Show me the Money

I have been a little on the down low lately. My mental energy has been zapped by work, however, I would be remiss as a Redbirds and Yadi fan not to address his very recent announced contract with the Birds that makes him the most highly paid catcher in MLB. Yadi and the Cardinals reportedly agreed to a three year deal that is between 55 and 65 million. Yadi really helped himself with his performance in the WBC. SO yes I am very happy. I am not sure I could take him in another uniform which may be the case in three years but then again he will be 37-and not sure that it is realistic to expect him to have much market demand after that. SO smile Yadi you deserve it!

Better than a Blaster John Tudor Edition

I have had the 2005 Topps Fan Favorite John Tudor auto on my radar for some time-most going for BIN prices on the Bay of $20. So, when one popped up for less than that or best offer-I shot a good price, for me, and he or she accepted.

I think I am not alone among Redbird fans of a certain generation in our fond memory of Cardinals’ left-handed pitcher John Tudor.  The 1985 Season was huge for John who was kept from the Cy Young by Dwight Gooden-hard to believe a record of 21-1 and a 1.93 ERA could have been topped.  John was a product of his hometown Red Sox for whom he made his debut on August 16th, 1979.

After spending 1979-1983 seasons with the Red Sox he was traded to the Bucos for Mike Easler.  With the Bucs he went  12-11 with an ERA of 3.27. He spent only one year with Pittsburgh before being traded to the Redbirds for fan favorite “Silent George” Hendricks in 1985.

In 1985 he was fantastic-not only for the aforementioned win loss record and ERA but for the fat he had double digit (10) complete game shutouts-the most since Jim Palmer did it in 1975. No one has had that success since then.

This season would be the 4th trip for the Birds to the WS since my birth in 1967. Having lost the first game of the NLCS against the Dodgers he picked up the victory for the 4th Game.

Though outstanding in two starts against the Royals in the World Series the wheels came off in Game 7 which went terribly bad. Of course, the Royals “won” the World Series-though some of us refuse to recognize this.

Fast forward to 1987 and he got another chance in the WS-this time against the Twins. As we all know the Redbirds didn’t win the series. After some injuries-freakish or otherwise he was traded to the Dodgers in 1988 with whom he won a WS in 1988.

John would end his career with the Cardinals in 1990-September 13th to be exact. Injuries really took a toll on him and his career-he finished with a record of 117-72, ERA of 3.12 and 988 strike outs.

1970 Cardinals' Football Cards-Dawn of a New Decade

I thought I would go to a two-season combo on the cards of the defunct Football Cardinals-since first, nothing changes for the most part from season to season for the Big Red, second, I didn’t realize how long this would take, and lastly it is about the cards. Perhaps next time. Boston Patriots linebacker John Bramlett (57) tackles St. Louis Cardinals running back MacArthur Lane (36) for a 2-yard gain during a game in St. Louis on Nov. 8, 1970. (AP PHOTO). Love the Falstaff add-Falstaff out sold Bud in the STL till the Mid-70s when the brewery closed.

1970 Big Red another season not reaching the post season-their record was 8-5-1. This team had no rookies of note.

Topps remained the only real player in football cards with 1970 seeing the debut of one of the most popular oddball sets-Kellogg. The 1970 Topps issue was put out in two series with the second being a little more expensive. Each series had a distinct insert. The fronts had a round photo of the said player in a posed action shot. The photo was framed in brown with a pennant with the player’s name and team and the player’s position in a football.

The reverse was in an attractive horizontal layout with a pinkish/orange color and three purple boxes with card number, mini-player bio, and cartoon about the player. This issue contained 10 Cardinals plus inserts.  This issue contained rookie cards of Rolf Krueger (DT/DE), and Chuck Walker (DE).

Series 1 packs contained a poster (Larry Wilson) as an insert. Series 2 packs included the highly collected Super Glossy (Jackie Smith) inserts. While the posters are blah the Super Glossy cards are very nice. The fronts were very colorful in late ‘60s trippy colors, a large player picture, with name, team, and position on front.

Topps also issued a separate Super set that were very much like their baseball Supers. Nice full bleed photography, player photo and facsimile auto.

Nineteen-seventy was a good year for oddballs-for 1970 brought us the first Kellogg’s cards-Larry Wilson and Johnny Roland represented the Big Red.

Not sure how these were issued but Chiquita issued football Team Logo Stickers in 1970-yeah I guess not technically a card.

Score card- 9 of 10 Topps Cardinals, 0 inserts or Topps Super, 1 of 2 Kellogs, and no Chiquita.

This time of the year Red is my favorite color

This time of the year with the start of the season just a few weeks away and thoughts turn from soccer to baseball. Red becomes my favorite color again. The start of another season of seeing another Red, Red Schoendienst, who will return to the Cardinals for what will be his 72nd consecutive year of his being in an MLB uniform! Of which, only 5 years not being with the Redbirds-NY Giants and Milwaukee Braves being the other teams. 

Besides being a player he managed the Redbirds for 13 seasons and in 1980 he took over and managed until Whitey took the reigns and again in 1990 when it was needed to do so again.

Which brings me to the most recent Topps Archive/Heritage Auto pick up. A 2012 Topps Heritage Red Shoendienst-the 2012 design is based on the 1963 Topps release-not sure why Topps never matched up the years better-2012 based on 1962 etc. Doesn't make a lick of sense-1963 would be the last year Red wore the uniform as a player-July 7th would be he last game.

Sweet signature! Better than most younger players-here is to another full season wearing the Birds on the Bats!

Parallel Universe

I think I have written on buying lots of your favorite team you eventually run in to the law of diminishing returns. In that it is hard to add a large # of cards to your team collection so I haven't been buying many Cardinals lots-and when I do I am very very selective.

Recently a Bin lot of "675 St. Louis Cardinals Parallel Card lot gold row mini chrome variation stars!" came up and the pictures of the lot looked promising so I picked it up.

The description was as follows "Mostly 90s to mid 2000s. All St. Louis Cardinals. Approximately 675 cards, all parallel/uncommon/variation version cards. Examples being gold, glossy, international, various rows, colors, die-cuts and other examples. Several examples of parallel cards are pictured to give a wide variety of what is included.

This is a bulk lot geared toward getting you the most cards for the lowest price, so please consider the following: Do not expect refractors or serial #d cards. Condition is mostly EXMT to NMMT. Expect duplicates, in some cases several of one card - especially the 1990s. Please allow for 1-3% being lower condition, wrong team or base card instead of parallel. "

A good accurate description to be sure-not a great amount of duplications-large #s of one card were rare-so the # was a little off 100 cards-not 675 but 574-a bummer as that would have added another 50 cards to the collection. But none the less with the dirty of card shows here I don't get a chance to dig through dime boxes and I have wiped out the usual dealers.

I picked three cards from most of the card producers to show below-I was able to add some fantastic 90s and early 2000s Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion cards, various Pacific parallels, Upper Deck Collect's Choice Silver Signature cards, Bowman Chrome and Paper Hometown and International parallels, Score Gold Rush, and Topps Gold, mini, and various odds and ends-all in all we added 282 cards to our collection, I went through the ones not needed and sorted out to eventually send to Ray of All Cardinals All the Time. We are off-slowly because an old dear friend came in to town and he is opening a brewery here and we had to do some fieldwork-"research" Not so much drank too much just but cats got me up real early-he will be back in a few weeks and we will do more "research".

On to the cards! 1997 Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion Eli Marrero, 2000 Fleer Gamers Extra Ray Lankford, 1998 Fleer Flair 1st Row Alan Benes.

 Next we have some Bowman-2004 bowman hHeritage B&W Rolen, 1998 Bowman Chrome Hometown Cliff Poliette, and 1997 Bowman Chrome International Andy Benes.

Upper Deck 1995 Collectors Choice Silver Signature Rick Suttcliffe and 2008 Goudey Mini Blue Back Lou Brock.

Donruss 2002 Donruss Fan Cub Die Cut Jim Edmonds and 1997 Donruss Preferred Silver Dmitri Young.

Pinnacle yes nothing says 1990s Baseball Cards than Pinnacle or a Benes brother, or Ray Lankford 1995 Pinnacle Artist's Proof Allen Watson, 1994 Museum Pags, and 1998 Museum Collection Ray  Lankford.

I know that Pacific is one of our favorites brand-no inserts included but plenty of parallels. 1998 Paramount Copper Ron Gant, 2000 Prizm Chad Hutchinson (Slider Silver only 334 copies), and 2000 Prizm Ray (Pebbly Dots only 691 copies made)-now the Prizm Parallels confuse me and I did my best to determine which is which. 

There were a number of Score but the one that really stuck out is the 1995 Summit Nth Degree Ray Langford. 

Finally, Topps-there were several cool parallels such as the 1998 Cooperstown. 1998 Todd Stottlemyer, 2000 MVP Promotion Joe Mac, 2002 Ten Die-Cut Darell Kile.  

All in all I had good time sorting through these.