I Love The 1990 Cardinals Part 65- Allen Watson

The Cardinals had 5 of the first 44 picks in 1991 MLB Draft.  The team chose California high schooler Dmitri Young with the 4th overall pick.  The other four picks?  Allen Watson is obviously one of them, the post is about him, but they also got Brian Barber and Dan Cholowsky.  Young and Watson made it the Majors and played for awhile, Barber played a short time, and Cholowsky never made it past Triple A. 

Young, Watson, and Barber all have a significant number of cards, Young obviously has the most of the group.  Cholowsky actually has baseball cards in Bowman, Stadium Club, and the Upper Deck Minors sets. While he never made the Majors, some card companies still thought highly of him.

Watson seemed like he was going to be someone for awhile.  He cruised through the Cardinals Minor League system and reached Busch Stadium by July of 1993.  He has a Stadium Club card to commemorate the occasion.

I am actually fairly certain that I saw his Major League debut, which was a 7-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves.  I need to double check my ticket stub box.  It would have been cool if Topps had put an actual picture from the players debut game on the front of these cards.  Watson debuted in St. Louis, card has a gray uniform, I am slightly disappointed.

Watson was in Baseball America's Top 10 Prospects prior to the 1993 season, so it was a pretty big deal when he reach the Majors.  The majority of his baseball cards treated him accordingly.

First off, when he first got drafted he started appearing in Bowman and Minor League sets right away.  My favorite Allen Watson card from his time in the Minors has to be his 1992 Upper Deck Minors card, which is quite unique.....

I am not sure why Allen Watson is wearing half a road uniform and half a home uniform.  Not something you see everyday on a baseball card.  I also like that he is hitting.  Sure, there is the occasional pitcher hitting card, but this looks like he is hitting balls for infield practice.  

Watson appeared in some of the more prominent 1990s sets.  Good rookie cards in the 1993 SP set?  Sure there is a Derek Jeter rookie card in that set, but there was also an Allen Watson.  Good card back in the 1990s. 

Watson also appeared in many of the rookie/prospect insert sets.  My personal favorite is the Flair Wave of the Future. 

These were printed on really nice stock and had nice printing and finish.  That wave in the background is sort of cheesy in this set though.  If this were a card in the 1998 Metal Universe set, it would be slam dunk best prospect card ever.  

Watson had a decent 1993, but his star faded fast with the Cardinals.  He got 22 starts with the team in 1994 and another 19 in 1995.  His ERA was near 5 during both seasons.  Allen Watson faded from trendy insert sets and shiny foiled prospect cards, and settled into the baseball card world as a player who got a token base card in the Topps and Upper Deck sets.  

I actually really like his base Topps cards from 1994 and 1995.  

Not a huge fan of the 1994 set, but I like the Watson card.  Love that background with the astroturfed Busch Stadium, blue walls, and faded red seats.  The Cardinals freshened up the stadium in between 1995 and 1996, so this was near the end of this stadium configuration and appearance.  

1995 did not have a great background, although the picture was clearly taken in Busch.  I like this card more for the action shot.  

The ball in the picture has always looked a little funny to me.  I know it's an action shot, so the ball was likely to turn out blurry, but this looks like Topps has tried to somehow crop the ball.  

At the end of the 1995 season, the Cardinals hired Tony LaRussa to manage the team and turned the roster over.  One of the first moves the team made in remaking their roster was to trade Watson to the Giants for Royce Clayton.  

Clayton was also a former first round draft pick who had not lived up to expectations.  When he arrived in St. Louis, Tony LaRussa made him the starting shortstop, putting Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith on the bench.  Ozzie would retire at the end of the season. 

Watson would go on to play for the Giants, Angels, Mets, Mariners, and Yankees.  He was on the Yankees roster in 1999 when they won the World Series against the Braves.....

earning him a World Series ring.  Watson was also on the 2000 Yankees, but only pitched until August before he was placed on the disabled list.  He never played again in the Majors.  

Cutting Corners For Conciseness

I have been working on putting together the 1980s, and the lone 1990s, Topps Glossy Mail-In sets over the past two months.  So far, I have finished up the 1983, 1986, and 1989 sets.  This post is all about my completed 1985 set, so I am down to 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1990.

No, I am not going to make my goal of finishing these sets by the end of February. 

Yes, I am fine with it.

The 1985 Topps Glossy Mail-In set is on 40 cards, so it would actually be easier to scan than some of the other glossy sets I have posted.  Yet, I am not going to do it.  Those posts dragged out.  Way too long.  We are going to give the big guy an easy day......

So, I am going to go with my favorite five cards out of the 40. 

You know there are Cardinals players, so let's get those out of the way first. 

Joaquin Andujar was a good pitcher for the Cardinals during the first half of the 1980s.  He was the starting pitcher in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series, which the Cardinals won, and picked up 20 wins in both 1984 and 1985.  This was the last season that Andujar was on the Cardinals, although he is in many 1986 products as a member of the Cardinals.  He doesn't seem like the type of player who would garner a spot in a set like this, always surprised he is in here over the Nolan Ryan and Fernando Valenzuela types.  You know, popular.  

This was also the end of the line for Bruce Sutter with the Cardinals.  Best remembered for striking out Gorman Thomas to end the 1982 World Series.  

I was always surprised that he made the Hall of Fame.  Even more surprised that he still pops up in baseball cards.  Not complaining.  

Love the 1980s Tony Gwynn cards.  Look at that brown uniform.  That's how the Padres are supposed to look.  I am a big fan of baseball cards with action shots, but this a nice look for a staged photograph.  I am sure that this was taken during Spring Training, but it sort of looks like it could also be at some random high school stadium.  

Last two cards are rookies.  

Any Dwight Gooden card from the mid 1980s was gold when I was a kid.  At one point I traded my 1985 Topps Dwight Gooden card, good story.  I ended up with a bunch of his 1985 and 1986 cards after his career fell off in the mid 1990s.  This Gloss Mail-In card is one of my favorites.  I like this picture a lot.  If you had to describe the things that made Gooden unique to watch, this follow through would have to be somewhere on the list right?  

This is the rant portion of this post.  

So, you watched that short video clip, the last batter was Alvin Davis.  He's one of the oft forgotten, good young players from the 1980s.  Why are there still people running around talking about Wally Joyner, but nobody talks about Alvin Davis?  I talk about Alvin Davis.  

Alvin did win the Rookie of the Year in 1984, so he at least got a little recognition during his career.  His 1984 appearance in the All-Star game was the only time he made it to the Mid-Summer Classic.  In 1987 the American League had Pat Tabler on their roster as a first baseman.  At the All-Star Break Alvin Davis was hitting .303/.384/.476 with 10 home runs, 19 doubles, and 45 RBIs. 

Pat Tabler? 

Pat flippin Tabler.  

That was apart of a three year stretch where he had OPSs of .886, .875, and .920.  His OPS+ were 127, 141, and 156.  I mean his comparable players on Baseball Reference from that stretch are Jeff Bagwell, Adrian Gonzalez, Paul  Konerko, and Ted Kluszewski.  Yes, let's talk about Wally Joyner.  Roll my damn eyes.  

I like Alvin.  He's getting his own post one of these days.  

  

Project Durham Bulls #46- Charlie Grimm

1917 Durham Bulls 

Background-

There were not a lot of statistics kept for the Minor Leagues back in 1917, but Charlie Grimm played one season for the Bulls while the team was in the North Carolina State League.  The prior season he had played for the Philadelphia A's as a 17 year old.  He would play a handful of games for his hometown St. Louis Cardinals in 1918 before settling in with the Pirates in 1919.  Grimm was known as an elite fielder, Bill James rates him as the best fielding first baseman of all-time, while playing 20 years in the Majors.  The majority of his time was spent with the Pirates and the Cubs.  He played on two National League Champion teams with the Cubs in 1929 and 1932.  Grimm ended his career with more than 2,000 hits, a .290 batting average, and more than 1,000 RBIs.  

While Grimm was a good player, his contributions to game as a manager were even more important.  His managerial career started when he took over as a player/manager for the Cubs.  Grimm finished the second half of the 1932 season at the helm of the team, which lost in the World Series to the Yankees.  After his retirement as a player, Grimm stayed with the Cubs as their manager and led the team to two more National League titles in 1935 and 1945.  Both World Series were lost to the Tigers.  

Grimm eventually was fired by the Cubs and ended up working as the manager of the Braves in the early 1950s.  While he never won a pennant with the Braves he made some significant personnel contributions to the franchise which helped the team after he was dismissed.  The most important decision he made was to replace 35 year old outfielder Sid Gordon with a 20 year old Hank Aaron at the beginning of the 1954 season.  Aaron had shown a lot of pop the prior year in the South Atlantic League.  Grimm would eventually pair Aaron with young third baseman Eddie Matthews and catcher Del Crandall to form the core of the Braves 1957 World Series winner. 


Card-
All of the Project Durham Bulls cards that I have posted over the past two years have been autographed.  These cards have been fun to post, never a problem with adding more autographs to the collection.  However, the Bulls are an old franchise that have been around since 1902.  There are a lot of great former Bulls players who have no certified autographs, but that does not mean that I am not interested in their cards.  At some point, I knew I was going to have to just start finding cool cards of players, especially the older ones, that were not autographs.  Grimm was in Durham for one year, but he was a good player and manager.  Certainly worthy of a spot in my collection. 

Like all things vintage, if you go for something that is really clean and pristine, you are going to pay a pretty penny for it.  I had the choice of trying to find a 1950s manager card of Grimm with the Braves, or go with an older card, see more expensive, to find him as a player with the Cubs.  I split the difference and picked up a 1934 Goudey, which would have been the end of his playing career, but he was managing the team at this point. 

It's got some creasing in the middle of the card.  It's not perfectly centered.  The corners are round.  The borders have a gray hue.  I love this card and I am glad that I finally added an older, non-autographed card to my collection that was added for this series of posts.   

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 64- Tony LaRussa

Tony LaRussa is amongst the most successful manager in the history of baseball.  As the manager of the Cardinals, he won more than 1,400 games over fifteen years.  The Cardinals won the World Series in 2006 and 2011, the team also won the National League in 2004.  Unfortunately, when LaRussa took over the Cardinals manager's job in 1996 there were not any card companies making manager's cards.

There are a ton of LaRussa cards out there.  

He has cards from his days as a player.

 

He has cards from his time as the manager of the White Sox......

and the A's.  

There are also cards of Tony LaRussa from his time with the Cardinals during the 2000s.....

Just not much to talk about as far as the 1990s Cardinals are concerned.  I like seeing the managers on baseball cards.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, all the card companies seemed to skip over the skippers between 1996 and the early 2000s.  

The only place to find LaRussa cards from his first years as a Cardinals manager are in the team sets that were giveaways at Busch Stadium and police sets.  The team sets from the late 1990s were a little bit interesting to say the least.  Let's run through these cards.  A few cool LaRussa moments along the way too.....

This is from the 1996 Cardinals team set, and a really busy set design.  We've got this squiggly black line down here at the bottom, which looks like it could be from the Missouri license plates from the 1990s.  They too had a squiggly line.  Quite unpopular.  

The card also has the word "CARDINALS" written entirely too big and a slugger bird logo in the corner.  I am not sure the card really needs the giant yellow wording on the side.  Straighten out that crooked line too and this card would be 100% better.  

Back of the card.....

I have a hard time believing that Tony LaRussa would write a letter to a group of fans about a baseball card program.  If it were about pet adoption, or him rescuing cats in Oakland, or his pet adoption agency I would believe it.  Otherwise, no.  

On to 1997.  A better card design here for the most part, until....

you look at the top of the card.  Is that supposed to be brick, or like some sort of leather?  

and more letters to fans that Tony LaRussa did not actually write.  Remember that time that Tony LaRussa took a phone call in the middle of his postgame presser.  Classic.  

I am surprised and disappointed that this would even be a card design.  

I am just speechless.  Is that Walt Jocketty wearing mom jeans?  Looks like the design from a 90210 DVD box. 

This card deserves an angry Tony moment.  This is the most concise LaRussa ejection that I can find.  

There was a fight between the Angels and A's back in the mid 1990s where the Angels threw at McGwire.  The A's threw at Tim Salmon.  LaRussa during the brawl.  

No one ever threw at Mark McGwire again.  Not true, but LaRussa looks off his rocker.  

Last card.  

So busy.  It's a shame that these are the only four Cardinals cards that LaRussa had during the 1990s.  I wish there were a Topps, or some sort of Upper Deck card to show off here.  Also kind of neat to spend a post showing off some of the team sets from the 1990s.  Clearly the Cardinals sets from the earlier half of the 1990s and 1980s were a lot better than any of these designs.  

Last LaRussa moment.  A Busch Beer commercial where he calls Jim Frey and offers to buy him a beer.  It's 9:30 at night and Jim Frey is in bed.  Also seems wrong the Cubs manager is in a beer commercial for an Anheuser-Busch product.  Stick to Old Style.  

A Few From 2019

The first series of 2019 Topps released this week, so I ventured out to Target on Wednesday to pick up a few packs.  Retail packs are not the best way to put together a set, but it's a good way to get a look at the new cards.  Since I am limiting the number new sets that assemble this year, and limiting the amount of time and money spent on them, these few packs were more fun than an actual attempt to make a set. 

My first card of 2019..... 

was Ronald Acuna of the Braves.  Conveniently, if I were trying to put together a set out of retail packs, Acuna is card number 1 in the set this year. 

I think it is a pretty solid design this year.  I like that Topps has gone back to using a border on their base set, ask me at the end of the year what I think about the design.  Last year, I felt I made fun of the cards at the beginning of the year for having that AquaFresh looking think on the front of the cards, but they grew on me as the year went along.  

My first Cardinals card was Paul DeJong.  

Nice action shot of the Cardinals shortstop.  There are several different Cardinals cards in Series 1.  Not sure which of the cards I like the best.  I feel like I am leaning towards the Molina card, which has a nice action shot of him throwing the ball.  

Nothing better than a card of a catcher wearing their gear.  

First former Durham Bulls card of the year belongs to Cubs utility player Ben Zobrist.  I bought several packs of cards and it took me several packs to finally run into one of their players.  Considering they are the Triple A team of the Rays, and most of their players went through there on the way to the Majors, I was a little surprised it took so long to find one....

While we are on Zobrist, I can point out one other design element that I like on this year's Topps cards.  Last year, maybe 2017 too, they had chopped down the stat line to a five or six year window.  It felt like the old Donruss cards.  It's fine on younger players, even if I am missing a year or two of stats when I flip over the card.  However, with older players like Zobrist.....

It's nice to be able to flip the card over and look at all the different years that he has played.  Look, he played with the Rays back when they were the Devil Rays.  Seems like a long time ago.  Probably because it was a long time ago.  

Favorite Durham Bulls card.  

That's a pretty run of the mill picture of Blake Snell, but I love seeing him on League Leaders cards.  He was such a great pitcher while he was in Durham, which does not always guarantee that the players are successful in the Majors, but he was in a different world at times.  So much better than that level of competition.   Just completely dominate.  Nice to see Snell pitch well enough to win the Cy Young last year. 

Final card. 

Just as I loved the 1983 styled insert cards last year, I also love this year's 1984s.  I have a soft spot for the card designs of my childhood.  I could tell you this is one of my favorites, but that's generally true of most of the card designs from the 1980s and early 1990s.  

They even duplicate the backs.....

Not sure if this is going to be something I pursue this year, or not.  Last year, I put together the first series of these cards, then stuck to the Durham Bulls and Cardinals players in the later releases.  Leaning towards just buying singles again this year. 

How many wins would Greinke have if he had not played on the Royals for seven years? 

Snapshots From The 1990s

If I could do a blog themed on a decade of baseball cards, it would definitely be the 1990s.  There are several good ones out there already, so I let them do the heavy lifting on that topic.  Still love to share out cards of my favorite players from those years.  I started the decade as a middle school kid who cared a little too much about playing basketball and collecting baseball cards, and ended the decade as a college graduate working at a small elementary school in west St. Louis County.

Along the way I went to plenty of Cardinals games, watched plenty of ESPN highlights before school, and added a few baseball cards to the collection.  A few.

Two of my newest cards are from the 2018 Topps Snapshots set and both feature a player from the 1990s.  Both top prospects, but from opposite ends of the decade. 

First up is John Olerud.  His rookie cards came in 1990, pretty sure I once spent half an hour trying to trade for his Score card.  I cannot go back and ask the middle school version of me why this card was so great, but here is a guess:  

1.  The guy was in the Minors for 5 minutes.  Actually, it was not even that long, Olerud never played a game in the Minors until the very end of his career.  It was an incredible accomplishment at the time.  

2. He wore a batting helmet in the field, which had to be a first.  Middle school me did not care about Dick Allen, or the fact that he actually wore a fielding helmet on defense before Olerud.  

3. OF-P designation on Olerud's Score card had never been seen before.  

4. The Blue Jays were a good 1990s team and I liked them more than A's at that time.  

Welp, thirty years later I still kind of dig Olerud.  I forgive him for playing for the late 1990s Mets since he was traded there and was off the team before 2000.  He is not a Hall of Famer, but I always think of him and Will Clark as being sort of similar.  Clark had more power, Olerud hit for a better average and played better defense.  

Will Clark ended up on the Cardinals, Olerud did not.  Here is the new card.....

Why wasn't this picture ever on a Topps card back in the early 1990s?  Love the picture with the polyester Blue Jays uniform.  The Snapshot cards are really simple designs, so the picture is really what stands out on the card.  The bottom name border on these cards is a little odd.  I picked up a David Eckstein card from this set awhile ago, and when I first looked at that blue border, I thought I had received a damaged card for about half a minute.  Still gets when I look at these....

Last card comes from a player from the late 1990s.  More important player in my sphere of baseball during this time in my life.  Rick Ankiel was supposed to be the next ace pitcher in the Major Leagues.  Sure, the Cardinals had Mark McGwire, but the prospect duo of Ankiel and J.D. Drew were like going to end up being Mickey Mantle and Steve Carlton.  Well, probably.  

I loved my 1999 Fleer Update Rick Ankiel card.  

Both were good players, but nobody turned into Mickey Mantle or J.D. Drew.  Drew was a good right fielder for the better part of a decade with the Cardinals, Braves, Dodgers, and Red Sox.  Ankiel developed the yips, went down to the Minors as a pitchers, had Tommy John, made it back to the Majors as a pitcher, quit to become an outfielder, and made it all the way back up.  

Here's the new Ankiel card.  

There have been several Ankiel cards this year, but this might be my favorite.  Most of the other Ankiel cards in Topps products this year have featured him as a hitter.  While his career as an outfielder was much longer than his time as a pitcher, I liked Ankiel better as a pitcher.  This is obviously a picture from early in his career, looks like a little kid.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 63- Kent Bottenfield

Kent Bottenfield most memorable season as a professional baseball player came in 1999 while he was pitching for the Cardinals.  Prior to landing a job with the Cardinals, Bottenfield had made appearances with the Expos, Rockies, Giants, and Cubs.  Most teams mainly used him as a reliever.  The Expos and Rockies had both used Bottenfield as a starter, but that did not go very well.

Bottenfield joined the Cardinals as a free agent in January of 1998.  He was a long reliever in 1998 and was thrown into the starting rotation at the beginning of the 1999 season.  Bottenfield's 18 wins, 3.97 ERA, and All-Game appearance are often cited as some of Dave Duncan's finest work as a pitching coach. 

Someone posted a clip of his All-Star game appearance on YouTube.  He gave up a few runs, but also struck out Ivan Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.  Definitely a highlight.....

Bottenfield really has a limited amount of baseball cards with the Cardinals.  So, a quick tour.  He did not consistently appear in sets, even after the 18 win season.  Most card companies put him in a few of their products, but he never was amongst the core of Cardinals players who made all of a brand's sets.  

Pacific was one of my favorite brands from this era.  They actually had a 1998 card of Bottenfield in their Omega set, but I like the card in the 1999 set better.  

Pacific also used him in some of their 2000 sets as a Cardinal after he was traded away.  Nice cards, but he had nicer 2000 cards I will get to in a minute.  

Upper Deck might have been the stingiest company with Bottenfield cards, but their sets were stuffed with McGwire, Ankiel, and J.D. Drew cards at this point.  Give a spot to Ray Lankford, Fernando Tatis, maybe a Matt Morris or Andy Benes.  Not much room for other players from the Cardinals.  His most notable Cardinals card in an Upper Deck product was his appearance in the team's McDonald's set from 1999......

These cards were sold at McDonald's restaurants in the St. Louis area, I believe as a set, not a giveaway at the stadium.  The usual suspects were in the set, but Upper Deck put several players in this set who were not in other sets in 1999.  Bottenfield and Shawon Dunston are the two of them.  

Bottenfield did not get a Topps card with the Cardinals in 1998 or 1999, but they did manage to squeeze him into the 2000 set.  

There were no traded or update sets in 1998 and 1999, so I kind of get it.  Still, it's hard to believe that a relief pitcher who popped up in more than 60 games in 1998 could not get a card in the 1999 set.  This was also the small set phase for Topps.  I believe they were down to 400 some cards in the base set.  

The best two Bottenfield cards with the Cardinals are his autographs, which both came out in 2000 after he was traded.  He has a Fleer and a Skybox autograph.  The Fleer is a FreshInk card, the Skybox is an Autographics.  Both were cross product autograph sets, not sure what products contained Bottenfield autographs.  I own the Skybox card....

It's like a piece of artwork.  Bottenfield is consistent with his autograph too.  I love it when players care about their signature.  This is a great looking card, 90% of it is the autograph.  

So, the end of Bottenfield in a Cardinals uniform took place at the end of Spring Training in 2000 when the Cardinals traded him to the Angels, along with Adam Kennedy, for free agent to be Jim Edmonds. 

The Cardinals seemed to frequently trade for players in walk years during the late 1990s and early 2000s, let them play in St. Louis for the year, and then sign them.  Edmonds had a great 2000 with the Cardinals and signed a contract in the middle of the season to stay in St. Louis.  He ended up playing on the Cardinals for 8 seasons in all.  He helped the Cardinals win the 2006 World Series, win two National League pennants, and reach the National League Championship three other times.  While he is off the Hall of Fame ballot for the moment, Edmonds should make it at some point through the Veterans Committee.  Whatever it is now called.  

Edmonds popped up on a baseball card as a Cardinal long before Bottenfield showed up as an Angel.  Although, Bottenfield only lasted half a season in Anaheim before he was traded to the Phillies for Ron Gant.  He was never able to match his 1999 season with the Cardinals, but Bottenfield stuck around for a few more seasons before retiring.