Friday Five: Top Five Archives Autographs

Topps Archives base set is horrible. 

What is the point of releasing a Topps Heritage set every year, which borrows the design of a previous Topps set, when Archives does the same thing? 

Maybe the question should be why is Topps releasing Archives every year? 

Both products have some positives. I like the Heritage base set better than the Archives, but I like the autograph checklist of Archives much better. With the release of a new Topps Archives set this week, I thought I would take a look back at my five favorite Topps Archives autographs. The autographs after all are the only reason to purchase this annual Topps release.  

This was actually a challenging list to create. I could easily go Top 20 here and still make a good list. Narrowing the list down to my five favorites took some work.  

T5. 2020 Topps Archives Felix Jose 

Felix Jose is a symbolic choice here. I could have picked Joe McEwing or Edgar Renteria or George Hendrick, but I thought Felix was perfect for this post. I try to collect as many certified autographs of Cardinals players as possible and I never thought Felix Jose would be on that list. If you are not familiar with Felix, he came up in the late 1980s with the Oakland Athletics, but was traded to the Cardinals for Willie McGee. That's a tough act to follow in St. Louis and all Felix did was hit .305 with 40 doubles during his first season with the Cardinals. He was eventually traded to the Royals for Gregg Jefferies, but getting this card made me take a few minutes to look back at his career numbers on Baseball Reference and appreciate the time he spent with the Cardinals. Every once in awhile Topps gets something right, Felix Jose signing cards 25 years after he retired is incredible.  

T5. 2020 Topps Archives Tom Pagnozzi 

This is another symbolic choice. I could have gone with a low-key very good player from your favorite team too. Here is a trivia question. Between 1991 and 2020 how many of the National League Gold Gloves at catcher were won by Cardinals players? The answer is 15 or half of the Gold Gloves at one position. Molina won 9, Mike Matheny won 3, and this guy Tom Pagnozzi won the other 3.  Who remembers stuff like that? Topps Archives. Tom Pagnozzi also was the Game 7 starting catcher in the 1987 World Series and also caused Uber prospect Todd Zeile (sounds funny now) to move to third base.  He's not a Hall of Famer or anything, but still a really good player and I am happy to own his autograph.  

 

4. 2001 Topps Archives Mickey Lolich Autograph 

I started collecting the current Durham Bulls players the year that I moved to North Carolina. They have had plenty of top prospects on their roster over the past two decades and there has always been an abundance of modern autographs that has made them easy to collect. I did not start collecting the old former Bulls players until I started blogging about my cards, roughly a decade ago. The autographs are a little harder to find, but I was really happy to land this 2001 Topps Archives Lolich card. I loved the 2001 Archives set, which has a little different format than the current rendition of the set and a much better autograph checklist. However, those autographs are also largely off the secondary market at this point save for a few really common cards that were signed in huge numbers. Lolich is not one of those, making this my tough to find autograph on this list. Lolich also has a better Hall of Fame argument than most realize.  

3. 2012 Topps Archives Jose Oquendo 

Nicknamed "The Secret Weapon" you never knew where Jose Oquendo was going to play for the Cardinals when you watched one of their games in the late 1980s. He eventually settled into being the second baseman next to Ozzie Smith, but for several years he played all over the infield and outfield. Topps did something incredible with Oquendo's 2012 autograph by creating 9 different variations of the card, one for each position on the field. These cards were a project a few years back, but I lost track of it and stopped trying to track them down. Topps can be creative when they try. It's all about the effort.  

2. 2016 Topps Archives Robert Wuhl Autograph 

Topps has done several pop culture insert sets over the past decade within their Archives product. The 2016 Bull Durham movie cards were obviously my favorite. I never shelled out the money for a Tim Robbins or Kevin Costner autograph, but Robert Wuhl was in my price range. The long-time actor plays the Bulls pitching coach Larry Hockett in the movie and has some of my favorite lines in the movie, including his pep talk to the team while they are on the mound airing out all the drama that is occurring in their lives.  

Candlesticks always make a nice gift, let's get two.  

In fact, I have two copies of the card.  

1. 2013 Topps Archives Ray Lankford Autograph 

Ray Lankford last played for the Cardinals in 2004. During that entire season, the only card made of him was in MLB Showdown. No Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck, or Donruss cards at all.  Nobody made a card of him in 2005 either. It took almost another decade to get a brand new Ray Lankford card, which appeared in the 2013 Topps Archives autograph set. No base card. I was still really excited to see this card and pick up a copy for the collection.  

Topps Salutes Mediocrity

The Topps Archives set came out awhile ago. It has always been one of my favorite places to find autographs every year.  It's nice to see some older players sign a few cards, and there are usually a fair amount of Cardinals included.  This year it seemed that they all came from the early 1990s Cardinals.  

The early 1990s Cardinals were young, many of the players never lived up to the hype, and they were a lock to finish in the middle of the division.  Never good enough to catch the Pirates or Phillies, never bad enough to hang out in last place.  

Really mediocre teams.  

I didn't think I would see the day when Topps would include a bunch of 1990s Cardinals on a modern set, outside of Mark McGwire.  I am posting the Cardinals in order from most surprising to least surprising in terms of appearance in a modern baseball card set.  

My jaw dropped when I saw this first name on the checklist.

The Cardinals got Felix Jose from the A's for renting Willie McGee at the end of the 1990 season.  He made the National League All-Star Team in 1991, and ended up spending two decent years with the Cardinals before he was traded to the Royals for Gregg Jefferies.  I best remember Felix Jose for not sitting near anybody on the bench during games. 

I couldn't find a picture of him in the dugout with the Cardinals, but here is one from later in his career with the Yankees.  

Felix Jose ended up spending a lot of time playing in Mexico and Korea, and only appeared in roughly 700 Major League games.  I am really surprised that he popped up in a baseball card set in 2020.  Decent signature and I love that they put him on a 1992 Topps card.  Always a plus in the Archives set when you can match-up the players era with the card style.  

Next.  Not as surprising as Felix Jose.  

The Cardinals have quietly had a good run of really good defensive catchers over the last 30 years.  There was a short window in the late 1990s where that wasn't true, but the team has filled the majority of those years with Tony Pena, Mike Matheny, Yadier Molina, and Tom Pagnozzi.  It took him a few years to latch on as a starter, he was actually the backup to Tony Pena at the beginning of his career starting in 1987. 

Pagnozzi won three National League Gold Gloves during the first half of the 1990s.  

I am not saying he is a complete unknown, but I am sure that if you did not watch baseball in the 1990s, there is probably no chance that you'd know the no-hit Gold Glove catcher on a third place team.  

This was one of my favorite plays he made.  The stairs at Busch Stadium II made foul balls near the dugout an adventure.  The steps were steep and there was no railing in front of the dugout until the mid to late 1990s.  

Again, I love that the card design matches the era of the player.  

The last two are not as surprising.  Love the picture on this card.  

Worrell is a name player from the 1980s and 1990s.  He won the National League Rookie of the Year closing out games for the Cardinals in 1986.  Very good player, had some arm injuries in the middle of his career, but came back to be a good closer during the late 1990s with the Dodgers.  Not surprising that he would be included in a modern baseball card set, but he hasn't really done anything with baseball cards or autographs since retiring.  

He is worthy of being on baseball cards, more surprising that he suddenly appeared after 20 years of nothing.  

The picture.  

The bullpens in Busch II were on the field in the corners.  The Cardinals were on the first base side, visitors were on the third base side.  This picture was clearly taken in the Cardinals bullpen with the right field foul pole over Worrell's shoulder.  

Last card, least surprising 1990s Cardinals player in the set, but also not pictured as a member of the Cardinals.  

Henke only pitched for the Cardinals for one season, which was his last one in the Majors.  He is from a small town outside of Jefferson City, and wanted to be closer to home.  Henke has other modern cards, but it seems like he has been popping up a little more frequently.  

No matter how much I might complain about the current Cardinals, some of the early 1990s Cardinals teams were worse.  You always had to look hard for the good.  Henke was definitely one of them.    

Throw in a few World Series titles with the Blue Jays in the early 1990s, and Henke is easily the best player in this post.