts and Project Durham Bulls posts.  Throw in plenty of other posts about other Cardinals cards that I have traded, or bought, same with the Bulls.  Verdict: Thumbs up 

Which brings me to this post.  I feel like this post fits with several of these goals: more single cards, along with more Cardinals cards.  I would love to turn some of those single cards posts and Cardinals posts into some time for older sets and players.  I know the 1990s Cardinals posts cover that to some extent, but those 1990s cards are some of my favorite sets in my collection.  

Enough talk.  Let's look at some cards.  

My first card is from the 1998 Donruss Preferred set.  I don't have this entire set, not really close, but I have plenty of single base and insert cards.  This is from the Great X-Pectations insert set, which paired veteran players and young players based on their position, or some sort of similar playing attribute.  The front of this card features Rangers Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez.  The back has a younger Cardinals player.....

catcher Eli Marrero.  I generally really liked this set, I just always wished that there had been a little cleaner look to the back of the card than what is actually there.  The placement of the brand logo, MLB logo, and Players Association logo, along with the Copyright information give it that back of the card feel.  The brand logo is repetitive from the front of the card, and I think the could have used space towards the bottom of the card for the copyright, MLB logo, and Players Association logo.  The younger player side would have had a smaller scale picture and design, but I think it would have been a cleaner look.  

Serial number has to go somewhere.  If you didn't collect cards in the 1990s, don't laugh at the print run of 3,000, that was a serious number back in those days.  

Next card is also a Marrero.  

This is from the Leaf Rookie & Stars set, also a 1998 product.  I never put this set together solely based on the ridiculous price of the Troy Glaus rookie.  Nice player, even was a Cardinal for a few years, but not worth whatever his card in this set sells for, or sold for when it was released.  

Next, also an Eli Marrero.

or as Topps listed him on their cards Elieser Marrero.  All of these Marrero cards are prospect cards, yet he turned into a utility player.  He really was a good prospect and ranked as a top 100 prospect at the time he reached the Majors at the end of the 1997 season.  Two different events really wrecked his career.  First, he missed most of a season towards the beginning of his career with thyroid cancer.  The Cardinals ended up signing Mike Matheny, who then became the full time catcher.  

Marrero did return and was used as a utility player by Tony LaRussa.  He was actually he useful part and good player in that role, but he tore up his knee in a game at Wrigley Field in 2002.  The game probably should not have been played, as the weather conditions were horrendous and both teams were upset about playing.  Marrero played a few more years after the knee injury, had one good year with the Braves, but the rest of his career saw him limited to 50 games, or less per season, and he did not hit above .220.  

Next.  

Not a rookie card, but this is early, or late depending on how you are looking at it, in the career of Alan Benes.  He was better than Andy, at least prior to his shoulder injuries, he just did not play a very long time.  

Last one for today.  

Not a Cardinals card, but a card of a long time Cardinals player who also happens to be from the St. Louis area.  Bernard Gilkey was part of the wave of young players who replaced the 1980s Whiteyball Cardinals along with Ray Lankford, Todd Zeile, Felix Jose, and others.  Gilkey had some good years with the Cardinals, but was traded to the Mets in January of 1996 after the team signed Ron Gant.  

Gilkey's best season was 1996 with the Mets.  

He hit more than 30 home runs, drove in more than 100 runs, hit over .300, and had an on base percentage near .400.  He also landed a role in Men in Black missing a fly ball in Shea Stadium when he sees a UFO flying over New York.  Unfortunately Bernard had some problems with substance abuse, a bunch of DUIs, his stats dropped off, and he found his way out baseball.  

This is a nice card from one of my favorite sets, Flair Showcase, which was around for a fairly long time.  I think I might actually have something close to a complete set of these cards.  Even so, I know that I do not have this Row 0 card, which is serial numbered out of 2000.