2018 International League All-Star Set Part 1

A few new Minor League cards I picked up while attending a Durham Bulls playoff game yesterday against the Toledo Mud Hens.  The Bulls ended up winning the game 3-2 and advanced to the International League Championship where they will play Scranton, which is the Yankees Triple A team.

Before the game I visited the team store and found the set, which I am going to share with you on this post, another later in the week with the second half of the set.  Also a copy of the 2018 Durham Bulls set.  I will post that at some point too.

The International League All-Star set is 28 cards, so this post will feature the first 14 cards.  There are two Bulls in this part of the set and another in the second half, but not wearing a Bulls uniform.  I have scanned the cards in pairs and have a little blurb about each scan.

First two cards in the set belong to Willy Adames and Anthony Alford.  Adames has been on the Bulls for awhile now, and the Rays have actually given him a lot of playing time in the Majors this year.  He has done fairly well.  You have heard a decent amount from this blog over the years about Adames, so let me give Alford a little love....

Alford has been a Top 100 prospect for the last few years.  He got some pop, he's got some speed, and he has done a good job of getting on-base.  Well, until this year, which was easily his worst since the Jays drafted him out of Ole Miss in 2012.  Almost one of those guys who got onto an All-Star team because he played well in other seasons.  A slash line of .240/.312/.344 hardly screams All-Star, but he is just 23 and the Jays have already had him up to the Majors twice.  

Bauers is the second Bulls player in this half of the set, plenty of other opportunities to write about him in other posts.  

Allard is a former first round draft pick who has moved through the Braves system fast.  He's just 20 and he's basically spent the entire season in Triple A.  He's pitched well too.  I think he sometimes does not get the recognition he deserves.  Allard is not big and is much more on the finesse side.  Still, a 20 year old with a sub 3 ERA at Triple A is pretty special.  

The Braves called him up and he pitched a few games in Atlanta.  They were rough, but I still like his chances at being a good player in the long run.  

Both of these players have spent a fair amount of time in the Majors this summer.  Bieber has started 16 games and has 9 wins.  Some of his stats are not that good, which is why wins are not always a great stat, but he probably has some sort of long term future as a Major League player.  

Beeks was traded to the Rays from the Red Sox for Nathan Evoldi.  He has not appeared with the Bulls, but has managed 4 wins in just 8 games.  His numbers are also a little shaky.  See previous comment about wins.  

Cozens is a big guy who swings for the fences.  He has played 15 games for the Phillies this year and has an .095 batting average with 15 strikeouts in just 21 at bats.  Going to have to refine that swing a bit.

Borucki has thirteen starts for the Blue Jays.  He was really good in some of his previous stops in the Minors, but has had a hard time missing bats in the upper Minors and in the Majors.

 Fedde has risen through the Minors quickly.  He seems like he's a high floor, low ceiling guy who was a pretty good college pitcher at UNLV.  He has played parts of two seasons with the Nationals and has a career ERA over 7.  In the Minors, he has been good, nothing dominate.

I do not know much about Enyel De Los Santos.  He was in the Padres system and came over to the Phillies this past offseason for Freddy Galvis.  De Los Santos has had a good year for Lehigh Valley, but that's about all I know here.

 Gonsalves has done very well for the Twins Minor League teams the past few years, but has not faired well in his brief time in the Majors.  He has been a Top 100 prospect the past two seasons, so there is probably some hope he will be a good player.  He's probably at least a mid rotation guy.

Kingham has been around for awhile now and is north of 25.  He has been up with the Pirates for most of this year and has not had the best numbers.  Not sure what becomes of him, likely bullpen or a 4A guy.

 Last pair for the first half of the set.

Let me give you one number for Kopech:  He struck out 170 batters this year in 126 innings.  The arm and stuff is incredible.  He needs to keep developing obvious, plus he is out next year with Tommy John.  I would be more worried if it was a shoulder injury.  

Lugo came over in the J.D. Martinez trade, spent most of this season in Triple A.  He walked 9 times in over 500 at bats.  Not sure what his future in the Majors is with that little patience at the plate.

Although he was batting as I was typing this post and drew a walk.  Go figure.

More International League All-Stars later in the week.....

One Giant Ring

There are a lot of sports teams that have giveaway championship rings.  I went to a Cardinals game for my birthday back in 2007 and ended up with my first replica championship ring.  It was a pretty unique item at the time.  I am sure that other teams had already done this sort of promotional item before the Cardinals, many have done them since.  

My Cardinals ring was involved in a Playskool airplane crash five years ago, so this is not mine, I am borrowing someone's picture.  

I am not a huge jewelry person.  I wear my wedding ring, that's it.  I have watches.  They sit in a dresser drawer.  I think the last time I wore I watch on a regular basis was sometime around 2004.  So, naturally if I am going to go out and find a stadium giveaway item to display in my baseball room, a championship ring is really low on the priority list.  More of a bobblehead person.  

Still, I have two ring giveaways......  

The Durham Bulls ring is from their 2013 Governor's Cup Championship.  It was a giveaway to season ticket holders and mini-plan holders the following season.  The Cardinals ring is from 2011.  I forgot how the team originally gave out these rings, but they were hard to find for a long time, and very expensive on Ebay.  Then the St. Louis Post-Dispatch started selling them $9.99 on their site.  I got one just because......

I picked up another ring this year from the Durham Bulls.  Same idea as the 2013 ring, but the Bulls ended up winning the Triple A National Championship last year, not just their league championship.  The ring was given to season ticket holders and mini-plan ticket holders just like the 2013 ring.  

It's quite large.  

The side panels have good details.....

and for comparison to the other giveaway rings that I have......

Like I said, one giant ring.  

Clearly Nice Cards

I love the acetate parallels in the Topps base set.  For the past two years Topps has put out the Clearly Authentic product, which are similar in appearance to the acetate parallels, it's just that they are in a one touch case.  Last year I picked up two cards from the set.  Both were Cardinals.  One was pitcher Luke Weaver, the other was former shortstop Aledmys Diaz.  In retrospect, it feels like a struck out with those two cards. 

Clearly Authentic is a one card per pack/box for roughly $50, so I naturally did not touch a single pack.  I also decided to go away from the Cardinals this year......

First up is another Anthony Banda autograph.  He's become my go to Durham Bulls player to collect this year.  Banda is also the only player on the team who really seems to have a steady stream of cards that have been produced this year. 

I am not sure if this is pink or red, but I like the card.  The case is a little scratched up looking on the scan, but I feel like my scanner picked up a lot that is not all that visible from just holding the card.  Maybe I need to clean my scanner.  

The serial number is in the lower right hand corner, a little hard to see.  

Flip the card over.....

I always like the reverse black and white image on the back of the acetate cards.  Also kind of nice to be able to see the autograph through the back of the card. 

Last one for tonight....

I have not posted many Charlie Blackmon cards over the years, but I have always had some interest in his career.  I saw Blackmon a few times while he was at Georgia Tech, someone I glance at when I read through the box scores.  

I don't like this card as much as the Banda.  There is not much contrast here between the picture of Banda and the background, which is one of the things that makes the acetate cards stand out.  There is a lot of gray and black on Blackmon's uniform and the background is generally the same color scheme outside of the bunting above his bat.  Even the purple numbers and letters on the Rockies jersey feel muted.  

The lack of contrast really shows on the back.  It's a black and white photo, but there is little difference from the front of the card outside of the purple numbers on his jersey being a dark gray.  I actually think the best part of the back of this Blackmon card is the autograph showing through clearly.  

I Love The Cardinals Part 44 - Todd Zeile

The 1989 Cardinals were not that bad of a team.  They won 86 games and finished third in the standings behind the Cubs and Expos.  Several players had good years.  Pedro Guerrero had more than 40 doubles and drove in 117 runs, Vince Coleman led the National League in stolen bases, Ozzie Smith won a Gold Glove, Jose DeLeon led the National League in strikeouts, and Joe Magrane won 18 games with an ERA under 3.00.  

Most of the players returned from the 1989 season for the 1990 season, minus All-Star catcher Tony Pena.  The Cardinals traded for Pena prior to the 1987 season, while he helped them reach the World Series in 1987, his offensive numbers were disappointing during his time in St. Louis.  Plus the Cardinals had the best catching prospect in all of baseball at Triple A.  

Baseball America had Todd Zeile rated as the seventh best prospect in all of baseball entering the 1990 season.  The Cardinals brought him up at the end of the 1989 season for a cup of coffee and ended up handing him the starting catchers job for 1990.  Pena ended up signing with the Red Sox as a free agent.  

Zeile was hailed as a franchise player while he was coming up through the Minor League system.   He was an All-Star at every level he played in, hit for power, and drove in runs.  Zeile seemed like the real deal.  

Zeile has a whole bunch of Minor League cards celebrating his status as an uber prospect, many are from All-Star sets.  I can only imagine if he had been a Minor Leaguer a decade later during the Bowman craze, his cards would have temporarily been worth a small fortune.  I think I got this Arkansas Travelers card as a throw-in from an Ebay seller.  

Zeile's first season as a Cardinal was disappointing, but the team was a complete disaster.  He did hit 15 home runs, a decent amount for a Cardinals player at that time, but he also played some really bad stretches of baseball.  His season averaged ended at .244, throw out a hot month in August and Zeile hit under .230 for the better part of the season.  

Meanwhile, I had a pretty good Todd Zeile collection for 1990.   

The best of the bunch, in my opinion, was his 1990 Topps card.  I know some people point to his 1989 Upper Deck, or 1990 Donruss Rated Rookie, but this was my favorite.  You knew he was going to be good with a Future Star graphic going across the bottom of the card.  

At the end of the season the team worked on transitioning him to third base to give defensive wiz Tom Pagnozzi a shot to catch full time.  Pags flies under the radar, but he was a very good defensive player.  Won a bunch of Gold Gloves.  

Zeile's 1991 season went well.  He hit less home runs, down to 11, but managed to bump up all the rest of his numbers.  He hit doubles, drove in runs, got on base, and even managed to steal 17 bases.  The team finished second to the Pirates and won 84 games.  With a young core of Zeile, Ray Lankford, Bernard Gilkey, and Geronimo Pena it appeared the Cardinals were headed in the right direction.  

He still ended up with cool baseball cards at this point, but he started slipping after his 1992 season.  This Stadium Club from 1992 is one of my early 1990s favorites of Zeile.  

I always thought of 1992 as the end of Todd Zeile in St. Louis.  He made it another two and half years, but Cardinals fans generally lost their patience with him that summer.  Zeile hit only 7 home runs and had a slugging percentage of .364.  That was lower than second baseman Luis Alicea.  He just squeezed by Ozzie Smith though. 

Another good Zeile card from the early 1990s....

The Cardinals celebrated their 100th Anniversary in 1992.  The team wore patches to commemorate the occasion, but baseball cards rarely do anything to showcase any sort of special event logos.  Especially during the early 1990s.  The t-shirt that Zeile is wearing in this picture has the 100th Anniversary logo on it.  Nice touch.  

Although, the Cardinals did put the logo on their team set that season.....

bonus nicety that the photograph for the card was taken in Wrigley.  Not my favorite team, but the Cubs stadium does make for nice baseball cards.  

The anniversary logo also appeared on a set of Pacific trading cards, which celebrated the great players in team history, that were sold at area McDonald's restaurants.  

While Zeile was in the team set, which was a stadium giveaway, he rightfully missed the cut on the all-time Cardinals set. 

Let me share the most incredible Todd Zeile card in my collection before we get to the bad part of Todd Zeile's time in St. Louis.  

Who knew that MilkBone had baseball cards inside their boxes?  I am not sure what type of dog Zeile owns, but her name is Tiffany.  The picture showing Todd swinging is at some point in the at bat past the first pitch.  He never swung at that pitch, plus his batting gloves look extra tight.  

There were a lot of negative perceptions about Zeile his last few years with the Cardinals. See the last sentence of the last paragraph.  He always took the first pitch of every at bat, every time, all the time.  Zeile was constantly down in counts 0-1.  He played with his batting gloves after the first pitch.  He looked indifferent and unemotional about everything.  I am amazed that Zeile lasted with the Cardinals until the middle of 1995.  

The final straws came in 1995 when he had a contract dispute with the team in Spring Training.  The Cardinals played poorly during the first half of the year on top of that, so when the team decided to fire Joe Torre in season, they also traded Zeile to the Cubs.  The trade turned into a war of words between Zeile and August Busch, which ultimately ended in him getting booed most of the rest of his career in St. Louis.  His wife was even heckled once to the point where she had to leave the stadium.....

and she has not been back since.  I don't remember what sort of sales job Augie Busch did in presenting Zeile as a traitor, might have to go back and check that out.  Overall, not cool.  Especially the heckling the wife part.  

Zeile had a few more baseball cards that I liked towards the end of his time with the Cardinals.  The 1994 team set, which was a stadium giveaway, had a nice appearance.....

Always thought it was odd that the Cardinals pretty much stopped using the slugger bird logo after 1992, but he always popped up on odds and ends with the team.  For whatever reason that logo is used on this set of cards.

I also really liked his 1994 Studio card with the lockers in the background.  Actual locker room in Busch Stadium.  I know it does not look very nice compared to modern lockers, but it sure beats some of the other lockers in the set.  I believe the Angels cards all have cinder blocks with a metal bar going across.  Classy.  

For my last Cardinals card of Zeile I will go with his 1995 Topps 3D card.  

Sort of like the old Kellogg's card from the 1970s and 1980s.  Kind of a neat looking card.  

After leaving the Cardinals, Zeile ended up bouncing around the league.  In all he played for 11 teams in 16 years.  Zeile had good years, bad years, and even ended up getting traded for Mike Piazza.  His career ended in 2004 while playing in his second stint with the Mets.  

For all of the different teams, and garbage he took from Cardinals fans, Zeile actually had a decent career.  It ended well, he hit a three run home run for the Mets in his final at-bat.

I had some final thoughts on Zeile that has kept this post in my drafts for a while.  I might have to come back to it at some point, but 

Shades Of Bro'Neill

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.  

Set Project: 1983 Kellogg's

I have done a few set projects over the years, never anything with an "oddball" set though.  I am not even sure why some of the cereal cards from the 1970s and 1980s are given that classification.  "Oddball" makes it seem like they have second rate photography, poor design, or the logos are airbrushed off of the uniforms.

I have some interest in putting together a bunch of the different Kellogg's sets at some point, but to start out, I am going to go with one of the easier ones to assemble.  Still great looking cards though....

The 1983 set was the last year that Kellogg's put out a baseball card set.  Definitely the end of an era.  There are 60 cards in the set and I already own 9 of these.  Bascially the entire Cardinals team set along with a few players who had some sort of connection with the team, like Jack Clark and Don Baylor. 

I am going to post a checklist of what I need in a bit on the "Projects In Progress" tab at the top of the page.  I am hoping that I can fill most of this checklist with a little bit of time on COMC and maybe some hunting at a card show. 

I am starting out with 15% of the set, hoping to finish this in two months. 

1 Rod Carew 

2 Rollie Fingers 

3 Reggie Jackson 

4 George Brett 

5 Hal McRae 

6 Pete Rose 

7 Fernando Valenzuela 

8 Rickey Henderson 

9 Carl Yastrzemski 

10 Rich Gossage 

11 Eddie Murray 

12 Buddy Bell 

13 Jim Rice 

14 Robin Yount 

15 Dave Winfield 

16 Harold Baines 

17 Garry Templeton 

18 Bill Madlock 

19 Pete Vuckovich 

22 George Foster 

23 Willie Wilson 

24 Johnny Ray 

26 Andre Thornton 

27 Leon Durham 

28 Cecil Cooper 

31 Nolan Ryan 

32 Dan Quisenberry 

33 Len Barker 

34 Neil Allen 

35 Jack Morris 

36 Dave Stieb 

38 Jim Sundberg 

39 Jim Palmer 

40 Lance Parrish 

41 Floyd Bannister 

42 Larry Gura 

43 Britt Burns 

44 Toby Harrah 

45 Steve Carlton 

46 Greg Minton 

47 Gorman Thomas 

51 Fred Lynn 

52 Dale Murphy 

53 Kent Hrbek 

54 Bob Horner 

55 Gary Carter 

56 Carlton Fisk 

57 Dave Concepcion 

58 Mike Schmidt 

59 Bill Buckner 

60 Bob Grich

What Is That?

I have been in the market for a Jordan Hicks card for awhile.  Towards the beginning of the year his cards were sort of pricy for a middle reliever.  It felt like people really wanted his card because he threw a bunch of pitches over 100, including one that was 105. 

They started to slide back a little bit as the season has progressed.  He still is throwing really hard, but he is not closing out games for the Cardinals, or anything that gets him notoriety on a stat sheet.  I have high hopes for Jordan Hicks, but at this point he is definitely a work in progress.  One day he might get the closers job, but not at the moment.  

So after passing on a few other Hicks autographs, I finally ended up with a Bowman Platinum autograph last week.  This year's design is a real departure from the past issues of this set.  There are aspects of the card that I really enjoy.....

I like the dark background.  I like the contrast between the white/gray writing on the dark background.  I like the picture of Jordan Hicks.  I like the idea that there is some bright color on the card to contrast the dark background.  So, after looking at this card for awhile I just have one question:

What is that in the background?  

A few ideas.  

Some sort of glass blowing.  

Something Dave sees at the end of the movie 2001.  

The backdrop from a Pink Floyd concert.  

One of the distracting backgrounds on PowerPoint that only elementary and middle school kids use.

I will enjoy the Hicks card, but if Topps is going to have meaningless, weird backgrounds on cards they could really learn something from some of the Metal Universe cards from the late 1990s and early 2000s.  

Are those planets behind Ken Griffey Jr.?  I am not entirely sure, but whatever random design is behind him it looks better than Jordan Hicks.