Weekend Countdown: Top 10 Bowman Cardinals Cards

It's Bowman season.  People spending hundreds of dollars for cards of players in the Florida State League.  Here are the rules for this week:

• Bowman cards include the old Bowman cards too, not just the ones from the 1990s and 2000s

• There are only Bowman cards in this post.  Not Bowman Chrome, Heritage, Draft, or even autographs.  

• The cards in the list have to show the player in a Cardinals uniform. The Scott Rolen Bowman rookie is a sweet card, but he's in a Phillies uniform.  

• These are my favorite Bowman cards based on baseball cards, not playing career.  

Count it down.  

10. 1994 Bowman Dmitri Young 

Bowman was a prospect heavy set at this point, and Dmitri Young was the prospect of all Cardinals prospects back in the day.  I guess if I touched the Oscar Taveras card, he probably surpassed the hype of Dmitri Young.  Maybe.  

9. 2012 Bowman Carlos Martinez 

Carlos was a big deal as a Minor Leaguer, but also a perfect example of how out of hand people get with the Bowman comparisons.  I believe that Pedro Martinez was the name that was frequently thrown around when C-Mart was coming up through the Minors.  He's not Pedro Martinez, just a really good pitcher.  Who spent more than $100 on a Carlos Martinez Bowman card?  (I know people did).  

8. 1951 Bowman Marty Marion 

Remember when I used to get the Bowman Draft sets and pick on all the airbrushing?  This Marty Marion card is from a great set, but the picture on my copy has always bothered me.  It looks grainy and pixelated, sort of like a Bowman Draft card.  I know cleaner copies have better pictures, but I got this dirt cheap at a card show complete with staple holes at the top.  Still love the card.  

7. 2009 Bowman David Freese 

If we put David Freese's first Bowman card on a different design, I would probably rank it higher, but I really am not a fan of the 2009 Bowman set.  The giant box with the facsimile signature on it is way too big.  

6. 1990 Bowman Ray Lankford 

Personal bias, plus the rainbow borders on these look sweet.  

5 . 2004 Bowman Yadier Molina 

Flies under the radar a bit as a good Bowman card.  Obviously a card that may not touch some of the other cards on the list in terms of style, but Yadi turned out to be a good player.  What 70 something number do you think he is wearing in this picture?  Got to be Spring Training.  

4. 1951 Bowman Enos Slaughter 

Love the picture on the card, even if it is crinkled on my copy.  The dark background looks good, sort of like an Olan Mills photo.  

3. 1955 Bowman Tommy Alston 

Alston was the first African-American player on the Cardinals.  Always felt like this was sort of an iconic Cardinals card.  The 1955 Bowman set has always been distinct with the television design, like that Alston got a baseball card right away too.  Also a North Carolina guy from Greensboro.  

2. 2001 Bowman Albert Pujols 

The best modern Bowman Cardinals card, and the best right handed player in the history of the team.  

1. 1948 Bowman Stan Musial 

The best vintage Bowman Cardinals card, and the best left handed player in the history of the team.  

Quick By My Standards

I have let some of the different set projects that I have posted in this space linger for a long time, either because I did not complete them quickly, or I just never updated the project to show my progress.  Back at the beginning of February, I made a post about putting together a set of the 1983 style cards in that are included in packs of this year's Topps base set.

I started with 8 of the 100 cards, last check in I was down to just 27 cards.  Last week that number was all the way down to 2 cards.  A few days ago in the mail I got a bubble mailer with......

the two cards that I was still missing.  I am crossing this card set off after just two and a half months.  Really pretty good considering that I did not open a box, or significant number of packs.  Almost all 92 cards that I was missing when I started were picked up in trades, or from buying small lots, no singles, off of EBay.

Yes, the set is finished, but I am also going to leave the door open to find more of these cards when Topps releases Series 2 at some point this summer.  There were some things that I really enjoyed about this project.  First, the 1983 sets were the first cards in my collection.  I started opening packs of cards at some point that summer.  I have always loved these cards.  Second, there were plenty of players that I enjoy collecting on the checklist.....

a few Cardinals, a few former Durham Bulls, and also a few players I saw while they were in college.  The Carlos Martinez card is probably my favorite Cardinal.   Also plenty of older players in the set too, which is my lone, small criticism of this set.  It would be nice if the cards of the retired players included on the checklist had a connection to the actual year of the card design.  Might have said this in another post.  My three favorite older cards in the set.....

probably have to be the three shown above since they were actually around and playing in 1983. 

All three were younger players at this point, but they still were pretty impactful that season.  Especially Ripken, considering the final play of the 1983 season was a soft line out to him, which ended the World Series.  

 There were plenty of good players who were active during the 1983 season, eager to see what Topps comes up with in the next batch of cards in Series 2.  I'd be excited to see a Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, or a Willie McGee.  Doubtful I will see a McGee, but a Gwynn in some brown, orange, and yellow Padres digs would be sweet.  

Lost In The Closet

I go through sorting lulls at times where I just end up stacking cards on the shelves of my baseball card closet.  Giving my work schedule I know that I am never far away from a two to three week down period away from it all.  Generally I work nine weeks and then have three weeks off.  A few more during the summer and around December and January.  In my mind it can be a great excuse to procrastinate on certain chores and activities around the house.  Card sorting is not immune.

I have actually improved a lot over the last year or two.  There used to be a table in my card room that was buried with all sorts of commons, doubles, and the whatnot.....

While the situation has improved, I am a little ashamed at the state of my card closet at the moment, so I will say that it looks better than the picture above.  At the same time it's not like every card is in a box, not really even close.

A few days back I decided to tackle a stack or two of the cards in the closet that were not sorted into boxes.  Loads of commons, doubles, a few odds and ends.  Welp, I also found a few really nice cards hanging out in there too.  Most notably were two Carlos Martinez cards that I got from?  Your guess is as good as mine.

One of the cards was a C-Mart autograph from last year's Topps Museum Collection.

Martinez's autograph always seems to change every year for the good.  This is an on-card autograph too.  I like the black and grey design on this card with the red highlights.  Seems to fit well on a Cardinals card.  Nice picture of C-Mart pitching too.  

The other Martinez autograph was a jersey relic from last year's Tribute set.....

Same picture as the Museum autograph above, but there are some things that I like about this card.  First, I have been really down on materials cards the last few years.  I went through some of my posts from the last year a few weeks ago and there are almost zero, not quite, posts that deal with just relic cards.  It still is a larger swatch and it has one of those cool stickers on it.  That always means that I get to take a field trip over to the MLB Authentics website and figure out whether I should be excited or disappointed....

The jersey is from a Cardinals vs Royals game in July of 2015.  The question is always whether or not the game involved the player.  The answer is........

what does Carlos do when he sits on the bench?  He builds cup pyramids and throws water on players when they hit home runs.  Carlos was doing something with cups the day he wore the jersey on the front of this card.  Randal Grichuk and Matt Carpenter also hit home runs that game so maybe a little bit of this too...

Anyway, the prospects of finding two really nice Carlos Martinez cards in the random stacks of the card closet has made me feel a slight push to sort through some more of the cards just sitting around.  Maybe there is something else really nice in there, maybe it's just a bunch of 1991 Fleer cards.  Either way, I am excited to find out.  

I'm Going To Build These Different Frames, With Gold Colored Metal...."

So what's the deal with all of these cards having gold frames these days?  This all started a few years back when Topps put a bunch of these gold framed inserts into their 2014 Topps Update set?  Did we need a gold frame around Joe Morgan?  He's a great second baseman and all, former Durham Bulls player too, but why can't we just have a baseball card with him on it.....

I mean is the frame holding the card together or is it a decorative thing?  If I pull the corner apart will the whole card just crumble, or will it look like a baseball card without a gold frame?  I rather like Joe Morgan, so it's not like I am going to pull the frame on this card apart.  Just when you thought they were going to leave the gold frames here, nope here come even more gold frames.

If Topps had known they were going to have this many cards with gold frames they should have called up Eric Sogard back when he was in contention for the "Face of MLB Award", and gotten him to switch to gold framed glasses, it would have been the perfect marketing campaign for a brilliant idea.  

Maybe just as good as selling just the tops of muffins.  What do you do with the bottom of the muffins?  The same thing could be asked about all of the baseball cards Topps makes without gold frames.  

 

Topps also had these guys in Museum Collection with the gold frames.  Do you think a card with a gold frame, but signed in silver ink is sort of like wearing a black shirt, black shoes, but you are wearing a brown belt?  I personally don't like the combination.  but I don't mind breaking some of those fashion rules at times.  White shoes with black jeans seems like a good idea.....

So after all of these other gold frames someone over at Topps had this great idea to put some more gold frames baseball cards.  When these cards came out I was thinking maybe Topps really likes this look, or maybe they got some bulk deal on gold card frames.  I don't really look around when I go to places like Costco, maybe the gold baseball card frames are sitting up on one of those top shelves with all of the shipping crates with the plastic wrap...

Since Topps is saving money by buying the gold frames bulk at Costco it means that this time around they had the chance to get a few different Major League Players to sign the cards inside the gold frame.  It's not Keith Hernandez or anything, but this is one of the cards.....

This guy is supposed to be baby Pedro Martinez, who was on the Mets for awhile, but he couldn't win a World Series.  He's not Dwight Gooden.  Either of them.  

Since when did they have baseball in Tampa?  

People go to Florida to die, not to play baseball.  This guy is kind of young, probably not making any money yet, so he's probably eating dinner at 4:30 so he gets the Early Bird Special.  

Wally World's Holiday Cards

A few weeks ago someone messaged me about some "sweet" Carlos Martinez card that they had pulled from a pack of cards at War-Mart.  I looked at the blurry picture of a 2016 Topps card with a snowflake in the corner.  I kinda had to hold back the eye roll.  The cards seemed gimmicky and not nearly as cool as some of the past cool holiday themed cards, especially those awesome die-cut Pacific Ornament cards from the late 1990s.

Welp.  I still think the cards are kind of gimmicky, still not as cool as the Pacific Ornaments, but I sorta caved a little bit once I saw the relic cards in the set.  Not that I really love relic cards all that much, but there are a few players I like, so what the heck.  I got a few.  Might get a few more.  These are especially nice when I can trade for them, or buy them off of Ebay, rather than actually having to venture into Wal-Mart.  

I hate the place, although I liked when Mizzou fans made fun of former coach, and Duke player, Quin Snyder by photoshopping him into pictures as a Wal-Mart greeter.  

So here are the Wally World holiday cards that I have managed to add so far....

First up is a card of the Cardinals ace pitcher Carlos Martinez.  The snowflake design doesn't really stand out on this card, but it's there.  This is the only relic card of a Cardinals player in the holiday set, so this is likely it for cards of the Birds.  There are some Metallic cards in the set, but I am likely to skip over them.  

Next.  One of my favorite Durham Bulls from last year....

Big fan of Snell, great pitcher, and should be fun to watch for a long time.  There are several other Rays cards in this set, even a few autographs, so I will likely have another couple cards from this set to post in the not too distant future.

C-Mart Squared

Is the World Series over yet?

I am watching this year's Fall Classic because it is baseball and I am a baseball fan.  As a Cardinals fan it's a little hard to watch and openly cheer for the Cubby Bears.  At the same time, the Indians have to be one of my least favorite professional teams.  Long back story.  Sure, some long-time baseball franchise is going to end a long-time championship drought, but the end of the series simply means that the off-season will begin.

The 2016 baseball season has been one of the longest in recent memory.  Not only did my Cardinals miss the playoffs for the first time since 2010, but my Durham Bulls also missed the playoffs for the second year in a row after making the playoffs seven times during an eight year stretch starting in 2007.  I have been spoiled.

While the Bulls have little control over their roster, being at the whim of the Tampa Rays, I am most excited about seeing what the Cardinals can do to re-make their roster.  Several veteran players are likely to play elsewhere in 2017 including Matt Holliday, Brandon Moss, and Jaime Garcia.  It also would not surprise me if the team also moved on from players like Matt Adams and Jhonny Peralta.

It should be a busy offseason, or else I am going to be spending the 2017 baseball season in some sort of therapy group with a bunch of Brewers and Reds fans.

One player that I can hang my hat on when looking back at 2016 was Cardinals pitcher Carlos Martinez.  C-Mart continues to improve as a starting pitcher and has quietly become one of the better starting pitchers in the National League.  He had a higher WAR and ERA+ than Jake Arrieta?  Get out of here.

The Cardinals card collector in me feels like Carlos is ready to become the next anchor of the franchise.  During my lifetime I have been lucky enough to see that torch get passed from players like Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, and Albert Pujols, all the way down to some of the more recent Cardinals squads which have had much more of a whole team feel.  What does this all mean?

It means that we are going to find some cool cards of Carlos Martinez this off-season and hope that the Cardinals find where their owner has hidden his wallet so that he can get something a little bit more long-term in terms of a contract.

In the meantime, here are my first two cool C-Mart cards post-2016 season, both autographs out of the newest version of Triple Threads...

First up is this ordinary, in terms of Triple Threads cards, jersey relic with an autograph.  It's serial numbered out of 50 too, which has to be one of the higher print runs I have seen on an autograph out of this product.  I feel like most of the time the high number is 36.  I'd go research it, but I am not that interested in finding out the exact answer.  Triple Threads uses a lot of sticker autographs, one of my biggest knocks against the cards, but Topps did a good job of blending the sticker in with the gold background.

I also like the coloration of the card with the gold trim, green edges, and dark background.  The color scheme could look like a Christmas card with the red from the Cardinals uni, but the green and red are nice on opposite sides of the card....

As much as I like the other card, this one is easily my favorite between the two.  What do you think about when you see a Triple Threads autograph?  Cards like this.  The concept hasn't changed much from past years, the design is similar too, but these cards just look really good.

Trading Card Co-Op Part 2: Cardinals and Heritage Cards

I have a little bit of time away from work for the next few weeks, so I decided to venture out a few days back to pay a follow up visit my local card shop here in Raleigh.  I ended up picking up a pair of single cards while I was there and also decided to dabble a little bit with two products; 2016 Topps Heritage Minor League and 2016 Topps Heritage High Numbers.

I will do a little bit more of an in depth breakdown on the two Heritage products in a separate post.  For now, I am just looking at the singles and hit cards I pulled.  I had originally had decided to come in for the Topps Heritage Minors cards, always one of my favorites as a Minor League baseball fan, but found two sweet Cardinals cards while I was perusing the boxes and displays.

First, we are going with a Cardinals player wearing their college uni.....

I haven't done a lot with last year's Panini College cards, mainly because the NC State cards have gotten pricy with both Russell Wilson and Tree Turner being featured on them, and a complete lack of Mizzou cards.  I had seen some Weaver cards in a few of the Cardinals trading groups on Facebook, but had not pulled the trigger on any of these yet.  All of my Weaver cards up to this point have either been Cardinals cards, or from his time on the USA Baseball College team.

This is a pretty sweet card with a nice swatch of jersey, clearly from a Florida State uni.  Nice card, now I need to find one of the Weaver autographs from this set.

Next.

I was really excited about this one.  Most of the time when Triple Threads comes out I sit around and ignore it for a month.  I love these cards, but they are so hard to win in auctions online when they first come out.  Sure, I could just buy a box, but I usually just want the Cardinals and Rays cards out of this set.  I just go for the singles.

This year's Triple Threads cards still generally have the jersey and patch pieces going horizontally across the bottom of the cards, but this year there are also quite a few cards with a vertical format.  These remind me a lot of the 2010 set.....

The Tsunami card is pretty sweet too.  I know that Martinez was in the last two year's Triple Threads sets too, but I do not think that Topps made any cards of Martinez outside of the plain Jane jersey card with an autograph.  Nice to see Topps throw out his nickname on a card which is tattooed on the inside of his forearm.  

On to things that are not single Cardinals cards.  I checked out two newer products when I went into the Trading Card Co-Op.  I was initially just going to with a box of Topps Heritage Minors, but decided to dabble a little with the Heritage High Numbers product too.  Last year I did well with the retail version of High Numbers, why not.  

Again, I will do a full write up on both sets at some point this weekend.  

Minors is up first and I am just focusing on the hits I pulled.  The box claims that you are guaranteed two hits; an autographed card and a relic card.  I did a little bit better than the stated odds.  My first hit card I pulled was my relic....

I pulled a Hunter Harvey jersey card.  The Orioles pitching prospect is a North Carolina native from Catawba and has been ranked in Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus Top 100 Prospects lists at different points over the last two years.  The former first round draft pick ended the year playing A Ball.  Aways from the Majors, so this is going to get filed away for a few years and we will revisit.  

My first autograph belonged to Royals prospect Nolan Watson.  He was a first round draft pick in 2015 and started out locally with the Burlington Royals, but was promoted up the Lexington Legends last year.  In two year's Watson has 35 starts and an ERA of almost 7.  This year he gave up almost 2 home runs per 9 innings.  Hopefully Mr. Watson can turn it around at some point.  

Next.  

I am really intrigued by this card.  There are prospects who are really good, they play well in the Minors, and the whole way up their cards are popular and have value.  There are prospects who are really bad, but they were really hyped in the draft, their cards are expensive....I just scratch my head.  Then there are players like Martes.  Who is he?  He was traded for Colin Moran.  Not excited?  He played in Double A last year for Houston's Corpus Christi Hooks, struck out more than a batter per inning, and now is appearing on Top 100 prospect lists at Baseball America, MLB.com, and Baseball Prospectus.  This card sells for a whole lot of nothing, but seems like it is one to hang on to.

Last up.

Heritage High Numbers only has one hit, which for me, was a red autograph of Twins prospect Jose Berrios.  The Twins had a rough year, Berrios too, but he has been in Triple A the last two years and been very impressive.  Perhaps a little bit better supporting crew and he will be just fine.  Excited to land a red autograph though all things considered.

The Lost Scans of Tier One

I have a system for my mail, scanning the cards, posting, and then sorting the cards into boxes.  Occasionally there are breakdowns in the system.  I cannot necessarily pin point one spot in the process where the system breaks.  Sometimes it is because my desk looks really messy.  Sometimes it's because I get excited about a card and skip the scanning part, instead opting to go straight to the card.  

Other times I just lose the scan. 

I am not always great about using folders.  Cards get scanned and put into some jumbo file of scans and pictures.  Even when I know I have scanned the cards for a blog post, I have to fight through a plethora of pictures featuring my wife, kids, and all sorts of other random pictures which float onto my computer.  

I actually have to give some props to JediJeff from 2x3 Heroes who commented on my post yesterday about how he had been watching some undervalued Tribute cards.  Slight case of ADD, but the chart below shows the connection between Jeff's comments and this post featuring cards that I completely forgot about during the past few months.....

If you look at the left side of the scan you can see through the paper where I wrote the title of the chart Landscape with a grey marker.  I switch to portrait and supplemented the grey title with purple ink.  Hopefully you made it to the part where I find three cheap Tier One autographs.  I know I write small, it's been a problem for years....

First card.  

It's an Evan Longoria card.  No flow chart on this card, but he was on the Durham Bulls.  I like the Durham Bulls and buy baseball cards of their players.  I also bought an autograph of a current Durham Bull.....

Very nice indeed.  Shaffer has been up and down between Durham and Tampa this year, little bit of a down year, but is probably best known for his self high five first home run.  I have posted the video of the home run a few too many times, so it's here somewhere just not in this post.... 

 Last autograph is a Cardinal.  

I love Carlos Martinez cards.  I need to do a post about his ever changing autograph one of these days.  I think this year's is a little different than last year's and completely different from what it looked like when his first Bowman and Leaf autographs came out.  

Finest Tsunami

I have not done a lot with opening Topps Finest boxes the last few years, but I have still enjoyed picking up a few of the single cards here and there.  After all of these years its still a very nice product and one of those that appears year and year out.  

This year I was a little bit torn about picking up cards from this product.  Earlier this spring Topps announced that it was going to skip over local card shops and just sell Finest directly to customers in their online store.  I know a lot of card shops on social media voiced concerns about the decision by Topps.  The general concern is that Topps will continue to do this with other card products and cut out the card shops altogether.  

That would be horrendous for the hobby.  

I am not even sure when Finest was released, but I decided long ago to completely avoid the boxes being sold by Topps in their store.  So, late last week I dipped my toe into the water and picked up a Finest autograph from one of my favorite Cardinals pitchers: Carlos Martinez.  

Here is the card:

Finest is one of those products that has 15 different parallels with all sorts of different colors and serial numbers, but with Finest I just keep it simple and find the green cards.  I know that there are rarer and shinier Carlos Martinez autographs in this set.  With the Martinez card I really like the red accents on top of the green card.  The red on Martinez's glove and uniform really pop on this card.  Easily my favorite Finest autograph since I picked up this Shelby Miller a few years back. 

A Rainy Saturday Afternoon Spent at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds Buying Cards From Men Behind Wooden Tables

Card shows are some of the coolest events that card collectors could possibly attend.  Yet, I have never written up a single card show on my blog.  In fact, I do not attend enough card shows.  They have them all the time at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, about a fifteen-twenty minute drive from my house, but I just never make it out to them.  I decided this weekend to change all of that and spend some time with a few other people who enjoy collecting cards.

Since I have never written up an appearance on at a card show on my blog I have also never shared my rules for attending a card show:

1. We always eat lunch/dinner before attending the card show
2. We have a cash budget and we stick to the budget
3. We never buy cards of the home team

So, I decided to toss the third rule since I no longer live in St. Louis and there is no home team in Raleigh.  We are all just a bunch of transplants from other cities.  Here's how I did on the other rules:


1.We always eat lunch/dinner before attending the card show

 I went out to lunch at the Cook Out in Cary.  It's a fast food restaurant that is loved by many in the south.  On this rainy Saturday I purchased the Cook Out Tray with a Hamburger "Cheddar Style", that's onions and melted cheese, fries, and a soda.  The picture of the "Cheddar Style" burger is below.

 It's delicious, but wise to pack some breath mints, or gum for afterwards.  Hand sanitizer with a strong scent is also good since the onion smell tends to stick on your hands.  Some complain about the smell of onions, so I think of the gum and scented hand sanitizer as more of a courtesy.  The Cook Out in Cary is alright, it's not as good as the Cook Out on Western Boulevard down the street from NC State, nor as good as the Cook Out in north Durham on Roxboro.  The north Durham location is my personal favorite.

 2. We have a cash budget and we stick to the budget

In this case I had right around $35.  There might have been a few extra ones floating around in my pocket after buying an attendance ticket at the Carr Building.  Here's what I got:

That's eight cards for $35-$40, or roughly about $5 a card.  Considering that included a cool Stan Musial Heritage relic, a Topps Heritage autograph, two Cardinals autographs, a Juan Gone autograph, a jumbo Lindor relic, and a sweet autograph of local Durham Bulls favorite Mikie Mahtook I am going to consider this a great day at the office.  It was also great to see a bunch of local collectors I have met over the past year or so hanging out at the local card shop.

Overall, a really fun afternoon and something I will go back to when the next card show hits Raleigh sometime in December.