eBay Wins #257

There's still a whole lot of 1990 cards left, and here's the smallest stack out on my table, 60 cards from Topps Traded, cut down to just the Cardinals.

1990 Topps Traded
#15T Tom Brunansky
#39T Keith Hernandez
#90T Tony Pena
#117T Bryn Smith
#122T Bob Tewksbury
#124T John Tudor

When I arranged these by number, I figured that the set was arranged by team, but then I saw Cleveland's Keith Hernandez splitting up Boston's Tom Brunansky and Tony Pena. It's alphabetical order by last name, and I just happened to get some Cardinals all between S and T. Keith Hernandez is a player I'd really like to get an autograph from, but with him having a solid job in the Mets booth, he doesn't seem to get back to St. Louis for appearances.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	5302
Total Spent	$65.39
Per Card	1.233 cents
Change	-0.003 cents

December Card Show Autographs

After skipping November, I returned to the monthly card show in December, and came away with quite a handful of autographs.

Red Schoendienst     Tom Herr
 Bob Tewksbury     Jack Clark     Ron Hunt

That wasn't even the full contingent of players signing at the show. Cecil Cooper was there, despite having no St. Louis connections I'm aware of. Also, hockey player Bob Plager was there. He's well-known locally from his time with the Blues and he continues to work for the team, but I just don't have the room to start a puck collection too.

As for players I did get, Red Schoendienst has been on my want list for quite awhile. I've missed a few of his signings for various reasons, so I blocked out my calendar and bought advance tickets to make sure I made it to this one. Ron Hunt only played for the Cardinals at the very end of his career, but he did play here, so I decided I should have a ball with his autograph. Despite having one of the shorter lines there, his line moved the slowest, because he really wanted to talk to every fan that approached him. I thought that was pretty great, he could have signed and gotten out of there in 30 minutes, but he took his time and actually thanked the autograph seekers. Tom Herr and Jack Clark were Cardinals just before I started watching baseball, and both were part of the 1985 team that nearly won the World Series, and both were also All-Stars earlier that year. Finally, there was Bob Tewksbury, who wasn't dominant during his playing career, but he was probably the ace of the Cardinals staff when I was first getting into baseball, so that was another autograph I was excited to get. My favorite memory of him, though, is when he played for Minnesota in 1998 and lobbed some eephus pitches to Mark McGwire to keep the ball in the park.

eBay Wins #129

1987 Topps always reminds me of a wood-paneled station wagon. There's probably a deeper metaphor I could dive into about utility versus beauty, but let's just see some cards.

1987 Topps
#2 Jim Deshaies
#3 Dwight Evans
#15 Claudell Washington
#18 Dick Howser
#26 Greg Brock
#40 Dave Righetti
#68 Tony La Russa
#115 Donnie Moore
#130 Dwight Gooden

I'm always happy to add another La Russa card to my collection.

1987 Topps
#140 Bret Saberhagen
#155 Eddie Whitson
#166 Bob Boone
#174 Henry Cotto
#175 Bob Stanley
#181 Cardinals Leaders
#185 Roger McDowell
#193 Roger Craig x2

I didn't know Roger Craig played for the Cardinals until just now. He went 7-9 in 1964. I've even posted a card with him and Tony La Russa before.

1987 Topps
#194 Kirk McCaskill
#219 Cecilio Guante
#220 Joe Carter
#222 Denny Walling
#230 Don Baylor
#241 Danny Heep
#243 Whitey Herzog
#254 Bob Tewksbury
#266 Jeff Hamilton

Bob Tewksbury was probably the Cardinals ace - on a team that wasn't very good - when I started watching baseball, so I always have to remind myself that my memories of him are a bit twisted by my perspective at the time.

1987 Topps
#267 Howard Johnson
#276 Jackie Gutierrez
#283 Doug Drabek
#285 Dennis Boyd
#287 Dave Von Ohlen
#293 Bob Rodgers
#295 Len Dykstra
#316 Brian Fisher
#317 Clint Hurdle

Clint Hurdle is another manager I didn't realize played for the Cardinals.

1987 Topps
#319 Greg Swindell
#343 Hal Lanier
#374 Glenn Hoffman
#399 Curt Ford
#401 Billy Jo Robidoux
#404 Doug Sisk
#412 Eric Davis (x2)
#426 Floyd Rayford

Eric Davis played 2 of his last 3 seasons for the Cardinals, but he was definitely on the downslope of his great career. Still, he was a good, consistent veteran to have around, which is always helpful in a game so focused on bringing up 19-to-21 year old prospects as soon as possible.

Since I like to tag all former Cardinals that I post so that I can quickly access any post by player, I'll have to stop here for the 1987 Topps pile. This is still part of my massive penny card re-shuffling, so these 45 cards add another 45 cents to my eBay Bargain Tracker.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2999
Total Spent	$48.52
Per Card	1.618 cents
Change	-0.009 cents

March Radness Win, Part IV

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

That's right, there's still more cards to go in this series. Kerry outdid himself on this prize.

1994 Fleer Extra Bases
#356 Rene Arocha
#359 Gregg Jefferies
#362 Mike Perez
#364 Bob Tewksbury
#366 Todd Zeile

This is a cool set, but if you've ever seen them, you know these aren't minis, these are larger than usual cards. Without doing any research or measuring at all, I'd say they're 1 inch taller than a regular card, so 2.5" by 4.5". Does anybody have any good ideas for how to store these? The best idea I have off the top of my head is storing them in a 500 count box front to back instead of side to side, but I only own 5 of them now. Surely I can't get ambitious again and put another set on my wantlist when I only have 5, can I?

1991 Score #677 Donovan Osborne

My favorite Donovan Osborne memory was at a game when he came to bat with the bases loaded. I told my Dad it'd be cool if he hit a Grand Slam. My Dad laughed, and Donovan delivered. Thanks to baseball-reference.com, I just learned I witnessed his only career Home Run. That's kinda cool.

1992 Score #516 Geronimo Pena

I don't remember as much about Geronimo Pena, except he was a solid platoon second basemen for a few years.

1992 Baseball Enquirer - Unopened Pack

Here's another unopened pack. I don't know anything about this set, but it looks to be unlicensed, a gag they explain away by calling them "Mystery Interview" cards. That's obviously a certain famous gambler on the back betting his card will be worth a fortune. I haven't opened this pack yet, so maybe I'll save it for the same day I open the 1988 Donruss pack.