I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 33 - J.D. Drew

The NCAA Baseball tournament is firing up this week, so I thought it would be a good week to cover one of the all-time great college baseball players who also happened to be a member of the 1998 and 1999 Cardinals teams.  His career with the Cardinals actually extended a few years into the early 2000s, but for the sake of these 1990s themed posts, I am going to mainly focus on his time with the team during those two seasons.

Prior to playing professional baseball, J.D. was one of the greatest college baseball players ever.  He won awards, he won championships, he set records that still stand today.  Having listened to a few Florida State fans talk about his playing days in Tallahassee, I am not sure that I can sum up his college career, do it justice, and not make it a stand alone blog post.  I leave you with this.....

Maybe some day Panini will get off their duff and make a card of J.D. in his college uniform.  Seems like a shame that he does not have a card in his college uniform.  I know a few Florida State people who would be more than interested in getting a copy of the card.  

Drew entered the 1997 MLB Draft considered one of the best players at the top of the draft.  His agent Scott Boras told teams that Drew would not sign for a dime less than $10 million dollars.  The Phillies selected Drew second overall and then offered him $2.6 million dollars to sign.  He refused the offer and spent the summer playing for the St. Paul Saints in the Northern Independent League.  He re-entered the 1998 MLB Draft and was selected by the Cardinals with the fifth overall pick.  They paid him $7 million dollars and he signed.  

The incident made him less than popular with Phillies fans throughout his time in the Majors.  

I think there were some battery and beer bottle throwing incidents along the way too, but I try to keep things PG around these parts.  

It took Drew part of a summer to advance all the way through the Cardinals Minor League system.  He made his debut with the team on September 8, 1998.  It was the same night that Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run of the season, breaking the single season home run record.  

As a Ray Lankford fan, it should be pointed out that this game was won by the Cardinals, who sealed the victory after the Cubs pitched around Mark McGwire and then gave up back to back home runs to Ray Lankford (3 run) and Ron Gant (solo).  

By the end of the 1998 season, had played in 14 games and made 41 plate appearances.  He made the most of it, hitting .417/.463/.972 with 5 home runs, and 13 RBIs.  Not a bad little line for a two week cup of coffee.  

The baseball card world was already a little Cardinal crazy with Mark McGwire at that time.  The arrival of J.D. Drew sort of sent some people over the edge.  He was not quite Mickey Mantle, but the way that some people went after his baseball cards, you'd swear he was a slam dunk Hall of Famer.  Yes, people literally walked around comparing him to Mickey Mantle.  His first cards started popping up in the fall of 1998.  

My favorite was his 1998 Fleer Update card.  

This was a really simply designed card, but I really liked the edge to edge picture.  The card back also has also full color photo.  

You could only get the card by buying the complete Update set, which was not horribly expensive in the grand scheme of things, but finding one could be a challenge.  Maybe, I just went to college in the middle of nowhere with a really terrible card shop.  Drew also had cards in Leaf Stars & Rookie, Donruss Signature, and a whole bunch of different Minor League products.  

Drew's cards are obviously really easy, and inexpensive, at this point.  I know that those other two cards are also considered rookie cards, but the Fleer Update is the best of the bunch.  As a Cardinals collector, this card is borderline iconic as a modern must have card from that era.  

His 1999 cards were also really popular for much of that calendar year despite the fact that it was literally the worst full season of his Major League career.  In many circles, the expectations for Drew were still through the roof.  It was one of those moments in my collecting career where I had serious doubts that a certain segment of the baseball card collecting population actually watch the games and follow the sport.  

I am going to narrow the bloat of cards from 1999 down to my two favorites.  

First up.  

One of his first 1999 cards was in the Pacific Private Stock set.  This actually came out really early in the card calendar.  Since the Topps base set used to come out right after Thanksgiving in the late 1990s, this might have even been out before the end of 1998.  Regardless, it was a favorite set of mine from that year, I miss the Pacific brand, and one of the earliest Drew cards I remember owning.  If you do not own any of these cards, they are not hard to find in boxes and packs, the quality of the cards is excellent.  Nice stock, although they stick together in the packs now after they have been in there for 20 years.  

Last.  

I think this came out later in the summer and people were crazy about it while J.D. Drew was batting .240.  It took me several years to actually get a copy of this card.  I refused to pay whatever ridiculous price this cost back in 1999.  The other autographed card in this set, Gabe Kapler, was even pretty pricey.  I should have gone back and found an old Beckett and scanned the price listings for this set.  

As for the rest of J.D. Drew's career, I am not sure that he is ever going to receive the due that he probably deserves.  He's not a Hall of Famer, but he still had a very good career.  The Cardinals ended up trading to the Braves at the end of the 2003 season.  The trade netted the team Jason Marquis and Ray King, who were both contributors on the 2004 National League Championship team, but the real prize was Double A pitcher Adam Wainwright.  

The Braves got one really good year of Drew, while the Cardinals got a few Cy Young worthy seasons out of Wainwright and a World Series winner in 2006.  Drew eventually ended up in Boston after the Red Sox finally helped him cash in with a large contract.  He got 5 years and 70 million dollars out of Boston, not sure that Sox fans really loved Drew, but he hit .360 in the American League Championship Series that year against the Indians, and .300 against the Rockies in the World Series.  

ACC Baseball Championship: Florida State vs NC State

                       

I spent my Sunday afternoon taking in the ACC Baseball Championship at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  The game featured the 16th ranked Florida State Seminoles versus the NC State Wolfpack.  Obviously, I have a pony in this race, so I was a little disappointed in the end result.  Nonetheless, it's always great to take in a game in Durham.  Here's a look at the sight and sounds of the ACC Championship.....

WOLF PACK Chant #NCState #WPN #ACCBase

A video posted by The Snorting Bull (@thesnortingbull) on May 24, 2015 at 11:02am PDT

There have been several NC State baseball games in Durham over the years and they are always really well attended.  Today's game had almost 10,000 in attendance which set the record for the ACC Conference Championship game.  Florida State traveled well too, plus they have a good deal of alumni in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) area.  Their fan base tends to show up for a lot of their sporting events against State, Duke, Carolina, and Wake Forest.  Still, the crowd was heavily slanted in favor of my Wolfpack.  

I decided to venture around the ballpark a little bit more today then normal.  Usually I get my seat and I sit in it and my pictures are from that perspective.  Today, I traveled a bit.  Before the game started I watched the warm ups and the first half inning from the first base side of the field.  State was the visiting team, by seeding not proximity, so they were on that side of the field.  Here are some pictures.......

FROM 1st Base.......

Not to be too biased here is picture of Florida State warming up before the game.  Neither team took BP, but both teams took infield practice and the pitchers and outfielders were working on various drills.  I went and watched outfielder D.J. Stewart for a few minutes.  I saw him last summer playing for USA Baseball.  While much of his acclaim (projected first round pick) is for his bat he has a nice throwing arm too.  He made several throws during warm ups that were strong to the plate and accurate.  More on the batting down the page....

The NC State players were also working on a few drills when I arrived at the ballpark.  I had a few players on the team I wanted to watch today.

First up there is Joe Dunand.  He is the freshman third baseman on the team and decided to attend State after he slid to the Indians in the 35th round out of high school in the Miami area.  He's also ARod's nephew.  It should not really mean that much, but for some reason it does.  He's a fun player to watch and I think he's going to be good in time, but he definitely has a few things he needs to fix.   State has been batting him in the middle of the order and he has hit 7 home runs, 12 doubles, and a triple in starting almost every game as a freshman.

I also wanted to watch sweet swinging first baseman Preston Palmeiro.  He is a sophomore at State and I think he had a great year with a .316/.393/.471 line to go with 7 home runs, 12 doubles, and a triple.  He seems to have trouble laying off of breaking balls out of the zone, so I am eager to see what he can do when he figures out how to lay off of those pitches.  While, he does also get some love for being Raffy's kid, at the moment he is more famous for doing this to Miami Friday night.....

Here's one more picture of State taking infield practice.........

I watched State bat from the first base side during the first inning.  Their first two batters, Logan Ratledge and Ryne Willard both reached, but the Florida State pitcher Bryant Holtmann pitched out the jam.  Here is Ratledge on first.  This was his only hit of the day.  He has been really instrumental in helping State get into the ACC Tournament, improve their seeding, and advance to the Championship game.  Florida State did a great job of keeping him off of base today.

FROM 3rd Base....

For the bottom of the first I moved and sat on the third base side of home plate specifically to get a good view of D.J. Stewart.  There was a section that was mostly empty too.  Here is Stewart on deck. I was trying to get a picture of him next to someone, but failed.  He's not a really tall player, but he is muscled.  Also of note, John Sansone is batting in this picture for the Seminoles.  His third inning home run made it 3-0 for Florida State and was the ballgame in my opinion......

Here's a close look at Stewart's first at bat in pictures.....

Stewart's stance, style, and stature remind me a lot of Jeff Bagwell.  Bagwell did not have a leg kick, as shown in the bottom picture, but the squatting and explosion up are certainly reminiscent.  Stewart ended the year with 13 home runs and 52 RBIs.  Besides being a big guy with a big swing he also showed off a little speed by stealing a base in the first inning.  He had ten entering the game.   Some forget, but Bagwell had surprising speed too....

While I was on the third base side I also spent a little bit of time watching Preston Palmeiro bat.  The Wolfpack first baseman had a quiet day with an 0-3 with 2 Ks.  That swing looks familiar though....

Sansone's homer and a 3-0 Seminole lead took me to another location in the park......

From Left Field

Hello friend.  I decided the name sake of my blog would be a cool place to watch for awhile.  State did end up picking up two runs to narrow the lead.  The play which lead to their first run was one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen.  I think this tweet best explains the play....

#sources FSU and Mike Martin's view of the NC State dugout after that weird Infield fly play in the fourth #ACCBase pic.twitter.com/XarG8EoVoQ

— James Alverson (@JamesAlverson) May 24, 2015

 

or in summation: an NC State batter popped up a pitch with the bases loaded.  The Florida State infielders let the ball drop, no one called it, and they then threw home and forced out the runner on third.  The ball went back to the pitcher, everyone was returning to their places on the field when the Florida State coach pops out of the dugout to argue the fact that the infield fly rule should have been called.  Well, he won the argument (see highlight video at the end of the post), but allowed an NC State run in winning the argument because their catcher tagged home and not the runner.  On an infield fly rule the runners advance at their own risk and must be tagged, not forced out....

That was wordy.  FSU got out of trouble and brought in this guy........

Boomer Biegalski who slammed the door on NC State.  His 4 2/3 innings got Florida State through the 8th inning.  He struck out 5 Wolfpack batters and only allowed one hit.   He also took home the hardware as the Championship games MVP.  Nice.

From Behind Home.....

I was slightly off center.  Mainly I was trying to avoid a big glob of Seminoles fans.  Here's that D.J. Stewart at bat I promised earlier in the post.  This was a ground out, but you can see the whole squatting batting stance in motion......

DJ Stewart groundout in the 7th inning #ACCBase #FSU #Seminoles

A video posted by The Snorting Bull (@thesnortingbull) on May 24, 2015 at 12:27pm PDT

 Here are a couple other cool pictures from the bottom of the eighth and the ninth innings......

and the video highlights including the weird infield fly rule play and a really cool catch by a Florida State outfielder.

 

Trinity, Killer Patch

I do not dabble in the non-licensed sets too often, but I will bend that rule for something really cool.  I have had my eye on a couple of cards out of the Leaf Trinity set the past few weeks.  While I am not a huge fan of Leaf, they do a great job of getting recent draft picks to sign and include some really cool patch pieces too.  Initially, I was looking for some of the players who were on the NC State baseball last year.  Then I found a few Cardinals cards that I really liked.  

I decided to focus on Luke Weaver cards.  I saw him pitch for USA Baseball and Florida State the last two years and was impressed with his play.  Plus the Cardinals have done pretty well the past two years with Michael Wacha and Marco Gonzales.  So, this is what I ended up landing....

I am not sure where the patch piece ranks in my Cardinals collection, but it is pretty spectacular.  There were other cards with pieces of his name or number, but I decided a piece of the Cardinal would be even cooler.  Hopefully Mr. Weaver will make it to St Louis, but if not, this is still a really cool card. 

Oh, and the title......

ACC Baseball on Cardboard

College baseball season is getting close and I am pretty excited to check out some of our local teams around Raleigh-Durham.   I am planning on making it to several games this year and have a list of players I want to see from various colleges making trips in to play one of the three Triangle schools.   Last year both NC State and UNC made the College World Series and this year look just as promising for both teams.  NC State is lead by star pitcher Carlos Rodon and shortstop Trea Turner.  The Tar Heels will be lead by pitcher Trent Thorton and outfielder Skye Bolt.  The rest of the ACC has some talented players as well and the conference should be pretty deep this year.  

While it's great to live in an area where I have several great college baseball programs nearby, fans all across the county have had more and more access to the best players in college baseball regardless of their location.  The availability of college baseball cards has greatly increased during the past decade mainly through the popularity of the USA Baseball program and its continued popularity amongst baseball card collectors.  Here's my look at four good players in the ACC who are already featured on cardboard:


Carlos Rodon-P
NC State

Rodon projects to be the National Player of the Year, the ACC Player of the Year, and should also be the first overall draft pick in the MLB Amateur Draft this summer.  He's won every individual award there is to win during his two years in Raleigh.  He has also played a few summers over at USA Baseball which means he has several autographs and relics cards floating around already.  Here's a look at an autograph:

Rodon is a pretty hard player to collect.  He has a few cards out on the market, but they are pretty pricey for a baseball player who has not thrown his first professional pitch yet.  The average Rodon card frequently costs more than $50 and the bidding is usually very competitive.  I've been trying to get my hands on one of his new Panini cards, have the money to make a serious offer, but have been outbid, sniped at the last minute on Ebay, and everything else.  You almost have to overpay to land a copy of his cards.

Here's a look at Rodon in action:

Trea Turner-IF
NC State

 Turner currently is projected as the top position player available for this summer's MLB Draft.  Turner had a great freshman year, but had battled the injury bug a bit last year which limited his playing time.  He is incredibly fast and has pretty good patience at the plate.  Like Rodon, he's been around the USA Baseball program for a few years and has several cards out floating about.  They are much cheaper than Rodon's, but I would not say they are cheap.

Turner autographed cards are frequently more than $20.  Not a terrible price, but he still has never played an inning of professional baseball.  I think Turner is a pretty safe bet for Major League teams, so I am not sure where he will go in the first round, but he will be in there somewhere.  I would also guess he is not in the minors a really long time.


Skye Bolt-OF
North Carolina

Bolt is still another year away from the MLB Draft, but should be a pretty high pick coming up in two years.  He's a very patient hitter who posted a great average average, on-base percentage, and walked more than he struck out during his first year in Chapel Hill.  He doesn't have a ton of pop last year, but I am guessing he still develops some good power.  His cards are all from releases put out during the past year.  There are some really cool ones out there, but he's already pretty popular.  I am not sure if people love the name, or they know the potential talent.

I have a base card of Blot, but his autographs are already north of Trea Turner.  Bolt also has some great relic cards that can be found for less than $10. 


Luke Weaver-P
Florida State

Weaver was a second team ACC performer last year in Tallahassee and projects as a top 10 pitching prospect for this summer's MLB entry draft.  I did not get a chance to see Florida State's baseball team last spring, so I cannot speak on Weaver's abilities first hand.  He did pitch for the USA Baseball team this summer, but honestly I made sure that I saw Rodon when I went to their games.  Here's what I know about Weaver: he throws in the mid to low 90s and has a pretty incredible strikeout to walk ratio.  He does have baseball cards.

Weaver's cards are pretty affordable with his autographs sitting below $10 and his relic cards sitting below $5.  Worth a role of the dice given he is likely a first round draft pick. 


Name to remember for later in the summer, they will have baseball cards soon:
Trent Thronton-P University of North Carolina
Landon Lassiter-IF University of North Carolina
D.J. Stewart-OF Florida State
Bryan Radziewski-P Miami
Mark Zagunis-C Virginia Tech
Mike Papi-OF/1BVirginia
Daniel Gossett-RHP Clemson
Brett Austin-C NC State
Brandon Downes-OF Virginia
Derek Fisher-OF Virginia

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #24 Buster Posey

My Top 50 On Cardboard 
#24
Buster Posey

2010 Upper Deck Buster Posey RC 

This is one of the higher young players on my list.  There is one more who is slightly higher, but Posey belongs on this list for two reasons.  First, he's a really good player with a Hall of Fame trajectory to his career and he's only 26 and already won an MVP award, batting crown, and two World Series rings.  Posey has a ton of rookie cards if you are looking to pick one up.  I flipped through my boxes before making this post trying to find one and found literally twenty different cards to choose from for my post.  They range greatly in price, but if you are looking for just a basic Posey rookie card you should have no difficulty pulling that off for anything more than $5.

Hobby Impact-
Posey definitely has a pretty large hobby presence.  His cards are popular and you will definitely pay a pretty price for anything that is low run or autographed, or a combination of the two.  I liken Posey's hobby presence in many ways to Cal Ripken.  He's one of those players who collectors seem to universally enjoy, maybe not in Dodger land, and collectors are happy to land a good Posey card whenever, or however they can get their hands on one.  I do not specifically collect Posey cards, but I have two Posey cards which I thoroughly enjoy owning and would not consider trading or selling unless my socks were knocked off.

I will share, but both cards have already been on my blog in the past.

2008 Donruss Elite Collegiate Patches Buster Posey

I was on the lookout for one of these cards for a few years and finally tracked one down last year.  My first introduction to Buster Posey happened while he was in college playing for Florida State.  Living in the middle of the conference, within an hour of the four North Carolina schools, I heard plenty about the play of Buster Posey a few years back.  I really enjoyed getting the chance to see him a few times over the course of his college career.  These are really great looking cards and a great add for fans of college baseball.  Probably my favorite Posey autograph in my collection.

2013 Topps World Series Champions Buster Posey Patch/Autograph 

My other really cool Posey autograph comes from this year's Topps base set after the Giants won the World Series.  The patch is spectacular, but I am not a fan of the sticker autograph on a high end card.  Either way, both cards are awesome and a little taste of what collectors can find floating around from the Giants All-Star catcher.

The bottom line is that Posey cards are fun to collect and a blast to find.  There are a lot of unique cards out there and they can fit into any budget if you are willing to be patient and look hard.  If you are in the small minority of people who dump your Posey cards when you land something good, you know where to find me.

On The Field-
This one is a little bit harder to do with a young player, but let's try it out.  It would be really easy for me to sit here and point to the fact that Posey has already won two World Series rings during his brief career, but lots of players win rings and they do not necessarily contribute much to the cause.  See Ryan Dempster this year.  Posey has won two rings and had plenty to do with helping the Giants reach the pinnacle of Major League Baseball twice.

This is usually the point in the post when I point out where a player ranks on the JAWS rating system, or who their comparable Hall of Fame caliber players are on Baseball Reference and you are probably thinking I might not do that with a really young player like Posey.  You are wrong, but with young players, they always need time.  Meaning if Posey plays at his current level over an extended period of time I think there is no reason why he will not reach a really good place in his career which will merit Hall of Fame consideration.

Cureently Posey is the 86th best catcher all-time in the history of Major League Baseball.  With a career WAR of 17.5 he just behind Paul LoDuca and Ramon Hernanez.  Sounds pretty missable until you realize that Posey has equaled two guys who have basically played in the Majors for a decade in what amounts to a three year career.  In fact, the average Hall of Fame catcher has a career WAR just above 50, so Posey is already nearing the mid-point for reaching that career total.

If you want to eliminate the longevity factor with Posey, which handicaps him, we can use average OPS+ to compare him to the rest of the catchers in MLB history.  The list of players ahead of Posey on that list is incredibly short: Mike Piazza.  That's it.  He's actually tied with Joe Mauer, but with his move to first base next season, Posey will have no trouble passing him as he enters the prime of his career.  Posey, at this point in his career, ranks about 16 to 17 points ahead of the highest Hall of Fame catchers in terms of OPS+ with the highest two notable being Johnny Bench and Bill Dickey.

As with all players, this all depends on them staying healthy and playing long enough to accumulate some numbers over time.  While Posey has suffered one bad injury, and missed a chunk of the season, I actually view him as a pretty durable player.

Favorite Card-
There are several direction I could here, but I am going to highlight another one of Posey's rookie cards.  Topps put out the National Chicle set for one year, in 2010, and based the set off of the 1935 football card set with the same name.  Posey was included in the set, along with several other significant rookies.  The Posey card looked like this:

2010 Topps National Chicle Buster Posey RC

Definitely a unique card for one of Topps vintage throwback sets.  I think that Turkey Red and Ginter sometimes have similar feels in terms of the pictures and artwork.  National Chicle was just completely different.  I love the painted backgrounds with the different shapes and colors the artists used for the cards.  This Posey card has always been amongst my favorites in the set.  The Madison Bumgarner is awesome.  This is a very affordable rookie of Posey too.  Again, $5 or less will put this card into your collection.

2012 Bowman Chrome Draft James Ramsey Autograph

I picked up a new Cardinals autograph, this past week in a small trade, of Cardinals draft pick James Ramsey.  I got to see Ramsey play a few times over the past few years while he was playing at Florida State and enjoyed watching him play.  I am not sure how he will do as a professional player, but I am still trying to collect some of his cards since I saw him a few times in college.  Last summer Ramsey only played a half a season with the Palm Beach Cardinals.  During that time he only batted .229 and slugged .314.  However, he displayed great patience at the plate walking 33 times in 56 games.  Ramsey also had 13 extra base hits during his short time in A ball.

2012 Bowman Chrome Draft James Ramsey Autograph

This card is my third Ramsey autograph that I've added to my collection over the past two or three months.  Ramsey has many autograph issues already and seems like a pretty good signer.  Many of his cards are signed with Bible inscriptions and seem to have a wide range of different inscriptions.  Of the three Ramsey cards I now own, two of the Ramsey cards include inscriptions and both of them are different.

2012 Topps Pro Debut Tim Beckham

I also was able to add a Tim Beckham jersey card in this trade.  Two weeks ago I added a sweet Beckham manu-patch card from this same set and was happy to add this jersey card to compliment my other Pro Debut Beckham.  

 

Two Giants Autographed Rookies

I've slowed down a little bit on trading during the past few months in terms of quantity, but I am still finding many great quality pieces for my collection.  Earlier in this weekend, I set a goal to post a few  sets here and there and try to finish them off in a reasonable amount of time.  In fact, I should have a few updates on my Topps Tek post coming in the next few days along with another post on a set I am going to complete.  However, this past week I had time to complete a few trades with a few different traders.

My first trade for this week was for a pair of Giants cards.  I have been slowly working on assembling the Donruss Elite College Patches sets from the past several years and have had several posted in this space over the past few months.  The common cards really aren't very difficult to find, but some of the better players from the set can be challenging to find, or can be fairly pricey.  For the past year I have had my eyes open for a copy of the Buster Posey autographed patch, but have been unable to track one down until now.

2008 Donruss Elite College Patches Buster Posey Autograph 

The Posey autographed patch is one of the real highlight cards from the run of Donruss Elite College Patch cards.  I am not sure if this card is technically listed as his rookie, or not, but it often trades and sells like one.  Sure, there are other 2008 Buster Posey cards, but this card frequently approaches $100, or exceeds, $100 on the secondary market.  This card has also generally "dried up".  Meaning that it is difficult to find copies in the secondary market.  I was ecstatic to find this copy.  

2006 Topps 52 Matt Cain Autograph 

I was also able to pick up a copy of a Matt Cain Topps 52 autograph in the same trade as the Posey.  The Cain autograph is an on-card autograph, which is a plus, an hails from a really underrated set.  While there were huge quantities, four per box, of autographs signed for this set there are some really good early autographs in the set.  Some of my favorites include Matt Kemp, Ben Zobrist, and Justin Verlander. 

Three New Bowman Sterling Autographs

I am still trying to catch up a little bit from December, but I picked these three cards up a few weeks ago and haven't had a chance to post anything about them yet.  I have been a little reluctant to add Bowman Sterling autographs before in the past since they are a high end product that I won't open myself and they tend to be sticker autographs.  The players in the Bowman Sterling set often have cards in the Topps Chrome set, Bowman Chrome set, or Bowman base set that are nicer in appearance and are on card autographs.

For example, a few years ago I had the opportunity to see Orioles outfielder Nolan Reimold play a few games against the Durham Bulls and was really impressed by him.  I came home and found a few Reimold autographs include a Bowman Sterling.

2009 Bowman Sterling Nolan Reimold

While this is a very nice card, and it was very inexpensive, I can't imagine that the person who pulled it out of the Bowman Sterling pack, $50 range, would be very happy.  I paid less than $5 for this card including shipping.  However, I don't like to settle for sticker autographs, so I also tracked down this Bowman Heritage.  The autograph is on card and I paid the same exact price for it as the Bowman Sterling.  

2007 Bowman Heritage Nolan Reimold

Over the last few years, little has changed with the Bowman Sterling product.  It continues to be a high end product that features sticker autographs and a steep sticker price.  I gave the product little thought as it was released a few weeks ago, but I did take a few minutes one day to check out a Chris Archer autograph.  I found several copies of the card on Ebay and COMC, but also saw that the card featured sticker autograph.  The card design was cool, but I figured I could get a copy of the Archer as a throw in as part of a trade.

A week later, I ran into a copy of the Marcus Stroman autograph and was really impressed by the card. The blue background was nice and simple compared to whatever is behind Nolan Reimold above and best of all, the autograph was on card.  Copies of the card were inexpensive on Ebay, but I also found a few available for trade.  I went the trade route and landed a copy of Stroman, who pitched at Duke, and a few other cards from the Bowman Sterling to go along with it.  (Smudges on the card protector)

2012 Bowman Sterling Marcus Stroman Autograph

I was happy to get the Stroman since I collect his cards, but I was a little bit more excited about landing a Nick Castellanos autograph too.  Castellanos is a Tiger's minor leaguer who hit over .400 last year in the Florida State League and also won the MVP award at the Futures Game in Kansas City last summer.  I've been trying to pick up a few more Tigers cards over the past year, so this card was a very welcome addition.  I am hoping he gets up to Toledo this summer, so I can see him play in Durham.  If not, I am sure it will happen soon enough.  

2012 Bowman Sterling Nick Castellanos Autograph 

My third, and final card, for the evening is another Bowman Sterling card.  I saw James Ramsey play twice for Florida State the past few years, once at an NC State game and another time at the ACC baseball tournament in Durham.  Ramsey was one of the better players on the FSU team, but I am not quite sold on him as a Major League Player.  He's a good player, but I am not sure he does anything really well.  A lot of people said the same thing about Jon Jay, from U. of Miami, and he has turned out pretty well, so I will hold on to the card and see how things turn out.  

2012 Bowman Sterling James Ramsey Autograph