1999 Sports Illustrated Autographs

As I sat on a rainy overcast day having a few 21st Amendment brews from up the road in San Francisco I began to scroll through Redbird Autographs on the Bay and it dawned on me how inexpensive the 1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated, and Fleer Sports Illustrated Greats of the Game certified on card autos are. I mean really, probably for less than $10 you can get a Fergie Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, Dave Kingman, or BIN Clete Boyer for $5.99 plus shipping and HOFers for $20 are not unusual. Not only baseball mind you but also football players including Garo Yepremian, Bert Jones, Jim Plunkett, and many others.

There are two 1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated autograph sets. There is the Greats of the Game which didn't utilize Sports Illustrated covers and the Autograph Collection which did, an example of which is below the two Redbirds.

The six Redbirds with autos in the release were Red Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Bob Forsch, and Al Hrabosky. Currently we have the Al Hrabosky and the Bob Forsch Greats of the Game. I believe this is the only certified card autograph for Bob Forsch. Sadly he passed away just a few weeks after the Birds won the 2011 World Series.

I really like the the Fleer Sports Illustrated auto series because the photos are fantastic, the autos are on card, and they are reasonable. I will look to pick up the autos of my favorite non-redbird players-perhaps a few footballers too.

When you come to a fork in the road take it part 1

On the path of life there are often forks in the road that leads you to one career or another. I “walked” up to the proverbial fork in the road and choose a path to become a licensed clinical social worker. The other fork would have led me to a career as an archivist-at least I would have hoped so.  One of our longest and dearest friends is an incredible archivist-formally of the University of California Berkley’s Bancroft Library and now at another UC nearer to us.  I mean I love books, history, organizing etc. Well needless to say I didn’t become one. What does this have to do with the Redbirds or cards? Really not much except I love Topps’ Archives Autographs and unconsciously, well maybe not-have picked up as many of the different Topps Archives autos as possible paying much less than the cost of blasters for them which means no Whitey, Brock, Gibby, Willie, or those expensive 2015 Archives Signature cards.

This will be a series of 2-3 posts-probably with little verbiage except for the cards. I am going to group them by era-or at least to some degree. I will also do away with the distinction between Fan Favorites, Reserve, etc except in rare cases.

So here we go 1950s, 60s, and 70s Redbirds including two HOFers for less than the cost of a blaster;

Topps 1954 Archives Cot Deal  Thank you Fuji!

2001 Topps Archives Reserve Enos Slaughter   

2001 Topps Archives Red Schoendienst

2001 Topps Archives Reserve Al Hrabosky           

2004 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Al Hrabosky

2013 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Al Hrabosky

New Year, New Post-

WOW has it really been nearly two months since I last posted? Unbelievable and disappointing, none the less here we are about a month until pitchers and catchers report.  I hope everyone had a safe and joyous holiday season. We went back to the STL to spend the holidays with my parents and of course this coincided with a historic flood. The suburban town (Fenton) I am from was on the news a great deal as was the neighboring city of Valley Park. We were flooded in but not out-my parents live on a large hill far from the flooding-so we were able to get out and meet friends the first two days after that-then we couldn’t leave the little town I am from (though food , craft beer, and STL style pizza was easily had)-which was a bummer as we had planned to hit the Cardinals’ Hall of Fame and gift shop down at Busch, then hit a couple of breweries and a world famous soul food restaurant, but alas no. Again, no complaint as we weren’t sandbagging for our lives.

 

While flooded in I was able to hit my parent’s basement where I discovered I had some 1977, 1978,and 1979 Topps football cards and by the looks of it a large number of them. However, we were loaded down with STL beer and Italian sausage for the return trip and I wasn’t able to take them home.

 

I plan on writing a 2016 collecting goals and review of the previous year. I am looking forward to the card show at Serramonte Mall later this month and hope that it bounces back as there aren’t any other options around here. Perhaps (Yes, Fuji went to one) Sacramento has some card shows? I hope I don’t have to find out.

Here are the first Yadi card picked up in 2015, the last, and the best. The first was a gold parallel of his base card from the 2015 Topps Mini #23/63

, the last was a die-cut 10^th Anniversary A&G from the National,

and the best was a one of one A&G glossy-mini which set me back $30 which was the most expensive card of the year too. Until next time-cheers and Happy New Year!

Been too long-my friends too long

Indeed, it has been a long time my friends since my last posting; the Royals won a World Series that doesn’t need an asterisk-congrats boys in blue,

Yadi won yet another (8^th straight) Gold Glove

and Jason Heyward won his first, and I hope not last, Gold Glove with the Redbirds

, Lance Lynn had TJ surgery-WTF

, Ray over at All Cards All the Time sent me a fantastic 2014 Topps Tek Ron Gant

(as a Redbird) auto-thank you Ray!, reader Jim some extra 2009 Topps T206 cards to get closer to completing that set

, some a@# hat totaled our Jetta VW (I am banged up but I will be OK)

, which means I can’t attend the card show later this month that Jim turned me on to, and some other a@# hats murdered a bunch of folks in Paris.

Put a Fork in 'em

OK, my period of mourning has officially ended, and my in-laws have departed. At times I hate when I am right, I really do, about something or someone. But I have to say I checked out the minute when it was announced by this guy 

  this guy would start  

for pivotal Game 3 in Chicago.   Beginning August 23rd Wacha’s record is as such. August 23rd he went 6 innings, August 28^th 6 innings, September 8th 4 innings, September 13 6 innings, September 19^th 5 innings, September 24^th 4 innings, and September 30^th 4 innings. Over the span of these games he gave up a total of 36 ruuuuuuunnnnnnssssss! My wife put it bluntly the minute I said the Redbirds were starting Wacha “Why don’t they start Tyler Lyons?” Well said honey, great question for Mike and Mo?

They will not fire this guy

but they should. Like I said, I stopped watching at that point as it was inevitable they weren’t going to win the series.  Any who, I am going to be more active posting than I have been the last few weeks as another passion of mine is genealogy (family history) and that has taken up some free time I would have otherwise used to blog. I have a box of 2015 Donruss Soccer waiting to be busted and I am expecting a Hobby box of Topps 2009 T-206 this week as the dealer didn’t have the rack pack boxes he did in June at Serramonte Mall a few weeks ago ( shock of shocks). I have some cards from Ray over at All Cardinals All the Time and I have been picking up some reasonably priced autos and a cool 1/1 Yadi card !

The only bright spots for me this weekend in the world of sports is the Cubs being down two games to zero-but those Cubs are wily so I hope the Mets don‘t let them off the mat. We also received the Cardinals’ Magazine with this freaking great cover-best ever.

And so it Begins.

 

This afternoon the Cards face off against the "lovable" losers from the North Side of Chicago. I am fairly certain everyone but Cardinals' Nation is rooting for the Cubs because they have lost for so long and they aren't the Birds. The Cardinals are underdogs picked by many to lose to the upstart Cubies.  I don't feel sorry for the Cubs fans for not having won a World Series since 1908-it is your fault for supporting an organization that hasn't worked all that hard to win-up until now.

The have been able to make some trades with their deep highly seeded draft picks (again for being a loser) to beef up their young talent. I don't begrudge the Cubs for doing so but please don't make it seem like you all created a miracle roster from barebones draft picks from continuously loosing-as the Redbirds did. Listing to the Astros-Yanks game the other night Kruk and said what I have been saying, the Astros and by extension the Cubs,  ought to be good for getting great draft picks for loosing for so long. Not rocket science.

              Round  Overall  Pick                    

2015      1            9            9            Ian Happ (minors)

2014      1            4            4            Kyle Schwarber (minors)

2013      1            2            2            Kris Bryant (minors)

2012      1            6            6            Albert Almora (minors)

2012      1s          43          43          *Pierce Johnson (minors)

2012      1s          56          56          *Paul Blackburn (minors)

2011      1            9            9            Javier Baez (minors)

2010      1            16          16          Hayden Simpson (minors)

2009      1            31          31          Brett Jackson (minors)

2008      1            19          19          Andrew Cashner (minors)

2008      1s          41          41          *Ryan Flaherty (minors)

2007      1            3            3            Josh Vitters (minors)

2007      1s          48          48          *Josh Donaldson (minors)

I am very concerned about the Birds-they looked a little bewildered the last two series against the Cubs-as if they didn't have a clue. This in turn empowered the already heady Cubs into believing they can beat up on the Birds. Second, the Cardinals are not going in to this series with any momentum. They lost their last three games, and their offense was flat,-yeah, against Braves!Lastly, this seems like the Cubs year- a "story" book season for them.

Having said that, who do I think will win the series and how so?

 

 

My prediction-

1. If the Cardinals get down early the first game they are in trouble.

2. If they loose the first game today they will not win the Series.
3. Injuries, injuries finally catch up with the Birds.

4. They have to take the two in STL because they can't go in to the Windy City down one game or two.

5. This is important because you are going to get Arrieta for Game 3. An interesting fact about Jake. He was born in the same town, Farmington, MO, that some of my family are from and live.

6. The Birds have the world rooting against them.

7. Joe is a better manager than Mike.

8. No Carlito Martinez,

instead Wacha

- who seems gassed to me.

Prediction? Cubs win in 4 Games.

 

That's a Winner!

The boyz have pulled off one of the best seasons (regular) in recent MLB history in undoubtably the toughest division in baseball. Exaggeration you say? Through the course of the season they were with out Oscar Taveras, Waino, Adams, Holliday, Wong, Carlos, Randal, Steven, Walden, Belisle, Jaime, and of course Yadi for long stretches of time. The Cubs in comparison only Soler, yet in spite of my issues with this guy.

The idiots that make the decisions on Manager of the Year will go with Joe Maddon, again because they are idiots.

I am not sure how far they will go in the post season but I am very proud they repeated for a third straight year having had all of the aforementioned injures.

I didn't watch the first game of yesterday's double header but I did the second-and Jason 

was the man-he Tyler Lyons, Tony Cruz, Adams, and Carpenter-amongst others had a great game. Highlights


Go Cards!