I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 60 - Delino DeShields

Delino Deshields is probably best remember as being apart of one of those Lou Brock-Ernie Broglio type trades.  At the end of the 1993 season, the Dodgers traded for DeShields who was a very good second baseman with the Expos at the time, and all it cost them was Pedro Martinez.  Not good.  

He is also the father of Diamond DeShields.  

and Delino DeShields, who has apparently dropped the Jr.. 

The Cardinals signed Delino DeShields as a free agent at the end of the 1996 season.  Coming off an appearance in the 1996 National League Championship Series, DeShields was seen as a possible upgrade at second over Luis Alicea.  He was not great with the Dodgers, but the Cardinals believed they could fix him.   In all, Delino DeShields played two seasons with the Cardinals and was a good player for the team despite the results on the field during the 1997 and 1998 seasons.  

He got on base in front of Mark McGwire, Ray Lankford, and Ron Gant.  DeShields also became the last Cardinals player to steal more than 50 bases when he swiped 55 in 1997.  

On to some cards.  While he was not a long term player on the Cardinals, I like the cards that DeShields has as a member of the Cardinals.  There are a lot of action shots in here, along with some other curious facts and figures.  

First card goes in the curiosity pile. 

This is from the 1997 Circa set.  Always a really distinct looking group of cards.  I like the action shot of the second baseman, but that quote is pretty terrible.  Hitting .220, stealing 48 bases, that's not actually sound very good.  Sorry Tony LaRussa.  Usually the quotes on the fronts of these cards are pretty flattering, even the bad players in 1997 had nice quotes on the front.  I am not sure that pasting a quote about someone coming off of a .220 season is flattering.  

Perhaps someone at Fleer did not like players who wore double ear flaps.....

which can be found on many DeShields Cardinals cards.  Up until 2016, when Brayan Pena played 9 games as the team's reserve catcher, DeShields was the last Cardinals player to wear the double ear flaps.  They were sort of a fixture on the team growing up, I believe there were at least three Cardinals starters in the 1980s who wore them, but they disappeared in the early 2000s.  

This card is from the Topps Stars set in 1998.  All of the cards were serial numbered, many of them to ridiculous amounts like 9,000 or 4,000 copies.  Lots and lots and lots of cards.  

On to a trio of action shots.

First one is from the 1997 Fleer Ultra set.  Obviously a Spring Training game with a Tigers player in the background and DeShields wearing a batting practice jersey.  Great picture, I am not sure that DeShields is actually touching the Tigers player.  I think the photographer caught him mid fall, but he looks really graceful doing it.  

Also love the high socks on this card.  DeShields almost always wore his socks up, which was not a really trendy thing in the late 1990s when baseball uniform pants got long and baggy.  

Another nice action shot with fellow infielder Edgardo Alfonzo sliding into second base in Shea Stadium.  And the last DeShields action shot....

Do players even do this anymore?  I am almost sure that this practice is in decline, players come into the dugout regardless at the end of innings.  Maybe I am wrong.  I still like the picture.  

Last Cardinals card.  

Pacific made a ton of these cards in 1998 with the Cardinals players wearing the St. Louis Stars uniforms.  The team has done numerous throwback nights, but has not touched some of the team's Negro League history in a long time.  These are sharp looking uniforms, go check out the Fernando Tatis cards from last week too, there is a road version in that post.  

DeShields played another five years after leaving the Cardinals, splitting his time with the Orioles and Cubs.  He played 13 years in all and stole more than 400 bases.  There have been Delino DeShields cards made since he retired.....

which includes an autograph in the 2013 Topps Archives set.  DeShields has worked as a manager in the Reds Minor League system the past few years.  Next year, he will be working as the Reds first base coach.  He does not do the double ear flapped helmet while coaching.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 43 - Willie McGee

Willie McGee made two appearances with the Cardinals during the 1990s.  The decade began with Willie McGee playing centerfield for the Cardinals.  He was an everyday player on a very bad team in 1990, one of the few 1980s WhiteyBall players who pulled his weight while the team was being torn apart that season.

The Cardinals ended up trading McGee at the end of August 1990 to the Oakland A's in exchange for prospects Felix Jose and Stan Royer.  At the time, McGee was near the top of the National League batting leaders, hitting .335 for the season.  Lenny Dykstra was leading the National League with a .340 average, but he hit .269 in September and finished hitting .325.  Since Willie McGee's National League stats were frozen, and he had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, he ended up winning the National League crown.  

Has to be one of the more unique batting titles.  McGee's second batting title of his career.  

It's a non-Cardinals card, but this is one of my favorite all-time Willie McGee cards.  It was a 1991 Donruss with an Oakland A's picture and the caption at the bottom celebrating the National League Batting Title.  

McGee ended up staying in the Bay Area after a playoff run with the A's, signing with the Giants.  He is a Bay Area native, so it was not all that shocking that he ended up in San Francisco.  After four seasons with the Giants, McGee sat out the first half of 1995, but eventually signed on with the Red Sox as a reserve outfielder.  Before the 1996 season, the Cardinals resigned Willie McGee to be a bat off the bench and extra outfielder.  

There were not many baseball cards during his first season back in St. Louis, but some of the ones that were put out were nice.  My favorite from 1996 was probably his Circa card.  

Definitely a very modern looking card.  I always liked that these cards had a quote on the front about the player.  Some were better than others.  This LaRussa quote about McGee is sort of lukewarm, but I still like the concept. 

Besides helping to get the Cardinals to the National League Championship in 1996 during his first season back in St. Louis, Willie McGee also appeared in a television spot with Ozzie Smith portraying two old men talking about the 1982 Cardinals at a bar.  

Over the next few years, Willie ended up having a decent amount of baseball cards for a guy who was pulling down 200 to 300 at bats a season.  In spite of his reserve role, Cardinals fans still really liked Willie McGee, and card makers seemed to acknowledge the fact by putting him in more sets than the average fourth outfielder.  

1997 for whatever reasons seemed to be the one exception.  There were only a handful of McGee cards that year.  Not even a base card in the Topps set.  In fact, there was never a Topps base card of Willie after he returned to the Cardinals.  He did appear in a Stadium Club set, but the vast majority of the cards were either in Pacific or Upper Deck sets.  

The best year, card wise, during McGee's second stint with the Cardinals had to be 1998.  There were some nice looking McGee cards that season, several of which had a nice landscape view.  The best of the bunch has to be his Fleer Ultra.....

Wrigley also makes for a good backdrop on cards.  If we are not counting the 1982 World Series, McGee's most memorable game took place in Wrigley in 1984 when he hit for the cycle.  

Cubs fans refer to this game as "The Ryne Sandberg Game".  I am not going to talk about it, go look it up.  

Two other landscape style cards really quick.  

Pacific Invincible was a short lived product, but these were nice looking cards.  At least half of the Cardinals cards in the set have photos taken with the players wearing these St. Louis Stars uniforms.  They are the go-to uniform when the Cardinals do any sort of throwback with the Negro League teams that played in St. Louis.  Nice action shot of McGee hitting is icing on the cake.  

Last for 1998 is an Upper Deck F/X card.  The Upper Deck card is the same, but the picture on the F/X card has a little bit more pop and clarity.  

Last two for this post.  1999 was the last year of McGee's playing career and he managed to squeeze a few cards out of it.  My favorite from that year was his 1999 Fleer Ultra.  I have posted the Gold Version.  

Nice action shot of McGee catching a ball on the warning track.  I like the old school flip up shades that he is wearing.  You do not see any players wearing them anymore.  

Last one for this post.   

I have put other cards from this 1999 McDonad's set before.  It had the big names on the roster, but it also had some roster guys who did not get cards other places.  There was not an Upper Deck cards of Willie McGee in 1999, but he did pop up here.  I always sort of considered this card to be his last from his playing career.  

Willie had a good send off during his last game in 1999.....

Since his retirement, McGee has dabbled in coaching, appearing from time to time as a guest coach during Spring Training with the Cardinals.  This year he is working full time with the Cardinals on outfield defense and base running.  

Willie discussing why Marcell Ozuna should wear shoes during Spring Training.  

Everyone Loves Ray. At Least I Do.

In my never ending quest to find Ray Lankford cards I stumbled across a really cool late 1990s card on the old internet.  One of the most popular early parallel sets that was put out around that time was the Circa Rave cards.  They were roughly two or three per case as I recall, but not one per box.  The cards were numbered to 150, which seems like a large number these days, but they were a good chase back then.

The cards were often pricey, so at the time the Circa cards came out, I skipped over this Ray Lankford card.  I found one copy about five years ago on a trip back to St. Louis and I probably overpaid for the card.  I hadn't seen one in a long time, so I figured I was probably running out of chances to find one.

Fast forward to now.  Look what I found.....

There is not a lot of difference between the base card version and the Rave versions of these cards.  The front has no identifiable marker outside of the foil color of the word Circa 97 and the player name being purple instead of silver.  The card back has the serial number.......

The best part of finding this card was the fact that it cost me less a shade over $5.  Far cheaper than the cost of my other copy.  While I would like to say, in retrospect, that I should have been more patient, I am just going to think of this has having two really cool Circa Rave cards.