STL Native MLB Player Card of the Week #2

Hello good sir, what is your name? My name is Outman. What do you? I pitch. Get outta here!

This week I was actually going to post a player with a crazy cool nickname, at least I hope it was a nickname. However, I thought I would check Wiki to see if there is another player in the Majors from good ol’ Lindbergh High School. Indeed there is a current major league player from Lindbergh playing and his name, I can’t make this up, is Josh Outman. Yes Josh is a pitcher! 

Josh was born in STL in 1984! OMG I am getting old. When I was a junior there he was born, man this is getting depressing fast. After graduation he went on to Central Missouri State University. He was then drafted in the 10^th round by the Phillies (307^th overall). On July 17, 2008 he was traded to the Oakland As along with two other players for Joe Blanton.

With Oakland in 2008 he appeared in 6 games (started 4), had a record of 1 and 2, an ERA of 4.56, and 19 strike outs. The following year he was 4 and 1 for the Oakland As. On January 16, 2012 he was traded to the Colorado Rockies with one other player for Seth Smith.

With Colorado his best year was 2013 when he was in 61 games, had a record of 3 and 0, ERA of 4.33, and 0 saves.

Again he was traded this time from the Rockies to the Indians on December 18^th, 2013 for Drew Stubbs.

This card is from 2009 O-Pee-Chee #564 Black. As I mentioned in a previous post I love the 2009 O-Pee-Chee set.

Yadi Card of the Week #4

For this week’s card I have to go with the 2005 Fleer Tradition #327. Do I really need to write why this card? If I must, this is a wonderful Yadi card. Not only is Yadi’s handsome mug on the front he shares this card with his homeboy Waino with his trademark big ol’ Southern smile. This is a double great card for this week’s posting.

Who is Evan Rust? Evan is from Santa Rosa here in the Bay area. Santa Rosa is also the home of Russian River Brewing. Rust was a rightie reliever. He began with Princeton in the Rookie League in 2000 then ended his minor league career with the AAA Memphis Redbirds in 2005. He never made it the big show. Let us get to the card.

This card  is in a horizontal format with the Fleer logo top left and the player’s name below their portraits, unfortunately Yadi isn’t the center portrait that honor going to Rust. The card is about 2/3s yellow with a blue band across the bottom.  The reverse of the card is laid out in a nice easy to read format with the player info in a yellow center band between two blue bands. The card stock of the Fleer Tradition set is on heavy stock which fits the retro theme. I wish I was collecting when this set came out because I think it really attractive.

MLB player from the STL Week #1

I will not “bore” you with only Yadi cards, not that a cardboard Yadi could bore anyone, so here is another weekly posting that I am beginning. This is a Major League baseball player from the STL or the STL metro area.

The vast majority of these players and their stats will come from Baseball Almanac and Baseball Reference’s websites. I can’t decide whether to go alphabetically or just random interesting folks. However, the one constant is they must have a card since this is a blog about baseball cards. What I think is interesting is this is an excellent opportunity to learn more about old timers and to find out whom is from the STL. Enjoy!

First up, is Joe Boever, you say Joe Boever who and why? Well he was drafted by the Cardinals, and then went to the Braves, he also threw for the Phillies, Astros, A’s, Tigers, and then finished with the Pirates. But most importantly we went to the same high school in STL County, Lindbergh (go flyers). He was already with the Cards in 1985 when I graduated from Lindbergh the same year.

Joe went to UNLV after graduating from high school. From UNLV the Cardinals signed him and in 1982 he was with the Erie A level farm team of the NY-Penn League where he appeared in 19 games and went 2 and 3 with an ERA OF 1.93 and 9 saves.

In 1983 he was with the St. Petersburg Cardinals and appeared in 53 games with a record of 5 wins and 6 losses, an ERA of 3.02, and 26 saves.

In 1985 he made it up to the Majors with the Cards and appeared in 13 games, with a record of 0 and 0, an ERA of 4.41, and 0 saves. The next year he appeared in 11 games for the Cardinals with a 0 and 1 record, a 1.16 ERA, and 0 saves. This was his last year with the Cards. He would spend the next three seasons with Braves. His best season was with the Tigers in 1994. He was 9 and 2 with an ERA of 3.98 and 3 saves. He would end his career with the Pirates where he was 0 and 2 with a 5.40 ERA and 2 saves. His career of 12 years produced a record of 34 and 45, ERA of 3.93, and 49 saves.

He does have a 1983 St. Pete card but I don’t have an image or the card. Actually I may have the card but I still haven’t gone through the roughly 3,000 cards I brought back to Cali from my parents.

So the baseball card I choose here is from his best season, which was 1994 with the Tigers. Here is his 1994 Topps Stadium Club # 458 in his Tigers’ uni, which shows him playing catch, or perhaps blocking the sun?

Yadi card of the Week #3.

This week’s card is 2009 Upper Deck’s O-Pee-Chee #493. Issued in 2009 by Upper Deck under the Canadian brand name that followed Topps’ design for so many years.  There is a black parallel of each 600 cards in the set. A black version is seeded at 1 in every 6 packs, a mini at 1 per 216 packs, and a Black Blank Back with an unknown seed rate. I haven’t come across a mini or a Black Blank Back as of yet.

The photography on these cards is outstanding. The colors used are simple yet very attractive.  The card stock reminds me of the late 70s and very early 80s. It is, I think, one of the most attractive card sets I have come across since reentering the hobby a little over a year ago. If I were going to build a set 2009 O-Pee-Chee would be one. Funny thing is, my local Kmart had rack packs of this for $2 or so a year ago and I bought a few (who could resist at that price) and really enjoyed opening them. Alas no Yadis.

Let us get to the card. The front shows Yadi’s full torso with his catcher’s mask sitting on top of his head in a home uni . This is a great photo of him. There is a white outer border, then an inner yellow border. His name is in small script above the team name at the bottom with his position in a baseball in the left bottom corner just above the O-Pee-Chee logo. The design is really simple but not simplistic. Why can’t Topps pull off something like this as a base set?

The back of the card is a grayish pinkish blueish color with blue and black texts.  Preparing for this posting I googled 2009 O-Pee-Chee and found out there is a Cardinals team card with Yadi’s floating head on the front. So, four more Yadis to locate.

Non Baseball Card ramblings.

Here are a few photos I have on my phone and I thought I would share with you all.

You think Yadi is happy for the season to start (this is my wife's avatar on my phone).

We took this at a Cardinals-Giants Game in SFO in April of 2007. You bet it was cold. I think Giants' fans were nicer then.

We took this at game one of the 2012 NCLS. Yep the Cardinals won. I remember getting the stink eye from one of the Giants' radio guys, can't remember which one. Also, please note the railing. We picked up these tickets at the last minuet. 

We took a tour of Busch Stadium III this past Christmas time. It was a great experience for us and to actually visit the KMOX broadcast booth and sit in Mike Shannon's chair was almost too much. The icing on the cake was to sit in the dugout (smaller than we thought).

Sharing Card Face Time.

For all of the PCs out there do you all pick up cards that have your player on it but are of a different player? Now this only works if you are able to see all cards in any given set, and you are more likely to find your PC on another team member’s card. Since I haven’t viewed every card of every issue this is a bit of a challenge. However, I have identified four base cards with Yadi from recent sets. This post will include three of these, as it is 5am as I write this and I don’t feel like digging through our Yadi collection to identify the 4th player.

Our rule of thumb is that Yadi has to be prominent and identifiable as the three cards below illustrate.

First up is 2011 Topps Update Matt Holliday #US260 All-Star subset. On this card you can see a smiling Yadi, Matt Holliday, and Lance Berkman. A solid card of three Cardinals who helped to bring home the 2011 trophy.

Second up is 2012 Topps Series I David Freese #291. This is a World Series highlight card showing David scoring the winning run in Game Six following his walk off home run. You can see Yadi smiling front and center waiting to celebrate the win. It really is a great card.

Some day I will write but Game Six and our experience.

The final card is 2013 Topps Series 1 Aaron Hill #302. Here you can see Yadi sliding into second base on the wrong side of a double play. What is awesome about this card is how the back of Yadi’s jersey is completely visible and you can clearly see Molina.

Of course all of these cards have a rainbow of parallels and the Freese and Hill cards have minis as well. Of the three players Holliday’s cards are a little more $$ and Hills the fewest.

Why I am P'd at myself!

So one of my goals for this year for us is to set budget and stand by it. Well this is day 20 of February and I have spent twice my monthly budget. Now I can blame this on the release of the 2014 Topps Series I and all of the cards with that, I most certainly can blame myself for buying a duplicate 2005 Topps Black Refractor (up for trade, if not will end up on COMC).  I was going to pick up a box of 2010 Topps and break it here but I cannot justify this. There are a few items I am bidding on Ebay and once these are concluded I am going cold turkey for the rest of the month and I am reducing the budget for the following, which seems counter intuitive but my wife is very supportive and  I need to respect her and how hard she works.

A few packs of 2012 Gypsy Queen to bust.

I stopped by a Target not far from where I work to buy my wife a V-Day card when I decided to check the baseball card bargain section. I read on a few blogs that some good packs can be had there. I spied three probable “victims” for a pack bust. One was a 2012 A&G, but alas the bottom was tore enough for someone to check for hits. The other two were 2012 Gypsy Queens, so I scored the two Gypsy Queens.

 

What did these packs reveal?

 

 

Pack one:

 

#174 Josh Beckett

#245 Darryl Strawberry (he currently lives outside of the STL in Lake STL and is clean and sober, way to go keep it up) 

I hated the Mets between 1984 and 1987. They were the Cards' mortal enemies and I even sported a "Mets are Pond Scum" T-shirt picked up at Venture. Heck, I think I have the shirt still.

#260 Curtis Granderson

#293 Yogi Berra (a native St. Louisian)

 

#53 Angel Pagan mini (regular) and ##-CR Hallmark Heroes Cal Ripken JR.

 

Overall some very attractive cards I really like the 2012 GQ.

 

 

Pack two:

 

This was a pitcher’s pack for sure.

 

#78 Sergio Santos

#91 Tim Hudson

#130 Justin Verlander

#155 Yovani Gallardo

 

#217 Eric Thames mini (regular)

 

MS-FR Mooonshots Frank Robinson. What an attractive card, yes purple is my favorite color not red, but not withstanding this is a nice card. Maybe I ought to put this insert set together?

 

It was great fun to pop these packs open because except for most of the Yadi 2012 GQ we have no other cards from this set.

A few Ebay pick ups from this week.

Like a lot of collectors we believe the parallels are getting out of hand but still hasn’t stopped us from picking them up.

First up is the 2013 Topps Tribute WBC Gold #16 out of 25.  To be honest the picture doesn’t look much like Yadi. In anticipation of a PR victory we went to a local taqueria to watch the championship game between the D.R and P.R. While the food and drinks were good the results for us weren’t as D.R won 3 nil.

Second up is Grandstand’s 2003 TN Smokies (Class AA) Yadi. The Smokies are in the Southern League and play in Knoxville. The Smokies are now an affiliate of the Cubs (boo) but in 2003 they were a Cardinals affiliate.

The 2003 team had Chris Duncan, Joe Girardi, Chris Narveson, Rick Ankiel, Dan Haren, Jason Isringhausen, and Skip Schumaker.

Yadi was 20 years old and played in 104 games, he had 397 plate appearances, 364 at bats, scored 32 runs, had 100 hits, 51 RBIs, a BA of .275, and an OB of .327.  He had a .991 FA, 56 stolen bases against, 38 caught stealing for a 40% Caught Stealing.  In these stats you can see how the Cardinals were keen on Yadi.

Last up 2005 Donruss Rated Rookie Press Proof Blue #66 out of 100.  In 2005 Yadi was 23 years old and played in 129 games for the Cardinals. He had 461 plate appearances, 417 at bats, He hit .274, had an OPS of .595. He had 37 stolen bases against, caught 29 base stealers, for a caught stealing % of 44. His overall fielding % was .994. He had a solid .994 Fielding Average.