Around The Card Room, Take 2

I have caught a few baseballs at games. 

I don't go out of my way to catch them, they have to come to me.  

On July 15, 2005, my parents are out of the country and they left me a bunch of their baseball tickets for the week. They sat in right field at the old Busch Stadium. In this picture, their seats would have been above the white sign next to the Cardinals bullpen, under the overhang. 

I went to this game with one of my neighbors who worked as a chef in the city. We met up at the ballpark and were watching the end of the Houston Astros batting practice. Those seats were prime territory for ballhawks pregame. Frequently, there would be people who stood in the aisle of the section or in the walkway in front of the seats trying to catch BP homers or get players to throw balls into the stands. This game was no different. 

Although, the Astros did not have many lefties, so the batting practice crowd was light in right-field.  In fact, Baseball Reference lists no starting left-handed batters on the 2005 Astros, which is shown with an asterisk.  

They did have Lance Berkman though, who was a switch-hitter. 

So, batting practice is happening and there was a hard-line drive hit by an Astros player. Watching the ball, it was going to be below my seats and to my left towards the aisle of the section. The ball ends up hitting off a high school aged kid, who was hanging out in the aisle, and bounces back about 20 feet. The baseball lands in seat in front of us and is stuck in between seat bottom and seat back. 

I looked at it. My neighbor looked at. The kid in the aisle was down and out on the step. My neighbor pointed out that he did not pay for his ticket, so he insisted that I take the ball. I reached out and grabbed the ball. I watched batting practice for the next several minutes to determine the left-handed batter while also watching the high school kid try to garner some level of sympathy from an usher who had yelled at him several minutes before for standing in the aisle.  

The answer was Lance Berkman.  

This is the ball.  

The ball is marked with an H.

The Cardinals ended up winning the game on an Albert Pujols walk-off home run.  

This ended up being the last game I attended in Busch Stadium II, because I moved a few weeks later and Busch Stadium II was torn down at the end of the season for the current version.   

I display this baseball next to one of my Albert Pujols bobbleheads. Although, it is not an a shelf like the bobble I showed in my previous post, rather this is on top of a bookcase. This is my oldest child's favorite part of the baseball card room, because he loves reading the baseball books. Albert has a little ding on his jawline from being knocked over. 

Add in the fact that Berkman would go on to play a short time for the Cardinals on the 2011 World Series team, and this is easily one of my favorite items in my baseball card room.  

40.

I made a quick top by the local Target on my way home from work last night looking for a few packs or a blaster box of 2023 Topps cards. I had checked earlier in the week, no luck. 

Last night was different.  

Always feels like a big moment opening the first pack of the year.  

This is the 40th year that I have collected baseball cards, with my first packs coming sometime late in the summer of 1983. I was in first grade at the time. I opened a pack of 1983 Fleer and my first card was of Pirates shortstop Jim Smith.  

I am hoping for some good things out of 2023 for my collection.

So, here are my firsts for the 40th time. 

My first card of the year was Rockies first baseman, C.J. Cron.  

I think the design is decent this year. Not sure I love the giant team logo at the bottom, but the small player photo in the bottom is a little reminiscent of the 1983 Topps cards, or 1963 depending on your preferred set. Nice action shot of Cron in the field.  

Here is the back of the card.  

Again, decent.  

A few other firsts....

First Cardinal......

First former Durham Bull........

A few other thoughts.

The manupatch cards that are in the retail blaster boxes stink.  

No, they really smell like cheap plastic Happy Meal Toys. That's on top of looking really cheap. Definite let down after last year's batting helmet cards.  

I love the 1988 Topps inserts.  

These are great and I am going to have to work on finding all the Cardinals, former Durham Bulls, and other past favorites.  

Blake Snell is wearing one of those ridiculous Padres Nike City Connect Jerseys on his card.  

Not a fan.  Give me a brown Padres jersey seven days of the week. I feel like Topps made a ton of cards last year with the City Connect Uniforms, feels like it is happening again this year. Why not throw some Nike ads on the back of the card packaging?  

Last one for now.  

Cards 4 and 5 are.......

the perfect way to say goodbye.  

Pujols Post - 2002 Fleer Maximum

Fleer Maximum only lasted one year and the cards were a bit of a dud. I still like the Pujols card in the set, because it is one of the few that show him playing as a third baseman. Albert played a total of 2,448 games in Major League Baseball with just 110 of those coming at third base. Most of those 110 games came during his first two seasons with the Cardinals, although the Angels played him there a few times in more recent years. 

Here is the front of the card.  

The design is nothing special, but I love this picture. The frames on the cards matched the team colors, but there were colored parallels that were based on a palette with shades of baby poop. I don't have one handy, but if you're curious there are copies out there.  

We've not only got Pujols playing third, but it's also an action shot. Of the thousands of Pujols cards produced the last two decades, few show him as a third baseman, and even fewer show him actually playing at third base.  

Pujols moved to left field in 2002 to make room for Placido Polanco at third, who was later traded to the Phillies for Scott Rolen.  

Back of the card.  

Meh.  

I feel like this could be the card back for a half-dozen other Fleer products. They borrowed the picture from the front of the card too, just zoomed in. Give me something new.

Friday Five: Super Bowlish Edition

It's not Friday, but it's the effort that counts. I love a good countdown post, but I have never consistently made them. Sometimes my day job interferes with other aspects of my life. 

It's Super Bowl weekend, so I am thinking about something with football.  

There is a bit of a problem though. 

If I had to make a post out of football cards, it would be short and feature only a few former NC State players I enjoyed watching along with a few Rams from their time in St. Louis. I might have enough Mike Glennon and/or Jacoby Brissett cards to give them their own post. I know everyone loves a good Mike Glennon card, so I am going to post one and let you know I went a different direction.  

Honestly, the title was just a ruse to get people to read the post. This is actually going to be about baseball cards, but they are all of a player who was in the NFL at one point thirty years ago. 

There are videos of Brian Jordan playing football on the internet, but most are over five minutes and you're not going to watch that. I am not either. Instead, here is Brian Jordan running over Gary Bennett with Vin Scully on the call.  

As a former Cardinals player, I have a healthy collection of Brian Jordan cards, so it took a few minutes to flip through them all and narrow the list down to five cards and a marble.  

Honorable Mention: 1997 Topps Pro Shooters Marble 

Ray Lankford is also in this set, which is why I ended up with the Brian Jordan marble. The guy who was selling these insisted that I needed to buy all his Cardinals marbles if I wanted the Lankford. Pretty interesting item and they have become rather difficult to find over the years. There are currently none for sale on Ebay or COMC. Although, someone is selling a wrapper on Ebay for $18.  

5. 2001 Fleer GameTime Patch Card 

There are not many Brian Jordan relic cards out there, let alone ones with patch pieces. Add in the fact that this is the only set that has a Ray Lankford relic, and its always been one of my favorites. If only it were a Cardinal card.  I own several copies of this card, all with different patch pieces. I need to scan them all and puzzle piece together how much of the Braves logo from his jersey I own.  

4. 1998 Fleer Ultra 

This is the best picture on a Brian Jordan card and it's not even close. Maybe it's silver medal to one of the cards on this list, but it is very, very good. This is one of those cards that is fifty cents on COMC and Ebay and there is no reason why you should not own it. I also own the fancy gold version, shown below, but not the ultra-fancy serial numbered version.  

3. 1996 Leaf Signature 

This was my first great Brian Jordan card, which fittingly came out in 1996. The 1996 Cardinals were a fun collection of young players from the post-Whiteyball rebuild (Jordan, Lankford), free agents (Ron Gant, Andy Benes), and Oakland A's retreads who came over with LaRussa (Stottlemyre, Eck). Also add in Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee to mix as bench players. Few remember the team coming within a win of the World Series. Lankford and Gant were better players than Jordan during the regular season, but Jordan was incredibly clutch for the team in the playoffs. 

The best of those clutch moments was his series clinching home run off of Trevor Hoffman in Game 4 of the NLDS.  

Jordan has also signed a bunch of cards for the Topps Archives Signature products, some of which are really nice. My favorite is this autograph on his 1997 Topps card. If I were going Top 10, this would have made it. I will add it as a mid-post Honorable Mention instead.  

2. 1998 Topps 

Easily one of the best Cardinals cards that Topps has ever produced for their flagship set. This is the best picture on a Jordan card, gold medal all the way. You know the Bo Jackson card where he is wearing shoulder pads with a bat across his shoulders? That's a great card, but I think this is its equal in many ways in the eyes of people who collect Cardinals cards. If nothing else, Jordan had a much better baseball career than Bo.  

It's true.  

1. 2000 Hologrfx Piece of the Series 

Brian Jordan's lone career World Series appearance came in 1999 as a member of the Braves. He played a very well in both the NLDS and NLCS, most notably hitting a home run off of Mike Hampton in Game 3 of the first round with the Braves trailing late in the game. Had the Braves lost, they would have been down 2-1 in the Series and facing elimination on the road.  

Upper Deck made a nice World Series themed insert for their 2000 Hologrfx product, which featured the stat players from the Braves and Yankees. Each player had a relic card that featured a "game-used" piece of base. Don't get me started and also an autographed parallel numbered to the players uniform number.  

Super rare Jordan autograph shown above. Base insert card with base shown below.  

Let's do this again next weekend.  Maybe even on Friday. 

Random Ray - 1992 Pinnacle

Score was always one of my favorite late 1980s/early 1990s baseball card brands. When they introduced Pinnacle, their premium brand in 1992, did I rush out and buy these cards?  

No.   

These cards were $1.99 per pack and the regular Score cards were $0.50. I got so many more cards for my money by sticking to the non-premium brands of baseball cards. I did not do much with Pinnacle cards until I was an adult. The boxes have never been as cheap as other junk wax era products, because there are some sweet autographs of Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio. Never mind the fact that the odds of pulling one of those cards is steeper than winning the Powerball.

Here is the Lankford.  

I like the overall design with the black border. It would be nice if the picture were a little larger and the border were thinner, but I can live with it as is. 

Many of the cards in this Pinnacle set have nice action shots, including this Lankford. Being a card from early in his career, I like that his jersey is dirty on in the picture. Lankford was a big stolen base/speed threat the first few years he played, but slowed down as he moved into the middle of the lineup. His knees weren't the best at the end of his career either.  

The red color name bar stands out nicely with the black background. 

Back of the card.  

It's busy, but there is a lot to like here. I like the contrast with the dark background and the white writing over the top. The black and white back pops and it is easy to read the write-up on the side of the card and the stats. The transition over to the green name bar and accents is nice on the eyes. The center photo is not the best, but this looks like something from Spring Training media day, aka stock scoreboard photograph. 

I couldn't find his 1991 or 1992 team photo, but all the same energy as the photo below which graced Major League video boards whenever Lankford took an at-bat in 1998.  

 

Speaking of which, the person who did the write-up actually knew something about the Cardinals and Ray Lankford. Although, the team really let Vince Coleman leave as a free agent, because their owner, one of the August Busch kids, was cheap. Same with McGee, but they traded him before he became a free agent. That stat line is incredible with nearly double-digits in all the extra base categories and nearly 50 stolen bases.  

Around The Card Room, Take 1

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  My highlights included going to the NC State and Georgia Tech basketball game Saturday afternoon with my son and father and getting to do a little writing for this space.

My Wolfpack ended up winning, but it was closer than it needed to be.  

On to baseball stuff.  

My writing this weekend focused on my card room. I drafted a few posts and am obviously publishing this one. Over the past fifteen years, my wife has tried to keep me focused on just sticking with baseball cards and not saving everything. She has been largely successful, but there are still plenty of non-baseball card items that occupy a place in my baseball card room.  

These items are going to be part of my story.  

Today, I am going to show off one of my favorite Durham Bulls bobbleheads. Half of the baseball card room has shelves around it that hold bobbleheads and figurines that were largely giveaways at baseball games. My item for this week comes from this shelf of Durham Bulls stuff.  

Today's item is a Chris Archer bobblehead that was given away at a Rays game in 2016. I did not attend the game and ended up with this item via eBay. I think I might have paid more in shipping than for the bobble, but Archer is one of my favorite former Durham Bulls players.  

Chris Archer not only played for the Durham Bulls, but also lives locally outside of Raleigh. He had an autograph signing a few years back at the USA Baseball National Team complex. Really nice guy. 

He personalized everything. Loved some of these inscriptions.  

These were the autographs he signed for myself and my son.  

My wife also tagged along to get a baseball signed for her brother who is a big Tigers fan.  

I have been waiting for Chris Archer to end up on the Tigers. 

This experience earned my fandom, which is why the bobblehead of Archer in on my shelf. Here is the front of the bobblehead.  

The bobble includes a K counter, which is a neat feature considering Archer's propensity for missing bats. He's averaging more than a strikeout per inning throughout his career with 1,454 Ks in 1,357 innings. Unfortunately, he has not had the best luck with health during his career, so I have not really updated the K Counter the last few years. In 2016, when this bobble was given away, Chris Archer struck out 252 batters. Last year, he struck out 84. Big drop off.  

Injuries stink and it's honestly amazing that he is still even playing.  

I also love that Archer is shown smiling on the bobble. He is a fun player and a happy person while he is pitching. He's not Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson, or Max Scherzer.  

Let's not forget the time Archer created a fake college degree for the Astros mascot so the Rays players could pelt him with water balloons before a game.  

Back of the bobble.  

Love the back of the bobble with the Rays sock pattern. Archer has worn his socks high throughout his career.  

What Was I Thinking?

The last day of school before the holiday break, the average elementary school classroom teacher is bombarded with cards and gifts. Many of them these days are simply gift cards. Living in a double teacher household, there is a drawer in a kitchen that has a huge stack of them. My wife organizes them with some going towards specific days or events and others are just free to use whenever.

Earlier this week, I decided to use a Target gift card to buy a box of cards. The card aisle was completely stocked. I took a few minutes to soak in all of my choices, but decided to roll the dice on a box of Panini Capstone. It looked different and after all, I was not really paying for these cards.  

Not my actual box, but it stood out from the others. 

During that time, I could have easily taken out my phone and researched the product, but the fact that it was not one of the same five or six Topps products that have been lingering on the shelves for the past few months played a large role in my decision.  

Here is the base card.  

The scan does not show the card stock, but it's nice. That is what Capstone has going for it.  Card stock. The pictures are boring and the design is really lackluster. Is that Arial font?  

This card back is nothing special, but it might be better than the front of the card.  

So, here is the good news. I pulled an autograph and the design of that card is far superior than the rest of the cards in this product. Feels like a little throwback to the Pacific baseball cards with the crown theme in the background.  

Plus, Hoy Park is having an interesting off-season. He was on the Pirates at the end of last season. At some point he was traded to the Red Sox, who traded him to the Braves, who released him. Where will Hoy Park play next year?  Thinking I might need to see someone make a Red Sox and Braves cards of him.  

These are the "base cards" that I pulled out of my blaster.  What is the best card here?  

Personally, I like the Vidal Brujan card, because he was on the Durham Bulls the last two years. The answer is actually probably Bobby Witt.  The rest of these cards are going to get taped to the door of my classroom at school. Not even kidding. Might keep that Shane McClanahan card too. 

Blue parallels.  

No serial numbers, but the little Capstone logo is in the corner is blue. I like the Arenado, but just because it's an Arenado card. Not many other reasons to like the card.  

These are two other rarer parallels.  

The Trea Turner card has a gold Capstone logo, but again no serial number.  The Josiah Gray card is some sort of textured parallel.  You can see the raised squares in the scan.  This is actually a really nice card, not even being sarcastic. Seriously.  

I also pulled three insert cards.  

These two were decent.  Nice Wander Franco card to add to the collection.  

The last insert card is bizarre.  Here is the front.  

Let's talk. Card companies need to stop putting young, twenty-somethings on cards with Hall of Famers. These types of cards just rarely age well.  So, the front of the card is not that bad, considering Panini put Rickey Henderson on the same card as some random White Sox player. Which bring me to the back, which is a slippery slope of terrible.  

So, Rickey Henderson stole bases, but Luis Robert steals runs as a defender?

Did I read that correctly?  

Seems like a huge stretch.  

This whole box of cards was a huge stretch. I don't know what I was thinking.