I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 52 - Lee Smith

This is a 100% nice post about Lee Smith.  I can be hard on the former Cardinals closer, but most of it revolves around people arguing about whether or not he should be in the Hall of Fame.  There were definitely some rough moments in St. Louis with Lee closing games, but the first few years he played for the Cardinals were some of the best in his career.

Two of his biggest highlights as a Cardinal included saving his 300th game, a large number at the time, and setting the National League single season save mark.

In roughly four seasons with the Cardinals he made three National League All-Star teams and saved 160 games.  When his time with the team ended in 1993, Smith was the Cardinals all-time saves leader.  Smith still ranks second in Cardinals history behind Jason Isringhausen.

Smith is the all-time saves leader for the Chicago Cubs.  Not really all that surprising.  He spent the first eight years of his career closing out games for the Cubs before he was traded to the Red Sox, who would eventually trade him to the Cardinals.  After his time with the Cardinals, he bounced around between the Yankees, Orioles, Angels, Reds, and Expos.

On to the cards.  From the beginning.

The Cardinals traded for Lee Smith in May of 1990.  Most of the major card releases that year were a single series, which meant that he appeared in the base set as a Red Sox, but Smith did manage to appear in several of the update and traded sets.  His Topps Traded card is a really simple card, probably just snapped a picture of him standing on the field before a game.  The simplicity works for me.  The card shows off Smith's imposing size and, if you ever went to a game in the former Busch Stadium, you would probably recognize that Smith is likely standing in the bullpen for this picture.

Plenty of cards of Smith pitching in a game, cards of one of the all-time saves leaders hanging out in the bullpen?

Next card.

An action shot of Lee Smith from the 1991 Topps set.  As a kid, Topps cards were always portrait style cards, no landscape.  The 1991 Topps set was the first year that I collected where the Topps set had landscape cards.  There were many different Cardinals cards in the 1991 set, but the Lee Smith card was the only landscape.  

Smith also had a landscape style card in the 1992 Topps set.  I went with the Topps Gold version for something a little different.  You can again see the imposing size of Lee Smith in this card.  I like the clouds in the background behind him.  The photography in this set was really good, this is a great example of it on a Cardinals card.  

I love the 1992 Studio set.  The Lee Smith card always felt a little out of place though.  Lee Smith is just sort of taking up the entire bottom of the card, it is the only card that looks like this in the entire set.  His eyes also follow you no matter how you look at the card.  

Two more.  

From the 1993 Topps set.  Smith and Eckersley were the gold standard in relief pitching at the time this card was made.  Completely opposite styles though.  Eckersley was a control pitcher, Smith was a power pitcher.  Eckersley would end up on the Cardinals a few years later.    

Last card.  

Over the last twenty years Lee Smith has been a generous signer in different baseball card products.  While many of his autographs are rightfully in a Cubs uniform, there are a few where he appears as a Cardinal.  My favorite is his appearance in the 2002 Topps Archives Reserve set.  The card is just a Chrome version of his 1991 Topps card, but the autographed version is easily his best certified Cardinals signature in my opinion.  It's a little pricier than some of the more recent cards he has signed, but many of those are in Panini products.