2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 12

There were half a dozen new baseball products out over the last month, which I spent driving around the Midwest while I was on my summer vacation away from work.  In all, we drove right around 3,000 miles and went through 10 different states.  The kids got to see a few things.....

Meanwhile, all of those new baseball card products had Blake Snell cards.  It probably just seemed that way.  I won a few auctions, and the cards piled up in my held mail.  I have been home for two weeks now, and I am just starting to recover from my vacation.  Sounds pretty backwards, but the second half was interesting.  

Here is another Snell autograph out of the envelope and onto my corner of the internet.  

The marks on the scan are on the top loader, not on the card.  

I was pretty excited about this card.  Stadium Club is always one of my favorite products every year, love that great photography, and also love the fact that the autographs are generally on card.  At least the Snell autographs are all on card.  Nice close up picture here of Snell in his set position before throwing a pitch.  

Flip the card over.....

I also like that Topps still leaves the stats and player information on its Stadium Club autographs.  They still have that little disclaimer under his stats.  The front also identifies the card as an autograph issue underneath the player name.  I would rather look at this type of stuff then, "Congratulations, you've received an autograph from Topps....legalese, legalese, and more legalese."  

Good card. More on Stadium Club and vacation this weekend.  

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 10 & 11

I have had a system for purchasing cards on Ebay for the better part of a decade.  It works well for me, and I feel like it makes me think through how much I am bidding on cards.  I cannot really say anything bad about the system, but I actually messed things up last week.  Hence, we have a post about Blake Snell autographs 10 and 11, and not just 10.  

Here are the cards....

 

One of these cards was an auction.  One of these cards was a Buy It Now.  The Buy It Now was the cheapest available on Ebay at the time I was bidding on the auction.  The auction card was lower than the Buy It Now card, but the prices were getting close.  I usually watch the Buy It Now cards when I am bidding on a card that has multiple cards like this Snell autograph.

Long story short, I won the auction making one of these two cards the 10th Blake Snell autograph in my collection during 2019.  I had been doing a bunch of bidding that day, and had a fair number of cards I had won in my cart.  Apparently, I had also dragged the Buy It Now into the cart, which I normally do not do, but missed removing it when I checked out.  Now, I have 11 Blake Snell autographs from 2019.  

No problems.  Here is the back of the card.  

A must have for the collection.  Allen & Ginter is not a product that I will go out and buy boxes of anymore, but I do love the autographed cards.  The frames are distinct, cards always look really good.  Excited to add these two cards into my growing collection of Blake Snell autographs.  

A 1980s Card Part 11 - 1989 Bowman Tiffany Don Heinkel

I have ten of these post so far, and they have all been pretty big names.  Thought I would change things up a bit this week, throw out a new name for everyone.  Unless this guy is your primary care physician.

Seriously.

This is the 1989 Bowman Tiffany Don Heinkel card. 

Heinkel joined the team after spending seven years with the Tigers, mostly in their Minor League system, but they did use him as a reliever in 21 games during the 1988 season.  He pitched a total of 7 games for the 1989 Cardinals, including 5 starts, ending the year with an ERA of nearly 6.  All of the appearances came early in the season.  I am not sure exactly what happened to Heinkel, but he was obviously injured and he never appeared in the Majors again.

Here is the back of the card.

The whitish color on the back is found on the Tiffany cards.  Looks a little different.

This was Heinkel's last Major League baseball card.  He would play in the Minors for the Indians and Padres in an attempt to reach the Majors, but ended up retiring from baseball and settled down in Birmingham, Alabama where he played several years while in the Tigers system.  He went back to college, attended medical school, and now works as a physician in northern Alabama.

He is in the College Baseball Hall of Fame, the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, and once got press coverage for getting a B in a biology class at Wichita State.

From a copy of "The Eagle", the Wichita State student newspaper, from the spring of 1980

“I made a ‘B’ in a beginning biology course last spring,” said Heinkel, a former three-sport standout at Racine (Wis.) Horlick High. “That upset me. It seemed like we had some games at bad times but that’s no excuse. There were just times when I just didn’t do as good a job of studying as I should have.” 

Stinks that he did not have a longer career, but it seems like he ended up in a good place.

Classic Big Mac

I have been posting a lot of older Durham Bulls cards during the past month, but I also wanted to get around to some older Cardinals cards this summer too.  However, rather than going with pre-World War II cards, I have been working more on cards from the 1990s and early 2000s.  Primarily, I am trying to find some nice non-Cardinals cards of some former Cardinals players.  I have had a list going for awhile, and it's time to cross a few off.

For today, I have two new Mark McGwire's that are inserts, one of which is a die-cut parallel of the other card.  Base insert card first....

This is a Holoview insert from the 1994 SP set.  It's also hard to scan cards with holograms, but the space around the bottom of the card was the highlight of these cards.  Pretty high tech at this point.  You can see McGwire's face on the right side, and the SP logo on the right.  There is more there, but they did not scan well.  Love the perm/mullet look from McGwire. 

Same card, but the die cut versions of these cards are a lot harder to find.  This is my second Holoview Die-Cut card in my collection.  I added an Ozzie Smith a few years back.  

Happy to add a second.  

A Doubleheader of Bulls

Continuing with the theme on several of the posts from this month, a few older cards with Durham Bulls players from before World War II.  One of the players is new, another has already been featured in a post this month.  Let's go.  

This card is from the 1941 Doubleheaders.  The Reds held an affiliation with the Bulls during this time, but only Koy made an appearance in Durham.  Joost did not play long in the Minors, and it appears that he skipped past the Bulls.  Koy was mainly a fourth outfielder in the Majors, but he is in the Hall of Fame at the University of Texas along with his two sons who played football there in the 1960s.  

They have football cards.  

Not my card, not really into the Horns. 

Next.  

This is my second Mace Brown card.  Earlier this month I picked up a 1940 Play Ball card.  This is from the 1936 Goudy set.  The colors look a little weird, but I like adding another Goudy card to the collection.  Mace Brown really deserves his own post one of these days.  Next time I get one of his cards I will give it a solo post with a little more information about his career.  Important player and person.  

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 9

I went away on vacation the past few weeks, so now I am behind on Blake Snell autographs.  My baseball card mail is stacked up on my desk, several are Snell cards.  I missed this card way back in February when the first series of Topps cards was released.  It's not a difficult card to find, but just simply unwilling to pay the prices I saw it at a few months back. 

Honestly, this card is a bit of a hot mess in terms of design.  It's from the Major League Material insert, but the name of the insert does not stand out really well since it is just stashed on the side of the card.  The word materials fading into the clouds, or smoke, makes it even less obvious.  

What is that red stuff on the right side of the card?  I don't know.  

I guess there is a sticker autograph of Snell on the card, a patch piece with two different colors of blue, and I like the picture of Snell wearing the old style Devil Rays hat. 

Back of the card.  

You've got the serial number out of 25.  The back has a better design than the front of the card.  I never regret getting Blake Snell cards, but if there were ever going to be a first this would likely be the one.  

A 1980s Card Part 10 - 1985 Topps Andy Van Slyke

Before Whitey Herzog turned Jose Oquendo into a super utility player, he tried something similar with Andy Van Slyke during the 1984 season.  While he did not appear as a middle infielder, pitcher, or catcher, Van Slyke started games at every outfield spot along with the two corner infield position during both the 1983 and 1984 season.

A little odd considering Van Slyke was such a good defensive outfielder. 

Maybe just trying to find Van Slyke some extra at bats.  Either way, Topps listed Van Slyke as a third baseman on his 1985 Topps card even though he started more games as an outfielder, and the Cardinals played Terry Pendleton as the regular third baseman during the second half of the 1984 season.  

Beyond the curious position listing on the card, Van Slyke's 1985 Topps card is also one of my favorite powder blue uniformed cards from the 1980s.  His 1984 Topps card also has an action shot of Van Slyke in a powder blue, but he is looking up like a popped out to the first baseman.  This looks like it has some hopes of being a hit.  

It's a nice photograph.  I like George Hendrick standing in the background too.  No socks showing.  

Back of the card.  The trivia question is a tough.  

I like that Van Slyke was still young enough that you can see all of his Minor League stats on the back of the card.  Scott Van Slyke was born in 1986.  The son mentioned on this card is A.J. who played baseball at the University of Kansas, and was in the Cardinals Minor League system for awhile in the early 2000s.