Random Ray: 1997 Bowman Chrome

The 1997 Bowman Chrome set is really underrated. It was the first Bowman Chrome set. I love the design and it's got a great checklist. There are rookie cards of players like Adrian Beltre, Lance Berkman, and Miguel Tejada. I am probably forgetting a few other players. There are also early cards of Roy Halladay, Nomar, and Jeter. What else do you want out of a Bowman product?  

There are also a handful of veteran cards, including Ray Lankford.  

Here is the front of the card.  

The Bowman base set and Chrome design varied in 1997. The Bowman base set had solid black borders while the Bowman Chrome product had stripes. Both are appealing and I like the contrast between the dark stripes or black border and the red inner border on the Cardinals cards. 

The Ray Lankford card has a nice action shot of him running the bases. Looks like he is trying to avoid being hit by the ball in between bases. The Cardinals have good looking uniforms. Not surprisingly, the red Budweiser sign in the background has been air brushed out.  

Back of the card.  

I love the Bowman card backs where it shows the player stats versus individual teams. The cards from the early 1990s had more stats, like hits and runs for the position players, but I still like this simplified version with the player picture on the right side of the card.  

That stat line against the Cubs is glorious. 

That stat line against the Braves is not so glorious.  

    

The player picture on the left is interesting in that Lankford is wearing a batting helmet without any ear flaps, which was against the rules at that point. The Cardinals still had Gary Gaetti and Ozzie Smith wearing the flapless batting helmets at this point, but they were grandfathered in because of age. Although the helmet is labeled "16" and clearly belongs to Ray. Must have been something he wore around during batting practice.  

Another Manager?

The Durham Bulls are on their third manager in the past three years.  

Durham is a nice place to live and the Bulls are a highly successful team. You'd think that they could hire a manager and get them to stay in place longer than a year. The changes in managers has actually been due to the fact that the Rays keep promoting their Minor League managers up to the Major League coaching staff.  

So, 2024 will see another manager in Durham. Unlike the previous two managers, the new manager Morgan Ensberg played in the Majors and has a slew of baseball cards. However, as a member of the early 2000s Houston Astros teams, I largely avoided collecting any of his cards until recently.  

Last week, I found a copy of his rookie card from 2001 SPX.  

Ichiro and Morgan Ensberg. Does Albert Pujols have a card in this set?   

I believe so.  

I also found a sweet 2005 Zenith autograph.  

It's a sticker autograph, but this is really well blended into the design. The card stock is also very thick. 

All tolled, my two Morgan Ensberg cards cost me roughly $5 on Ebay before shipping. The shipping cost me another $5.  They are sweet cards and will be dabbling more into Morgan Ensberg if he does a good job with the team.  

Around the Card Room, Take 15

Today is National Bobblehead Day, so I thought I would choose one from my shelf for today's post.  

I know some of these items have really good back stories, but this one is simple.  

Here is a Matt Holliday bobblehead that I bought in 2011.  

I decided to add a few different items to my collection after the Cardinals won the 2011 World Series and this bobblehead was one of them. If you don't remember how the Cardinals season ended in 2011, let me refresh your memory.  

It was also the season that Albert Pujols left the Cardinals to sign with the Angels, so Matt Holliday was the big offensive star still left on that team. He would have a few more good seasons in him and I was a pretty big fan.  If you read the early posts of the blog, which started in 2012, there are a lot of Matt Holliday cards.  

Here are the other views of the Matt Holliday bobblehead:

Love that this bobblehead captures Matt Holliday's batting stance and his large front leg kick. He was a really good hitter. Holliday's physique may be a little underrepresented on this bobble.  

Kind of wild to think that a little more than a decade after buying this bobblehead, Matt Holliday's son is now a Triple A baseball player who was largely responsible for eliminating my Durham Bulls from the playoffs last season.  

I Have Never Written A Post About Brendan Donovan

Brendan Donovan is one of my favorite current Cardinal players, but I have not written a post about him during the past two years he has been on the roster. Donovan is s a utility player. However, he shows up in the lineup regularly while he is playing everywhere in the field. What is it that Brendan Donovan does so well?  

Donovan's batting average is fine, slugging is decent, but his on-base percentage is excellent. 

He's also signed a lot of cards over the past two years, so it is about time that I picked up one of his cards for my collection. There were several choices that were appealing, but I went with his Stadium Club Chrome rookie card.  

These are sharp cards.  

Stadium Club always has great photography and this card is no different. I really like the green seats contrasted with the red on Donovan's uniform and the fans in the background who are also wearing red.  The seats around home plate in Busch Stadium have been green for almost decades, since the last years of Busch Stadium II, but I do not ever recall seeing them used as part of the background on a baseball card.  

Brendan Donovan should start somewhere, or maybe everywhere, this coming year and I am happy to finally post one of this baseball cards in this space.   

2024 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 2

We are four days into 2024 and I am already on my second Blake Snell autograph of the new year. I set a goal of reaching 100 Blake Snell autographs this year, and at this rate, I might hit that goal pretty soon.  

Here is a look at my newest Snell signature, which comes from the 2023 Topps Museum Collection product.    

The front of the card is a little busy, but I like the two jersey swatches and signature on the front. Nice action photo as well. It just seems like the design elements and framing around the autograph and jersey pieces is a bit much. 

I also like that the jersey swatches are from two different Padres jerseys. The white and brown pinstriped swatch on the left is obviously from a home jersey. Not sure about the light brown jersey. I feel like the Padres brown jerseys were a darker shade of brown. 

Back of the card.  

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! 

Also a bunch of small print.  

Baseball Card of the Year

Name a member of the 2023 Cardinals who played the most positions on the field?  

You may have guessed Tommy Edman, but the answer is Taylor Motter.  

Name the only Cardinals shortstop to not strikeout more than 50 times in 2023?

Tommy Edman again? Paul DeJong before he got traded?  Nope, Taylor Motter.  

We could talk more about Taylor Motter's dominance on the field in 2023, but you are all reading this blog post waiting to see the best baseball card of the year. You already know who is going to be on the card at this point.......

A great looking card of a great utility player for my favorite team.  

Did I mention that Taylor Motter was a long-running member of the Durham Bulls a few years back?

He was. 

Here is the back of the card.  

"Super Utility" isn't a title that Topps throws out on just anyone's baseball card.  The second fact is actually pretty interesting, although slightly misleading. Motter has not caught in a Major League game and only appeared as a pitcher on three different occasions. He gave up a home run to Mike Moustakas.  

I was curious about the cartoon on the side of the card. I did not know much about his performance with the Memphis Redbirds in 2023, but he stole 8 bases and hit 8 home runs in just 56 games. The 8 steals were Motter's highest total since he had 12 with the Mariners in 2017.  

I had expressed my concerns about Taylor Motter not having a Cardinals card this summer.......

I am glad that Topps followed through on a tweet with only 109 views and thousands of ignores.  

2024 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 1

My first Blake Snell autograph of the new year is one of the older Blake Snell autographs that was missing from my collection. I am closing in on my 100th Blake Snell autograph, so most of my early efforts for 2024 are going to be filling in the holes from previous years. Today's card comes from the 2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary set.  

Here is the front of the card: 

The 65th Anniversary set is different from the Topps Archives set. These cards were sold at Wal Mart. My main interest in them was the Bull Durham inserts, but they also featured a ton of autographs. Most of the players signing for the 65th Anniversary set were veteran or retired players, but Topps also included a handful of rookie autographs. Snell was one of those rookie autographs.  

The front of the card has the 1989 Topps design, a nice photograph of Snell pitching, and his signature going across lower half of the card.  

It's a fine looking card. The back is where this card gets messy.  

The back of the card uses the 1975 Topps back, along with all of the other autographs in the 2016 65th Anniversary Set. It just seems weird to make a set with random card designs for an autograph set using a random, non-matching card back. 

Why not use a 1989 Topps card back with the card front or a 1975 card design for both the front and back?

Still happy to own the card, which is a rookie autograph, and it brings me closer to 100 Blake Snell autographs.