I bought a blaster of Ginter a few weeks back and pulled a Corbin Burnes printing plate.
I am not sure if I have ever pulled a printing plate out of a pack of retail cards. Pretty cool.
I got two copies of the Blake Snell autograph. The regular one.
Last week I found two Cardinals autographs that I was interested in adding. The first was a copy of the Tyler O'Neill autograph. Interested in seeing him play a bit more. The Cardinals lack offense, O'Neill seems like he can hit for power. I have not done much with his cards recently.
He has other autographs and nice cards floating around, but I am going to pass on them all for right now. Just one.
This is one I have had on my list since the checklist for Ginter first came out.....
Ankiel autographs always seem to be expensive when they first come out, but they eventually settle down at some point. After waiting a few weeks, I was finally able to add this card at a price I was comfortable with paying. Topps did a great job of being neutral on pitcher/outfielder Rick Ankiel.
and that's it for Ginter, I am done.
Unless one of the serial numbered Snell autographs ends up selling cheap.
I have been enjoyed watching the new look Cardinals, who have been playing great baseball since the team fired Mike Matheny and made over the bullpen. I need to find some cards of their new players and add to what I have of others who now seem like they are going to be part of the team for awhile. In my opinion, one of the most intriguing young players added to the roster is outfielder Tyler O'Neill.
The Cardinals picked him up in a trade with the Mariners last summer in exchange for pitcher Marco Gonzales. He seems to have a little bit of power.....
which was a large factor in the Cardinals trading for him.
I actually went out and got a couple of Mariners cards of him last year after the trade. Mostly Bowman and Pro Debut cards since he was still in the Minors at that time. Nice cards, but nothing with him in a Cardinals uniform came out last year.
This year O'Neill has started showing up as a Cardinal in several different Topps products. I have been a little slow on finding them, it's not like they are expensive or difficult to find.
I felt motivated last weekend after watching him have a good series against the Rockies on Players Weekend. Well, except his jersey nickname was a little weak.
He was one of the rare players who just put his last name on his uniform. After the last game of the series he had an online poll to select his nickname for his 2019 Player's Weekend uniform. Bro'Neill ended up winning. I am looking forward to seeing that next year.
I went simple for my first few O'Neill cards in a Cardinals uniform. I always like finding autographs of Cardinals players, O'Neill does have one, but it is from some Panini something. Not a big fan of the card, maybe another day on that Cardinals autograph. In the end, I went with a few Topps Chrome cards.
I said simple, meaning that I paid more for shipping than for the cards. Not simple, figuring out what all the different texture and color variations in Topps Chrome. Here are my three cards, I went for some easier to identify variations. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments.
Easiest one first.
I know this one is just a refractor. Remember when this was the only variation in most of the Chrome products? Me too. I like the action shot in the card. This is also an airburshed picture, but it is actually pretty well done. The uniform number is wrong, so is the batting helmet, but otherwise this looks like an adult actually made this card......
.....as opposed to most of the Topps airbrushed cards.
This one is also fairly easier to identify. I like most of the texture variations in this set more than the color variations. However, this is one color variation that I really enjoy. Sort of wish Topps did something more with sepia pictures. Not sure I can put into words what I like about this look, but it's a nice card.
Last one.
This is a prism card. Hard to tell from the scan, but there is sort of an inverted triangle pattern going from the top to the bottom of the card if you hold it just right. You can kind of see it in the scan on the left side of the card behind O'Neill.
Overall, a few nice O'Neill cards in a Cardinals uniform. Hopefully many more to come.
This week has kicked off my summer vacation. I teach, but I have a little bit of a different schedule. I work for roughly nine weeks at a time, rarely less, sometimes more, before I get three to four weeks off. Again, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less on the breaks. I often travel with my wife and kids, but I also spend time attending baseball games.....
and working on my baseball cards.
I need to post an updated picture of my card room, but I have come a long way since last summer. This popped up on my Facebook memories feed today.....
My closet team boxes have been switched out for set boxes, which has been a slow process over the last few years. I also had a doubles table, which was just a large wood desk covered in extra cards that I pulled out as I was assembling sets. Some of those cards have been traded, some have been given away, some have been boxed up, and others have gone to other odd places.
Beyond sets, I am also working on some of my Cardinals cards today. I picked out a few of my favorites to share on this post. I am going to go with two new autographs and two new cards of one of my favorite current Cardinals prospects.
Autographs first, prospect cards second.
First up is a Tommy Pham from this year's Tier One set. Before last year there were not that many Tommy Pham autographs floating around out there. I was actually lucky enough to pull one out of a Topps box a few years back. Pham seems to be in almost everything nowadays. He's got a nice autograph, and while he is not having his best year, I still enjoy watching him play.
I like the looks of this card too. The diamond pattern, the hues of gray in the background, and best of all, the on-card autograph is very nice.
Next.
I like Jack Flaherty. I am not sure how good of a pitcher he will be in the long run, but I am hopeful that he will continue to pitch well. More than a strikeout per inning, an ERA under 3.00, and a WHIP right around 1. Seems like he might be a nice one-two punch with Carlos Martinez the next few years. I like the the horizontal layout of the Pham more than the Flaherty, but all of the Flaherty autographs from this product are all vertical cards.
Prospect cards.
Tyler O'Neill is probably my favorite Cardinals prospect at the moment. The guy hits home runs, offers something that the Cardinals really do not have at the moment. When the Cardinals traded for him last summer his cards were fairly inexpensive. He's hit really well this year between a brief stint with the Cardinals and Triple A. The prices on his cards have been creeping up this year, but I am still trying to slowly add some of his cards.
This is from last year's Bowman set. I know there are a lot of different refractors, colored parallels, etc in Bowman. This card is a mega box refractor. I am not sure why Topps/Bowman has gone to all the different types of cards with different patterns in the background. Who knows.
Last card for this post, another Bowman. This is from the 2016 Bowman Chrome set. The Top 100 Prospects inserts have been a long running item in these sets for the last eight or nine years. Not sure what the point of the Top 100 Updates set is exactly. The back of the card has a little blurb about him, but nothing insightful or having to deal with his status as a good prospect.
A really quick post about some Minor League cards. I was initially worried earlier this year when I saw that there was a Bowman TEK product on the card release calendar, but no Topps TEK. Luckily, Topps still managed to put out the regular set, which meant that after taking care of finding a couple cards out of it, I could move on and check out the Minor League version of one of my favorites.
There are some Rays/Durham Bulls and Cardinals players in the set, some of them even have a few autographs. I decided to go a little bit different route for my first Bowman TEK cards, but still knocked a card out from one of my favorite teams.
The first card I picked up is actually a player I saw while he was in college.
A.J. Puk was one of the better college pitchers a few years ago while he was at the University of Florida. He spent a summer pitching locally in central North Carolina with the USA Baseball team. I managed to see him pitch a combined no hitter with Tanner Houck (Missouri/Red Sox) and Ryan Hendrix (Texas A&M/Reds). Makes him an automatic favorite.
I have a few other nice Puk cards that I have picked up the last two years. This TEK card was something a little different. Puk has always had a really simple signature and I like that he signed his cards in a spot away from the pattern.
I know that there are a bunch of different patterns on the TEK cards, but I didn't even worry about that when I bought this card. Just picked one I liked and went with it. The overall design of the set is nice. My only complaint would be the card backs.....
Seriously, why even bother with a stat line? It is barely readable.
Next card is a Cardinals player.....
just not on this card.
The team picked up Tyler O'Neill last summer in a trade with the Mariners for pitcher Marco Gonzales. The Cardinals do have a ton of outfielders, but they do not have a ton of power hitters which is what O'Neill should bring them.
I posted a few O'Neill cards this summer after the trade. Still waiting for a Cardinals card of this prospect, maybe soon, but until then I am willing to take on some more Mariners cards. I kind of dig the picture of him on the card. These don't have the standard backgrounds, but he looks like he's taking a big swing.
The back of the card is the same as Puk's with the tiny stat line....
but the background silhouette is a little bit clearer on this card. It's a common design element on the TEK cards, but it does not show up very well on the Puk card.
Canada has contributed greatly to the world of sports cards over the years. Where would we be without hockey cards.....
or football cards from a league with a 55 yard line and field goal posts in the front of the end zone? (Go Redhawks! Beat Kansas)
or baseball cards with the players position written on the front in both French and English?
I shutter to think of a world without all of these great contributions that our fine neighbors to the north have made to my favorite hobby. The Canadians have also had a pretty good run of producing some fairly nice baseball players. The Cardinals have even had a few over the years, most of them not as good as Fergie Jenkins or Joey Votto, but still good.
Who remembers Stubby Clapp?
He's actually turned into a really nice Minor League Manager for the Cardinals currently working for their Triple A team in Memphis.
John "Axman" Axford? Probably a better memory for Brewers fans, but I actually have a card of him playing for the Canadian National Baseball team......
He's been making some pretty funny tweets recently about being an unemployed baseball player. Then there is Larry Walker who is easily the best Canadian born player to have ever worn the Birds on the Bat.
Walker played for the Cardinals the last year and a half of his career. Not sure people always remember him ending his career in St. Louis, definitely a very memorable career with the Expos and Rockies, still a nice player during that time for the Cardinals.
His power dropped off and he was much more of a role player behind stars like Pujols, Edmonds, Rolen, and Chris Carpenter.
It's been awhile since the Cardinals have had a Canadian on the roster, but there is a pretty talented outfielder in Triple A right now who has a pretty good shot at getting to St. Louis in the near future.
Meet Tyler O'Neill.
The Cardinals actually traded for him this summer. He was originally drafted by the Mariners out of high school back in 2013, but was traded over to St. Louis in exchange for Marco Gonzales. Over the last three years in the Mariners system his home runs totals have been 32 in 2015, 24 in 2016, and 29 this summer. Almost every major baseball publication who ranks prospects puts him within the Top 50 in all of the Minor Leagues.
Seemed like the type of player you'd buy a baseball card of, file it away in a box for a few years, and then revisit it at some point in the future. So, I set out to find one. Maybe two.
Here's the first one I found.
For a Top 50 prospect, who hits a lot of home runs, his cards aren't too expensive. I mean, they aren't giving them away on Ebay, but it's realistic to set a $5-$10 budget and walk away with something fairly nice. I ended up with this Bowman's Best autograph which made me very happy. There is a nice finish on this card and the signature is on-card, always a plus.
The only thing I don't like about this particular set of Bowman's Best, 2016, is the honeycomb design in the background of the card. Sort of reminds me of the alternate Georgia Tech football helmets.
Now the really nice autograph. I have always loved this set, every year it has been released, and was happy to have another player with a Cardinals connection in this set.
This is also a 2016 card, but the year doesn't really matter with the Inception brand. Topps always does a really nice job with the cards. It's one of the few sets with a dark background that still looks good with a signature on the front. The autograph of O'Neill is consistent between the two cards, but this is easily my favorite of the two. If he were to not remain on the Cardinals, they do have a ton of outfielders between their Major League and Triple A rosters, I would still keep this card. The scan doesn't even really do the nice card stock used justice.
Hopefully I can look back at this card in a few years and O'Neill will already be amongst the best Canadians to ever play for the Cardinals. Not sure that's a very high bar considering that would mean being better than Stubby Clapp and John Axford.
