Random Ray - 2023 Immaculate Collection Autograph

I am not going to say a bad word about Panini for at least the next month on this space and my other social media sites based solely on the fact that they have now produced two different Ray Lankford autographed cards this year. It's true that they can no longer manufacture cards of current players, so I understand they are limited to retired player like Ray Lankford. However, they could have done something really mediocre like made a bunch of Todd Zeile autographs.

Nobody needs that.  

They really did a good job of making the best of the situation and choosing players who have some degree of popularity within their fan base. My Cardinals have Ray Lankford, Vince Coleman, and Jim Edmonds as the featured players and I can't say I know a Cardinals collector who would be disappointed to add another card of those three players. 

On to Ray.  

My latest Ray Lankford autograph is from their high-end Immaculate Collection. It's even better than the previous 2023 Lankford autograph I posted here a few weeks back from the same product. 

Here is the front of the card.  

I love the picture on the front of the card. The Cardinals switched to button up uniforms and blue road caps in 1992, so this is from early in Lankford's career. I believe the 1990 uniforms had an AAB patch on the sleeve to honor former owner Gussie Busch, which makes this a 1991 photograph. 

Ray had a pretty good 1991, topped off by hitting for the cycle against the Mets at the end of the year. 

As for the design of the card, it's fine. I like the red and gold color scheme, but honestly I am just excited that someone made a Ray Lankford autograph. This card could have purple dinosaurs dancing on rainbows and I would buy it in a second.  This one has a print run of just 10 copies.  

There were two of these listed on Ebay last week, including a Buy It Now for $62. I tried talking the Buy It Now seller down into the $20 range, but he would not budge. That's okay, because I won the second card in an auction for roughly $20. The $62 copy is still listed, it's going to be there for a while.  

Back of the card.  

Panini does a great job with their card backs. Great write-up. Ray Lankford, Stan Musial, Ken Boyer, and Albert Pujols. I like all four of those players I don't think I knew this fact before reading this card. Young Stan was fast and Ray Lankford had some big stolen base seasons early in his career, but I don't think of stolen bases and Albert Pujols or Ken Boyer. 

Great card.  

2023 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 11

I was so excited when I saw this card pop up on Ebay as an auction with a middle of the day ending time that happened to coordinate with my late lunch time. I dropped my class off at the cafeteria, made sure they all got through the lunch line, and then went up to my classroom to snipe this Blake Snell autograph off of Ebay. 

No one else bid, so it was a pretty drama-free few minutes.  

Here is the card. The little fuzzies and scratches are on the holder, not the card.   

This autograph is from the 2021 National Baseball Card Day set. Collectors could get a pack of these with a purchase from their local card shop on National Baseball Card Day. The autograph checklist is short and the odds on them was fairly long. Snell has actually signed cards for this set early in his career, which I already have in my collection. 

I had several of copies of this card on my Ebay Watchlist over the past two years, but the copies that popped up tended to be the "RARE!!!!" or "LIMITED!!!" type of listings that were Buy It Now with an exorbitant purchase price. One or two would listen to offers, but not seriously.  

Glad I was patient with this card. While I am happy to own it, it's a sticker autograph with a print-run of 100 copies. Not exactly rare and if this were a base Topps autograph with the same print run and autograph, it would be an easy find for around $10. Always willing to go a little high to fill a whole in my Blake Snell collection, but not $50 over.  

Standard Topps autograph card back with the serial number in the top-right corner.  

"There is a shortage of Roger Maris cards in a Cardinals uniform, it would be a shame to pass up this card"

I have written about the 2002 Topps Super Teams set a few times in this space. It's one of my favorite modern baseball card sets that focuses on players and teams from yesteryear. In this case, 10 different teams from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The 1967 Cardinals who won the World Series against the Boston Red Sox make an appearance in the set. 

I own most of the Cardinals cards in the set. At least the base cards, shiny parallel cards, and the autographs. My favorite is my Bob Gibson autograph with a piece of a seat from old Busch Stadium. 

Very nice.  

While I have all the autographs and base cards and shiny parallel cards, I was still missing one of the relic cards. If you are a long-time reader, you know I have an aversion to the majority of relic cards out there. They rarely appear here and I have made my peace with the fact that the authenticity of the relics is often dubious.  

Well, I am going to set that aside, because I found that final missing relic card, which belonged to the right-fielder on the 1967 Cardinals, Roger Maris. You might remember Roger from the New York Yankees.  

Roger spent the final two years of his career with the Cardinals. He was more of a complimentary piece at that point in his career, as the Cardinals had Orland Cepeda, Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Tim McCarver.  Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton too. Maris was a good defensive outfielder and a nice left-handed bat to stick behind Cepeda.  

There are not many modern cards of Maris shown as a Cardinal. I understand that his best year's were with the Yankees, but that fan base was also pretty terrible in their treatment of him both before and after his career. Thrilled to add a nice Maris card to the collection in a Cardinals uniform. 

Seat relics are cool, right?  

Here is the back of the card.  

It's the less grand version of the "CONGRATULATIONS" message that frequents so many of today's autographs and relics. I forgot about the old Topps authentication stickers, which is to the right of Roger's head. I wonder if that website is still live?  

Anyway, great card, happy to add it to the collection.  

Pujols Post - 2023 Topps Chrome Ultra Violet

I usually post inexpensive base cards of Albert Pujols in this space, but I also usually don't pull expensive inserts of the future Hall of Famer out of retail packs of cards that I purchase from Target.  

It all started two weeks ago. 

I dropped off the kids at school. It was my last day of vacation, so I decided I was going to drive to Durham and hike around the Duke University hiking trail. The path circles the university's five star hotel, The Washington Duke, and their golf course, so I always make a point of making a restroom stop and fill up my water bottle somewhere nearby in Durham before starting the 3 mile hike. 

There is a Target right around the corner from Duke, so I stopped there.

Remember that time I wrote about the Durham Wal-Mart being the 7th Circle of Hell? Well, the west Durham Target is opposite. It's the most high-end Target I have stepped foot in. It's 10 minutes from the McMansions in Chapel Hill and it's not like Duke students and faculty are going to shop in an ordinary Target.  

On this trip into the store, I noted that the snack bar has been upgraded.    

"Taste of Target" 

I see the ICEE machine, but for me it's not really Target unless the front of the store smells like stale popcorn. Note the popcorn machine is empty and looks unused. I cannot take a picture of smells, but the front of the West Durham Target smells pleasant, like someone has one of those potpourri pots going or something.   

Perhaps not having a student body and faculty that eats stale popcorn is the key to a university having it's own pair of five star hotels, a golf course, and a hiking trail. The colleges I graduated from just have a bunch of rare William Faulkner books, an automated library robot, and a tunnel you can legally graffiti.  

I bought a box of Topps Chrome cards and the hiking trail was spectacular.  

Upon returning home, I discovered that the Topps Chrome cards were hot garbage except for one very nice and surprisingly expensive Albert Pujols insert card.

Here is the front of the Topps Chrome Ultra Violet Albert Pujols card.  

  

It's an art set inside of Topps Chrome, which is different. I like it.  

I believe the cards all have the same artist, they at least have a similar piece of art work. Swirly or circles around a head shot of the player along with some sort of action shot and their name drawn inside of a circle using a similar font.  

We've got a younger Albert Pujols on this card. Face is a little slimmer, no gray hair. His batting stance in the action shot is a little lower and Albert is a little smaller through the middle. Let's be honest, this card is better than 90% of the cards that Topps put out in their art sets the past few years.  

To the back of the card......

More swirly lines. 

A nice write-up about Albert Pujols playing in the All-Star game. 

I am going to go check out the artist website.  

Great card.  

More Australians, Less Profanity

In my time watching the Durham Bulls, the team has had two Australian players. The first appeared in 2008 when the Rays sent newly acquired relief pitcher Grant Balfour down for a little fine tuning. If you are not familiar with Grant Balfour, he is an excellent pitcher, but might be the angriest player who ever stepped foot on a baseball field. 

The confines of a Major League stadiums could not hold his f bombs and Minor League parks were no different. I'd like to think Balfour's most notable angry moment came in the 2013 American League playoffs when he started yelling at Tigers catcher Victor Martinez for who knows what reason......

While Balfour turned many live broadcasts into NSFW territory, nobody could really complain about the results. During his stay in 2008, Balfour had an ERA of 0.38 for the Durham Bulls with an impressive 14.8 strikeouts per 9 innings and 8 saves, all while sharing the closer role.  

The Bulls second Australian joined the team towards the end of the 2021 season with the addition of third baseman Curtis Mead. He's a top 100 prospect, one of the Rays top prospects, and the third baseman of the future in Tampa. The Rays called him up and he made his Major League debut this season. Mead's numbers weren't great, but he also got less than 100 plate appearances. 

Mead also managed to hit his first Major League home run.  

I have posted other Curtis Mead cards on here previously under the heading of "Troppo prices", which means they are crazy in Australian. Luckily, it seems like the prospecting crowd gave up the Bulls third baseman this year, outside of his first Bowman Chrome. Thank you prospectors for quitting a player I enjoy watching. I can now afford some of his cards without taking out a second mortgage on my house.  

For my first round of new Curtis Mead cards, I tried to focus on his Durham Bulls cards. He's had several produced over the past two years. I got all four of the cards featured in this post for around $25. Between a box of cards at Target or a few Curtis Mead cards, I will take a few Curtis Mead cards.  

The first card, out of 2022 Topps Heritage Minor League, is the most expensive and cost me roughly half the $25 I spent on this lot of cards. This card has a nice on-card signature and shows Mead wearing a Durham Bulls jersey. A real Durham Bulls jersey, not one that is photoshopped onto the card, which leads me to the really odd thing about this card. 

The photograph on the front shows Mead in a Bulls home uniform, but the photo is not taken in the Durham Bulls Stadium. Notice the players sitting in the dugout are wearing home white uniforms too. That is typically the visitors dugout in Durham. However, the top of the dugout is not right, nor is the color of the wall at the top of the stands.  

I will figure it out one day, but for the moment I am happy to own my second Curtis Mead autograph.  

These two cards are parallels of his 2022 Topps Pro Debut base card. The top card is the Chrome parallel, which is not serial numbered. Good looking card and I wish Topps had made a Chrome parallel for this set about a decade ago. 

The second card is the pink parallel, which is serial numbered to 199 copies. Another nice looking parallel. Imagine a pink Chrome card. I know, it's too much to ask.  

Last card.....

This is an insert card from the 2022 Heritage Minors set, which borrows its design from the 1973 Topps Pin-Up cards. Not the hardest insert to pull, but nice enough to add to the Curtis Mead collection.  

A few shiny Curtis Mead cards will be posted in the near future.  

Random Ray - 1998 Stadium Club

I have posted almost every Stadium Club card of Ray Lankford, missing just a few. 

Here is the front of this week's random Ray Lankford card......

Nice action shot of Ray fielding a ball in the outfield. Not sure if this is a line drive or a tall hop off of the artificial turf shown in the picture. Either way, it's a nice, tightly cropped photo of the former Cardinals outfielder. There were not many teams playing on artificial turf that season, only the Pirates and Reds. However, I could not figure out when or where this game took place as the Cardinals played multiple day games against both teams.  

Back of the card. 

I love the effort here. The borderless, full color photo in the background with the stats over the top of the photo is a really good look. While the photo is the best thing here, I really like what Topps tried to do with the stat box. Before I get there, I want to go over my one negative, which is the fact that there are two little factoid boxes. There is the "Bottom Line" at the bottom of the card and then another little write-up above the stat box. I think that space could have been better used.  

I know, it's hard to read, and I am saying this as a person with really good eyesight.  Essentially, they use the quintessential back-of-the-card stats, home runs, RBIs, runs, hits, etc, and then add in the players ranking for that star within the Top 40 of all MLB players. 

For an underrated player like Ray Lankford, it really shows how good his numbers were playing for bad Cardinals teams. That's a lot of Top 40 stat finishes and if you squint your way to read all the numbers, there are a bunch of numbers within the Top 10. On the last line, which is 1997, Lankford finished in the Top 10 in home runs, walks, and on-base percentage.  In 1996, he was top 10 in walks, stolen bases, and triples. 

Really good idea, they just needed to crank up the font size a few notches.  

As a side note, the fact box mentions that Ray Lankford was closing in on the all-time home run record at Busch Stadium II. Lankford ended up with the record with 123 home runs, At the time he was traded to the Padres in 2001, Ray had 119 Busch Stadium home runs, but Mark McGwire would tie him late that season. Ray Lankford broke the tie and set the Busch Stadium home run record as a member of the San Diego Padres in 2002.  

The tie-breaking home run was hit off of Woody Williams who was traded to the Cardinals for Ray Lankford. 

Friday Five: My Favorite Miggy Cards

I do not write about the Tigers often on this blog, but they have long been a team on my radar. My wife is a Michigan native, so my in-laws are all big Tigers fans. My middle schooler likes the Tigers (not you Javy Baez) and will watch their games. I have been fortunate enough to attend a few Tigers games over the years. They have a great stadium if you are ever in Detroit. 

The last Tigers game I attended was two summers ago and I was fortunate enough to see Miguel Cabrera one last time in person. I knew it was likely going to be the last time, so I took a few pictures......

In the end, Miggy walked off the Twins on an odd single that landed between the centerfielder and the shortstop. The Twins had actually been really aggressive with pinch hitting and had Nick Gordon, normally a second baseman or shortstop, playing in centerfield.  

On to the cards. I think I have a sneaky good collection of Miggy cards, so I thought it would be fun to do one of my Friday posts featuring some of my favorites of the future Hall of Famer.  

5. 2013 Topps Miguel Cabrera Triple Crown Relic 

Not sure where winning the Triple Crown ranks on Miggy's list of career accomplishments, but it feels like it should be up there. I also feel like it rarely gets mentioned when people talk about his career. I watched his last few games, not sure it really got brought up. Maybe the accomplishment has lost some of its luster in recent years with the push on using sabermetric stats. Do people really talk about batting average anymore? 

I love this card. It's die-cut, has a nice action picture of Miggy with a swatch of his jersey, and is better than anything else I have seen that recognizes him as a former Triple Crown winner. These have gotten pricey and hard to find over the last decade.  

T4. 2011 Triple Threads Miguel Cabrera Patch Card 

Two relic cards in a post is my limit in the year 2023. I do not really do relic cards, but this one is too good to not post on my list. I went all in on the 2011 Triple Threads set and have some great looking cards from this product. I could easily make a few posts on some of the cards. This is one of my favorites. 

I have never really tried to figure out all the patch pieces on here, but there is a lot of blue and orange. I think it's the Detroit script off of a road Tigers uniform, as the home uniforms do not have any orange..... 

The patch piece on the LL of the card is white, orange, and then a partial piece of blue. Looks similar to the top of Ts in the word "Detroit" on the road uniforms. 

T4. 2011 Triple Threads Miguel Cabrera Autograph 

I will fudge on the five card thing a bit in this post and go ahead and share one of the Triple Threads autographs I have of Miggy from the 2011 set while we are here. Yes, it's a sticker autograph, but it's a clear sticker on a really great looking card. 

3. 2012 Topps Five Star Miguel Cabrera Autograph 

I love Five Star. I don't open any packs of it, because they cost a second mortgage on your house. I just like when people sell their autographs that do not make them a profit on their $250 box of cards. You pulled a Miguel Cabrera autograph and need to sell it? I am listening.  

I have several Miguel Cabrera autographs that are not going to be included in this list. They are all really great cards that I am sure the average sane collector would love to have in their collection. This is my favorite Miggy autograph and it's the last one on this list. This Five Star is an on-card autograph and has really thick card stock. Yes, it's got a jersey and some art work, that's kind of an afterthought here. I wish I could scan the side of the card to show off the stock, it's impressive.  

2. 2001 Bowman Heritage Miguel Cabrera 

Huge fan of the 2001 Bowman Heritage set. Have a ever told you about how much I love the Albert Pujols card in this set? I don't love Miggy that much, but it's close. Is this considered a rookie card? I treat it like it's a rookie card. It's in a magnetic one-touch and everything. This is a great looking card and aesthetically probably my favorite card of Miguel Cabrera on the Marlins. 

1. 2000 Topps Traded Miguel Cabrera 

The 2000 Topps set is trash, but the Traded set is pretty nice. You've got rookie cards of Adam Wainwright, Ben Sheets, and Miguel Cabrera. That's more checklist depth than the 1982 Topps Traded set. If I had to make a list of the most important 2000s rookie cards, this Miguel Cabrera would be really high on the list. Great card. First ballot Hall of Famer wearing a teal Marlins uni, not sure how it gets better than that.