Hall Of Fame Weekend Part Two: Ray Lankford

The Cardinals added three new members to their Hall of Fame yesterday afternoon when they inducted outfielders Ray Lankford and Vince Coleman, along with 1940s pitcher Harry Brecheen.  The team had a nice ceremony at the Ballpark Village, it's the building across the street in left field with the rooftop seating, which houses the team's Hall of Fame.  All of the living members of the Cardinals Hall of Fame were invited back......

Look at all of these legends! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/LkcQnXeWS5

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) August 18, 2018

there was also a little ceremony on the field before the game last night against the Brewers.  

On to the baseball cards.  

The first half of my post featured Vince Coleman cards.  He is a little bit older than Ray Lankford and played for the Cardinals before the real explosion of brands and sets that started in the early parts of the 1990s.  It was not hard to come up with a few Vince Coleman cards with the Cardinals simply because there are some limitations on how many there are floating around out there.  Lankford is a different story though.  

While Ray Lankford was never a real star player with the average baseball card collector, he was the best player on the Cardinals for the majority of the 1990s, which means he showed up frequently.  In some of the high end products that started popping up as the decade went along, often with a limited checklist of 100 to 200 cards, Lankford was often one of the few Cardinals in the set.  

If you have followed along with this blog from the beginning, you probably have seen enough Lankford's with serial numbers or were somehow scarce.  There are plenty of other Lankford cards floating around, so I thought I could do a post with Ray Lankford base cards.  

I went through and pulled a favorite base case card from each year that he played for the Cardinals.  No Padres cards.  All of these cards are likely in some sort of nickel, dime, or quarter box at your local card shop.  Maybe if you live in St. Louis some of these are fifty cents.  

Maybe.  

1990 Upper Deck- Always been my go to Lankford rookie card.  It's not obvious from the front of the card that it was likely a Spring Training photo, but if you flip the card over he is wearing 57.  The Cardinals turned over a lot of their roster that year, but Lankford was not the prospect of note in that wave.  No cool prospect stamps on these cards, that sort of thing was reserved for Todd Zeile.  

Nice little blurb on the back of the card about the number of extra base hits he had while he was in the Minor Leagues.  Love the Double A statistics on the back of the card.  Those are pretty impressive.  

1991 Topps- This was the year that I really became a fan of Ray Lankford.  It was his first full season in the Majors, not necessarily his best year in retrospect, but you could see there was a lot of potential.  Lankford stole 44 bases, led the National League in triples, and had a few pretty notable moments during the season.  

This is a classic around St. Louis....

Apologies Phillies fans.  I know that's a tough play to watch. 

Lankford also pulled off a cycle during a September game against the Mets.  I went to this game and is probably the moment that hooked me on following Ray Lankford's career.  

I still have my ticket stub and program from this card.  I have thought about getting them framed to hang up in my baseball card room.  It has not happened yet, but someday soon.  

1992 Topps Gold- I know this is not technically a base card, but we are talking about a card that was in packs of 1992 Topps.  They are not hard to find and probably cost fifty cents on the high end of things.  I love the Topps All-Star Rookie cards.  Seems a little weird that he got one of these cards after he had been in the Majors for almost 200 games.  

1993 Kansas City Life/St. Louis Police Team Set- The Cardinals had some really nice team sets during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I know there are a lot of collectors who like some of the borderless Cardinals team sets, but I still dig the blue border.  These were giveaways at baseball card night, not sure of the number that were available.  Seems like every card shop in St. Louis has a box of these in the store with some sort of sign pointing out that they are really really cheap.

1994 Upper Deck- Not sure where this picture was taken, maybe Mile High?  I really like the action shot of Lankford playing defense.  The vast majority of his cards seem to be batting, nice to see something different.  The Cardinals played the Reds on Opening Night in 1994.  Lankford was the first batter of the season.....

Pretty neat accomplishment.  

1995 Topps- Sunglasses, eye black, earrings, homemade arm sleeve.  I like the MLB Anniversary patch too.  

1996 Bazooka- I like baseball card that were taken in Busch Stadium II.  Surprised that the astroturf does not have heat emanating from it in waves.  1996 was a good year for Ray Lankford.  He made his first appearance in the playoffs after helping the team win the National League Central.  Lankford had a shoulder injury though, which limited his playing time in the Postseason.  

1997 Denny's Hologram- For whatever reason, I could think of several, Ray Lankford was only an All-Star once during his career.  All-Star voting is stupid.  He was also in the home run derby that year.  The Cardinals were horrible that season though, so I am not sure many noticed Lankford's great season.  Marquis Grissom made two All-Star Games.  Two.  Still, his stat sheet seems to indict that he set several career highs during the season.  Dante Bichette, Lance Johnson...managers picking players are ridiculous too.  

As for the card, I am not a fan of Denny's restaurants, but they gave out some nice baseball cards some years.  The 1997 set reminded me a lot of some of the old Hostess sets, or SportsFlix.  No consumption of Denny's took place in acquiring this baseball card.  

1998 Pinnacle- Not many cards out there celebrating Ray Lankford's appearance in the 1997 All-Star Game.  Almost certain that this is the only card that commemorates his participation in the All-Star Game Home Run Derby.  I am not saying that Ray came in last in the home run derby, but it was not a strong showing.  

Still, 1998 was one of the best seasons of his career.  He spent the whole season batting behind Mark McGwire while he was breaking the Major League home run record doing things like this.....  

1999 Stadium Club- The Cardinals do not change up their jerseys, rightfully so, and they do not wear a ton of different throwback jerseys either.  For a few years in the late 1990s though, the played a few times in Negro League uniforms.  I believe that they always used the St. Louis Stars uniforms.  Pretty sharp looking threads.  

2000 Fleer Ultra- I do not like the Cubs.  I do like pictures of players playing against the Cubs, especially if it involves having the ivy walls in the background.  This card is so green.  

2001 Topps Heritage- Last one for this post.  This was the beginning of a great baseball card product that is on the must have list every year now.  There were some really good looking Cardinals cards in this set, Lankford is no exception.  I like the orangish background on the card contrasted with the full color photo.  2001 was the end of the line for Lankford and Cardinals baseball cards in my collection.  He was traded to the Padres for Woody Williams during the 2001 season.  Lankford returned in 2004, but only had a card in the MLB Showdown set.  You know the card game.  Are those really even baseball cards?  I lean towards no.