Friday Five: Favorite Adam Wainwright Autographs

It has been really hard to watch the Cardinals this summer. The worst part has been watching Adam Wainwright trying to reach 200 career wins, currently he's at 198. Waino has not been himself this season and I fear he is likely going to fall short of 200 by two wins. 

Rather than dwelling on the negative, I took some time last night to flip through my Adam Wainwright cards. Wainwright has not signed many certified autographs beyond the first few years of his career, which came before I started writing about my cards. I have not really shared any of these on my blog prior to this evening, but thought they would be a fun post.  

Honorable Mention: 2006 Topps Co-Signers Autograph 

Wainwright actually has two autographs in this set. There is a Co-Signers dual autograph card, which also is signed by Anthony Reyes. It would be a pretty sweet add to the collection, just never got around to finding a copy. Especially given that both played an important role in the 2006 Postseason for the Cardinals. I put this card as an Honorable Mention largely due to condition issues. My scanner did a good job of hiding the blemishes, but this is a black card with not-great quality card stock. The edges are a little chippy. However, I do like the Spring Training photograph with Wainwright wearing number 70. 

5. 2007 Topps Finest Autograph 

This is the only card in this countdown that has previously appeared on this blog. I traded for this card back in 2014 and gave it a post. It's a nice card, but I wish Topps had blended the sticker a little better. Nothing worse than a white baseball card with a silver sticker slapped on top. Actually pretty common practice at this time. I did not scan the back of the card, but the "No Pressure" label on the bottom is in reference to Wainwright's Game 7 performance against the Mets in the 2006 National League Championship Series. 

Not a Cardinals fan? Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth inning, and Carlos Beltran up with a trip to the World Series on the line.  

My favorite Wainwright moment.  

4. 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars Autograph 

This is the only Wainwright autograph I ever pulled out of a pack of cards. The 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars was the greatest/worst box I ever opened. I got this Wainwright autograph along with Ruddy Lugo and James Shields. Lugo and Shields were both on the Durham Bulls at the time. I think both cards are now under $2 on COMC these days. My other autographs were Kelly Shoppach and Colter Bean, but did I mention Adam Wainwright? The sticker is showing here, because my scanner is having a really good Friday. Seriously, Upper Deck did a really good job of blending it on the front of this card. The card is also acetate and has some nice front and back features. Maybe another day when I feel like making more scans.....

3. 2004 Bowman Sterling Autograph/Jersey 

This was the first Wainwright autograph in my collection. I picked this up from a local card shop in St. Louis back when I lived there. Relatively cheap as I recall too, less than $20. I might rank this a little higher, but the autograph is partially off the sticker. I have contemplated replacing this card at some point, but many of the sticker autographs on other copies of this Bowman Sterling card are also missing part of Wainwright's signature. It's really hard to do much better than what Wainwright did on this card. The red jersey swatch is a nice bonus. Bowman Sterling is a good looking product, I just wish the autographs were on-card.  

2. 2006 Upper Deck F/X Special Endorsements Autograph 

I like the looks of this card and I also like how Upper Deck blended the sticker autograph. You can barely tell that Wainwright did not sign the actual card. Sticker autographs are a sub plot on this post and this is the best of set of stickers that Adam Wainwright signed during a two-year window early in his career. I believe this was a random EBay purchase at some point in 2006 or 2007. If this were an on-card signature, I might have picked this card as the top Wainwright autograph in my collection. Still really nice at 2.  

1. 2004 Topps Traded Signature Moves 

Good design with an on-card signature, and a complete Wainwright signature. I know a winner when I see one and this is not a sticker autograph.   

The Never-Ending School Year and Retail Baseball Cards

My last school year ended midday on a Thursday afternoon last month. It was my last day at the school I have worked at for the past ten years. It was time for something different and new challenges. More importantly, something a little closer to my house. 

After moving a minivan load of books over to my new school, I went home to start my summer vacation. I was really tired at the end of the day, so I think I ended up going to bed around 9. A few hours later my alarm went off. I woke up, took a shower and got dressed, and drove into work. 

It was Friday. The first day of my new school year and my new school.  

My summer vacation was measured in hours this year rather than days or weeks. My last actual vacation day was on April 14th, which is a long time ago for someone who has worked the same schedule for the past 15 years. I teach for roughly nine weeks starting at the end of July and take three weeks off at the end. Multiply the schedule times four and you've got a complete school year.  

I am about to enter my fifth straight month of teaching with no significant break, which is a lot in my world. Even if you are on a traditional calendar, it's only four months between the beginning of the first day and Thanksgiving break.  

It has been a long time.    

There are a lot of little things I have been doing to cope with the extended workload. I have been trying to get more sleep, packing some good lunches, and getting extra fresh air. In addition, I have also been trying to be intentional about setting aside time to work on my baseball cards. Some of that time has been spent sorting out cards......

I am mostly trying to organize my single cards that are not attached to a set, or find the last few cards needed to complete some of the more recent near-sets that I have assembled. I have also been working on building a few new sets, and also opening up some retail packs. My most recent goal has been to complete the Topps Series 2 set.  It feels like a throwback to childhood when I bought a few packs of cards and spent a chunk of the spring and summer trying to assemble a complete set of Topps cards. 

I have been helped out along the way by a few Target gift cards which I received at the end of last year. It also doesn't hurt that my new school is located in the middle of a large retail area. Think of a large box store and there is probably one within five to ten minutes of my classroom.  

Here are two of the retail blaster boxes that I have picked up over the past few months.  

 

I thought I would share out a few of my favorite cards I picked up along the way.  

I had originally set out to collect Topps Series 2 with retail packs slowly over the first quarter of the year. I reached the goal in half a quarter, but was greatly aided by having two students at my previous school gift me retail blasters on the way out the door.  I used my gift certificates to buy two more Series 2 retail boxes. I have purchased one Topps Series 2 Blaster with my own money.  

Five boxes of Topps Series 2, one small COMC order, and I am done.  

My favorite card out of the base set is the Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina combo card. 

They have only been playing together since 2006. Not sure why it took this long for Wainwright and Molina to appear on a baseball card together before this year. I know I am really bias, but I hate that there is a checklist on the back. 

Yes, Blake Snell is card 414, but give me some information about Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright. If nothing else, just give me a photo of the Carlos Beltran strikeout at the end of the 2006 National League Championship Series.  

Moving on.

The Topps Series 2 boxes all come with a batting helmet card. They look a lot like the 2007 Sweet Spot autograph cards, but the helmet is made out of metal rather than plastic.  I pulled two different Cubs batting helmets.  

These are actually really nice for manufactured relics. There is a Goldschmidt and Arenado card in this set, so I am going to go ahead and add those to my Ebay watch list. They will be sitting there until I can find them for a few dollars.  

I also pulled a Joey Votto Home Field Advantage card.  

I love the plate of chili in the bottom corner. I don't eat chili, but it's the sort of local food reference that Topps should have put onto the Yadier Molina card. I needed some toasted raviolis or cans of mass-produced beer.  

More cards, but only the highlights.    

I bought a few packs of Donruss. Please, do not repeat my mistake. They are terrible, but I did get a Matt Manning autograph. If Matt Manning's arm does not fall off, I think he will be a good pitcher. Unfortunately, Matt Manning's arm is half-way off already.  

That's quite the signature.  

I also bought a few packs of Topps Gallery.  

This set is not nearly as good as it was in the 1990s, but I did land an autograph of Giants catching prospect Joey Bart. Pretty good pull for a retail pack of cards.  

Next up, a box of USA Baseball cards. I do not love the regular MLB cards of Panini, but ruining the USA Baseball card set is too far.  

Athlete Development Program?

National Team Development Program?  

What happened to the College National Team?  

According to the internet, the guy on the left is a freshman in high school. Not college, high school. Pretty wild having baseball cards, but not being able to drive.  The guy on the right is a senior in high school and committed to play college baseball at Alabama. At least he can drive himself to school.  

My two relic cards.

Yes, they are both in high school as well. 

The player on the left is a sophomore in high school.  

The player on the right is a junior in high school and committed to play at UCLA in college.  

Still wild to think that Panini is making baseball cards of high school kids.  

In ten years, one of these guys is going to be working an office job and give out his Panini baseball cards rather than a business card. 

Did I mention that my new classroom has a view of a Walgreens?

It came in handy the one day. Horrible headache. I just walked across the street and picked up some Advil and a few packs of Gypsy Queen. Felt much better afterwards.  

Gypsy Queen was decent. Similar to Gallery, this product has seen better days. I pulled a Jose Devers autograph out of a pack. Any retail autograph is a win.  

That brings me to my last retail product, which is easily the best.  

This is from the 2021 Topps Chrome Anniversary set. Which was it released in the middle of 2022?  I don't know. Do we need another set that borrows the design from the 1952 Topps set? Yes, we do if this is what the cards are going to look like.  

Here are my shiny, wavy, and colored cards I pulled out of my box.  

This is where my post veers from a bunch of cards that I pulled out of retail packs and into a future project.  

I really like this set and had contemplated printing off a checklist and tracking down all the cards. However, it has 700 cards and feels like it would take a ton of time and money to assemble. Instead, I am going to track down some of the Cardinals and Durham Bulls players in the set.  

My first former Bulls player arrived in the mail a few days back...... 

The autographs are not exactly cheap, but there are only three Cardinals and three Rays autographs. Well, I am now down to two Rays autographs. I think that Dylan Carlson and Scott Rolen are the two most difficult and expensive.  

Anyway, that was a fun post on retail baseball cards. I still have a few more weeks until I get a few weeks off. Maybe there will be another retail baseball card post or two along the way.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 33 - J.D. Drew

The NCAA Baseball tournament is firing up this week, so I thought it would be a good week to cover one of the all-time great college baseball players who also happened to be a member of the 1998 and 1999 Cardinals teams.  His career with the Cardinals actually extended a few years into the early 2000s, but for the sake of these 1990s themed posts, I am going to mainly focus on his time with the team during those two seasons.

Prior to playing professional baseball, J.D. was one of the greatest college baseball players ever.  He won awards, he won championships, he set records that still stand today.  Having listened to a few Florida State fans talk about his playing days in Tallahassee, I am not sure that I can sum up his college career, do it justice, and not make it a stand alone blog post.  I leave you with this.....

Maybe some day Panini will get off their duff and make a card of J.D. in his college uniform.  Seems like a shame that he does not have a card in his college uniform.  I know a few Florida State people who would be more than interested in getting a copy of the card.  

Drew entered the 1997 MLB Draft considered one of the best players at the top of the draft.  His agent Scott Boras told teams that Drew would not sign for a dime less than $10 million dollars.  The Phillies selected Drew second overall and then offered him $2.6 million dollars to sign.  He refused the offer and spent the summer playing for the St. Paul Saints in the Northern Independent League.  He re-entered the 1998 MLB Draft and was selected by the Cardinals with the fifth overall pick.  They paid him $7 million dollars and he signed.  

The incident made him less than popular with Phillies fans throughout his time in the Majors.  

I think there were some battery and beer bottle throwing incidents along the way too, but I try to keep things PG around these parts.  

It took Drew part of a summer to advance all the way through the Cardinals Minor League system.  He made his debut with the team on September 8, 1998.  It was the same night that Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run of the season, breaking the single season home run record.  

As a Ray Lankford fan, it should be pointed out that this game was won by the Cardinals, who sealed the victory after the Cubs pitched around Mark McGwire and then gave up back to back home runs to Ray Lankford (3 run) and Ron Gant (solo).  

By the end of the 1998 season, had played in 14 games and made 41 plate appearances.  He made the most of it, hitting .417/.463/.972 with 5 home runs, and 13 RBIs.  Not a bad little line for a two week cup of coffee.  

The baseball card world was already a little Cardinal crazy with Mark McGwire at that time.  The arrival of J.D. Drew sort of sent some people over the edge.  He was not quite Mickey Mantle, but the way that some people went after his baseball cards, you'd swear he was a slam dunk Hall of Famer.  Yes, people literally walked around comparing him to Mickey Mantle.  His first cards started popping up in the fall of 1998.  

My favorite was his 1998 Fleer Update card.  

This was a really simply designed card, but I really liked the edge to edge picture.  The card back also has also full color photo.  

You could only get the card by buying the complete Update set, which was not horribly expensive in the grand scheme of things, but finding one could be a challenge.  Maybe, I just went to college in the middle of nowhere with a really terrible card shop.  Drew also had cards in Leaf Stars & Rookie, Donruss Signature, and a whole bunch of different Minor League products.  

Drew's cards are obviously really easy, and inexpensive, at this point.  I know that those other two cards are also considered rookie cards, but the Fleer Update is the best of the bunch.  As a Cardinals collector, this card is borderline iconic as a modern must have card from that era.  

His 1999 cards were also really popular for much of that calendar year despite the fact that it was literally the worst full season of his Major League career.  In many circles, the expectations for Drew were still through the roof.  It was one of those moments in my collecting career where I had serious doubts that a certain segment of the baseball card collecting population actually watch the games and follow the sport.  

I am going to narrow the bloat of cards from 1999 down to my two favorites.  

First up.  

One of his first 1999 cards was in the Pacific Private Stock set.  This actually came out really early in the card calendar.  Since the Topps base set used to come out right after Thanksgiving in the late 1990s, this might have even been out before the end of 1998.  Regardless, it was a favorite set of mine from that year, I miss the Pacific brand, and one of the earliest Drew cards I remember owning.  If you do not own any of these cards, they are not hard to find in boxes and packs, the quality of the cards is excellent.  Nice stock, although they stick together in the packs now after they have been in there for 20 years.  

Last.  

I think this came out later in the summer and people were crazy about it while J.D. Drew was batting .240.  It took me several years to actually get a copy of this card.  I refused to pay whatever ridiculous price this cost back in 1999.  The other autographed card in this set, Gabe Kapler, was even pretty pricey.  I should have gone back and found an old Beckett and scanned the price listings for this set.  

As for the rest of J.D. Drew's career, I am not sure that he is ever going to receive the due that he probably deserves.  He's not a Hall of Famer, but he still had a very good career.  The Cardinals ended up trading to the Braves at the end of the 2003 season.  The trade netted the team Jason Marquis and Ray King, who were both contributors on the 2004 National League Championship team, but the real prize was Double A pitcher Adam Wainwright.  

The Braves got one really good year of Drew, while the Cardinals got a few Cy Young worthy seasons out of Wainwright and a World Series winner in 2006.  Drew eventually ended up in Boston after the Red Sox finally helped him cash in with a large contract.  He got 5 years and 70 million dollars out of Boston, not sure that Sox fans really loved Drew, but he hit .360 in the American League Championship Series that year against the Indians, and .300 against the Rockies in the World Series.  

Jumbo World Series Hero

It seems like every Postseason there is some sort of player who unexpectedly comes out of nowhere and has a huge impact on the outcome of the World Series.  Last season Cubs fans watched Kyle Schwarber come back from what was supposed to be a season ending knee injury to bat .412 in the World Series.  His presence in the line-up seemed to give the Cubs a little extra.

Pretty good hitting there for a guy who was supposed to not even appear in the Series.  

As a Cardinals fan I have seen players make similar contributions to the team's postseason runs in recent years.  Matt Adams hitting a three run home run off of Clayton Kershaw, Matt Carpenter battling through long at at-bats, Michael Wacha pitching shut outs, the entire line-up in the 2012 NLDS against the Nationals including light hitting Pete Kozma getting the series clinching hit....

and every Cardinals fans favorite hometown hero from the 2011 World Championship winning team, third baseman, David Freese.  He actually had an incredible playoff run throughout that postseason including the series against the Phillies and the Brewers.  Everyone just remembers the 9th inning on in Game 6....

and what of the Cardinals playoff run in 2006?  Many remember the Tigers throwing the ball all over the field littering the box scores with tons of errors and cold bats after clinching the AL Pennant and sitting around for a week.  Many also remember the final out of the series being recorded by long-time Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright when the normal closer Jason Isringhausen went down with an injury.....

I often feel like the player from that 2006 squad who often flies under the radar is pitcher Jeff Weaver, who was picked up by the Cardinals in a trade with the Angels after he lost his job to his brother Jared.  Weaver's regular season with the Cardinals was not much to write home about, but he excelled on the postseason stage that fall for the Redbirds.  He saved his best performance for the World Series clincher in Game 5 when he pitched 8 innings with one run, 4 hits, and 9 strikeouts.  

One of the better single season turn arounds in the history of the franchise.  There aren't many baseball cards to remember Weaver's brief stint with the Cardinals by, but a few of them are really sweet cards.  My favorite up to this point has been his 2007 Topps World Series Relic card.  

This Weaver card was put out at a time when Topps did not make a Postseason relic card for every single team that made the playoffs.  They have done that the last few years and they have made them pretty common cards.  The older versions, starting with the White Sox in 2005, are really tough finds.  

Which brings me to my latest Jeff Weaver card.  I still like the World Series better, but this is a nice card too.....

This card is from the 2009 Topps Unique set, which had a terrible base set, but a great set of relic cards.  I picked up a Anthony Reyes jumbo relic card from this set early this year, but I did not have a Weaver card.  A very nice patch piece too which is the top of the L......

the top of the s and the tail feathers of the Cardinal sitting on the bat.  I am sure there are probably better patch pieces out there, but I am also sure that most of those have made there way into collections and they are not coming back out.  

Let's All Flip Out

Things happen to players that makes us want to run away.  Sometime in the spring of 2005 I went all in on Mark Mulder cards.  The Cardinals had just been to the World Series and upgraded their starting rotation by trading for one of the A's big three pitchers.  As a Cardinals fan I loved the move.  The team had a very good starting rotation in 2004, I figured Mulder was going to be a big winner with the Cardinals.

I started hitting up the local card shops around St. Louis looking for cool Mulder cards and found plenty of great options.  Plenty of other Cardinals collectors did the same thing.  His cards were pretty reasonable and Mulder had done a fair amount of signing while he was with the A's.  One of the first Mulder cards I picked up was a copy of his 2003 Donruss Signature Series Autograph.

The 2005 season came and went.  The Cardinals reached the NLCS and lost to the Astros.  Mulder did not have his best season, but still won 16 games.  Chris Carpenter had a career year and won the Cy Young, so really being the second starter in the rotation seemed decent.  Then 2006 happened and Mulder's shoulder basically fell off.  

Collectors flipped out and there were tons of cheap Mulder cards everywhere.  I was happy to take some cheap cards off other people's hands and loaded up on his cards.  My favorite cheap Mulder card was a copy of his 1999 Topps Traded autograph.....

The way I saw the whole Mulder injury at the time was that he was going to miss a year, come back, and generally be his former self.  Not what really happened since Mulder's career was basically sunk after 2006.  He pitched a few games in 2007 and 2008, tried a comeback with the Angels a few years back, but basically he was done.  I probably should have known a little bit better, although I still love the Topps Traded autograph.  

Since the days of collecting Mark Mulder cards I have developed a system of sorts for collecting cards of players who are injured.  There is inevitably either some level of panic with a drastic sell off, or just a slow steady decline.  Either way, the price of the players cards are going to go down.  So, here it is.  Shoulders are bad and we do not touch them.  I could see good reason to flip out.  

until the price of their cards levels off.  Scott Rolen had a bum shoulder after he was run over by Hee-Seop Choi in 2005.  He missed time, his power numbers dropped, and he ended up on the Blue Jays and Reds.  For awhile I just avoided his cards, but they are pretty consistent now and much more affordable than when he was with the Cardinals.  

Then there are elbow injuries.  Everyone is always bummed out when a pitcher on their team has Tommy John surgery.  People can flip out about these injuries, but should they?  I remember back in 2011 when the Cardinals lost Adam Wainwright to an elbow injury.  Sure the Cardinals won the World Series that year, but they lost Adam Wainwright right?  So many affordable Wainwright cards......

and then he came back and won 53 games in 2012, 2013, and 2014.  No, Wainwright did not win a Cy Young Award, but everything after the elbow injury worked out pretty well.  Until that whole Achilles Tendon thing, but I haven't really thought that one out yet.  Not a real common occurrence in baseball.  Maybe a reason to flip out, the Achilles thing, not the elbow.  

Currently there is a bit of a meltdown amongst Cardinals fans about Alex Reyes.  I am sad he's out for the season too, but it's an elbow injury.  I am feeling alright about his future still and am still out trying to find his cards.  No need to flip out.    

I just picked up a really nice looking Bowman's Best autograph of the hard throwing pitcher just a few days back......

His card prices aren't sinking like a boulder in a lake, but it sure does seem like a lot of people have really lost interest in this guy.  I am still happy collecting cards of Alex Reyes and I am pretty sure that he's going to be a good pitcher.  Yes, there are pitchers who do not make it back from elbow injuries, there is always that chance, but in that case I can look back at Alex Reyes and think about would could have been....  

Piecing Together Some Cards

Stadium Club has been back as an annual release for Topps for 3 years now and one of my favorite parts of the rehashed product is the Triumvirate cards.  These puzzle piece looking cards really started in the late 1990s Stadium Club sets, but came along for the ride when Topps brought back the brand.  I was quite happy with the decision.

One of the original Triumvirate cards from the 1990s....

I don't run out and put together the entire insert set or anything, but I tend to work on the Cardinals and a few other single cards of players that I enjoy collecting.  Former Durham Bulls mainly.  Last year the Cardinals Triumvirate set featured Jason Heyward, Yadi, and Adam Wainwright.  Looked nice all put together at the end.....

Not quite sure about that Heyward card in the middle, but overall a really nice looking set of Cardinals cards.  The 2016 Triumvirate Cardinals set featured all pitchers.  The single cards....

I like the background on this year's set a little bit better than last year.  I know that the green color sort of gives a little bit of a Christmas vibe with the red on the Cardinals uniforms, but I still think it works well with the black background at the top of the card fading down to a light grey at the bottom.  Rosenthal was probably a solid choice for this set when the good folks at Topps were putting this set together, but he had some struggles this year.  

Wacha is the other end piece in the puzzle.  I honestly would have loved to see Carlos Martinez is this spot instead of Wacha, but I do not get to pick the players for the cards.  Of all the young arms the Cardinals have brought up over the last three to four years, CMart has clearly turned out to be the best.  Not to say that Wacha hasn't had his moments.  See 2013 playoffs.  

The center card in the set belongs to Adam Wainwright.  I've got no complaints here.  It's getting late in his career, nice to see him pick up a few more insert cards along the way.  

All three cards put together....

Looks sharp.  I cannot wait for the 2017 Stadium Club set, I will put this together again next summer.  

Triumvirate Cardinals. Well, mostly Cardinals

Stadium Club was one of my favorite products during the past year.  I loved the base set and could literally spend hours flipping through the cards looking at the photographs.  I am not sure who designed the product this year at Topps, but the set felt like the Stadium Club cards from back in the early 1990s when it was known for it's great photography.  After putting together the base set, and a few autographs, I have turned my attention to find a few of the inserts.

One of the first insert sets I worked on was the Triumvirate cards.  This year's version featured three star players from one team that fit together like a puzzle.  Long ago I picked up the first piece of the Cardinals set with this Yadier Molina in a trade with another collector.  Small piece in a bigger trade.

Which meant that I was two pieces short.  I picked up the two other pieces from COMC, but did not really feel like posting it after the whole Jason Hayward thing last month.  Well, I am over Jason Hayward (have fun in Chicago) and I went ahead and scanned the card along with the Adam Wainwright.  Here's look at the Hayward and Wainwright by themselves....

and the best part of picking up the cards in this set is to put them all together and put them under the scanner.  The end result always looks nice, even when some Cubs player gets in the way....