Random Ray - 1990 CMC

Ray Lankford started the 1990 season in Triple A with the Louisville Redbirds.  The team was talented and featured several players who would go on to be starters with the Cardinals during the 1990s.  Lankford played center field with Bernard Gilkey playing left.  The two middle infielders were Luis Alicea and Geronimo Pena.  The rotation included Rheal Cormier, Omar Oliveras, and Ken Hill.  Five of the seven, minus Alicea and Cormier, would debut with the Cardinals before the end of the 1990 season.  

The Redbirds finished as the fourth best team in the American Association, in large part due to the fact that the aforementioned players were largely on the Cardinals by the end of the season.  All of the late season Cardinals call-ups made an appearance in the CMC Louisville Redbirds team set, including Ray Lankford.  

Lankford was called up at the end of August a week before the team traded Willie McGee to the A's and was starting centerfielder for the last month of the season.  

The design is not the best and photos are all taken from the stock photo team shoot.  Every single card in this set features a picture of the Louisville players standing in front of the scoreboard wearing the same off-white home jersey.  There is a second set of Louisville Redbird cards from 1990, Pro Cards, that has a picture Ray standing in the same spot, but wearing a red batting practice jersey. 

I can't say that I can really blame CMC for using the team stock photos. They made sets for a lot of the Minor League teams in the late 1980s and 1990s.  Were they really going to go around to all the Minor League teams and get photos of the players?  Most current Minor League team sets have better photography because card companies contract with local photographers to mix in some action shots.  The next time you run across a recent Minor League card look at the back.  Guarantee you there is a photo credit.  

 

The back is simple with Ray's previous Minor League stats.  Check out that photo in the top corner.  As I was saying above, stock photo.  

Not my favorite Lankford card by any stretch, but it's hard to be critical of Minor League cards from the mid 1990s and earlier.  Plenty of limitations and reasons why these sets turned out the way they did.  Just neat to be able to see pictures of players before they reached the Major Leagues.