My Top 50 Players On Cardboard-#48 Dave Winfield

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard 
#48
Dave Winfield

1974 Topps Dave Winfield RC

Hobby Impact-

I have never been super huge on Winfield cards, but he's always had a pretty decent following.  I think much of his what drives his card values is owed to his Yankee years, but I know a few that dig the old 70s Padres cards.  He's also pretty legendary around Minnesota and I am surprised he was not referenced in Fargo.  Almost every "good" Winfield card in my collection is a Padres card.  While I am personally not invested very deep with Winfield cards, he seems to frequently pop up in important sets and is a good and willing signer.  He's appeared recently in high end Topps products like Triple Threads and Topps Sterling as a signer, but also appeared in some really important sets in the late 90s and early 2000s as a Yankee including the Greats of the Game releases, UD Retro, and Topps Archives.  

On the Field Impact-

He is obviously a Hall of Famer, but I consider him a compiler.  He's got some nice numbers and good seasons.  He hit more than thirty home runs a few years in the early eighties when that was a feat.  Really, at the end of his career his numbers look pretty good.  Winfield won a World Series with the Blue Jays in 1992 as the team's DH.  All-Star games, check.  Gold Gloves, check.  Sounds good.  

Favorite Card-

Like many players, Winfield bounced around quite a bit at the end of his career making appearances for the Angels, Blue Jays, Twins, and Indians.  While some of those years were still productive, the last year with the Twins and the season with the Indians was not pretty.  Luckily, in 1993 Upper Deck put out a cool insert set of some older players in the 1993 Upper Deck base set, who at the time were in some serious decline.  As a Cardinals fan, it was nice to see a young Ozzie Smith instead of the old guy who could not throw the ball to first base anymore.  

1993 Upper Deck Then & Now Dave Winfield 

Upper Deck also treated us with a Dave Winfield in the set complete with the old Padres unis and cool 70s sideburns.  The background is a hologram which shows Winfield as a Blue Jay.  It was hard to get the hologram part to scan, but he can kind of see the picture of Winfield swinging on the right hand side of the card.  

Bird of A Different Feather

I spent my last Tier One post complaining about the lack of new signers that Topps has offered collectors during the 2013 baseball card calendar.  As a Cardinals fan I was quite happy to see that the the card maker brought back Cardinals first baseman/outfielder as a signer in this year's product.  Craig has signed before in the past for several different Topps and Bowman products, but none so far in 2013.

2013 Topps Tier One Allen Craig Autograph 

Craig has a great signature and has kept it consistent since he first started appearing in Bowman products about four years ago.  His career got off to a bit of a slow start since he was frequently injured and blocked at first base by Albert Pujols and in the outfield by Lance Berkman and Matt Holliday.  Craig was a key contributer during the 2011 postseason run for the team and was moved into the lineup at first and in the outfield during the past seasons.

There are always naysayers with any baseball player, but Craig seems to have a large number of them who do not see him as a quality player.  I get that people are going to argue about All-Star appearances, and whether or not players are deserving, but Craig is a solid candidate and was deserving of the honor.  I know that the stats nerds, I can be one too, will argue that RBIs really are not that important.  However, when you are batting .454 with runners in scoring position that says a lot about the quality of the player.

Yes, there are players who hit more home runs.  Yes, there are players who drive in more runs.  Craig hits when it counts though.  In fact, recently Craig knocked out his first grand slam of his career.  The home run came in an important game against divisional foe Cinicinnati with the Cardinals trailing late in the game.  Take a look.

While Craig's clutch hitting does not always get him respect with fans, his popularity has been pretty steady with card collectors.  His Topps autographs issued over the past two or three years tend to fetch between $10 and $20 with his 2009 Bowman autographed rookie card fetching between $20 and $30.  

It's true that Allen Craig is a little bit different type of player, but he's good at what the Cardinals need him to do: drive in runs.  It's nice to see that the collecting world is a step ahead of some baseball fans on this guy.  

Tier One Snoozer

We are most of the way through the calendar year for the 2013 baseball card releases.  Last week Topps issued it's latest Tier One product.  Like in the past, Tier One is a higher end product with some nice looking on-card autographs.  Like in the past, I went and searched trade pages and secondary sales sites looking for cool autographs from Rays and Cardinals players.  Big yawn.....huge.

There's Matt Adams, Alex Cobb, Chris Archer, Jon Jay, Allen Craig, Wil Myers.....the same seven or eight players who have signed for all the other Topps products this year.  I love Wil Myers and will collect his autographs, same with Allen Craig, Jay, and Archer.  Can I get a different Cardinals player? Why don't we get Trevor Rosenthal or Mujica to sign?  I'd take a James Loney autograph in a Rays uni at this point too.  Seriously.  Variety is the spice of life.  Big Yawn again.

So, pleading with Topps to change their ways is kind of like watching paint dry. It's going to happen, but worrying about when is not productive.  It might be a long time.  Throw on some coffee.

So, I branched out and decided to find an autographed card of someone missing from my collection who would be worth adding.  I searched the Tier One autographs high and low and came up with....

2013 Topps Tier One Jean Segura Autograph 

Caffeine kicking a little bit.  If you did not see the Jean Segura picture on the top of the page, or the link you clicked on to view this post, this card seems a little bit of left field for this blog.  This is about the most exciting card that I could of a player whose autograph I do not already own.  Segura is having a decent season, but there is just so little diversity in who signs for Topps products these days.  Sad.

While I was picking up my Jean Segura autograph I also picked up a favorite player autograph.  Again, this guy has signed for almost every Topps product this year.

2013 Topps Tier One Chris Archer Autograph 

I also understand that Archer is having a great rookie season for a contending team, but again, let's see some new players signing.  I have a few more Tier One autographs en route and will post them next week some time.  The caffeine has kicked in, time to go.

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard-#49 Kerry Wood

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard 
#49
Kerry Wood

1997 Bowman Kerry Wood RC

Hobby Impact-
Wood's card were highly sought after for a few years in the late 90s and early 2000s and still have a pretty solid following to this day, but the price has come way down and the availability has gone way up.  As a Cardinals fan, I was never a huge fan of Wood's, but I still rock some nice Kerry Wood cards in my collection.  It's not hard to find his autographs for under $10 and rookie cards for a few bucks.  There are still a few cards that still fetch some high dollars.  Always bothers me to see him on cards as something other than a Cub.  I have three players on my list who are Cubs, I also had Mark Prior on my initial list, and Wood is the third of the three.  However, sometimes when talking to Cubs fans I feel like some of them might right him higher than a certain bunny hopping outfielder and a second baseman turned manager.

On The Field Impact-
The one drawback to Wood always seems to be the fact the Cubs fans lament the fact that he did not live up to "the hype".  He was still an above average starter for four or five years and almost got the team to the World Series in 2003.  He had a couple of nice seasons as a relief pitcher, but I often feel like many cannot move on past the 20 strikeout game in 1998 against the Astros.  The slider to Derek Bell at the end of the game is my favorite pitch.  If Bell had been using a six foot bat I am still not sure he would have hit that pitch.




I don't get the obsession with this game or why it almost held against him, used as a measuring stick of what could have been, by Cubs fans.

Favorite Card-
I almost thought about putting the 1997 Bowman card down here again, or scanning a copy of his Bowman Chrome rookie.  To avoid redundancy, I am going to go with his 1998 Bowman's Best Autograph.  Wood signed a lot of cards during his career and was really generous with signing even later into his career.

1998 Bowman's Best Kerry Wood Autograph

Many of Wood's autographs were even on-card.  This one is a pretty hard one to find, is an on-card autograph, and features Wood in a Cubs uniform.  Good card to track down if you had to own an autograph from Wood.  Finally, I would like to share one of Wood's finer moments of his career captured on film:

Bad Choice or Bad Choice.

The Cardinals picked up a new pitcher last week from the Brewers in the person of former closer John Axford.  Stroll around the internet and you will find that the fans in Milwaukee have lost patience with the hard throwing right-hander, so maybe a change of scenery and a possible playoff appearance will help his motivation.  Cardinals fans also seemed a little bit skeptical of the move and thought the team should have made a bigger splash, or no splash at all.  Stark contrast, but that's the way the wind was blowing last week.  Being a Cardinals fan, I disregard the commentary on Axford's struggles during the past eighteen months and immediately searched out a few cool Axford cards.  Unfortunately I found that he has only one certified autograph were he is not wearing a goofy blanked out generic blue hat.  This one..... 

2013 Topps Tribute World Baseball Classic John Axford Autograph 

I was actually disappointed that I had to get a card from this set.  I actually thought long and hard about the Panini, but I could not pull the trigger on a non-licesenced card.  I am not against them, but I really do not like the blanked out hats and unis.  Real goofy.  So, at the same time I was avoiding the Panini the World Baseball Classic set has been notably absent from my collection this summer.  The absence of World Baseball Classic cards is not an accident.  I really do not like the event.  I know who won, but I did not watch a full game from the entire event.  I watched this cool fight.  Axford and Stubby Clapp both make an appearance.    

The event has gotten stale after its third time out and I am not sure why Topps felt the need to commemorate the event at all this year, let alone do it with a really high end set.  Needless to say, I would much rather have cards of the players featured in this set in their MLB uniforms then their national team uniforms, but in Axford's case I guess I will settle for what I can get.  Really, this card is the better of two pretty bad choices.  

My Top 50 Players on Cardboard--#50 Trammell/Whitaker

My Top 50 Players On Cardboard 
#50
Alan Trammell/Lou Whitaker 

1996 Fleer Lou Whitaker/Alan Trammell

Hobby Impact-
These two long-time Tigers infielders have had little actual hobby impact, but they do have a surprisingly loyal and dedicated fan base.  The majority of their careers was spent during the eighties when there were no inserts, short-prints, printing plates, relics, or certified autographs.  Trammell has signed for a few things since his retirement, but Sweet Lou has been out of sight for the most part since leaving the field.  Still, if you are looking to find two really good players from the eighties who are fun to collect you cannot go wrong with these two.  I love the fact that their careers ran parallel, they played for the same team for a really long time, and can be found in just about every set from 1978 until 1995

On The Field Impact-
The obvious answer to this question is the 1984 season when the Tigers steamrolled the rest of baseball on their way to a World Series title.  The duo of Trammell and Whitaker had many other good years beyond 1984 and the duo was a fixture at the All-Star game for much of the mid 80s.  Both players get a lot of play in Hall of Fame arguments and they both have some really good career comparables.  I've been getting into the JAWS ratings recently which rates Lou Whitaker as the 11th best second baseman of all-time and Trammell as the 11th best shortstop.

Favorite Card-

1978 Topps Rookie Shortstops Paul Molitor/Alan Trammell RC

This card flies under the radar often, but this card has two great rookies in Trammell and Molitor.  U.L. Washington having his picture taken with his toothpick would have made it a slam dunk all-time great, but you cannot have everything.  The card is easy to find, inexpensive, and who wouldn't want a rookie/prospects card from the late 70s or early 80s.  Pretty sweet card and definitely worth check into if it's not already in your collection.  Whiatker's rookie card is also a rookies card similar to this one, but the names on his card are more Mickey Klutts and less Paul Molitor.

My Baseball Card Top 50

I am starting a new thread of posts starting tomorrow morning which I am titling My Baseball Card Top 50.  Last fall I did a countdown series of posts showcasing my Top 50 Sets from my thirty years in card collecting.  I had a lot of fun going back through all of my old sets, scanning cards, and getting back into some boxes of cards that I had not seen in years.  I thought about doing another similar thread this summer and might make it an annual fall tradition to do some kind of list or countdown with my cards.  So, here's the run down on my latest set of posts:

I went through a whole mess of my cards with this question in mind: What players have had the greatest impact on the hobby of collecting baseball cards during the last 30 years I have been collecting?  My list started out at well over 100 players and through a series of decisions you may or may not agree with a narrowed the field of players down to a cool fifty.  Some of the players on the list started their careers before 1983 (3 years) while others have only played briefly.  I made a sample post below:




MY BASEBALL CARD TOP 50
#UNRANKED
RAY LANKFORD

1990 Upper Deck Ray Lankford RC

Hobby Impact-
When I am out looking for trades, or trying to buy cards, and ask people if they have Ray Lankford cards I often get a confused looks and many moments of stunned silence.  Is it because people are reluctant to let Lankford cards out of their collection?  Or could it be that Ray Lankford is also, secretly, this person favorite player to collect to?  After more than a decade chasing down all the best Ray Lankford cards that I can I have come to the conclusion that people either totally ignore Ray Lankford's hobby impact, or it's giant and people are really hoarding his cards in large quantities.  You decide.

On The Field Impact-
While most of Lankford's career was spent as the best player on a lot of bad 1990s Cardinals teams, he did manage to make three postseason appearances with the Cardinals in 1996, 2000, and 2004.  His best years probably were between 1996 and 1998 when he spent a year and a half batting fourth behind Mark McGwire and the other half hitting in front of Brian Jordan and Ron Gant.  His career OPS+ of 123 ranks even with Tigers and Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson and in the same neighborhood as Eric Davis and J.D. Drew.  Mark McGwire said of Lankford, "He's the best protection I've ever had in the line-up, that includes in Oakland"  Jose Canseco cries a little bit every time he hears that quote.

Favorite Card-

1998 Skybox EX-2001 Ray Lankford Essential Credentials Future

A cool 1990s baseball player with few printing plates, autographs, or relics means you have to go with a cool chase card.  Maybe a 1993 Finest Refractor.  Could have gone with the Topps Tek variations too, but I have also liked the Essential Credential cards.  Limited print runs and difficult to find, but not impossible.  I own both the Future and Now versions of this card.  A must have for any Lankford card collector.


and a bonus...