The Old Mall Card Shop

I am approaching ten years now in this space. During that time, I have made several vague references to a "mall card shop" near my house that I never really visited. I am not going to name names for this post.  Maybe in a future post. Mall card shops are not really ideal, I do not want to spend a lot of time rehashing all the various reasons. 

The mall with the card shop was in the process of closing prior to the pandemic.  The anchor stores were closed and the mall was filled with all sorts of odd shops.  One of the local high schools had even landed a space in the mall for their robotics teams.  I am not sure exactly when the mall officially closed, but the most recent pictures I can find show it completely shuttered. 

 

I had actually been to the mall card shop several times while the remaining stores were in the process of holding clearance and closeout sales, but it was primarily for a few large card boxes. I discovered a sweet table of old wax boxes on the last trip. I ended up buying a box of 1995 Emotion cards, which was a fun product back in the day.  

At some point in the last year, the mall card shop reappeared within a five minute drive of my house in a new development.  I was curious about the store, but did not make a visit. I figured it was likely going to be similar to its identity as a mall card shop and it's in a little bit of an odd place. The only thing I knew that was on that same street was a trailer park.  

Well, I needed some card boxes a few weeks back, so I loaded the little man in the car and made a visit to the card store.  Not my picture, but it looks nice from the exterior.  Yes, the trailer park is still there, just to the left in this picture. 

I dare say, I was impressed with the store. They had a decent selection of single baseball cards and a lot of wax. The little man spent a good thirty minutes looking through the boxes trying to find some Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt cards. He ended up with a nice stack of cards. I also ended up buying a few inexpensive Jake Cronenworth cards, but I was just more impressed that the store had card supplies.

Enter this week. We have been in the process of replacing the floors in our house. Our furniture has been moved around. On Wednesday, the little man could not hang out in his room, because our contractor was working on our staircase. 

 

What to do?  

We made another trip to the former mall card shop. Again, I was impressed by the store. The little man was able to track down a few single cards from the Cardinals, Tigers, and Rays players he collects. Those are his three favorite teams. I also ended up with a bunch of single cards that I am posting now, but also ended up picking up some Topps Heritage Minors. That's for a different post.

Here was my haul. All of these cards averaged out to roughly a dollar per card minus the last card. 

I have not really done much with collecting Paul Goldschmidt cards since the Cardinals traded for him in 2019. He was a nice player on the Diamondbacks, but I was not a huge fan. I feel like I have come around a bit after this past year.  Good player, borderline Hall of Famer.  I will try harder on Goldschmidt in the coming year. 

Next up is a MacKenzie Gore. He's from North Carolina and I have a connection to him through work. Not the best year in 2021, but I still think he has a bright future. 

The late 90s Gold Label sets were much better, but still not bad cards.  Picked up a Pujols and Goldschmidt. Not sure if the Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 cards are the same as the original sets.  Pujols is a Class 3 card, which is why I asked. I believe those were short-printed back in the day.

Next three are all of the newest Cardinal, Steven Matz. Just a bunch of Topps Chrome singles, nothing too fancy. 

 

 

The bottom 1984 style card from the 2019 Topps set is my favorite Matz card out of this group.  I need to go through my Mets and Blue Jays singles from the last few years and see what other Matz cards I have hanging around.   

The next three are cards are all NC State players.  First up is Russell Wilson and Trea Turner.

 

 

Nice to see Russell Wilson shown as a position player with a bat in his hands. There are several Panini cards floating around where he is shown as a pitcher.  Russ was actually a second baseman. Heard he also played for the football team.   

Two T.J. Warren cards.....

I am a team behind on T.J.. The last time I posted one of his cards he was still on the Phoenix Suns. That was two years ago. He's played well on the Pacers so far, although T.J. has still had problems staying on the court due to injuries. Last year, T.J only played four games. This season, he has already missed a game or two with a foot injury. Still my favorite former NC State basketball player.  

Last card for this post.  

An old Durham Bulls favorite, Anthony Banda.  

He was really good for the Bulls a few years back, but has had a few arm injuries and bounced around to the Giants, Mets, and Pirates.  The Pirates used him as a reliever during the second half of 2021 and he seemed to find his stuff again. 

I picked up two boxes of Topps Heritage Minors while I was there. Not very mall-like prices on the boxes, plus I love Minor League baseball cards. That post is for another day. 

Random Ray - 1990 Score Rookie/Traded

Another week, another now defunct brand of baseball cards that I miss.  I really liked the 1990 Score set, which felt very close to the original 1988 debut product.  These are not expensive cards by any means and I loved the bright colorful borders.  Score cards also frequently had good action pictures.  Most of the 1990 Score Rookie/Traded cards have orange borders. Takes away a bit from the regular 1990 Score set that looks like a rainbow jello mold when sorted into a complete set with the different colored borders.  

The 1990 Score Rookie/Traded Ray Lankford card has him batting during a Spring Training game. The batting practice jersey and uniform number are a dead giveaway.  The only number Ray Lankford wore as a Major League player between 1990 and 2002 was 16 for both the Cardinals and Padres. The second number on his jersey is not clear in the picture on the front of the card, but you can see it's a 50 something.  I like the action photo of Lankford hitting.  

The back of the card.  

You can see Lankford's jersey number listed as 57.  I did not scan the Bernard Gilkey card for this post, but he is wearing 56 in his picture. Seems to be a pattern with handing out uniform numbers at Spring Training.  

Score used to write a short term player on the back of each player's card. Yes, there were always stats, but you could learn a lot about a player by reading their Score card. This is an update card, so naturally most of this information is about Ray's Minor League career. They got his Texas League MVP, which was his big accomplishment and they generally did a good job of describing him as a player.  "Contact hitter" is not quite right.

The headshot is nice.  Quality card.  

Oh, Hell No.

You may not know the name D.J. Funderburk, but there is a chance you've seen him on college basketball blooper videos or social media clips from last season. The full sequence of events is floating around on the internet, but NC State and Charleston Southern were playing in the opening game for both teams. After a couple of quick trips up and down the court during the first half, a player on Charleston Southern lost his dinner.  

D.J. Funderburk was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The arena was empty and D.J.'s reaction was preserved for all-time on the internet.  

Charleston Southern player pukes on NC State player during the game 🤮 pic.twitter.com/HOoY14LIAq

— Highlight Hoops 24/7 (@HLHoops247) December 30, 2020

D.J. Funderburk was a good college basketball player.  He scored 10 to 15 points a game and did a decent job of rebounding. I was not really thinking he would end up playing in the NBA and certainly was not on the look out for any of his cards.  However, D.J. did have a good performance in the NBA Summer League, which landed him a bunch of basketball cards.  

Love D.J., not the last card I am going to buy of him.    

As a baseball card collector, this feels really similar to Inception, but on thinner card stock.  I like the red and pink cloudy background behind the player picture with the white coloring at the top and bottom of the card.  The sticker autograph feels like a bit of a downer. This card would look really sharp with an on-card autograph.  

I wish the back of the card had some sort of write up about his career at NC State, but the majority of the space is just filled with a giant logo.  

Random Ray - 2001 Upper Deck MVP

This week's Random Ray is one of the last Ray Lankford cards as a Cardinals player. He was traded during the 2001 season to the Padres, so all of his 2002 cards are all with San Diego.  I believe he might have one card as a Padres player in 2001.  That's for another day.  

This week I am going with an Upper Deck MVP card. These were inexpensive cards that were sold at a lot of big box retail stores.  I believe it is supposed to be a notch up from the Collector's Choice cards.  Collector's Choice were inexpensive cards for kids and MVP were inexpensive cards for adults.  Something like that. I liked Collector's Choice better, but that's just me.  

This is a pretty standard MVP set design.  It's clearly made by Upper Deck, even if there was not an Upper Deck logo in the top left-hand corner, its just got that look.  The pixels on the left actually have the word "Lankford" hidden in them running top to bottom.  Sneaky, Sneaky.  

The picture is decent.  Clear action shot of Ray playing a game in Busch Stadium.  I wish the catcher was visible in the picture rather than having the pixels on the side.  It would be fun to see who they were playing here.  You know I am a big fan of figuring when pictures were taken on baseball cards.  

Back of the card.  

The little photo in the top, right-hand corner is a little odd.  It's off center and the background is really dark.  Ray is sitting in the dugout, which was painted dark green in Busch Stadium.  We can do better.  

The stat line is pretty simple, but also standard for Upper Deck baseball cards.  The write-up is a little odd being split between the top and bottom of the card.  However, I do like that they mention he is the career home run leader at Busch Stadium II.  Albert Pujols did not catch him before the stadium was torn down after the 2005 season.  

Overall, this is a decent baseball card.  I am not going to tell you I love it, but Upper Deck MVP was a solid product considering it cost roughly $1 per pack.  

Hang It In The Louvre

I picked up an incredible custom art card this past week. Mark Mosley is the artist of the card and can be found on both Twitter and Instagram under the user name IDrawBaseballCards.  Mark also has an online store where he sells both single custom art cards as well as small sets. He is a great follow on social media. You will enjoy his work.  

I discovered Mark's work a few years back when I stumbled across The Baseball Beyond Batting Average Podcast. Mark is one of the podcast hosts along with Andy from Baseball Card Backs on Twitter. Besides beyond a great podcast, they are both locals. Meaning the Triangle region of North Carolina. There are roughly 75 episodes of the podcast. If you enjoy baseball statistics, it's worth a listen. Mark and Andy interact heavily with the listeners of their podcast and favorite all my tweets criticizing Andre Dawson's 1987 National League MVP Award.  

I'm drifting.  Back to custom art cards.  

Mark frequently will post custom cards of players on their birthdays. Longtime Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee turned 63 a few weeks back and got a custom card of his 1986 Topps card on the IDrawBaseballCards accounts.  

Happy Birthday Willie McGee! pic.twitter.com/L9pY7ZHTjJ

— IDrawBaseballCards (@mosley_mark) November 2, 2021

I commented on the Tweet about getting Mark to making a custom card of a Topps proof photo from sometime in the 1980s featuring Willie McGee. The picture is truly bizarre, a complete head scratcher.  I have seen this several times as a "Caption That Photo" on Twitter and in baseball card groups on Facebook.  

The picture speaks for itself in a way.  Nobody really knows what is going on here, but there are so many questions that run through my mind about Willie McGee's half home and half road uniform.  Oh, there is also Mike Ramsey in the background.  What happened here? 

A day later Mark posted a custom card of the odd Willie McGee photo.  

I’m not saying Willie McGee had anything to do with it… but I’ve got questions. (Special request by @TheSnortingBull ) pic.twitter.com/sACaB4drZO

— IDrawBaseballCards (@mosley_mark) November 3, 2021

I was surprised that he made the card, but the best part was that a made me a copy and stuck it in the mail.  Any odd spots on the photos are from my scanner.  It's smudgy at the moment.  

This is just simply an amazing baseball card.  It is definitely going to find a prominent spot in my baseball card room.  I have a sweet Willie McGee bobblehead in there.  This would look good next to it.  

As an added bonus, Mark also sent a custom 1989 Topps All-Star Ozzie Smith card.  

This is a phenomenal card too.  

I would like to thank Mark for providing some great cards to look at online and for his generosity in creating and send me the custom Willie McGee card.  My baseball card room is not exactly the Louvre, but these cards have instantly become two of my favorites.  

Wandering When This Would Happen

The Minor League Baseball season ended a month ago.  My local rooting interest, the Durham Bulls, had a successful season.  They had a talented roster full of good prospects.  There was not much in Triple A that they did not win this year.  Here is a quick recap:  

Southeast Division crown 🏆
Triple-A East title 🏆
Triple-A National champs 🏆
Final Stretch winners 🏆@MiLB's Best Team 🏆

The accolades just keep coming as we've been named the Best Team in MiLB for 2021!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— Durham Bulls (@DurhamBulls) November 9, 2021

While the Bulls were successful on the field, I have felt slightly unsuccessful with collecting the cards of the players on this year's roster. Specifically, Wander Franco. All year long I have wanted just one card of Wander Franco on the Durham Bulls. That's it. One card of Wander Franco. I have sat here waiting patiently.  

After months of waiting, my wish has come true. Not only did Topps make a Wander Franco card, they ended up making a total of 5 different cards of the Rays shortstop for the Topps Heritage Minor League set. They are all really nice cards that I managed to pick up over the past two weeks.  

Let me run through the new cards starting with Wander's base card in this set.  

This is easily one of the best Durham Bulls cards that Topps has produced since they starting making the Pro Debut and Heritage Minor League sets. I love the blue and yellow border on the card along with the picture that they used.  The alternative home jerseys for the Bulls are great, but they have never been pictured on a Topps card. A great added bonus. The Bulls have been wearing them for several years.  THat Bull logo has a real vintage feel and I believe was created based on a logo the team used early in their history.  

Here is a better look at the front of the jersey with Anthony Banda.  

The back of the Wander Franco card does not mention much about the Durham Bulls, but considering this was probably written at the beginning of the baseball season, maybe even before that, I cannot really fault Topps for leaving it out the time he spent with the Bulls.  

I was curious about the 555 foot home run mentioned in the write-up.  Did a little searching around the internet.  I came up with a video, but 555 feet seems like an extraordinarily generous measurement.  Yes, it was a long home run, but 500 plus feet is pushing it.  It doesn't help that the video of slightly better quality than a UFO or Bigfoot video.  

Here are the other 4 cards with less commentary.  

This is from the Pack Cover Inserts.  The original 1972 Topps packs had the same wording at the top of the wax packs, but they had a drawing of a baseball player throwing the ball.  I like the look of this card, clean and simple.  

Next up is the Topps Venezuelan sticker.  This is actually a card that I got out of a pack at the local card shop that is now a few miles from my house.  The card shop needs its own post, but that's for a different day.  The scan is not miniature, but the card is definitely small.  Love the green border with the green scoreboard in the background.  I'd track down the specific home run here, but it's a busy Saturday morning.  

Next up is a Baseball Poster insert.  I like the borderless card with the nice close-in action shot of Wander fielding and throwing the ball.  Not sure about the text box at the bottom, but the picture more than makes up for it.  I guess for a product that is styled after a 1972 baseball card, the stylings of the name box are probably pretty spot on for that time period.  

The last card is actually in the base set.  It's my least favorite Wander Franco card in this set, but I still love the card.  Great action shot of him running while he's looking in towards home.  

Overall, I am happy that Topps finally got around to making a few cards of Wander Franco on the Durham Bulls. As a toolsy player, I also really like that Topps used photos of him hitting, fielding, and running.  I was honestly worried that they were going to skip his time with the team earlier in the year.  

Random Ray - 1995 Topps Embossed

This is a really hard card to put on a blog post and really appreciate.  It's a Topps Embossed card.  The card has texture and it is not quite the same without being able to touch the card.  All I can do is describe the card and hope that you get a chance to touch a 1995 Topps Embossed card at some point during your life.  Totally worth it.  

I think this set was supposed to be a modernized version of the 1965 Embossed insert cards. The 1965 version just had the players head on the card and they did not wear very well.  I have a few hanging around, none of them look very good.  

As much as I do not like picking on the 1960s Topps sets, it did not seem like a big challenge to improve upon the 1965 Embossed cards.  Maybe my Embossed cards are the only ones that look like this and I am horrible at handling cards.  The silhouette design is not exactly my favorite either.  

Here is the card.  

 

Ray Lankford is raised from the surface of the card.  The embossing is even layered, so his arm is higher than his torso, which is higher than the background of the card.  I love the picture of Ray Lankford in the gray Cardinals road uniform.  I say this once a month, but I miss the blue hats and batting helmets on the road.  Yes, they still wear them, just not very often.  The overall design is really simple and I like the concept behind the card.  This would be a good kid friendly set, if Topps was into that sort of thing.  

The TMB logo at the top is goofy.  

Yes, bring back this product.  

No, do not bring back the brand logo.  Just write Embossed in the corner.  We are cool.  

Back of the card.  

I like the layout with the picture, stats, and some interesting factoids about Ray Lankford.  What is going on with the background of the card?  It makes the facts hard to read and does not fit in with the front of the card at all.  Topps should have just gone with a solid dark color here to mark the yellow stat box and white writing on the facts pop.  

Is that a close up of a geode?  

Overall, I really love this card.  I wish that Topps had stuck with this product a little longer than one year.  Topps has revisited Topps 3D, this would be a fun one to try again.  I'd even be alright if the back looked like a geode again.  

2021 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 4

Blake Snell has pitched an entire season with the Padres.  The Rays traded him to the Padres in December of 2020.  A whole year later and Topps is still making Blake Snell cards on the Rays.  I was going to have a hard time deciding whether to collect his autographs after he started appearing on cards as a Padre.  Luckily, it seems that Topps has kicked that can down the road to some degree.  

Incredible.  

Here is my newest Blake Snell autograph from Five Star. 

Five Star is one of those products that is a $200 pack of cards with two autographs.  The cards have on-card autographs and really thick card stock.  They are really nice.  I'm sure if you land a Mike Trout autograph you are happy you spent $200 on a box of cards.  At the same time, I can't imagine paying $200 for a box/pack of cards and landing a $20 autograph of Blake Snell.  I'd be irked.  

Well, I did not open a $200 pack of cards and I was more than happy to take a $20 autograph off the hands of someone who did.  The card is not even serial numbered?  Bon jour, case breaker.  

Back of the card.  

At first glance this does not seem all that impressive.  However, Topps typically fills the back of their high-end products with some giant note that starts with the word, "CONGRATULATIONS" in all caps.  I like the "Five Star Career" with 5 important accomplishments/highlights from Snell's career.  Really nice touch by Topps to actually do something interesting with the card back here.   

Random Ray - 1997 Collectors Choice

The first half of the 1990s were not good years to be a Cardinals fan.  I feel like I say that every week on my Random Ray posts.  The team typically featured a combination of older, inexpensive players who were past their prime and younger prospects who did not pan out for various reasons.  It really all boiled down to the fact that the team's owner, August Busch III, was really cheap and did not care about the team.

  That all changed after the 1995 season.  The team was sold to the current ownership group and they actually tried to improve the roster by adding good players.  Before the 1996 season, the Cardinals signed or traded for Ron Gant, Andy Benes, Royce Clayton, Gary Gaetti, Luis Alicea, Todd Stottlemyre, and Dennis Eckersley.  I am probably forgetting some people.  

Do you know how nice it was to find baseball cards of Ray Lankford pictured alongside baseball players who were actually talented? 

This card was in Series 1 of the 1997 Collectors Choice set.  Many of the Cardinals photos for Series 1 were taken during the team's first few games of the 1996 season against the Mets in New York.  Note the blue dugout and orange handrails in the background.  The picture looks like its following a Ron Gant home run.  A quick flip through the box scores from the 1996 Cardinals shows Gant homered in the second game of the season against future Cardinals closer, Jason Isringhausen.  

Always nice when you can track a picture down to a specific game and event.  

Back of the card.  

I am not a big fan of overly busy card backs that are crammed with a lot of information.  However, Upper Deck seems to make this one seem decent.  There are a decent amount of stats, a nice write-up about Ray Lankford, and I dig the "Did You Know" trivia/factoid at the bottom.  The highlight on the card back is the picture at the top.  Interesting that Ray Lankford is wearing Dmitri Young's batting helmet.  

Dmitri wore 24 for the Cardinals in 1996 and 1997 and was a switch hitter.  Given Ray is wearing a batting practice jersey and gray pants, I am guessing this is from a Spring Training game and the team packed lightly.  I don't think the veteran players even appear that often in the road games in Spring Training.  

Overall, a nice card.  Love these Collector's Choice cards.