and appeared in 5 games during the last three weeks of the season. At the time, the Cardinals had Todd Zeile playing catcher, he was also one of their top prospects/young players at the time, with future three time Gold Glover Tom Pagnozzi coming in as a defensive replacement. Ray did not really stand a chance, although he does have a few baseball cards and managed to reappear with the Cardinals for six games in 1991.
There are dozens of other players with similar stories on the 1990s Cardinals.
One of the more interesting players who appeared with the Cardinals for a short time during the 1990s was right fielder Tom Brunansky. He actually had been on the team since 1988. The Cardinals had traded long time second baseman Tom Herr to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for the power hitting right fielder at the beginning of that season. The team also traded for Dodgers first baseman Pedro Guerrero later in the season. The two made for a pretty formidable combination in the middle of the lineup for a few years.
Brunansky was the everyday right fielder entering the 1990 season. The team started off the month of April pretty slowly, hovering just under .500 at the end of the month with a 9-11 record. However, Brunansky's April was brutal. He hit .158/.310/.263 with 1 home run and 2 RBIs. At the time the Cardinals had Ray Lankford and Bernard Gilkey in Triple A, plus they had signed Milt Thompson and Rex Hudler before the season.
Further, Brunansky was also a free agent to be at the end of the season. The Cardinals also had Tony Pena, Willie McGee, Vince Coleman, and Terry Pendleton all set to hit the market too. Not all of them were getting resigned.
Bruno was the first to go, traded to the Red Sox in exchange for Lee Smith. I know I can be critical of the Cardinals version of Lee Smith in this space, but the trade was initially a win-win. Lee Smith could still blow his fastball past batters and Brunansky returned to his usual form and helped the Red Sox win the American League playoffs.
I have heard from a Sox fan, or two, that this was a good catch at an important moment.
Brunansky might have only played 19 games for the Cardinals during the 1990s, but he still managed to get a few baseball cards with the birds on the bat. Given the time frame of set releases at that time, it's somewhat surprising that most of his cards weren't with the Cardinals. However, there were two series sets, mid season releases, and update sets which gave him a fair number of Red Sox cards.
I have a few favorites.
Remember that we are going off a short list of 1990 Tom Brunansky cards, but this is still one of my favorite cards of his from his time in St. Louis. The catcher is throwing the ball back, but he's already out of the batter's box, has the bat on his shoulder, and has that look on his face. It's like he's deciding whether or not he wants to stay in the game.....
Brunansky thoughts.... "It's hot out here, shower would be nice" or "What's on tap at The Cubby Bear today. Have I missed happy hour?"
Next card.
90% of all 1990 Topps cards of Cardinals players were photographed in Shea Stadium. Seriously. Many of the different Topps brands have pictures from the same at-bats. Like, Brunansky also has a card in the Topps TV set, same background, and he has that same elbow brace on his arm. I could put up more Brunansky cards up in this post, but they almost all look like this card.
That's it, two cards? For this post, I am going to add in a bonus card I picked up about two months ago, but never posted. Bruno is a pretty prolific signer, no certified Cardinals autographs, but he has a ton of autographed Twins cards from numerous sets across several years. He even has a Brewers card, which seems really weird.
I mean, I drop Tom Brunansky's name, I am hoping that you are going to place him with the Twins. I get the Cardinals and Red Sox too. You tell me the Brewers, I am going to be disappointed. You tell me the Angels, I think you read the player pages on Baseball Reference for fun.
Of course, the autograph is a Twins card.
That is a nice autograph and I am happy to have it in my collection. The background pained me for the first few days I had the card in my hand. I thought it was a non-identifiable generic background when I got it off of COMC, but I actually think it's Busch Stadium during the 1987 World Series. The Cardinals did not win that one.
Same picture, but zoomed in?
Thirty years later, I am over it. Brunansky was a nice player for his two plus years as a Cardinal. As an added bonus he also appears in this horrible rap video which was put together by the NBC station in St. Louis prior to the 1989 season. Have you ever thought: "What would it look like if Jose DeLeon had a rap video?" This is your lucky day.
The Mets are pond scum!!!
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