Black and Old Gold Scherzer

I don't have a collection of Max Scherzer cards and I am not going to start one anytime soon.  Still, I have been on the lookout for one of his cards for a few months now.  Different things have gotten in the way during that time.  Me not paying attention to the end of Ebay auctions, getting sniped at the end of Ebay auctions, and me not willing to spend $79.99 on a Buy It Now for a Max Scherzer card.  

The card I have been on the lookout for features Scherzer during his time at the University of Missouri.  I went to another public university in Missouri, but I grew up rooting for the Tigers.  I went to basketball and football games, had siblings attend the school, and many friends from high school.  

I was living in North Carolina the majority of the time that Scherzer was at Mizzou, but I did get to see him play with play with the USA Baseball College Team.  

I have always thought it would be cool to have seen Scherzer actually pitch a game for the Tigers.  There is no going back at this point, so I have dabbled in Scherzer cards at times when I have had a chance to add a copy of him wearing the black and old gold.  I think my first Scherzer card in a Mizzou uniform was out of the 2007 Donruss Elite set, I will post it on another day.  

So, here is my second....

I love the picture of Scherzer in the Mizzou uniform obviously.  The design of the card is really simple, but I like the fact that it draws your eye towards the signature and the picture.  Yes, the signature is a sticker autograph which is always something I try to avoid, but in this case I am making past it just fine.  

The Best Ryan Howard Around

I found this really sweet Ryan Howard card last week.  Being a St. Louis native, having a few St. Louis collectors left in my circle within the hobby, that's always been a pretty popular name.  There is that one Ryan Howard who is from the western part of St. Louis County, went to Layfette High School, and then played at Missouri State until the Phillies drafted him.  Yes, that Ryan Howard is a pretty popular player, lots of baseball cards of that guy.

A few summers ago I ran into Ryan Howard.  He was playing at USA Baseball.  Always good to see a player from back home in person.  Here he is......

the other Ryan Howard.  

The other Ryan Howard is also from the metro St. Louis area hailing from St. Charles County, which is just across the Missouri River from St. Louis County.  He played his college baseball at Mizzou and also appeared on the USA Baseball Collegiate team. 

Playing for Team USA means baseball cards.  Howard has several, but I went for an autographed version.....

There are actually several different Ryan Howard USA Baseball autographs, but this is the only one that has an on-card autograph.  Although he does have a nice looking one with a signed acetate slab.  I know it's a short cut around a sticker, but they look nice....

Maybe if I can find one that is a little bit less expensive I will go for it.  In the meantime, he became a former college player last summer when he drafted by the Giants and made his debut playing in the short season Northwest League.  He even had a card in Bowman Chrome last year.....

I am hoping that he will get a few more cards at some point this summer.  Maybe even an autograph in something?  Even if the other Ryan Howard gets shut out of baseball card sets for the first half of the summer, he is currently hitting .317 with the Giants High A team in San Jose.  That's worth a few baseball cards, right? 

Looking forward to more of this Ryan Howard, who just happens to be at the moment, the best Ryan Howard around.  

A Venerable Old Card Part 54

A little non-baseball post for your Monday morning flashing back to my high school years growing up in St. Louis.  I was a college basketball fan back in those days even though Missouri isn't necessarily the hoops hotbed that is North Carolina.  St. Louis has had some really talented players over the last twenty years, but the basketball program at Mizzou has done almost nothing to keep any of that skill in state.  Larry Hughes, David Lee, Jayson Tatum, and Bradley Bealare just a few of the examples.... The program has even struggled to keep players from other parts of the state around like Tyler Hansbrough and Otto Porter.

Not to say every year over the past two decades has been terrible, but there haven't been many bright spots.  When I was a kid it was sort of the opposite situation.  The school employed Norm Stewart as their coach, he's in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and he generally had competitive teams.  The best Mizzou team that I got to watch was the 1993-1994 team, which was one of the last years that the Big 8 existed.

A brief summary of the season:  The Tigers lost their opening game to Arkansas by 52 points.  The previous season's Most Valuable Player from the National Junior College Athletic Association's Championship game, one Paul O'Liney, watched the game and decided that he should go to Mizzou and help out their basketball team.  The senior heavy team then rolls off the rest of the regular season with only one more loss, which took place against Notre Dame, in January.  They ran the table in the Big 8 becoming the first team to do it since the 1971 Kansas Jayhawks.  Since the conference does not exist anymore, it's safe to say that they will be the last to do it.

The team was led by senior guard Melvin Booker who ended the year as the Big 8 Player of the Year and a first team All-America selection.  Previous to the 1993-1994 season he had also earned All-Big 8 honors during the 1992-1993 season.  While Booker was a great college player, he only managed a total of 32 games in the NBA with the Rockets, Nuggets, and Warriors.  

Still, the great college guard ended up with a few basketball cards.  I ended up with a copy of one just the other day.  It's even signed.....

I don't really know much of anything about this product, but it seems like there are tons of cool college basketball players in here.  I ended up with a couple of these cards, but I really liked this Booker card the best out of the lot of cards I picked up from this set.  Happy to have a card of one of my favorite college basketball players from my past.  

I hear his son is a fairly good basketball player too. 

  

Back to baseball tomorrow.