Another Manager?

The Durham Bulls are on their third manager in the past three years.  

Durham is a nice place to live and the Bulls are a highly successful team. You'd think that they could hire a manager and get them to stay in place longer than a year. The changes in managers has actually been due to the fact that the Rays keep promoting their Minor League managers up to the Major League coaching staff.  

So, 2024 will see another manager in Durham. Unlike the previous two managers, the new manager Morgan Ensberg played in the Majors and has a slew of baseball cards. However, as a member of the early 2000s Houston Astros teams, I largely avoided collecting any of his cards until recently.  

Last week, I found a copy of his rookie card from 2001 SPX.  

Ichiro and Morgan Ensberg. Does Albert Pujols have a card in this set?   

I believe so.  

I also found a sweet 2005 Zenith autograph.  

It's a sticker autograph, but this is really well blended into the design. The card stock is also very thick. 

All tolled, my two Morgan Ensberg cards cost me roughly $5 on Ebay before shipping. The shipping cost me another $5.  They are sweet cards and will be dabbling more into Morgan Ensberg if he does a good job with the team.  

Around The Card Room, Take 2

I have caught a few baseballs at games. 

I don't go out of my way to catch them, they have to come to me.  

On July 15, 2005, my parents are out of the country and they left me a bunch of their baseball tickets for the week. They sat in right field at the old Busch Stadium. In this picture, their seats would have been above the white sign next to the Cardinals bullpen, under the overhang. 

I went to this game with one of my neighbors who worked as a chef in the city. We met up at the ballpark and were watching the end of the Houston Astros batting practice. Those seats were prime territory for ballhawks pregame. Frequently, there would be people who stood in the aisle of the section or in the walkway in front of the seats trying to catch BP homers or get players to throw balls into the stands. This game was no different. 

Although, the Astros did not have many lefties, so the batting practice crowd was light in right-field.  In fact, Baseball Reference lists no starting left-handed batters on the 2005 Astros, which is shown with an asterisk.  

They did have Lance Berkman though, who was a switch-hitter. 

So, batting practice is happening and there was a hard-line drive hit by an Astros player. Watching the ball, it was going to be below my seats and to my left towards the aisle of the section. The ball ends up hitting off a high school aged kid, who was hanging out in the aisle, and bounces back about 20 feet. The baseball lands in seat in front of us and is stuck in between seat bottom and seat back. 

I looked at it. My neighbor looked at. The kid in the aisle was down and out on the step. My neighbor pointed out that he did not pay for his ticket, so he insisted that I take the ball. I reached out and grabbed the ball. I watched batting practice for the next several minutes to determine the left-handed batter while also watching the high school kid try to garner some level of sympathy from an usher who had yelled at him several minutes before for standing in the aisle.  

The answer was Lance Berkman.  

This is the ball.  

The ball is marked with an H.

The Cardinals ended up winning the game on an Albert Pujols walk-off home run.  

This ended up being the last game I attended in Busch Stadium II, because I moved a few weeks later and Busch Stadium II was torn down at the end of the season for the current version.   

I display this baseball next to one of my Albert Pujols bobbleheads. Although, it is not an a shelf like the bobble I showed in my previous post, rather this is on top of a bookcase. This is my oldest child's favorite part of the baseball card room, because he loves reading the baseball books. Albert has a little ding on his jawline from being knocked over. 

Add in the fact that Berkman would go on to play a short time for the Cardinals on the 2011 World Series team, and this is easily one of my favorite items in my baseball card room.  

A Giant Update Part 12

I am getting so much closer. I had hoped to finish off my 1964 Topps Giants set on this post, but there will be at least one more after this one. Before this post, I was down to 14 cards to complete the set, with only one Hall of Fame player left to find. I also already have all the short-prints. Maybe at some other point in my life, I would have already finished this set. Between kids, work, and garage doors, there has not been much time to find new baseball cards.  

Here are the five new Topps Giants cards.

First up is Senators shortstop, Ed Brinkman.  

Brinkman was a really good defender, but was not much for hitting. He played more than 1,800 games in the Majors, but only had 1,300 hits. In 1965, Brinkman set an American League record for fewest hits in a season while playing in more than 150 games. He ended the year with just 82 hits and a .185 batting average.  

That's bad.  

The back naturally sticks to his defensive skills.  

I like that the card mentions his time as a member of the Raleigh Capitols. 

Next up, Mets infielder Ron Hunt.  

Did he cut himself shaving? That's a pretty wicked looking something underneath his nose.  

All this stuff on the back is impressive, but Ron Hunt is actually from St. Louis. He went to the same high school as Jerry Reuss, just a few years earlier.  

Next. 

Jim Fregosi was a favorite on the first Angels teams in the early 1960s. I knew him best as the manager of the Phillies when I was in middle school and high school. 

This is kind of a lame write up, considering that the Angels were in their third season when this card was produced.  I need to go back and look at my 1999 Devil Rays cards to see if they acknowledge Randy Winn's triples record for their franchise at the time. It's still 9th all-time in franchise history, but all of those higher triple total seasons belong to Carl Crawford.  

Next up is Ken Johnson.  

Before Edwin Jackson, there was Ken Johnson. He seemingly played on a different team almost every year in the 1950s and 1960s. Not really, but it was close. He played 13 seasons with 8 different teams. Considering the number of teams in the league during the 1950s and 1960s, that's a large number.  

The back of the card is interesting.

After reading about his no-hitter loss, I actually went and read a little bit more about his career. He actually seems like a decent pitcher who was on the wrong teams at the wrong times throughout his career.  

For example, he ended up on the Reds in 1961 and was given a rotation spot during the second half of the season. He went 6-2 with an ERA of 3 and helped them make the World Series versus the Yankees. If you are into sabermetrics, he had several 3 and 4 WAR seasons, just screwed over playing on bad teams. 

Last card is Leon Wagner.  

Leon Wagner was a really good player during the 1960s. His career got off to a slow start, otherwise he might have been a little more of a recognizable name. Wagner played college football and then ended up working at an auto manufacturing plant in Detroit while playing sandlot baseball.

The Giants signed Leon Wagner, but he drafted into the Army for the Korean War. 

Leon Wagner returned to the Giants, but was blocked by Willie Mays, Felipe Alou, and others. 

The Giants traded him to the Cardinals, but he was blocked by Stan Musial, Curt Flood, and Joe Cunningham.  

The Cardinals traded him to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the baseball team in the International League.  

The Maple Leafs traded him to the Angels where he finally got to play as a regular at the age of 27.  

Back of the card.  

Once Leon Wagner started playing, he was really good.  He made a few All-Star Games, hit 30 home runs a few times, and received MVP votes in several different season. It's too bad the Giants or Cardinals did not have an open outfield spot while he was a little younger.  

Updated checklist.

I am getting closer.  

1 Gary Peters
2 Ken Johnson
3 Sandy Koufax SP
4 Bob Bailey
5 Milt Pappas
6 Ron Hunt
7 Whitey Ford
8 Roy McMillan
9 Rocky Colavito
10 Jim Bunning
11 Roberto Clemente
12 Al Kaline
13 Nellie Fox
14 Tony Gonzalez
15 Jim Gentile
16 Dean Chance
17 Dick Ellsworth
18 Jim Fregosi
19 Dick Groat
20 Chuck Hinton
21 Elston Howard
22 Dick Farrell
23 Albie Pearson
24 Frank Howard
25 Mickey Mantle
26 Joe Torre
27 Ed Brinkman
28 Bob Friend SP
29 Frank Robinson
30 Bill Freehan
31 Warren Spahn
32 Camilo Pascual
33 Pete Ward
34 Jim Maloney
35 Dave Wickersham
36 Johnny Callison
37 Juan Marichal
38 Harmon Killebrew
39 Luis Aparicio
40 Dick Radatz
41 Bob Gibson
42 Dick Stuart SP
43 Tommy Davis
44 Tony Oliva
45 Wayne Causey SP
46 Max Alvis
47 Galen Cisco SP
48 Carl Yastrzemski
49 Hank Aaron
50 Brooks Robinson
51 Willie Mays SP
52 Billy Williams
53 Juan Pizarro
54 Leon Wagner
55 Orlando Cepeda
56 Vada Pinson
57 Ken Boyer
58 Ron Santo
59 Johnny Romano
60 Bill Skowron SP

A Giant Project: Where Are We?

It has been 4 months since I last updated my progress towards completing a set of 1964 Topps Giants cards.  Way back in July, during my last 1964 Topps Giants post, this was the last card I shared....

I could feel the positive momentum after posting this Mickey Mantle card.  Nothing was going to stop me from finishing this set off by the end of the summer.  After all, this set has a small checklist and the Mantle card is one of really challenging cards in the 1964 Topps Giants set.  

A few more tough cards and thirty easy to find commons?  

Slam dunk.   

I will be kind to Duke later in the post. 

Well, I went on vacation to Michigan and I did not post any new Topps Giants cards.

School started and I did not post any new Topps Giants cards.  

Several have come in the mail.  I have not scanned the majority of the cards and I have not updated the checklist from the previous posts.  I am going to divide the Topps Giants cards that have arrived in the past two months into a few posts during the second half of October.  I will update the checklist on the last post.  

So, for this post I have two new 1964 Topps Giants cards.

First, is a card of long-time Reds outfielder Vada Pinson.  

Great photo on the front of the card.  I love the sleeveless Reds uniforms from this era.  I also noticed that Pinson is holding a bat with the number 18 on the knob, rather than his number 28.  I went to look up the player with that uniform number, which belonged to Gordy Coleman.  He's a well-known player in these parts.

Quick side story and interesting ACC sports factoid about Gordy Coleman.    

Gordy was the Reds first baseman for most of the 1960s, before being replaced by Tony Perez.  Prior to playing with the Reds, Coleman played both baseball and football at Duke University in 1953.  That was the first season that the ACC played football and Coleman helped the Blue Devils to a perfect conference record.  Duke was the first team to win a conference title in the ACC in football.  Shocking.  Gordy Coleman dropped out of school the next year to play for the Cleveland Indians, who later traded him to the Reds.  

Back to Vada Pinson.  

The picture of Pinson flying into home is incredible.  

However, this is another card back that spends time talking about a good Major League player's career in the Minor Leagues.  Why?  Yes, they gave some highlights from the Majors mixed in there, but Vada Pinson was a really good player in the early 1960s.  There was nothing better to talk about than his stats in A Ball?  

Prior to 1964, Pinson had already hit over .300 three different times, led the league in hits twice, led the league in double twice, led the league in runs once, made two All-Star teams, and also appeared in the 1961 World Series.  Yes, some of this did end up on the card, but there is no reason to talk about his career in the Minors.  He's not quite a Hall of Famer in my opinion, but I have heard some good arguments over the years for including him.  

Next.  

Picked up another Hall of Famer from the set, Nellie Fox.  This is a really odd card for me.  Nellie Fox is one of those players who only looks right in one uniform.  I know he played for the early Colt 45s/Astros teams, but to me, Nellie is always a White Sox player.  He is still got a big wad of tobacco in his mouth, which seemed to be a frequent feature on his cards during the 1950s. 

Back of the card.  

This is one of the better cards of the set.  No Minor Leagues and a solid write-up on what made Nellie Fox a good player.  For a guy at the end of his career, I dare say this is a good career summary if you did not know anything about Nellie Fox.  I even like the picture of him throwing the ball over the runner sliding into second base. The only way to improve this card back would be to squeeze Luis Aparicio into the picture.  

Slightly Let Down.

I was really excited earlier this year when Topps announced that they were putting out a set that was created with the owner of the Super 70s Sports Twitter account.  The Twitter account is sort of a cross between sports and pop culture with a heavy 1970s lean.  Sure, there is a little bit of 1960s and 1980s cross over in there from time to time, but the account generally does a good job of staying in its lane.  

For example........

Brilliant.  

I was hoping the set would be the Topps equivalent of the 2001 Upper Deck 1970s set.  If you collected cards at the time that set was released, you know that's a high bar to meet.  There were some really strong inserts, great names from the decade, and a solid autograph checklist.  I thought Topps was up for the challenge of matching cards like this one from the Upper Deck set.....

 

It took awhile for the box to show up, but last week it appeared in my mailbox.  I was excited to open the pack of cards.  It's one of the few current 2020 products that I have opened this year.  

The packaging inside the box was pretty nice.   

Now that I mentioned the Twitter account and the packaging, I am roughly 50% of the way through the highlights for this product.  The set has one major flaw.  Maybe I am being picky, but I am going to go ahead and borrow a meme from Mad Man and one of my current favorite sayings at work.  

Works great in 2020, usually more than once in a week.  

So, here is the problem.  Ohtani has nothing to do with the 1970s.  He wasn't even born in the 1970s.  Sandy Koufax did not pitch in the 1970s.  In fact, he retired in the middle of the 1960s.  It's not even like he pitched in the late 1960s.  I am not scanning on my cards from the box, they are on my Twitter if you really need to see them, but there were a lot of other non-1970s players.  

Not to keep harkening back the Upper Deck 1970s set either, but that product only had players from the 1970s, which is what made it a really great product.  I'd like to think there is still a market for that type of product 20 years later.  Has Topps looked around at who collects baseball cards nowadays?  There are a lot of people who would eat up a set filled with players from the 1970s.  

Here is the sad part.  

The 1970s cards that are in the set are really well done.  It's not like I am expecting a set of Hall of Famers.  J.R. Richard and Dave Kingman are definitely more in line with what I thought would be in pack of cards.  These are great cards.  The 1970s themed insert cards are even better.  I pulled three insert cards, one of which was an autograph, out of my box of 1970s Topps.

This card is a gem with Rich "Goose" Gossage wearing shorts for the White Sox.  

Lou Brock wearing sunglasses.  Yes, absolutely great 1970s card. 

This Gorman Thomas card is also awesome.  The mustache is magnificent, as is the long hair cover up his ears and the long side burns.  

I understand that I am being a little hard here.  There are truly some really great 1970s cards in this product.  If had to go back and keep my $20 and not order this box, I probably would have still picked up a few singles on Ebay or COMC at some point.  It's not a total disappointment, I just feel slightly let down.  

Another Raleigh-Durham Post

Second 1975 Topps Mini post of the week.  I feel like I have been regaining some momentum in my writing life over the past two weeks.  So, when I last left you earlier in the week, I had a total of 11 out of the 23 players in the 75 Mini set who appeared on the Durham Bulls at some point during their career.  I have a few more cards to post today, plus a few more this weekend or early next week. 

Four new cards for today.  First up is a former Raleigh-Durham Triangle.  There weren't any Minor League teams named the Sod Poodles or Trash Pandas during the 1970s, but the Triangles team name was some attempt to make the Durham Bulls sound like one of those odd nicknamed teams.  

Just a quick review, but Durham is a city in North Carolina.  Raleigh is another city in North Carolina.  Raleigh-Durham is an airport located in between Raleigh and Durham.  

This is quality picture of Raleigh-Durham. 

The words Raleigh-Durham also appear on the back of Cliff Johnson's 1975 Topps Mini card, but he never played a game at the airport.  Only a few different stadiums around the Carolina League.  

The top of the card is not bent, or creased, it just has some weird discoloration along the top.  We will make it a place holder for the moment and consider a replacement at a later date.  It's not like this is a very expensive card.  Cliff's career is usually remembered for all of his pinch-hit home runs, but he was an everyday player for the Astros early in his career.

Here is the Raleigh-Durham stat line.  Cliff did very well playing for the "Bulls", or Triangles.  The .332 batting average was the best in the Carolina League of anyone you might have heard of, 6 points ahead of Rennie Stennet.  The 27 home runs and 91 RBIs were more than anyone else in the league.  

Moving along.  

Ken Singleton is up next.  He was on the 1968 Raleigh-Durham Mets, which had a solid group of future Major Leaguers including Jim Bibby, Jon Matlack, and Ed Figueroa.  I like the powder blue Expos uniform on this card, and Singleton's big hard and sideburns.  

The edge of the card is cut a little weird.  Whatever card was printed next to this one is missing a little bit of paper.  Considering making this a place holder too, but for the moment I am happy to be filling in the checklist.  

Next.  

The "Red Rooster" was towards the end of his career at this point.  His first year in professional baseball was spent with the Bulls in 1965, but he was not in the Minors for very long.  Good career, think he would have been a bigger name if he hadn't spent his career with the Astros and Padres  I had cards of him as a kid since he managed the Rangers and Angels, but had no idea about him as a player.  

It's too bad the Astros weren't wearing the rainbow uniforms at this point, they would have been quite the combo with the colorful borders on these cards.  

Last one. 

You don't get much cross over between the Cardinals and Durham Bulls during the 1960s and 1970s, but here is one of the few players who appeared for both: 

Folkers appeared on the 1967 Durham Bulls while he was in the Mets organization.  It was the last year before the team name was changed to Raleigh-Durham Mets.  Folkers Minor League career was interrupted after he did a stint with the Army in Vietnam.  When he reached the Majors, Folkers was a spot starter and long reliever for most of his career.  His final season with the Cardinals in 1974 was the best of his career, with a 6-2 record and an ERA of 3.  

He would end up on the Padres later in his career where announcer Jerry Coleman was told his audience one evening that Folkers was "throwing up in the bullpen", rather than warming up.  Given his numbers for the Padres, it's always been debatable whether or not this was on purpose.  

Alright.  Let's check out the updated checklist.  

#44 - Pat Dobson

#89 - Jim Ray 

#90 - Rusty Staub 

#98 - Rich Folkers 

#125 - Ken Singleton 

#143 - Cliff Johnson 

#155 - Jim Bibby 

#165 - Doug Rader 

#180 - Joe Morgan 

#245 - Mickey Lolich 

#282 - Jerry Morales 

#286 - Mike Jorgensen 

#290 - Jon Matlack 

#342 - Leroy Stanton 

#343 - Danny Frisella 

#351 - Bob Boone 

#371 - Gates Brown 

#441 - Bob Heise 

#476 - Ed Figueroa 

#615 - Pat Darcy 

#621 - Rawley Eastwick 

#630 - Greg Luzinski 

#637 - Ted Martinez 

One more groups of cards to post this weekend, or early next week, but I am now down to just 8 cards to complete the set.  Feels pretty good.  

There Are Enough Baseball Cards For Everyone

 Have you tried to find baseball cards recently? 

There are not any for sale in retail stores these days.  I am certain they have all been bought in bulk and are all currently being resold on Facebook and Twitter for twice the price.  I am not going to provide an examples, or call out anyone's social media posts.  They are plentiful if you want to find them.  

All this craziness over a White Sox prospect/rookie who has been in baseball card products the last two years.  As a baseball card collector who does not do "prospecting", but watches a lot of Minor League baseball, you should buy cards of prospects who the Cardinals are too cheap to sign.  Like Luis Robert.  

Sure bet they are at least a solid Major League player.  

Here's another Luis Robert gem from my collection.  

    

My teaching assignment for the coming school year has changed a few times over the past few weeks, a little stressful, and slightly time consuming.  I have picked up a few new cards over the past two weeks, but have not had the opportunity to sit down and write anything about them.  While people can buy out all the packs of 2020 Topps cards at Target, there are still plenty of baseball cards out there in other places.  There are enough baseball cards for everyone.

My first pair of cards are from the 2020 Topps Heritage set, both autographs that I found on the cheap.  

First up is A's pitcher A.J. Puk.  I saw him play for US College National team while he was in college at Florida.  I saw him pitch a combined no-hitter, so I am collecting his card regardless of how well he pitches in the Majors.  For what it is worth, he off to a good start during the first few weeks of the 2020 season.  The A's are using him as a reliever, but he's done well in that role.  I am probably biased to some degree, but he is going to be a really good pitcher.  Hopefully he gets back into the rotation.  

Next.  

Everyone's favorite Cardinals shortstop who strikes out way too often.  I am not a huge Dejong collector, but if the cards are there, cheap, and I can use combined shipping then sure, I will buy them.  I do not own many DeJong autographs.  Maybe only two or three, which is a low number for a modern Cardinals player with a high number of certified autographs.  I think this might be the nicest one in my collection.  Love the 1971 Topps design.  

I saved the best cards for last in this post.  I was really excited to add these cards to my collection.  I have been working on the 1970 Kellogg's passive-aggressively for the past three or four years.  They are more expensive than the other Kellogg's sets, but they are a personal favorite.  So, I picked up three cards.  Two of these are new, and another is an upgrade over another copy I own.  

This Gibson card is my upgrade. 

This is a pretty clean copy.  The bottom border is a little discolored, the scan did not pick it up, but that is much better than having a giant crack in the middle of the card.  

The last two Kellogg's cards are former Durham Bulls.  

Again, this is a passive aggressive attempt to collect the 1970 Kellogg's set.  If I end up with the whole set at some point, these cards will fit into the set.  If I never quite get there, then they are nice additions to my collection of former Durham Bulls cards.  Morgan played for the Bulls in 1963.  This card has a really clean surface, but again the border has some discoloration.  You can see it a little better on the right side of the card.  It's hard for a white border to stay white for 50 years.  

Last card. Lolich was on the Bulls in 1959 and 1960.  Really unrated pitcher from the 1960s and 1970s.  Much more deserving Hall of Fame candidate then Jack Morris, right down to the Game 7 pitching heroics in a World Series.  Of the three Kellogg's cards that I have posted here, this is by far the cleanest of the group. 

Project Durham Bulls #44 - Doug Rader

1965 Durham Bulls 

Background-
I do enjoy finding cards of the Durham Bulls players that I have watched over the past ten years plus that I have lived around Durham and Raleigh.  However, the Durham Bulls are one of the longest running Minor League teams around and have a long history with many great players.  I love finding some of the older players, especially the ones that I do not know a lot about, and taking time to find out more about their careers.  While I was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s, I knew Doug Rader as a manager, but I did not know a thing about him as a player until I moved to North Carolina.
The Astros signed Doug Rader as an amateur free agent out of Illinois Wesleyan University in 1965.  He was sent to start his professional baseball career with the team's Carolina League affiliate in Durham.  Rader ended up playing 112 games for the Bulls and hit .209/.307/.385 with 14 home runs, 14 doubles, and 38 RBIs.  Not a great line, but he still ended up getting promoted to Double A the following season.  Rader made his Major League debut in 1967.  He played 11 years, mainly with the Astros, but he also appeared in games for the Padres and Blue Jays.  In all, Rader had 1,300 hits, 155 home runs, more than 700 RBIs, and an impressive 5 Gold Gloves.

After retiring, Doug Rader went into coaching and managing.  He managed the Rangers during the 1983, 1984, and part of the 1985 season.  In 1986, the White Sox used him to manage the team for two games after management fired Tony LaRussa in the middle of the season.  Rader also managed the Angels for three seasons in the early 1990s.  He worked as a hitting coach with the Marlins for the franchise's first two seasons, but retired after the 1994 season.  To the best of my knowledge, he has not worked in baseball since that job.

Card- 
I am really happy with this card.  Like really happy.  The Greats of the Games autographs have always been one of the great products of the late 1990s and early 2000s.  By the time that the mid 2000s rolled around, I am not sure that the many collectors would describe the product as great.  I still think it was a nice set, definitely a step back though.  This Rader card is a far cry from the 1999 or 2000 sets, but there is still plenty to like.

First, the Nickname cards were always a staple in the Donruss Signature set.  Fleer never used nickname cards even though the products were rivals of sorts.  Fleer went with the nicknames in this set.  Yes, they are sticker autographs, but Fleer also picked some unique players.  Besides, the Donruss Signature Set had also turned to sticker autographs too.  I have another one of these cards of Tom Henke "The Terminator", who never appeared in any other autograph product.  Rader also only appears in this set as a signer.  Really unique cards to own.

Rader was a redhead and earned the nickname "Red Rooster" based on the way that his hair stuck out of his hat.  In some ways, I wish that I had a simple card with a regular Doug Rader signature.  However, if you only have one choice of card for a player, this is a pretty sweet card and a really good addition to my collection of Durham Bulls cards.  

Project Durham Bulls #39 Brandon Backe

2003 Durham Bulls 

Background-
Backe was drafted by the Devil Rays out of Galveston College in the 18th round of the 1998 MLB Amateur Draft as an infielder.  His career in the Minor Leagues was pretty interesting.  Between 1998 and 2000 Backe was used as a utility infielder/outfielder in the lower Minors by the Devil Rays.  He never hit much and struck out often.  His best season was in 1999, which was split between two A Ball teams.  He hit .220/.325/.351 for a .676 OPS.  I know, I know, that does not sound very good.  It's not.  Backe did hit 10 home runs that season and also had 17 doubles.  That's okay, right?

In 2001, Backe moved on to pitching and ascended the Devil Rays Minor League system quickly.  He ended up in Tampa by the end of the 2002 season appearing in 9 games.  His 2003 season was split between the Majors and Triple A with the Bulls.  In all, Backe pitched 16 games in Durham with a 4.64 ERA.  His Triple A numbers look rather pedestrian.  During the 2003 off season, he was traded to the Astros in exchange for Geoff Blum.

He had a good run for a few years with the Astros, including their 2004 and 2005 playoff teams, which reached the National League Championship Series and World Series.  Houston did not get a World Series winner out of those teams, but it was not Backe's fault......

Card- 

Upper Deck also had some nice autographed cards in there sets.  Not sure that the 2007 batch was their best effort.  First, these were sticker autographs, which many of the other 2000s autographs were too.  However, I think that the sticker is really poorly blended into the card.  It's a sticker autograph and it's obvious, pretty hard to do with a clear sticker.   Not even sure it's on the card straight.  Second, the "Star Signings" emblem is almost as big as the picture of Backe.  Seems like you'd want the primary focus of the card on the player, maybe the autograph.  So why did I get this card? 

All of Backe's autographs span a a five year period from 2002 through 2007.  Most of the early autographed cards are from Playoff products.  Those cards are also all sticker autographs, but they have those giant silver stickers on the front.  Clearly a step down from this Upper Deck.  Backe's later autographs are from Upper Deck products, one of them is a Fleer which was owned by UD at that point, and all of them are nicer than his older signatures.  However, on sites like COMC, they are also not as dirt cheap as I would like them to be.  For example, his 2007 Fleer autograph is almost $5 on there.  Can't pay that much for a guy who had two good seasons.  In the end, I am collecting Durham Bulls autographs, but for some players I am going for a blend of affordability and design.  This was more about affordability. 

My Annual Post About A Relic Card

I am always amazed that card companies still make relic cards.  In the span of 20 years we have gone from collectors knocking themselves over to own a small inch sized piece of Tony Gwynn's jersey fixed on the front of an Upper Deck card, to having to sort through dozens of Mark Grudzielanek game used bat cards to find the decent cards in the dollar bins at card shows.

The old ones are still great cards in my opinion.

Mass produced, problems with the relics actually being authentic, companies putting "event" used jerseys on cards, etc.  There are dozens of reasons that people stopped collecting relic cards, but I am surprised that the little square and circular pieces have not just completely gone away.  There will likely always be a place for the premium patch pieces companies use for high end products, but the small piece relics are basically irrelevant.    

I have seen a few products in recent years that have gone to using authentication stickers on relics.  Not sure how popular I would say the cards were, the ones in my collection are there strictly because they were also autographed.

Doubtful I would have a Dallas Keuchel relic card just because.

Welp.  I was purchasing a Jim Edmonds card off of Ebay, just because who wouldn't want to own a card of Jimmy Ballgame wearing some awesome 1990s pinstriped Angels uniform.

I owned one of these hats in college, definitely a go to hat in the collection.  I always check out sellers other items when I am after a card.  Why pay for shipping multiple times?  That's when I ended up with a relic card of Evan Longoria.

The authentication sticker, which tiny, is almost as big as relic swatch.  This card is out of Tribute, which is a nice product, but I see no reason why this won't be in dollar bins soon.  The one redeeming quality about the card happened when I typed the number into the MLB Authentication page.....

The relic comes from a 2016 game between the Rays and Yankees, which did not end very well for the Rays.......

However, this is a Longoria relic, and he did have a hit in the game.....

so at least the relic is not from a game where he just sat on the bench.  Until next year relic cards.....