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.
I started two set projects last month that both involved trying to complete small Upper Deck insert sets from the early 1990s. One of the sets was the Now & Then cards from the 1993 Upper Deck set, the other was the Top Prospects cards from 1992 Upper Deck Minors. They are both holographic card sets, which is so 1990s Upper Deck.
I am close to having both sets done, but for the moment I have closed out the 1992 Upper Deck Minors Top Prospects set. I started with 2 of the 9 cards, they're all here now. I wish these scanned better....
I know the print on the back of the cards is still hard to read in the scans, but still felt like they were worth posting. Prior to working on this project, I owned copies of the Dmitri Young and Chipper Jones cards for obvious reasons. They fit into my collection. Out of the seven other cards the hardest to find was the Brien Taylor. He's pretty popular locally, a legend of sorts in North Carolina. There are a lot of people who saw him play, or played against him, etc. You know the stories.
This is a good looking set, glad to knock this out.
There have been a whole bunch of 2019 sets that have been released this year starting with Topps Series 1 way back in January or February.
I think I have a Stadium Club set put together. Otherwise, I just have a bunch of random 2019 cards from a whole bunch of different sets. Way back at the beginning of the year I thought I would try to put together a couple of small sets. Have I done that?
No.
It's not that I am against sets, it's just that the majority that Topps is putting out at this point do not really hold my interest. Rather mediocre.
What to do?
I am going to try to put together a pair of small Upper Deck insert sets from the early 1990s. One from the 1992 Upper Deck Minor League set, and the other from the 1993 Upper Deck base set. Different years, different products, but I have always felt like these two insert sets are clones of each other.
Minor League set first....
This is from the Top Prospects Holograms set. There are 9 cards, but I only have two of them. One being the Dmitri Young shown above as a member of the Springfield Cardinals. The other belongs to Chipper Jones, which is a Durham Bulls card. The other 7 cards in the set shouldn't be too hard to find.
I already have the red cards.
TP1 Midre Cummings
TP2 Cliff Floyd
TP3 Chipper Jones
TP4 Mike Kelly
TP5 David McCarty
TP6 Frank Rodriguez
TP7 Brien Taylor
TP8 Rondell White
TP9 Dmitri Young
North Carolina native Brien Taylor card seems like he might be the hardest card left to find. There is not one on COMC at the moment, so I will have to find one from some place different, I do not always like buying single cards like this off of Ebay. Might have to go do a SportsLots order, something.
On to the 1993 Upper Deck set. If you collected at the time, I bet you can guess the insert set....
This is from the Then & Now set. There is an older player of the picture in color with the hologram showing a new picture. There are 18 cards in all. There are actually a few cards in this set that I am not big on, but the rest of the cards more than make up for it.
These are the cards I do not like.....
The retired players in the set have a goofy picture of the player wearing an Upper Deck shirt of some sort in the hologram picture rather than an older image. Why doesn't this Reggie Jackson have a picture of him on the Angels, or his last season with the A's? Would have made for a better set, but it's only a few cards that fit into this category.
I am missing roughly half the set. I already have thered cards.
TN1 Wade Boggs
TN2 George Brett
TN3 Rickey Henderson
TN4 Cal Ripken, Jr.
TN5 Nolan Ryan
TN6 Ryne Sandberg
TN7 Ozzie Smith
TN8 Darryl Strawberry
TN9 Dave Winfield
TN10 Dennis Eckersley
TN11 Tony Gwynn
TN12 Howard Johnson
TN13 Don Mattingly
TN14 Eddie Murray
TN15 Robin Yount
TN16 Reggie Jackson
TN17 Mickey Mantle
TN18 Willie Mays
I think I can have these two small sets put together by the end of September. Go team.
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.
This is a nice post about Dmitri Young. He has had sort of a bad rap amongst Cardinals fans for awhile, but I really do not see what people have against the guy. The man collects baseball cards and at one point Dmitri also had one of the most incredible baseball card collections out there before he cashed out 2.5 million dollars.
The Roberto Clemente rookie in his hand sold $400K alone, which is ridiculous, but if he got someone to pay that much good for Dmitri.
A little bit longer post today for my 1990s Cardinals post. I like Dmitri even if Cardinals do not like always like him.
Back to baseball. The Cardinals have finished in last place once over the last 70 or 80 years. It has not happened much, but I am not in the mood to go look it up at the moment. The one time it has happened in modern baseball times was in 1990. Whitey Herzog quit in the middle of the year, so did Terry Pendleton. The team even traded long time fixture Willie McGee to the A's to bolster their playoff run. Hot mess.
The Cardinals had the fourth overall pick and used it on 17 year old Oxnard, California high schooler Dmitri Young. He was on USA Today's All-American High School baseball team and had received a scholarship to baseball at Miami.
Dmitri had some big numbers at several of his stops along through the Cardinals Minor League system. In his first full season in the Minors he hit .310 with 14 home runs and 36 doubles in A-Ball with the Springfield Cardinals. Later, when he reached Triple A Louisville, he hit .333 with 15 home runs, 31 doubles, and even managed to swipe 16 bases. Won the batting title.
Young was not without his controversies before reaching St. Louis. Namely, he went after a fan in the stands while he was playing for the Arkansas Travelers, who were the Cardinals Double A team at the time of the incident.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Young spoke about this incident a few times during his career, while he would have handled the situation differently, it definitely hurt his relationship with the Cardinals and some fans in St. Louis. I still collected a few of his Minor League cards. Probably one of my first times every dealing with a product outside of the usual Major League Baseball products in the early 1990s was tracking down a few Dmitri Young cards
I have a few favorites.
I think the 1994 Upper Deck Minor League card is my favorite. The most professional looking of all his Minor League cards in my opinion and I love the action shot. Dmitri Young actually spent the majority of his time in the Minors playing third base and left field. The Cardinals dabbled with him at first base in the Minors, but did not play him extensively at that position until his second stint at Triple A in 1996.
I'm just throwing up this Classic Best card because the scan was handy, but Dmitri has a ton of these odd-ballish cards from 1991 and 1992. He was in the lower Minors and on many of the cards it shows. The Cardinals must have gone through some phase in the late 1990s where their Minor League teams all wore surplus polyester uniforms or repurposed shirseies from the team store.
Didn't Pedro Guerrero retire sometime around 1991 or 1992?
Would not shock me. There are a few where Dmitri Young is just wearing a slugger bird logo shirt.
The Cardinals ditched this logo in 1992, but it's all over their Minor League cards from that era. Old man Busch was saving himself some money, also not putting anything on the team store on clearance.
Dmitri ended up getting called up by the Cardinals at the end of the 1996 season, just in time for the team's Postseason run. They were not supposed to make the playoffs the first season that LaRussa managed the team, let alone get within a game of the World Series. Dmitri did not contribute much during the final weeks of the season, nor during the first part of the National League playoffs. However, he had a huge hit in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead in the Series against the defending World Series Champions.
It was one of the few good moments from a frustrating National League Championship Series. Card companies seemed to magically remember that Dmitri Young was around and was going to get playing time the following season. Really the only season where he had a full slate of Cardinals cards turned out to be 1997.
Best card.....
is from Collector's Choice because they gave him a highlights card for hitting that triple in the National League Championship Series. The front picture is from the actual hit. The back of the card.....
very well done by Upper Deck.
A few more. Bowman gave him an autograph card. He also had one in the Donruss Signature set, but the Bowman is a little bit nicer looking in my opinion....
It is also a little harder to find and will cost you $3 instead of $2. That's without shipping. A few more recognizable brands. Donruss gave him a Rookie Diamond Kings. Not the same as just a regular Diamond Kings card, but they were not making the Rated Rookie cards at this point.
Almost all of the rest of the Dmitri Young cards from 1997 came from the Pinnacle brands. I am pretty sure that had a photographer show up for infield/batting practice one day, and they came up with photos for every Dmitri Young card for the rest of that season.
Pinnacle Inside......
Blue road practice jersey with a red turtleneck in Candlestick Park.
Candlestick Park, Blue jersey, red turtleneck. Look, Dmitri wears Nikes.
New Pinnacle, was like New Coke in many ways, and apparently used recycled pictures that were just cropped a little differently the photos used for other card products.
Cannot quite see his batting gloves in this picture.
Finally a Fleer Ultra to close out 1997.
Good picture of Dmitri playing first base, which is what he did most of the time during the 1997 until the end of July. His first full season in the Majors was a disappointment. He never did show any of the pop, nor drive in his swing that made him one of the better players in the Minor Leagues.
The Cardinals needed offense and they ended up trading for A's first baseman Mark McGwire. He was a free agent to be, but had spent the majority of his career playing for Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa and the front office was convinced they could sign him if they got him to play a few months in St. Louis.
McGwire hit and ended up signing a contract with the Cardinals. Dmitri Young was traded to the Reds for washed up reliever Jeff Brantley. He still appeared on a few early 1998 releases as a member of the Cardinals.....
Dmitri seemed like a guy who needed a change of scenery early on with the Cardinals. Not usually the way things go in St. Louis. Add in the fact that the Cardinals got hosed on the trade by an in division rival, and I think that has added to some of the negativity around the legacy of Dmitri Young according to Cardinals fans.
In a curious twist to the Cardinals trading him to the Reds during the 1997 off-season, he was actually selected by the Devil Rays during the expansion draft and traded back to the Reds. He did not have many cards in 1998. However, his first season in Cincinnati was a huge success that made him a regular in sets for most of his playing career.
Dmitri played four years for the Reds and never hit less than .300 and had an on-base percentage of .353 during that four year span.
He also spent five years with the Tigers and managed to still hit even though he was frequently the only quality bat in their lineup. In 2003, he made the American League All-Star team, almost hit 30 home runs, and had a .909 OPS. The Tigers lost 119 games. It was statistically his best season as a professional player.
He ended his career by playing the Nationals during the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Dmitri was only 34 years old when he retired from baseball. During his last two seasons with the Nationals he hit .310/.382/.469 and even made the National League All-Star team in 2007. He became a fan favorite of sorts with the Nationals, who were in their early days in Washington. Dmitri Young had talked about trying to make a comeback at one point, but he stayed retired.
Very nice career overall. I have always been convinced that if he stayed in St. Louis, he would have never had the career that he had playing for the Reds and Tigers. While Cardinals fans can grade Dmitri Young rather harshly at times, but there are much worse things that can happen with high draft picks than having a 13 year career with a few All-Star Game appearances.
A few more random Cardinals cards from my latest COMC run. I made my first post about this batch of cards last week, which were all filling various holes in my collection, whether they be apart of a complete set, team set, or just cool card of a favorite Cardinals player. A few more cards in this post, which is more heavy with veteran players.
The cards in this post span a decade, from 1997 through 2007, so I am going to post them in sequential order by year. First up.....
Three Cardinals cards out of the Pinnacle Totally Certified set. The set ran off of colored parallels, with each color having a different print run. This is still a really popular set, a sure fire favorite of collectors from the late 1990s. I already have the complete run of Lankford's out of this set, along with one or two different colors from the three players shown above. I should probably try to assemble a complete set of these cards, but for the moment I am sticking with putting together the Cardinals cards. These are three sharp looking cards.
Next up, a card from a set that I am trying to put together. I have a ton of 1997 Topps and Topps Chrome cards. The base sets are both complete and I am deep on several of the insert sets. Working on finishing out those missing cards, I actually got some non-Cardinals cards in this lot, but Andy Benes was the only Cardinals insert that I was missing.
This Eckersley is here for the same reasons as the Andy Benes card, but it's from the 1998 Topps set. This scan really mangled his hat for some reason. Looks like one of those old man baseball hats with the rope looking piece going between the bill and body of the hat. Eck is old on this card, but not that old. Plus, nobody with hair like Eckersley would ever wear a hat like that, way too cool.
This Cliff Politte card is a spillover from the first post. I had several of the Cardinals from the 1998 Leaf Stars & Rookie set in that post, but somehow I missed this card. My bad.
This is a set that I own, Always liked the Black Diamond sets. I have several of the parallels from the Cardinals players, just trying to finish out the team set of parallel cards. I will have to double check my accounting, but I believe this is the last card I was missing.
Non-Cardinal card of a former Cardinals player, Preston Wilson was on the 2006 World Series winning team. Not specifically collecting Preston Wilson, never minded him as a player and I like him on television, but I actually really liked the Fleer Mystique set back when it came out. I have the base set assembled, but I am missing a few of the short printed rookie cards which are all serial numbered.
I am actually a little disappointed by the printing around the serial numbers on this card. They looked scratched, or something happened to them. I looked at a few other cards that I have from this set, none of them. I am going to overlook the scratching for the moment, maybe I will go back later and get a different copy.
I am not a big fan of the Donruss Fan Club set. It was a pretty cheap box back in 2002 and the cards seemed somewhat repetitive from the Donruss base set. If you cut off the words Fan Club, this feels like the runner up design for the Donruss base set. I do like So Taguchi however, so this was sort of a necessary evil. 2002 had a lot of serial numbered rookie cards, at the time I skipped a ton of them. Slight case of fatigue from chasing down Pujols rookie cards from the previous year combined with the fact that Taguchi spent his first year with the Cardinals in Triple A.
So turned it around and eventually became a pretty useful player for the Cardinals in the mid 2000s. He hit an important playoff home run off of Billy Wagner in the 2006 NLCS and also was always brutally honest about the mosquito problems at Busch Stadium.
It's a serial numbered Ray Lankford, and it's not a difficult one to find. This is not already in my collection? Well, it was, but child #2 somehow get her hands on this card. I still have it, but it's in pretty poor condition at this point.
Two more.
I did work on the 2005 Upper Deck Reflections set back in the day, but did not touch the 2004 product. Both were generally the standard mid 2000s Upper Deck product, but the 2005 set had some really distinctive dual signature cards. The 2004 set was rather boring autograph wise, mainly just a few rookies, not sure any of them are really highly sought after, or worth much.
Back to the card. I liked Renteria a lot in the mid 2000s, but I really slowed down on collecting his cards once he left the Cardinals for the Red Sox at the end of the 2004 season. There are quite a few serial numbered cards from his later years in St. Louis that I just never took the time to find, they are all very affordable now.
I really like the looks of this card. An obvious Upper Deck card.
Last one. I did not touch the 2007 Topps Rookie 52 set. Seemed repetitive. I think I have an Edward Muijica autograph, since he was on the Cardinals, but that's about it. Did you know that it has a Jim Edmonds card in it? I didn't either, now I own one.
