Looping back to picking up another 2022 Blake Snell autograph that I missed last year, I found a copy of his Tier One autograph last week. It has been a rough first month of the season for Blake Snell, which is disappointing, but it has also brought some his card prices down. I picked up this card for less than $10, which was too hard to pass up for a nice brand like Tier One.
Front of the card.
Tier One is a really nice product, but it also costs almost $200 a box. Imagine getting a $10 Blake Snell autograph out of a $200 box? Most be a horrible feeling, but I wouldn't know. I am just really happy they end up on Ebay and COMC for cheap.
As for the actual card, the two best attributes are the on-card autograph and the nice card stock. This is really similar to the last Snell autograph I posted, which was his 2022 Five Star. The card stock on this Tier One card is slightly thinner, but also seems like the edges might hold up better in the long run. I feel like really thick cards get chipping around the edges over time.
Back of the card.
This stinks.
I was spoiled by that last Five Star autograph, which actually had information on the back. I don't want to go back to these "You have received an autograph" or "Congratulations" types of notes on the backs of autographed cards. You built up my expectations and let me down. Thanks, Topps.
Several years ago, my favorite Durham Bulls players was Taylor Motter.
Motter made his Major League Debut with the Rays in 2016. He was traded to the Mariners at the end of that season. Since that time Motter has played for the Twins, Tigers, Kiwoom in the Korean Baseball League, Rockies, Red Sox, Reds, and Braves. This off-season he signed with the Cardinals on a Minor League deal.
The Cardinals train outside of Palm Beach, Florida. Motter is from Palm Beach, Florida. I don't think it was a huge surprise that he showed up to Spring Training and played really well for the Cardinals.
I was really disappointed earlier this afternoon when the Cardinals DFA'd Motter to make room for shortstop Paul DeJong. We just a few weeks into the season, but Motter was doing his job as a role player on the team and DeJong has been horrible for (sub .200 batting average) for multiple seasons. It seems unfair, but I am hopeful Motter will catch on with a more successful baseball team.
In the meantime, I am going to share out my favorite Taylor Motter item from my collection.
This is a game used bat from Motter's rookie season with the Rays in 2016.
Here is a close-up on the barrel. You can see there are a lot of marks and dings on the barrel. Obviously this bat was in use for awhile. There is not visible crack in the bat, but when you tap it on the ground it is clearly broken somewhere.
Close-up of the autograph.
Motter does not have any certified autographs, so this is one of the few Motter signatures in my collection. The left-side of the autograph has a number #11, which was what Motter wore while he was with the Durham Bulls.
This picture of Motter standing on-deck is from the 2015 season.
Finally, here is the knob of the bat. The Tampa sticker with the uniform seems to be pretty standard issue amongst Rays players based on other game-used bats floating around the internet.
Overall, this is one of my favorite Durham Bulls items in my card room.
The 2023 baseball cards feel a little slow. It's the middle of April and all we've got so far is Topps Series 1 and Bowman Heritage from 2 years ago. Maybe some delayed 2022 products too. Where is Topps Heritage and Bowman?
Anyway, strep has been making its way through my house this week. I have avoided it so far, but I spent my Friday hanging out with my middle schooler who felt miserable. Lots of rest, fluids, and some amoxicillin and we are feeling better today. Still, I needed a little entertainment to keep myself going yesterday, so I picked up a few packs of Topps Big League.
I don't care that Topps Big League is made for kids, it provided a little bit of entertainment on a long day at home with a sick kid.
Here's what I pulled out of the packs.
The base cards are missable, but I picked out my favorite three........
This Molina card is actually a foil parallel, hard to tell from the scan, but it has a silver finish. I did not pull a Pujols base card, which was a little disappointing, but it's a 300 card set and I opened a Blaster box with roughly 100 cards.
My two other favorites were former Durham Bull Blake Snell and current Durham Bull Jonathan Aranda.
I am honestly surprised that Aranda has appeared in both 2023 Topps products. I think he's a Major League player, but he's not high up on the Rays prospect list and he is buried in Triple A at the moment.
Can I bring up the most annoying base card?
Topps airbrushed a bunch of the players who were traded or switched teams with free agency this offseason. Several are really bad, but Andrew McCutchen is easily the worst. It's really obvious that the photo on this card was airbrushed.
Remember when Andrew McCutchen was on the Pirates for 9 years at the beginning of his career? You're telling me that Topps could not have used one of those photos? I would rather see a dated photo than one where he in on the Brewers and Topps airbrushed him into a Pirates uniform.
The insert cards are much more kid-friendly.
We've got graffiti name tag.
Babe Ruth and graffiti. Peanut butter and jelly.
I did pull an Albert Pujols card. Nice looking insert.
Yes, it's a video game reference, which seems kid-friendly, but most current kids also think 8-bit games are really lame. My fifth graders talk about NBA 2K. I talk about NBA 96. They don't care about Reggie Miller or Charles Barkley. Not truly kid-friendly. Really, this card appeals to the average Topps customer. Middle-aged, white guy who collects cards and owned a Nintendo, Sega, or PlayStation at some point between elementary school and college.
I am more of a 16-bit guy.
These are "Fun Box" inserts.
These two cards made me think that this insert set was somehow an ode to ballpark food or Lunchables, Ballpark food is okay, Lunchables are gross. I ended up with a few other Fun Box cards that had different backgrounds without the food.
These feel like leftover Topps Project 2020 or Project 70 leftover cards. The Alonso card with the cartoon is goofy, but I like the Willie Mays with the swirled colors. Might be amongst my favorite cards out of these Big League packs. I guess someone at Topps was not able to quite pull this insert set together, but something decent came out of the effort.
There are also City Slickers inserts, which are just advertisements for the Nike City Connect jerseys, which are available now at your team's store or at Nike dot com. There are a lot of base cards with City Connect jerseys as well including several Rockies players, which is why I included C.J. Cron in the scan.
Although, those Rockies jerseys feel like an advertisement for the Colorado DMV.
Don't forget to renew your license plates.
Last two cards are the best two cards.
I love the mascot cards.
These are just incredible cards. I don't think I have a Rally Monkey card in my collection and that Fredbird card is one of the better ones out there. There is no Opening Day set this year, so these are going to have to tide everyone over on mascot cards for the year.
Albert had signed with the Angels by the time that 2012 Topps Series 1 dropped. I was not really thrilled with the decision and Pujols cards were being sold out of my collection.
Pujols still had several Cardinals cards in the early 2012 Topps releases. Several of those cards were the result of the team's 2011 Postseason run. While most will remember those playoff games for the Halladay/Carpenter Game 5 duel in the National League Division Series Game 5 and for David Freese having the best two weeks of his life, Albert Pujols had some great moments too.
Most notable was Albert's 3 home run World Series game against the Rangers.
At the time, Pujols was just the third player to hit three home runs in a World Series game, joining Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson. Pablo Sandoval hit three home runs in Game 1 of the 2012 World Series against the Tigers. Pujols deservedly got a few cards for this feat, including a Highlights card in Series 1, which is my card for this Pujols Post.
Front of the card.
Great photo of the first home run hit off of Rangers pitcher Alexi Ogando. Very unique angle on the picture looking down the first base line at Pujols swinging. The first base umpire in the bottom right corner takes away a bit, but I like that Topps found something that looked a little different.
The crowd in the background looks a little bit off. I cannot find and matchup one of the people shown on this card to anyone in the video shown above. Is that Valerie Bertinelli over the umpires shoulder?
Back of the card.
It's simple, but I really like it. Topps could have gone with a box score, but those never work too well on the back of the baseball cards in terms of spacing. The line score showing the Cardinals win and the short paragraph looks nice. Some elaboration on the RBI record would have been nice. I did not even remember him setting that record. During the game Pujols drove in 6 runs, which tied Bobby Richardson (1960) and Hideki Matsui (2009) for the most in a World Series Game.
Overall, this is a quality Pujols card. Sad that it was the end of his time in St. Louis for a big chunk of his remaining career, but it also marked one of his better career accomplishments.
Let's face it, every 2012 Topps card is fighting for second best behind Skip Schumaker.
I think this Albert card has an argument to be there.
Pacific made some good baseball cards during the 1990s.
I might miss the Pacific cards more than Upper Deck and some of the more popular brands that have disappeared over the past two decades either due to bankruptcy or the card company losing its license. Pacific always made solid products with good looking inserts and parallels and were always affordable. I can't remember walking away from a pack of Pacific cards feeling disappointed.
As far as Paramount goes, the product ran three year, and it was good for player collectors. The inserts were nice and I wish Lankford had appeared on a die-cut card, but Pacific used name brand players for those sets. The Cardinals player for the inserts was always Mark McGwire, maybe Ankiel, J.D. Drew, or Jim Edmonds in their later products.
As a Lankford collector, the win with Paramount was the parallel sets, which were numerous and had several higher print runs that were easy to find. Even today, the prices of 1990s inserts and parallels has skyrocketed, but you can find the Paramount parallels for a few dollars online.
Here is the front. Sticking with the base card.
The design for Paramount did not change much from year to year. There was also a tightly cropped action shot on the front with a name bar on the bottom of the card and the Paramount logo on the top corner. The main difference was the background on the photo. I believe the first year, the background was untouched, this was the second year with the faded/filtered out background, and the third year Pacific just colored in the background a solid color.
The card stock was consistent with their base set. For a $1.50 pack of cards, this is pretty nice.
Back of the card.
There is a lot here and it borders on being too busy with the stripes running vertically up the left side, the red stripe on the top under the player and team name added to the stat bar, player photo, and other features.
The stat bar on Paramount was always a little odd with the yellow and orange bars. Pacific went with this design the last two years of the product. It's not that it's unreadable, just an odd color choice and layout. The color photo is nice in the top corner and it also feels like Pacific took some effort into finding an actual highlight to write up for the fact box. I like positive regards of the player. Career high in total bases and a home run off of Greg Maddux is as positive as it gets.
There is a Cardinals logo underneath the fact box. That's more busy.
Overall, just a great card, especially from a pack that only cost $1.50.
I received a package of cards from Mark over at San Jose Fuji a few weeks back, it took a day off school to get them scanned with a write up. Mark has been writing on that blog for more than a decade and it is easily one of the best blogs out there. Definitely worth your time to go check out.
Here are the cards in the package.
First up is an oversized card of former Cardinals second baseman Tommy Herr.
The card comes from the 1986 Donruss All-Star Pop-Ups set. You can see the outline around Herr, which can pull out or push in, the card stand-ups with the Metrodome in the background. The 1985 MLB ALL-Star Game was hosted by the Twins and Herr was the National League starting second baseman over Ryne Sandberg.
The back of the card features the All-Star Game logo and directions for the fold-out. No mention of Herr getting 110 RBIs with only 8 home runs in 1985, which I find to be one of the cooler stat lines from the decade. Still, I love these cards.
Next up, a 1981 Kellogg's card of Gary Templeton.
The 1970s and 1980s Kellogg's sets are always so much fun. This was the only full-sized, non-mini Kellogg's set from the 1980s and prominently featured all the concrete, cookie cutter stadium from this era of baseball in all their glory, including Busch Stadium.
The arches.
The red seats.
The concrete overhang.
There are non-Cardinals players with pictures inside of Busch Stadium from this era as well. Great card of a guy who was one of the better shortstops in the National League during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Next up, more 1981 Cardinals cards.
This trio of cards is from the 1981 Topps Scratch-Offs set. Great little oddball set. Love that the Cardinals players are all wearing the powder blue road unis on these cards. Great hair on display here as well.
Next up.
This might be my favorite card in this package.
I do not think I have ever seen this card and I have never heard of Holsum Bread. Still, I love the looks of this round card with the red border. Definitely trending towards some type of product that appealed more to kids during Vince Coleman's time with the Cardinals, I did some digging into the background here.
The card comes from the 1990 Holsum set, which was a small 20 card set distributed in packages of white bread. Holsum was a common bakery brand during the 1980s and 1990s. However, there is not a Holsum Bread Bakery in St. Louis, rather the Holsum products sold in that market are contracted out to a regional bakery there that sells Holsum Bread under various brand names. So, the Holsum Bread Brand in the St. Louis area........
We did not eat Bunny Bread in my house.
I missed out, but I like this card even more after playing connect the corporate bakery dots online.
Next up.....
One cannot have Vince Coleman and not Willie McGee. This is from the 1988 Topps UK Mini set. Good looking design and I love the photo on the front of the card. Not many 1980s Cardinals cards with photographs inside of Busch, but these sorts of ground level shots are really rare. I believe this might be from a 1987 World Series game. McGee has a patch on his front sleeve, it is blurry, but those playoff games were the only time the team wore a patch that season.
Mark also included a nice relic card of pitcher turned outfielder Rick Ankiel. Before Othani, there was Ankiel. Not quite the same player, not the same circumstances either.
Onward........
The next three cards are from the 1995 Signature Rookies Autographs, which borrow their design from the Old Judge tobacco cards. The majority of players in this set are from the high Minors with a surprising number being former Major League Players.
Petkovsek was a long reliever for the mid 1990s Cardinals teams. He actually won 11 games for the 1996 National League Central team that came within a game of getting to the World Series. Since Petkovsek was in the Majors at the time this card was produced, I am curious as to where they got the uniform for this picture. Prior to being on the Cardinals, Petkovsek had been pitching for the Louisville Redbirds and Tuscon Toros. Looks like neither.
Frascatore was another 1990s relief pitcher for the Cardinals. He had played with the Cardinals in 1995, but spent a lot of time going in between St. Louis and Louisville. This looks like a Memphis Redbirds uniform with a random "O" airbrushed onto the hat.
Last up, T.J. Matthews. He was a high-leverage reliever who was Eckersley's set-up man when LaRussa first started managing the Cardinals. Matthews ended up getting traded to the A's in the Mark McGwire deal. Matthews is actually wearing an Arkansas Travelers uniform on this card. The hat may be altered slightly, but that was the Cardinals Double A team at the time.
Nice looking cards. All three have great signatures too. Can you imagine signing 6,000 copies of a card?
Last card from the package.
I recently learned an interesting Sean Lowe factoid at the end of the 2022 baseball season.
For background......Sean Lowe was selected by the Cardinals in the first round of the 1988 MLB Draft. His first baseball card was in the 1989 Bowman set. He was oft-injured and ended up spending the majority of his short career as a middle reliever for the Chicago White Sox.
Cool factoid.
On Jun 16, 2001 the Cardinals were playing the White Sox and leading 6-3 in the seventh inning. Shortstop Placido Polanco started the inning with a walk, which was followed by a J.D. Drew single. The White Sox brought in Sean Lowe to pitch to Pujols.
What happened next, only happened once in the career of Albert Pujols.....
It's hard to read, but Pujols sac bunted Polanco and J.D. Drew over a base.
Overall, this was a great package of baseball cards. I am always impressed by the generosity of the people in this hobby. Thank you, Mark, I will drop something in the mail for you one of these weekends.
