Ozzie Smith was the Cardinals shortstop for much of the 1990s, and was eventually replaced by Royce Clayton after he retired. In 1998, the Cardinals traded Clayton away to the Texas Rangers, in the middle of the season, for third baseman Fernando Tatis. The Cardinals played all sorts of different players at shortstop during the second half of the 1998, none of them were good.
Prior to the 1999 season, the Cardinals traded Braden Looper, Armando Almanza, and Pablo Ozuna to the Marlins in exchange for Edgar Renteria.
He's wearing teal on his rookie card. You should buy this card.
Renteria was only 19 when he reached the Majors, and 22 when he was traded to the Cardinals. He was a work in progress at this point in his career, but he had also made a name for himself as one of the few Major Leaguers to have a walk off hit in the deciding game of the World Series.
Only one year of 1990s baseball cards for Edgar Renteria in a Cardinals uni. It was not actually really all that great for two reasons. Kind of makes this a short post.
Reason One- Topps used the same picture in all of their products. All of their products.
Here's his 1999 Topps card.
and his 1999 Topps Finest card.
I think the smile is slightly different.
I could scan his Bowman card and put it on here, but you will never believe the picture that Topps used for the card. He's actually not holding the bat, but everything else is the same. The photographer from Topps spent a whole two minutes taking pictures of Edgar Renteria in Spring Training.
and I am spent.
Reason 2- He has a bunch of cards that have a Cardinals logo, but the picture shows him as a Marlin.
Like this one....
or this one.....
Of course, there are a few different Edgar Renteria cards from 1999 that get it right.
The Cardinals had 5 of the first 44 picks in 1991 MLB Draft. The team chose California high schooler Dmitri Young with the 4th overall pick. The other four picks? Allen Watson is obviously one of them, the post is about him, but they also got Brian Barber and Dan Cholowsky. Young and Watson made it the Majors and played for awhile, Barber played a short time, and Cholowsky never made it past Triple A.
Young, Watson, and Barber all have a significant number of cards, Young obviously has the most of the group. Cholowsky actually has baseball cards in Bowman, Stadium Club, and the Upper Deck Minors sets. While he never made the Majors, some card companies still thought highly of him.
Watson seemed like he was going to be someone for awhile. He cruised through the Cardinals Minor League system and reached Busch Stadium by July of 1993. He has a Stadium Club card to commemorate the occasion.
I am actually fairly certain that I saw his Major League debut, which was a 7-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves. I need to double check my ticket stub box. It would have been cool if Topps had put an actual picture from the players debut game on the front of these cards. Watson debuted in St. Louis, card has a gray uniform, I am slightly disappointed.
Watson was in Baseball America's Top 10 Prospects prior to the 1993 season, so it was a pretty big deal when he reach the Majors. The majority of his baseball cards treated him accordingly.
First off, when he first got drafted he started appearing in Bowman and Minor League sets right away. My favorite Allen Watson card from his time in the Minors has to be his 1992 Upper Deck Minors card, which is quite unique.....
I am not sure why Allen Watson is wearing half a road uniform and half a home uniform. Not something you see everyday on a baseball card. I also like that he is hitting. Sure, there is the occasional pitcher hitting card, but this looks like he is hitting balls for infield practice.
Watson appeared in some of the more prominent 1990s sets. Good rookie cards in the 1993 SP set? Sure there is a Derek Jeter rookie card in that set, but there was also an Allen Watson. Good card back in the 1990s.
Watson also appeared in many of the rookie/prospect insert sets. My personal favorite is the Flair Wave of the Future.
These were printed on really nice stock and had nice printing and finish. That wave in the background is sort of cheesy in this set though. If this were a card in the 1998 Metal Universe set, it would be slam dunk best prospect card ever.
Watson had a decent 1993, but his star faded fast with the Cardinals. He got 22 starts with the team in 1994 and another 19 in 1995. His ERA was near 5 during both seasons. Allen Watson faded from trendy insert sets and shiny foiled prospect cards, and settled into the baseball card world as a player who got a token base card in the Topps and Upper Deck sets.
I actually really like his base Topps cards from 1994 and 1995.
Not a huge fan of the 1994 set, but I like the Watson card. Love that background with the astroturfed Busch Stadium, blue walls, and faded red seats. The Cardinals freshened up the stadium in between 1995 and 1996, so this was near the end of this stadium configuration and appearance.
1995 did not have a great background, although the picture was clearly taken in Busch. I like this card more for the action shot.
The ball in the picture has always looked a little funny to me. I know it's an action shot, so the ball was likely to turn out blurry, but this looks like Topps has tried to somehow crop the ball.
At the end of the 1995 season, the Cardinals hired Tony LaRussa to manage the team and turned the roster over. One of the first moves the team made in remaking their roster was to trade Watson to the Giants for Royce Clayton.
Clayton was also a former first round draft pick who had not lived up to expectations. When he arrived in St. Louis, Tony LaRussa made him the starting shortstop, putting Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith on the bench. Ozzie would retire at the end of the season.
Watson would go on to play for the Giants, Angels, Mets, Mariners, and Yankees. He was on the Yankees roster in 1999 when they won the World Series against the Braves.....
earning him a World Series ring. Watson was also on the 2000 Yankees, but only pitched until August before he was placed on the disabled list. He never played again in the Majors.
Mabry worked as a hitting coach for the Cardinals in recent years under the unsuccessful and unpopular Mike Matheny. He took a lot of flack, maybe rightfully so, about the lack of offense during his time with the club as a coach. More specifically, the team seemed to lack much power. Mabry was not exactly know for his power as a player, which likely added to fans criticism of him as a coach.
Manager Mike Marheny, John Mabry.And Billy Mueller all fired from #Stlcards staff
Cardinals fans rejoiced. I am not sure if he has found another job as a coach.
The Cardinals selected Mabry in the 6th Round of 1991 Major League Draft. He made it through the Minors with little fanfare. Mabry never put together a great season in the Cardinals system, he was just sort of a solid player who happened to reach the Major League level at a time when the roster was a little thin on talent. It did not help that All-Star first baseman Gregg Jefferies left the Cardinals for the Phillies.
Mabry showed up in a few different baseball card products while he was in the Minors, but there were better Cardinals prospects to go after beyond Mabry. He appeared in an Upper Deck Minors set, also the 1994 Bowman set. My favorite early Mabry card was his 1994 Score Rookie/Traded card. Loved the red border on these cards.....
He was more or less a full time player on the 1995 Cardinals. He frequently started at first base for the team, but also made some appearances in the outfield. One of Mabry's best attributes as a player was his throwing arm. The Cardinals had a crowded outfield though with Ray Lankford, Brian Jordan, and Bernard Gilkey taking up the majority of playing time.
I think there are several 1995 cards that do a good job of summarizing Mabry's offense skills.
A Collector's Choice card with a picture of Mabry throwing the bat. He did hit over .300 in 1995, which is something positive. Mabry also came in fourth in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Look at that check swing. Mabry also only hit 5 home runs, which seems borderline criminal for a corner infielder. His slugging percentage was .405, which sadly ranked just behind the aforementioned starting outfielders. He often occupied important places in the line-up, but probably would have been a seventh or eighth place hitter in many other lineups.
One of his highlights from 1995 was a fake bunt walk off hit against the Cubs.
If you want to understand how bland and boring Mabry was a player, I think it is best exemplified by his Emotion card from 1995. These cards had adjectives stamped on the side of the player's picture which was a description of their style of play. Mabry's word.....
Adroit, meaning skillful, is a way of saying he shows up and he puts his jersey on the correct way. I am not exactly sure in what way Mabry showed that he was adroit. Really, it probably made people go grab a dictionary or thesaurus.
Seriously, he looked nice on a card or two. Like his Flair.....
That's a good look for Mabry. He just hit a single.
John Mabry's best season was probably 1996. He just missed hitting .300, had 13 home runs, 30 doubles, and drove in 74 runs. In the Postseason, he hit .300 against the Padres in the Divisional Series and .261 against the Braves in the National League Championship Series. Mabry also had his best baseball card made, which appeared in the 1996 Leaf Signature product.
Mabry has some oddball autographs from early in his career, but this is his best autographed card available. Probably his best card overall too. I am not a huge fan, if you could not tell, and if I did not need the other cards in the post to complete sets in my collection, this would likely be one of my only Mabry cards.
There were a few cards of Mabry during the 1997 and 1998 seasons, but his role on the club was rightfully diminished after the team signed Ron Gant and traded for Mark McGwire. The two moves made it hard for him to find playing time as an outfielder or on the infield. The Cardinals played around with making him a third baseman, but that did not work out well.
My favorite 1997 card of Mabry was his Stadium Club. He's fielding in this picture, but I like the action shot in Wrigley against the Cubs. That park always makes for a great baseball card backdrop. Having the Cubs player being Ryne Sandberg also probably helps too. Great photo, exactly what you would expect out of a Stadium Club card.
Mabry was non-tendered by the Cardinals after the 1997 season and ended up playing for the Mariners in 1998. He still had a few cards with the Cardinals in 1998 though. My favorite is his Topps card, which shows him fielding a ground ball at first base.
The rest of Mabry's career was spent on the bench bouncing around the league. There is always space for an extra left handed bat. Mabry would reappear for the 2001, 2004, and 2005 Cardinals teams. In between he played for the Mariners, Padres, Marlins, Phillies, A's, Cubs, and Rockies. There were not a ton of baseball cards to commemorate his second and third stints with the Cardinals. Those that were made were rather.......
You could argue that Tom Henke's 1995 season was the best performance by a Cardinals pitcher during the entire 1990s decade. It was Anheuser Busch's last year owning the team, and to their credit, they actually tried to improve the team. During the offseason they brought in Ken Hill and Danny Jackson, the two pitchers finished first and second in the National League in wins in 1994, along with St. Louis native Scott Cooper to help anchor the lineup.
Henke was at the end of his career and wanted to play one more season. The Jefferson City, Missouri native ended signing with the Cardinals so he could be close to home. His signing would work out well for the Cardinals. Danny Jackson, Ken Hill, and Scott Cooper would all be disastrous signings of varying degrees.
Before signing with the Cardinals, Henke was best known as the closer for the Blue Jays from the 1980s through the early 1990s. He helped the Blue Jays win the 1992 World Series against the Braves.
Henke also played for the Rangers. Briefly at the beginning of his career before he was claimed by the Blue Jays, and after the 1992 season when he left the Blue Jays as a free agent. He had only 15 saves in 1994, due to time spent on the disabled list, but had 40 during the 1993 season.
First, Henke picked up an important milestone in his career while playing his final season with the Cardinals. He became the 7th player to reach 300 saves, there are 20 something now, and finished 1995 in 5th place all-time.
I like that Bobby Cox is sitting in the dugout smiling at him at the end of video. Cox managed the Blue Jays when Henke first joined the team in the mid 1980s. No doubt he saw a few of the 300 plus saves.
Henke finished 1995 with 36 saves, a 1.82 ERA, and was awarded the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year. Pretty hard to do on a team that finished 20 games under .500. After achieving one of his best seasons as Major Leaguer, Henke still decided to retire at the end of 1995. He told Post Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel, "I've always admired guys who have gone out at the top of their game. Sometimes you have to look at what's the most important thing in life. I'd like to see my kids grow up"
Let's get to some cards. All of Henke's cards as a Cardinal are either from 1995 or 1996. I am going to go my my favorite five cards.
I love this card. The head shot with the stadium in the background could be it's own card design, but this is not actually a consistent theme in the 1995 Pinnacle set. I am not taking time to flip through the entire set, but a quick glance around COMC led me to believe that this is the only card designed like this in the set. Very nice card.
I like this 1996 Fleer card showing Henke with the weird arm angle. Henke was the prototypical back end reliever who is really tall, threw really hard, and tried to blow a lot of batters away with really hard fastballs. What Henke good though was that he had elements of finesse. He dropped down side arm and had some nasty breaking pitches including a forkball.
There are not a lot of Tom Henke cards from sets with nice finishes. He played for some great Blue Jays teams, but I am not sure that you can really say that there was much that was really high end from that era. He is in the 1993 Finest set. This 1995 Flair card is one of his nicer Cardinals cards. I like the headshot combined with the action shot in the background. Gives a little different picture of Henke pitching from the Fleer card above.
Always like the cards with Busch Stadium in the background. I also like the full picture of Henke's uniform in this picture. I am pretty sure that Henke and Eckersley, who replaced Henke as the team's closer, were the last two Cardinals players who wore the old style stirrups and socks, and did not wear their uniform baggy.
Same shoes too.
Last card.
I love this card in the 1996 Topps set. It is up there with the Pinnacle card at the top, more symbolic. It was Henke's last Topps card, and I would like to think that someone at Topps made this card on purpose. Kind of fitting to have a picture of Henke going through the line at the end of a game leaving the field as his last baseball card.
Bernard Gilkey was in the wave of prospects that the Cardinals called up in 1990 to replace the WhiteyBall Era players. Willie McGee was traded towards the end of the season, still won the National League batting title, and Vince Coleman was not going to re-sign with the team. The Cardinals reconstituted their outfield with Felix Jose, who came over in the trade for Willie McGee, along with Ray Lankford and Bernard Gilkey.
According to Baseball America, Lankford was the 19th best prospect entering the 1990 season, Felix Jose was the 51st best prospect, and Bernard Gilkey was not on the radar for whatever reason. Admittedly, he showed little power in the Minors and mainly just stole a bunch of bases every year. Gilkey did have good discipline at the plate, so he at least drew a lot of walks. His career Minor League on-base percentage was .361.
In 1991, Lankford and Jose both established themselves as everyday Major League players. Gilkey hit .216/.316/.313, which earned him a spot on the bench and only slightly more than 250 at bats. It didn't help that Milt Thompson had a career year of sorts.
Baseball card wise, I am not sure that any Gilkey rookie card was highly desired enough to be considered valuable. There are a bunch of them, they have never had any value, and can be found for pennies all over the internet, or in the cheapy boxes at card shows.
I am partial to his 1990 Leaf card.
Gilkey had a really unique stance, video in a few minutes, but I am not sure he had it when he first got called up to the Cardinals.
Not a rookie card, but an early card and one of my favorite all-time Gilkey cards is his 1992 Upper Deck. He's running over the bullpen mound in Busch II catching a ball.
The picture is everything on this card. Great action shot.
After a shaky first season, Gilkey turned around his performance and became a good player for the Cardinals, save for a down year in 1994. He ended up surpassing Felix Jose and Mark Whiten as the complementary piece to Ray Lankford in the Cardinals outfield. Gilkey had OPS+ of 127 in 1992, 129 in 1993, 85 in 1994, and 124 in 1995. 100 is an average player. The Cardinals ended up settling on an outfield with Gilkey in left, Lankford in center, and Brian Jordan in right.
After the 1995 season the Cardinals traded Gilkey away to the Mets after signing away Ron Gant from the Reds. The Cardinals were looking for offense and more power, Gilkey offered the least of the three outfielders prior to Gant's signing. Gilkey went on to have a career year with the Mets in 1996. He hit .317/.393/.562 with 30 home runs, 117 RBIs, and 33 doubles.
Some say the season got Bernard an acting gig in a Will Smith movie. Something about aliens running around New York City. It would be funny to see a UFO flying over Shea.
Gilkey had some off the field issues, which hurt his on field performance. He bounced around between the Diamondbacks, Red Sox, and Braves for a few years. Gilkey was out of professional baseball by the end of 2001.
A few more cards.
I have always been a huge fan of this card. It's a 1993 Upper Deck. Gilkey and Lankford are on the sides of Ozzie Smith and Geronimo Pena is in the back. These were the three young players who eventually stood out amongst the group of players that were promoted to replace the WhiteyBall Era players. Pena is the least recognizable of the group, good player when he was healthy. He was never healthy. Kind of a good passing of the torch card from Ozzie, the best player on the 1980s Cardinals, to Lankford and Gilkey.
Two more. This is a great picture of the old Busch Stadium on this 1995 Upper Deck. I would recognize that blue color on the dugout walls and the outfield walls in the background anywhere. If you go back up to the Upper Deck card where Gilkey is running over the mound, the wall behind him in left field is that same color. The blue went away in 1996 when the team switched over to a grass field. The walls turned green. I also like that you can see the arches on the top of the stadium. Great still shot that does a great job of capturing some of the signature elements of the stadium.
Last card for this post. This is also from 1995, it's a Flair. Really nice set from the mid 1990s. The design from this era is a little bit more gaudy than the designs from the 2000s, but I dig the sparkly stuff in the background. The card stock on these are really nice too. One of Gilkey's last cards as a Cardinal, this is my favorite from the tail end of his run in his hometown.
I had the opportunity to do a little bit of volunteer work over the Thanksgiving holiday by helping out an older friend from my days in Durham. The friend helps out around a community thrift store that donates its profits to charity. The shop had a big lot of sports cards, programs and score cards, and memorabilia that was donated and they needed a little help making heads and tails out of what they had in their store.
They had a few cool things that will help out the Thrift Store after they auction off the items, but they also had a few things that were inexpensive and cool for me as a baseball card collector. I ended up with a few junk wax era boxes. I will do a post on a few of them over the next few weeks, but for this week's #MyCardMonday I wanted to share out one cool card that I pulled out of a 1993 Flair box I bought from the store.
Here's my new card......
I was excited to pull this out of my box of cards. Edmonds has several rookie cards in 1993 products, but I always really liked this card. Way back in 1993 I did not open any packs, or boxes, of this product. Years later I ran into one somewhere because I have a ton of these cards floating around in my boxes. I also have a single copy of this Edmonds, but I bought that from a card shop in St. Louis after he was traded to the Cardinals.
I have never had the joy of pulling a cool Jim Edmonds rookie and being excited about the card. Yes, back in 1993 I pulled a few Edmonds rookie cards, but he was just some guy on the Angels. Very nice card and I am happy to give it a good home.
