Stadium Club has been back as an annual release for Topps for 3 years now and one of my favorite parts of the rehashed product is the Triumvirate cards. These puzzle piece looking cards really started in the late 1990s Stadium Club sets, but came along for the ride when Topps brought back the brand. I was quite happy with the decision.
One of the original Triumvirate cards from the 1990s....
I don't run out and put together the entire insert set or anything, but I tend to work on the Cardinals and a few other single cards of players that I enjoy collecting. Former Durham Bulls mainly. Last year the Cardinals Triumvirate set featured Jason Heyward, Yadi, and Adam Wainwright. Looked nice all put together at the end.....
Not quite sure about that Heyward card in the middle, but overall a really nice looking set of Cardinals cards. The 2016 Triumvirate Cardinals set featured all pitchers. The single cards....
I like the background on this year's set a little bit better than last year. I know that the green color sort of gives a little bit of a Christmas vibe with the red on the Cardinals uniforms, but I still think it works well with the black background at the top of the card fading down to a light grey at the bottom. Rosenthal was probably a solid choice for this set when the good folks at Topps were putting this set together, but he had some struggles this year.
Wacha is the other end piece in the puzzle. I honestly would have loved to see Carlos Martinez is this spot instead of Wacha, but I do not get to pick the players for the cards. Of all the young arms the Cardinals have brought up over the last three to four years, CMart has clearly turned out to be the best. Not to say that Wacha hasn't had his moments. See 2013 playoffs.
The center card in the set belongs to Adam Wainwright. I've got no complaints here. It's getting late in his career, nice to see him pick up a few more insert cards along the way.
All three cards put together....
Looks sharp. I cannot wait for the 2017 Stadium Club set, I will put this together again next summer.
I opened a little bit of Topps Update last weekend and walked away with an obscene number of throwbacks. There were other cards in the boxes outside of the all of those cool 60s and 70s Topps cards. For this week's Friday Five I am going to work a little bit with the base set cards from the Update set. I tried to go through and pick out just the five coolest cards from the set, but that proved a fairly tough task. So, instead I am going with five cool things I found in my two boxes of Update using five(ish) cards.
5. Former Durham Bulls in the Majors
The ultimate goal of a minor league team is to graduate players to the Major Leagues. Even if they do not end up playing for the Rays in the long term, it is still cool to watch a baseball game and see somebody in there from the Bulls. This year's Topps Update set offered several Durham Bulls, but since this post is using five(ish) cards I am going to limit this section of my blog post to exactly five cards.
First, there are the normal Minor League types who get called up to the Majors and make the team. Mahtook was a high draft pick by the Rays out of LSU and Andriese was in the Brad Boxberger/Logan Forsythe trade with the Padres. Both players had been with the Bulls before this season and had proven their worth to the Rays.
Then there are a few former Durham Bulls who are good stories. Joey Butler was a career Minor Leaguer who started the year out in Durham, but spent the majority of the summer with the Rays playing well in his first extended stay in the Majors. Sometimes players like Butler can fly under the radar in the Update sets, great to see Topps get him a card.
Stephen Vogt has an All-Star card in the set. He was kind of a forgotten player with the Rays and ended up being more or less dumped in a conditional trade to the A's. Awesome to see him get a little recognition for his good play this year with a trip to the All-Star game.
and then there is this card. Yes, Travis Shaw is a nice looking prospect for the Red Sox, but Allan Dykstra is also on the card. Last summer he won the Triple A All-Star Game home run derby in Durham. He signed a minor league deal with the Rays, spent time in the Majors during April, but was released in the middle of the summer. He still has the championship belt.....
4. Former Cardinals on the All-Star Team
It was great to see Albert Pujols regain some of his power this summer, although his slash line was down across the board, and make the American League All-Star team. Shelby Miller was a really good story this year. Sure, his win-loss record was something terrible, but he still pitched well for the Braves and seems to be an important part of the team's future.
3. Current Cardinals All-Stars
I really liked these cards in the Update set. Not every team has a card like this, but I liked the idea of having a team like card show the All-Star Game representatives. Not sure why they did not just make this a straight team card instead of assigning it to a player, this is a Trevor Rosenthal card, but I still like it. These guys all got booed......
2. Jason Heyward on the Cardinals
I'm not sure if the Cardinals are going to sign Heyward. I have enjoyed watching him play this year, but this card could be just about the last wearing a Cardinals uniform, or this could be the start of a long run of cards with him in Cardinal red.
1. Rookie Cards
The best part of buying Update sets is the rookie cards. I liked the Joey Gallo and Kris Bryant cards the best. I swear that's Joey Gallo in all of that Gatorade. Pretty cool card. The Bryant card is a little simpler, but it's always nice to see a card with Wrigley Field in the background.
I started doing these posts last month when I picked out the best five cards that I picked up in trades or purchased that did not appear in a blog post. The cards pictured here might have been throw-ins with other cards or they might have been something that was picked up quickly and cheaply. So, let's do a quick run down:
1999 Upper Deck PowerDeck Tony Gwynn
The PowerDeck cards were pretty unique. You do not see a lot of CD Rom cards floating around, but the concept was short lived. I think I had a bunch of these back in the day, but I either traded them off or sold them. This card was a whole $0.99. I am not going to stick it in my computer for fear that the software of yesteryear would somehow mess up my computer.
2013 Bowman Hometown Flags Trevor Rosenthal
Little more straightforward on this card. This is the second year in a row that Bowman has added a flag variation to their base set. I believe that 1997 was the first year that Bowman put the flags on cards. Over the years they have used maps and goofy palm tree pictures to show where players reside. I like this Rosenthal card since he is a Cardinal and a native of Missouri. Might need to find a North Carolina card. Seth Maness?
2001 Topps Traded Royce Clayton
From a current Cardinal to a former Cardinal. Royce Clayton was the Cardinals shortstop for two and a half seasons before he was traded to the Rangers. He was originally acquired by the Cardinals from the Giants and would be giving the starting shortstop job in 1996 over one Osborne Earl Smith. Clayton would eventually become sort of a journeyman shortstop and later star in the movie Moneyball as Miguel Tejada. Really.
2013 Topps Museum Jarrod Parker Dual Jersey Autograph
I have put up several Museum Collection cards over the past few weeks, but did not post this card. Jarrod Parker is not the best baseball player, but this card is exactly why I cannot stand sticker autographs. I have 90% of a Jarrod Parker autograph, but someone else apparently has the other 10% of the signature. Bum deal.
2008 Donruss Elite Collegiate Patches Mark Melancon Autograph
Decent player having a great season for the Pirates. I have picked up a bunch of these Donruss patches over the years and always think it's cool to see a few of the Major League players in their college uniforms.
