Happy holidays to all and to all a safe New Year

To all my friends who read this blog we wish you the best possible holiday season you can have for you and your families. May your gifts only consist of baseball cards and baseball card products. Of course I have to point out that Santa does wear Cardinals' red.

Better than a Blaster Gant & Gilkey edition

# of cards in lot: 123 (no doubles).
# of cards added to out collection: 55
Cost of lot with shipping: $14.75
Cost per card of unduplicated cards: .12 cents per card for all cards.
Cost per card of cards added to collection: .27 cents per card.
Quality: 3 Blasters (very little “Junk Wax”)
Value: 3 Blasters
Expectations: 2 Blasters (thought we would add the majority to our collection)
Average # of Blasters: 2.67

Lot descriptions:

"Bernard Gilkey 68 DIFFERENTcard lot.  All are NRMT or better.  NO DUPLICATES!   Includes 2001 Topps Gold #'d/2001" & "Ron Gant Cardinals 57 different card lot 1996-1999 1998 SPx #'d/9000"

All in all not a tremendous value as I prefer to hit .20 cents or less per card for the nicer premium issues when we buy these lots but being able to add a significant chunk of Gilkey and Gant cards to our collection was highly satisfying.

When one looks back at the Redbirds of the past many fans will easily identify Bernard Gilkey and Ron Gant as being the face of the Birds in the early to mid 1990s.

Bernard was born in the STL in 1966 and made his MLB debut with the club September 4th, 1990. He spent 5 years with the Cardinals before being traded to the Mets. He would also spend time with the D'Backs, Red Sox, and Braves. He had a career batting average of .275 with 118 home runs, and 546 RBIs.

Ron Gant was born in 1965 and would play for a total of nine MLB teams including the Cardinals. Ron would spend 1996-1998 with the Birds although he wasn't particularly effective as he broke his leg in 1994 and wouldn't play again in 1995. In 1997 he struck out 162 times and had an average of .229. He eventually was traded along with Jeff Brantley and Cliff Politte to the Phillies for Ricky Bottalico and Garrett Stephenson.

Some day I will write an exhaustive post about my love of the cards issued in the Mid to late 1990s and thankfully it was this time when RG and BG played for the Cardinals. Having a large hole in our RG & BG collection I bid on these two lots from a dealer on EBay that had provided us with some really excellent lots in the past. Both lots I put together for one Better than a Blaster. Total cards for both were 123 cards. Of these we were able to add 55 to our collection with some of the others going out to fellow Cardinals' collectors. Here are the highlights of the lots.

1988 Springfield Cardinals

1995 Score Select 

1997 Flair

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Gant

1997 Bowman Best

1998 Stadium Club Gant Beefcake

R.I.P Sy

What a loss, what a pioneer. Thank you Sy for making the Baseball Card world what it is now. Sy Berger Passed Away and he will be missed.

2014 Topps Update Jumbo Box

So I finally broke down and bought our annual Topps Update Jumbo Box and to my shock there was no Yadi parallel or regular issue. Nope not one Yadi in the Update release for the first time since 2008. The best card in the box, is it this one?

Nope not this one. The best cards in the box are the ones I pulled, I kid you not,  consecutively . I don't know what the odds are but they must be high. These are the best cards pulled from the box-again consecutively. 

 Yes I pulled these consecutively. My wife I watched this game on MLB Game Day. We will never forget this game when he hit is first MLB homer.  Rest in Peace Oscar.

2015 Topp Series 2 mock Yadi

Sweet card-hard to believe we are thinking this far ahead. Thanks to Cardboard Connection for the mock.

RIP Ray Sadecki

Ray Sadecki passed away on November 17, 2014 in Meza, AZ at the age of 73. Being both a Cardinals’ fan and card collector the name Sadecki is well know in both. Ray was born in KC on December 26, 1940 and was a left-handed pitcher for the Cardinals from 1960-1966, and again in 1975. He also spent time with the SF Giants, Mets, ATL Braves, Royals, and ending his career with the Brewers in 1976.

After a shaky start in the early 60s Ray came into prominence during the 1964 WS Championship Season when he went 20 and 11 and helped the Birds grab their first WS Championship since 1946. It was Ray who may have put the final nail in the coffin of the ‘64 Phillies after their historic meltdown during which they blew a 6 ½ game lead with 12 games remaining as of September 20. Ray beat them for his 20th victory on September 29th.

The 1964 season may have been the high mark for Ray’s Cardinal career as he wasn’t able to perform at that level in 1965 when his ERA went north. He was traded to the SF Giants for Orlando Cepeda on May 6th, 1966. Cepeda and the Cardinals the following year would win another Championship and were close to winning again in 1968.

Over his 18 year career Ray won 135 games and loss 131 with a career ERA of 3.78 and 1614 Ks in 2500 ½ innings.  On June 14, 2007 Ray was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.

Thank you!

Thank you to all for staying with me and for the kind words.

To Listia or To EBay that is the question?

So I have been thinking for sometime that I need to move cards that I don’t need or I could send to fellow bloggers -I.E the Brewers, Pirates, Reds, Padres, etc. But then what do I do? Pick the sets I want to complete? I do think I need to sell those cards that I deem unwanted in some way or form-such as Relic Cards of Carlos Santana. So I have been weighing the best way to do this-Listia? I am not certain how much a credit is really worth? A penny, a dollar, what exactly? How easy is it to move cards on Listia. What does Listia get out of it and does it cost me? I have researched EBay and man it looks like a pain in the arse but I suspect it is the better way to move large amounts of cards. I am not looking to make money only looking to move cards from my house to another person’s house and to use what ever I do make to turn back into Redbird cards thus saving money, or at least not costing me more. What is a collector to do?

Oh what a relief it is!

Done and Done. After nearly 5 months of studying I have completed, successfully, my final exam for my Clinical Social Worker license. Hopefully I haven’t lost too many readers. What that means among other things is I can now blog more because no more studying is required and no guilt for blogging when I should be studying. This means organizing the boxes of Redbird cards and mailing out care packages to those I have been meaning too. It also means hitting an occasional flea market in San Jose to hook up with Fuji and to search for cards.

What does this mean for the blog? This means more frequent and consistent postings as well as more consistent blog topics. I have really enjoyed writing the Yadi Card of the Week, the St. Louis MLB player of the week and the Better than a Blaster. So these will continue though I am not certain if they will be weekly because I want to also have postings on “Where are they now?”-a posting about what ever happened to a top Cardinals’ prospective. I mean how many of us have stacks of cards including autos of players we don’t even know who they are, or barely remember them. I also want to have a column, when necessary, of a former Cardinal that passed away, and a column of my favorite Redbird of the past-I.E Tommy Herr.  So I look forward to writing and posting more and I appreciate those readers that will be reading.

Still Here and 7 straight for Yadi!

I haven't been able to blog much since beginning my last phase of studying and if all goes well I will be back in the saddle soon. A quick congrats to Yadi for his 7th straight Gold Glove!!!

Cardinal Nation mourn loss of Oscar Taveras

This from the Cardinals' email blast.

"The St. Louis Cardinals offer condolences to the family of Oscar Taveras, the 22 year old Cardinals Outfielder, who was killed earlier today in an automobile accident in the Dominican Republic.

"We are all stunned and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of one of the youngest members of the Cardinals family," Cardinals Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said. "Oscar was an amazing talent with a bright future who was taken from us well before his time. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends tonight."

"I simply can't believe it," said John Mozeliak, Sr. VP & GM of the St. Louis Cardinals. "I first met Oscar when he was sixteen years old and will forever remember him as a wonderful young man who was a gifted athlete with an infectious love for life who lived every day to the fullest."

The team will provide additional information on funeral arrangements at a later time."

I know I haven't been posting much, more out of having to study for a final license exam and helping my wife get through her midterms, than a loss of desire. But I was actually preparing a posting featuring the Taveras autos I picked up this year. I feel horrible for his family, friends, and for Cardinal Nation. He had so  much pressure on him to be a star and I know he would have been but we will never know how good he would have become. Thankfully we don't experience this more in sports. In our personal lives all too often this is common. His exciting swing and our two Taveras autos.

A fitting end to the Birds' post-season run

Another confession, I didn't watch last night's game. I knew what the result was going to be after watching Games 1, 2, and 4. I am not saying the Giants didn't win the series but what I am saying is they were given opportunities by the Birds and like any good team took advantage of them.

I saw it coming during Game 1 when the Giants had two bloop hits, a Wong error, and a dropped ball by Grichuck. I told my wife this has a feeling to it when one team gets the "bounces" so to speak. Apart from the Giants, why did the Birds fail?

1. Mike Matheny isn't a good post-season manager when the series gets deep. Some of his calls were questionable to say the least and his loyalty to some players (Randy Choke) just odd.

2. Matt Adams looked lost at first making two errors in Game 4 and his series sub par batting average. I will never forget his dumb founded look after the second error. I hope they trade him for what they can get and transition one of their many outfielders to first.

3. Missing runs. Yep mission runs. They needed to have more runs than those scored off of home runs. It was good while it lasted but they aren't home run hitters.

4. The bull pen-Rosenthal, Choke, and whom ever gave up the series ending blast last night.

However, back in May in my post State of Redbirds I stated my disgust. Alas, I am proud they made it this far however I hate to see them embarrassed again in the Post-Season. I am happy for my friends that are Giants' fans, but for the millions of mean spirited fans I am not. They booed every Cardinal except Matheny when we went to Game 1of the 2012 NCLS including the trainer! Not happy for the woman who shouted at me as we walked around AT&T during 2012's NCLS Game 1 "Cardinals' Suck!", of course that is incongruent with them making it to the NLCS. Also not happy for at idiot work who has been giving me hard time but is unable to name the Giants' infield. Too bad they have such fans as I really like the Giants' players.

At least there is next year-but for now go Royals!

What a show-my first card show in 30 years wrap up and a confession

I have to confess to the fact that we didn't watch Game 3 of the NCLS yesterday. Now wait before thoughts of fair weather fan come to your mind. The game started at 1pm here in the Bay Area and we were on a media black out beginning then until I returned home. I even put a sign on my office door asking others not to discuss the game with me. However, I made a deal with my wife that if we accidentally found out of the results of the game and the boys lost we would tell the other so we wouldn't watch three hours of baseball only to be disappointed. So she heard the score from one of her many students. So we didn't watch. I haven't had the opportunity to comment on Yadi's injury. I don't believe a team is only one person but not having Yadi is a blow so knowing the game went into extra innings shows the team isn't going to go down with out a fight just because Yadi is out.

Now let me wrap up the posts related to the card show I attended last month. Here are some of my favorite Cardinals' cards I was able to add to our collection. First up some old A's teammates reunited and it "felt so good".

 A Hall of Famer and a couple of rookies.

A couple of cool die cuts 

Jimmy and Rick 

A few King Alberts to wrap up the card show finds. 

When the numbers become too overwhelming, or how to milk more money out of us.

As we sit here waiting to see if the Birds can even up the NLCS series I have been researching the Topps' Moments and Milestones sets which were hobby only releases in 2006, 2007, and 2008. I haven't been able to locate a checklist for 2006 but if it is anything like the subsequent year's issues it must be about 190 base cards with each numbered to #150 and each with 2-4 parallels numbered to 29, 25, 10, and/or 1of 1.  According to BaseballCardPedia.com if one were to attempt to complete the base card sets, which means no parallels, your complete base set for 2007 would be a staggering 12,475 unique cards! 2008 was even bigger at 12,579! The concept of the issue was to have a card for each of a player's M&M.

I recently won a lot of 56 Albert Pujols 2006, 2007, 2008 M&M base cards for about 23 cents per. I thought to myself I could put a dent in some want list cards. Alas, I didn't run the numbers. First, the base cards then the numbers.  The 2006 M&M honors all 130 of Albert's RBI and all 194 hits during his 2001 ROY campaign. The only thing that changes is the number of RBI/Hits noted on the front of the card.

The 2007 MOM which isn't very imaginative again honors Albert's 2001 ROY campaign. The 2007 MOM notes every Run Scored and Home Run of his in 2001.

For its finale the 2008 M&M included base cards for all of Albert's 97 Walks, 129 Runs Scored, 195 hits, and 41 Home Runs of his 2005 NL MVP season.  I have included a parallel of his Home Run card. 

So if I were to seek an example of each of Albert's 2006 M&M cards including parallels I would have to locate 1446 cards, for 2007 I would need 1560, and in 2008 I would need to locate 1848! For a grand total for just Albert standing at 4854. Needless to say I will not be attempting to get one of each but I can comfortable picking them up at card shows since the odds are I would not have it.