It's not Friday, but it's the effort that counts. I love a good countdown post, but I have never consistently made them. Sometimes my day job interferes with other aspects of my life.
It's Super Bowl weekend, so I am thinking about something with football.
There is a bit of a problem though.
If I had to make a post out of football cards, it would be short and feature only a few former NC State players I enjoyed watching along with a few Rams from their time in St. Louis. I might have enough Mike Glennon and/or Jacoby Brissett cards to give them their own post. I know everyone loves a good Mike Glennon card, so I am going to post one and let you know I went a different direction.
Honestly, the title was just a ruse to get people to read the post. This is actually going to be about baseball cards, but they are all of a player who was in the NFL at one point thirty years ago.
There are videos of Brian Jordan playing football on the internet, but most are over five minutes and you're not going to watch that. I am not either. Instead, here is Brian Jordan running over Gary Bennett with Vin Scully on the call.
As a former Cardinals player, I have a healthy collection of Brian Jordan cards, so it took a few minutes to flip through them all and narrow the list down to five cards and a marble.
Honorable Mention: 1997 Topps Pro Shooters Marble
Ray Lankford is also in this set, which is why I ended up with the Brian Jordan marble. The guy who was selling these insisted that I needed to buy all his Cardinals marbles if I wanted the Lankford. Pretty interesting item and they have become rather difficult to find over the years. There are currently none for sale on Ebay or COMC. Although, someone is selling a wrapper on Ebay for $18.
5. 2001 Fleer GameTime Patch Card
There are not many Brian Jordan relic cards out there, let alone ones with patch pieces. Add in the fact that this is the only set that has a Ray Lankford relic, and its always been one of my favorites. If only it were a Cardinal card. I own several copies of this card, all with different patch pieces. I need to scan them all and puzzle piece together how much of the Braves logo from his jersey I own.
4. 1998 Fleer Ultra
This is the best picture on a Brian Jordan card and it's not even close. Maybe it's silver medal to one of the cards on this list, but it is very, very good. This is one of those cards that is fifty cents on COMC and Ebay and there is no reason why you should not own it. I also own the fancy gold version, shown below, but not the ultra-fancy serial numbered version.
3. 1996 Leaf Signature
This was my first great Brian Jordan card, which fittingly came out in 1996. The 1996 Cardinals were a fun collection of young players from the post-Whiteyball rebuild (Jordan, Lankford), free agents (Ron Gant, Andy Benes), and Oakland A's retreads who came over with LaRussa (Stottlemyre, Eck). Also add in Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee to mix as bench players. Few remember the team coming within a win of the World Series. Lankford and Gant were better players than Jordan during the regular season, but Jordan was incredibly clutch for the team in the playoffs.
The best of those clutch moments was his series clinching home run off of Trevor Hoffman in Game 4 of the NLDS.
Jordan has also signed a bunch of cards for the Topps Archives Signature products, some of which are really nice. My favorite is this autograph on his 1997 Topps card. If I were going Top 10, this would have made it. I will add it as a mid-post Honorable Mention instead.
2. 1998 Topps
Easily one of the best Cardinals cards that Topps has ever produced for their flagship set. This is the best picture on a Jordan card, gold medal all the way. You know the Bo Jackson card where he is wearing shoulder pads with a bat across his shoulders? That's a great card, but I think this is its equal in many ways in the eyes of people who collect Cardinals cards. If nothing else, Jordan had a much better baseball career than Bo.
It's true.
1. 2000 Hologrfx Piece of the Series
Brian Jordan's lone career World Series appearance came in 1999 as a member of the Braves. He played a very well in both the NLDS and NLCS, most notably hitting a home run off of Mike Hampton in Game 3 of the first round with the Braves trailing late in the game. Had the Braves lost, they would have been down 2-1 in the Series and facing elimination on the road.
Upper Deck made a nice World Series themed insert for their 2000 Hologrfx product, which featured the stat players from the Braves and Yankees. Each player had a relic card that featured a "game-used" piece of base. Don't get me started and also an autographed parallel numbered to the players uniform number.
Super rare Jordan autograph shown above. Base insert card with base shown below.
Let's do this again next weekend. Maybe even on Friday.
Score was always one of my favorite late 1980s/early 1990s baseball card brands. When they introduced Pinnacle, their premium brand in 1992, did I rush out and buy these cards?
No.
These cards were $1.99 per pack and the regular Score cards were $0.50. I got so many more cards for my money by sticking to the non-premium brands of baseball cards. I did not do much with Pinnacle cards until I was an adult. The boxes have never been as cheap as other junk wax era products, because there are some sweet autographs of Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio. Never mind the fact that the odds of pulling one of those cards is steeper than winning the Powerball.
Here is the Lankford.
I like the overall design with the black border. It would be nice if the picture were a little larger and the border were thinner, but I can live with it as is.
Many of the cards in this Pinnacle set have nice action shots, including this Lankford. Being a card from early in his career, I like that his jersey is dirty on in the picture. Lankford was a big stolen base/speed threat the first few years he played, but slowed down as he moved into the middle of the lineup. His knees weren't the best at the end of his career either.
The red color name bar stands out nicely with the black background.
Back of the card.
It's busy, but there is a lot to like here. I like the contrast with the dark background and the white writing over the top. The black and white back pops and it is easy to read the write-up on the side of the card and the stats. The transition over to the green name bar and accents is nice on the eyes. The center photo is not the best, but this looks like something from Spring Training media day, aka stock scoreboard photograph.
I couldn't find his 1991 or 1992 team photo, but all the same energy as the photo below which graced Major League video boards whenever Lankford took an at-bat in 1998.
Speaking of which, the person who did the write-up actually knew something about the Cardinals and Ray Lankford. Although, the team really let Vince Coleman leave as a free agent, because their owner, one of the August Busch kids, was cheap. Same with McGee, but they traded him before he became a free agent. That stat line is incredible with nearly double-digits in all the extra base categories and nearly 50 stolen bases.
I hope everyone had a great weekend. My highlights included going to the NC State and Georgia Tech basketball game Saturday afternoon with my son and father and getting to do a little writing for this space.
My Wolfpack ended up winning, but it was closer than it needed to be.
On to baseball stuff.
My writing this weekend focused on my card room. I drafted a few posts and am obviously publishing this one. Over the past fifteen years, my wife has tried to keep me focused on just sticking with baseball cards and not saving everything. She has been largely successful, but there are still plenty of non-baseball card items that occupy a place in my baseball card room.
These items are going to be part of my story.
Today, I am going to show off one of my favorite Durham Bulls bobbleheads. Half of the baseball card room has shelves around it that hold bobbleheads and figurines that were largely giveaways at baseball games. My item for this week comes from this shelf of Durham Bulls stuff.
Today's item is a Chris Archer bobblehead that was given away at a Rays game in 2016. I did not attend the game and ended up with this item via eBay. I think I might have paid more in shipping than for the bobble, but Archer is one of my favorite former Durham Bulls players.
Chris Archer not only played for the Durham Bulls, but also lives locally outside of Raleigh. He had an autograph signing a few years back at the USA Baseball National Team complex. Really nice guy.
He personalized everything. Loved some of these inscriptions.
These were the autographs he signed for myself and my son.
My wife also tagged along to get a baseball signed for her brother who is a big Tigers fan.
I have been waiting for Chris Archer to end up on the Tigers.
This experience earned my fandom, which is why the bobblehead of Archer in on my shelf. Here is the front of the bobblehead.
The bobble includes a K counter, which is a neat feature considering Archer's propensity for missing bats. He's averaging more than a strikeout per inning throughout his career with 1,454 Ks in 1,357 innings. Unfortunately, he has not had the best luck with health during his career, so I have not really updated the K Counter the last few years. In 2016, when this bobble was given away, Chris Archer struck out 252 batters. Last year, he struck out 84. Big drop off.
Injuries stink and it's honestly amazing that he is still even playing.
I also love that Archer is shown smiling on the bobble. He is a fun player and a happy person while he is pitching. He's not Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson, or Max Scherzer.
Let's not forget the time Archer created a fake college degree for the Astros mascot so the Rays players could pelt him with water balloons before a game.
Back of the bobble.
Love the back of the bobble with the Rays sock pattern. Archer has worn his socks high throughout his career.
The last day of school before the holiday break, the average elementary school classroom teacher is bombarded with cards and gifts. Many of them these days are simply gift cards. Living in a double teacher household, there is a drawer in a kitchen that has a huge stack of them. My wife organizes them with some going towards specific days or events and others are just free to use whenever.
Earlier this week, I decided to use a Target gift card to buy a box of cards. The card aisle was completely stocked. I took a few minutes to soak in all of my choices, but decided to roll the dice on a box of Panini Capstone. It looked different and after all, I was not really paying for these cards.
Not my actual box, but it stood out from the others.
During that time, I could have easily taken out my phone and researched the product, but the fact that it was not one of the same five or six Topps products that have been lingering on the shelves for the past few months played a large role in my decision.
Here is the base card.
The scan does not show the card stock, but it's nice. That is what Capstone has going for it. Card stock. The pictures are boring and the design is really lackluster. Is that Arial font?
This card back is nothing special, but it might be better than the front of the card.
So, here is the good news. I pulled an autograph and the design of that card is far superior than the rest of the cards in this product. Feels like a little throwback to the Pacific baseball cards with the crown theme in the background.
Plus, Hoy Park is having an interesting off-season. He was on the Pirates at the end of last season. At some point he was traded to the Red Sox, who traded him to the Braves, who released him. Where will Hoy Park play next year? Thinking I might need to see someone make a Red Sox and Braves cards of him.
These are the "base cards" that I pulled out of my blaster. What is the best card here?
Personally, I like the Vidal Brujan card, because he was on the Durham Bulls the last two years. The answer is actually probably Bobby Witt. The rest of these cards are going to get taped to the door of my classroom at school. Not even kidding. Might keep that Shane McClanahan card too.
Blue parallels.
No serial numbers, but the little Capstone logo is in the corner is blue. I like the Arenado, but just because it's an Arenado card. Not many other reasons to like the card.
These are two other rarer parallels.
The Trea Turner card has a gold Capstone logo, but again no serial number. The Josiah Gray card is some sort of textured parallel. You can see the raised squares in the scan. This is actually a really nice card, not even being sarcastic. Seriously.
I also pulled three insert cards.
These two were decent. Nice Wander Franco card to add to the collection.
The last insert card is bizarre. Here is the front.
Let's talk. Card companies need to stop putting young, twenty-somethings on cards with Hall of Famers. These types of cards just rarely age well. So, the front of the card is not that bad, considering Panini put Rickey Henderson on the same card as some random White Sox player. Which bring me to the back, which is a slippery slope of terrible.
So, Rickey Henderson stole bases, but Luis Robert steals runs as a defender?
Did I read that correctly?
Seems like a huge stretch.
This whole box of cards was a huge stretch. I don't know what I was thinking.
It's the end of January and this is just my third post of the year and none of the posts have been on the topic of my baseball card room. I have spent some serious time in there recently working on cards. If only I had time to sit down and write about it.
This is the current stack of cards that I am sorting out.
Just loose singles that do not belong to a set. Most of these were organized while I was watching the NC State and Wake Forest basketball game on Saturday afternoon. I went to the women's game on Sunday against Notre Dame. I should have brought a stack with me to the arena.
Both NC State teams are good this year. The women's team has been ranked the entire season, the men's team is just outside the Top 25.
On to the Pujols card.
Topps has done a really good job with their Pujols cards this year. They have all been good cards including this Heritage card.
The front of the card.
Good shot of him clapping for something in the Cardinals dugout. While I was putting this card away I ran across his 2001 Bowman Heritage, which was his first appearance in a Heritage product. I thought the cards bookended well next to each other. The first card is a black and white photo of a young, clean-shaven Pujols waiting to bat. The final card is in color and shows him on the bench, older with a beard.
Lots of contrasts.
I know, I am giving Topps too much credit and they likely did not put that much thought into their 2022 Heritage Pujols card. I would guess that Pujols will also appear in most of their 2023 products. I would be surprised if they did not use him beyond that for autographs and the whatnot.
Back of the card.
I love the cartoon on the top of the card. I also love when the player has been around so long that you need a magnifying glass to clearly read the stats on the back of the card.
I took an excursion to do some shopping at the local big box stores this afternoon. I really should have taken a picture of the card aisles. They were completely trashed and picked over. There have been so many pictures posted to social media recently of big box store card aisles that are fully stocked and pristine. It's headline news after 2020 when there were grown men risking assualt charges over a box of Topps cards that cost $19.99.
Maybe I expecting a lot out of my local stores considering the Target next to my house had a snake roaming the canned food aisle last year.
I pulled an autograph of Matheu Nelson, former ACC Player of the Year at Free Seafood University.
He went to Florida State, my bad.
The seafood may or may not be free.
Anyway, recent retiree Albert Pujols also made an appearance in my packs of Bowman Platinum.
I like Albert and I hope he has saved up. He's on a fixed income now.
This is a nice action shot of Albert waiting to hit. It would be nice to see the background, but it's Bowman Platinum. It's one of those sets where the background is swirls and lines, or whatever pattern Topps throws on the card for the year. This one looks like it was based on the reverse card from an UNO card deck.
Just kind of broke the post here. Sorry, I couldn't find another headline to fit with the pattern on the background of the card. Should have made the whole thing about UNO instead.
Love that the write-up on the back gives his numbers against left-handed pitching. Let's face it, Albert was terrible on the Angels because they were running him out there for 600 at-bats a year. Righties and lefties. Meanwhile, the Dodgers and Cardinals ran him out there against lefties and he put together two good years.
Albert Pujols versus left-handed pitching not only has news headlines, it has YouTube videos with key moments.
Donruss Preferred were the cards that came in commemorative tins. It was all part of the late 1990s phase where card companies tried to one up each other through stupid packaging. The tins were better than the cards that came in the cans, Pinnalce Inside. Those had horrible packaging and mediocre cards. Donruss Preferred was at least a very nice product.
Here is a picture of a Donruss Preferred tin. It's not mine, just a picture I found on the internet.
Here is the 1997 Donruss Preferred Ray Lankford card.
This a card did not scan very well, so I am going to put up a second picture.
Such a great looking card with the gold foil card. Not sure this needs a lot of explanation, just a great looking card. The name plate, team names, and brand name are all small with the player picture taking center stage inside the gold frame. Why can't we have cards like this now?
Back of the card.
Simple stat line and the color photo are nice. The small write-up is quality, nut the biographical information on the right-hand side seems a little out of place. It's a small thing though. This is a really nice card.
