Monday Morning Autograph - Eric Davis

I own a couple of thousand autographs, the majority have never appeared on my blog. Here is a random autograph that I have never posted.  

Today: 2015 Stadium Club Autographs Eric Davis 

Why Do I Own This Card?  

Eric Davis is one of the most talented players from the 1980s and 1990s. He was also on the St. Louis Cardinals for a few seasons at the end of his career.  Why wouldn't I want to own one of his autographs? 

I have actually posted other Davis autographs on my blog, just never this autograph.  

When Did I Get This Card?

I pulled this out of a box of Stadium Club towards the end of 2015. It was a nice pull. I took a break from blogging for a few months at the beginning of 2016 and never posted this card.  

Back of the Card 

I love that Stadium Club uses actual card back on their autographs. We get statistics and a nice write-up describing Davis' style of play and one of his career accomplishments.  This is what we deserve on the back of baseball cards.  

The Career of Eric Davis In a Haiku 

Series Champ, Home Runs

Reds, Stolen Bases, Gold Gloves

O's, Cards, Tigers Too  

Set Appreciation Post #12 - 1988 Donruss

It has been a week.  I am doing a whole lot of nothing this weekend and it feels great.  Writing a blog post about the 1988 Donruss set seemed like a really huge time waster, so here I am.  Maybe I just hang out with the wrong people and follow the wrong accounts on social media, but the 1988 Donruss set seems wildly unpopular.  Is it just me, or does it often get lumped in with sets like 1991 Fleer?  

I am going to hold my opinion to the end of the post, but I will probably give away it's ranking somewhere around the top of the post.  

Special guest appearance by Aaron Boone via screen shots.  I learned this week that I attended his Major League debut.  He was ejected after being tagged out at home on a throw from right-fielder Brian Jordan.  

 

Actual screen shot of Aaron Boone after getting run from the game.  Deion Sanders homered off of Matt Morris.  The Reds won.  The Cardinals fans booed Deion Sanders and none of them could tell you why they booed him. 

Let's go.  

BASE CARD

 

Many of the cards in the post were actually opened by the 10 and 11 year old me.  Pack fresh.  You're going to find this hard to believe, but I have never gone back and worked on improving my 1988 Donruss set.  The first base card in the set is Mackey Sasser.  Actually, the first two dozen cards in Donruss sets were always the Diamond Kings cards.  I will get to those in a few minutes.  

The Rated Rookie cards were always great.  That little logo in the corner of the card is always a bonus in my book.  One of the great things that came out of 1980s baseball cards. 

Shall we talk about the border design? 

 

I never quite understood what was going on with the blue, red, and black lines.  I have looked at these cards from time to time over the last 33 years and I have no idea how this design was picked for a large baseball card set.  If this was the best design option at the time, what did it beat out?  

The back of the card. 

 There were always pros and cons to the card backs in the Donruss set.  The con was when you got a card of some player who had been around forever, but they only put five years worth of stats on the back of the card.  I like the highlight section better than Topps and I also like that they put down how the player was acquired.  You could find some really bad trades on the back of these cards. 

Diamond Kings 

I wanted to pick a Cardinals card for this spot, but the 1988 Donruss set had Jack Clark with a pink background.  I like the pink background, but 1988 was not a great year to be a Cardinals fan and see Jack Clark in a pack of cards. 

Why?  

I am going to slip in a screen shot of Mike Bush from NewsChannel 5. I think Mike is a news anchor now, or somebody serious.  Hopefully Zip Rzeppa is still doing sports in St. Louis. 

It also started the Bob Horner era in St. Louis.  

I decided to pick this Mark McGwire card instead.  Big Mac was coming off setting the Major League rookie home run record.  If you didn't know the year of the card, you can tell it's early in his career, because he looks to be a normal size in the picture.  I like the colored bars in the background too, very 1980s.  

Aaron Boone screen shot. 

There are probably better Diamond Kings cards in this set, but I am sticking with McGwire.  Solid design and he actually had a really good 1987.  

Cool Card of 1988 

I never got the whole idea of spending a ton of money on players with very little Major League experience.  Yes, it's been really bad the past two decades with Bowman, but it's not like that was the start of the trend.  Bowman just made it worse.  The 1988 Donruss set had one of those "hot" rookie cards way back in 1988.  

The 1988 Donruss Gregg Jefferies card was a really big deal back in the late 1980s.  People were pretty sure that he was going to be the next great hitter in the Majors, win a few batting titles, and be in the Hall of Very Good or the Hall of Fame.  

A lot of people spent a lot of money on this card. 

 

Other people just pulled the card from a $0.35 pack of cards from Ben Franklin.  

While we are here.  It really bothers me when people label Gregg Jefferies as a "flop" or a "bust".  He was a really good player who just happened not to live up to very lofty expectations.  I saw him play for the Cardinals for two years in the 1990s, excellent player.  Great hitter. 

Best Non-Cardinal Card 

I am a sucker for flip-down sunglasses.  

Why don't players wear these types of sunglasses anymore?  

I don't wear glasses.

I don't wear sunglasses.  

If I did wear glasses, they would be flip downs.  

Thank you, Aaron Boone.  Yes, Eric Davis is also a really good hitter.  

Best Cardinals Card 

 

Wrigley makes a good backdrop for baseball cards.  The Ozzie Smith card is a Spring Training picture.  The Vince Coleman card was also taken in Wrigley, but he is bunting.  Easy choice here. 

 Thanks, Aaron. 

Best Durham Bulls Card 

Let's wrap up this post.  I thought about going Brad Komminsk on the Brewers, but I am going to fly under the radar a bit here and go with Milt Thompson.  Really, there were not that many great choices.  The Bulls produced a lot of Braves players during the 1980s, but none of them have great cards in this set. 

 

Milt Thompson, if you did not watch baseball in the 1980s or 1990s.  Good player for the Braves, Phillies, Cardinals, and back to the Phillies for a second time.  I think there might have been a few years with the Astros at the very end of his career.  Good hitter, good defender.  I like the portrait style photo, just wish the photographer had backed up a little bit.  Milt had a really unique batting stance, but I cannot find a good picture of it.  His bat is actually too high in this photo.  Normally it was behind his back shoulder, he stood deep in the box, but stuck his front leg out straight in front of him. 

 Yes.  

How Does It Compare?  

You're probably thinking that this set is going to end up being in the last spot, but that's not going to happen.  I have no problem putting the 1988 Donruss set ahead of the bottom 3 sets.  It's not better than the 2017 Topps Heritage Minors set, so I am really trying to decide whether to put it above or below the Emotion XL set.  

The major flaw with 1988 is its design.  If Aaron Boone had been a design manager at Donruss during the late 1980s, this might be a conversation he had with his team.

Aaron Boone was in high school in 1988. 

Emotion XL has a good design, but some of it's cards are really dumb.  Let's remember that Dante Bichette's "emotion" was "The Heat".  Still think that the Emotion cards are better overall set than Donruss, especially when the quality of the cards is taken into consideration. 

I am going to go ahead and put the 1988 Donruss set in 9th place in my Set Appreciation rankings. 

11. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

10. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

9. 1988 Donruss 

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

Sorry, I am out of Aaron Boone screenshots. 

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 26 - Eric Davis

Eric Davis should be on baseball cards in a Reds uniform.  I'd also accept him as an Oriole, but I really always place him with the Reds.  When I was growing up he was a dynamic player, a great combination of speed and power.   The Cardinals and Reds were in different divisions at that point, and their games were not nearly as tense as they have been in recent years.    

Davis had some pretty insane stats early in his career.  My favorite being his 27 home runs and 80 stolen bases in 1986.  The next year in 1987 he hit 37 home runs and had 50 steals.  I loved the run the Reds made through the playoffs in 1990 too.  Not a huge Barry Bonds/Pirates fan, not a huge A's fan at that point either. 

The Nasty Boys were the lesser of several evils.  Plus, they were diluted by actual likable players on the Reds like Eric Davis, Chris Sabo and his goggles, Barry Larkin, and Paul O'Neill.  

I had Eric Davis rookie cards.  His 1985 Fleer was my favorite.  

In my opinions, this photo is much better than the one on his Topps rookie card.  The red border around the card helps too. Very clean design, nice card.   

A rundown of the baseball happenings of Eric Davis between 1991 and 1998 with some pictures and a video....

He was injured much of the 1991 season and was eventually traded to the Dodgers.  Plenty of people were excited that he got traded to his hometown Dodgers, but he did little with the team who traded him again to the Tigers.  After hitting .183 with the Tigers in 1994, Davis missed the entire 1995 season.  He returned to the Reds in 1996 and things started to look up again after he stayed healthy for a full season and hit like the Eric Davis from the 1980s.  

Davis left the Reds after 1996 for the Orioles.  His 1997 season started out well, but he was diagnosed with colon cancer in May of that season.  He only appeared in 42 games, but returned for the playoffs and helped the Orioles get to the American League Championship Series against Cleveland.  

Major League Baseball presented him with the 1997 Roberto Clemente Award before Game 4 of the 1997 World Series.  It was 35 degrees when this game started, so there is no picture of Davis with the Roberto Clemente Award on the field.....

but I assure you he has it somewhere in his house......

right next to the Gold Gloves.  

In 1998, Davis hit .327/.388/.582 with 28 home runs and 89 RBIs.  

A remarkable comeback.  

The Cardinals bought in, but there was not much left in the tank.  I am not going to use the word "bust" on a guy who had colon cancer, beat it, and returned to play professional sports.  He still showed up in games, played hard, but he just was not the same guy who was an All-Star caliber player for the Reds and Orioles.  

The Cardinals had actually signed both Eric Davis and Shawon Dunston to help out with some of the younger players on the team during the 1999 season.  The team had J.D. Drew, Fernando Tatis, Placido Polanco, and Edgar Renteria.  Good talent, but at that time all of those players were under 25.  

At the end of the 1999 season, Davis had a .257/.359/.403 slash line with 5 home runs, 9 doubles, and 30 RBIs.  He managed to play in just 58 games.  The next season, in 2000, was much better for him.  Davis was still a bench player at that point, but he did help the team win the National League Central hitting .303/.389/.429 with 6 home runs and 14 doubles off the bench.  

Davis does have a few Cardinals baseball cards.  The first few were of the mismatched logo variety, not really a good look.  This Pacific Aurora is terrible......

I used to always say that I would rather have a card with mismatched logos, uniform of one team with card logos of another team, but this is a really unattractive looking card.  I understand that the Pacific Aurora set was a one time thing, no second series, so if they wanted to include Eric Davis in the set this was what they had to do.  I guess they could have airbrushed.....

The back is slightly better since the photo is black and white and it does not have an odd background color like the front of the card.  Never really liked the stat lines on some of these late 1990s/early 2000s Pacific baseball cards.  

Pacific eventually got it right later on in the summer.  

Much better picture on the Paramount card.  Aurora was a spring release, Paramount was a summer release.  This photo is from Spring Training.  The Cardinals in the late 1990s wore blue helmets on the road, note the grey pants, but during the spring the team wore red helmets.  The Cardinals also have never worn red jerseys in regular season games.  Ever.  Clearly a batting practice jersey.  

The Spring Training photos are a common theme with the Eric Davis Cardinals cards.

Leaning towards this being a Spring Training picture too on his 1999 Bowman card.  I actually have another post coming up on this card at some point in the next week or two.  Always surprised when I run across an Eric Davis card in a Cardinals uniform, even more surprising when it is in a newer product.  

Now, for my two favorite Eric Davis card in a Cardinals uniform.  

First up is a Fleer Premium from 1999.  I am not sure what is going on with the red and yellow hazy stuff that is lingering around Davis, but I like the rest of the card.  Good photo of Davis stretching out before a Spring Training game.  The background is blurry, but you can still clearly tell that it's a Dodgers players, maybe a ballboy.  

I was curious about his shoes since they have an 11 on them next to the Nike swoosh.  There were no Cardinals with the uniform number 11 in 1999, but there were three different members of the quad with that number from the previous year.  Fernando Tatis and Luis Ordaz wore the number later in the year, but Royce Clayton started the year with that number.  

Royce, your shoes.....

I'm guess that maybe Royce Clayton abandoned them when he was traded to the Rangers in the middle of the 1998 season.  Maybe there is some other story here too, I don't know, just speculating.  

Last card.  

This is a really cool card of Davis signing autographs in a sea of kids.  It's always nice to see a card of players interacting with fans.  No creepy adults shoving any of the kids out of the way.  Quality picture.  I really miss Upper Deck.  

Davis would end his career with the Giants in 2001.  He does some work with the Reds still and recently appeared in a video opening a pack of baseball cards.  Makes fun of Geronimo Pena and Joey Votto gets in the video at the end.  

Eric Davis opens 25-year-old baseball cards

Former 2-time MLB All-Star Eric Davis joins Mike Oz of Big League Stew to open a pack of 1992 Topps baseball cards.

Friday Five: Five Things I Love About the 1985 Topps Set

I have spent the past week sorting out a bunch of the sets that I collected as a kid.  My wife was awesome enough to help out with the sorting process, but a few of the sets took a little longer to sort than normal.  I spent a good deal of time just looking at the cards as I took them out of their boxes to sort out into complete sets.  So many good memories and many great names on the cards.  One of my favorites from my first years in collecting was the 1985 Topps set.

Before I get into my five things, I encourage everyone who likes these cards to go check out the 1985 Topps Blog written by the legendary Night Owl.


5.  There Are Expos Cards 

The Expos never really won anything, but they had some good players over the years.  Plus they had really cool uniforms.  The Nationals are not quite the same thing.  One of the best parts of flipping through old 1980s and 1990s sets is the Expos cards.  While they had some of their better teams in the mid 1990s with Pedro Martinez and Larry Walker, I love the Tim Raines and Andre Dawson teams of the 1980s.  The 1985 set has plenty of good Expos cards.

4.  Blue Uniforms 

The blue road uniforms were really common in the 1970s and early part of the 1980s.  By the time the mid 1980s started to roll around the blue road uniform was on its way out the door.  My beloved Cardinals had plenty of cards featuring players in road blues in the 1985 Topps set, but by the time the 1986 Topps set rolled around many teams, including the Cardinals, had ditched the blue for grey uniforms.  Sad, but at least teams break them out occasionally still for throwback days, or alternate jerseys.

3.  Rookie Cards, But Not Clemens, Puckett, Or McGwire 

There are three really good rookies in the 1985 Topps set that many collectors know, recognize, and love: Mark McGwire, Kirby Puckett, and Roger Clemens.  However, there are some other nice rookie cards in this set beyond those three players.  Eric Davis was a good player, he has a rookie card in this set.  Bret Saberhagen, also pretty good, has a rookie card in this set.  Mark Langston, personal favorite and once traded for Randy Johnson, also has a rookie card in this set.  These rookies do not have much monetary value, and you might find them in the dime boxes at your local card shop or show, but they are still worth filing away in your collection.

2.  USA Baseball Cards 

Many people love the Mark McGwire rookie card in the USA Baseball subset.  Nice card, good player.  It was also the first really popular USA Baseball card.  Many USA Baseball products have been made in the years since the 1984 Olympic team was included in the 1985 Topps set.  I was not really big into the Olympic, or USA cards as a kid, but as an adult I have found enjoyment in collecting these cards.  I would like to think that without the USA Baseball cards in the 1985 Topps set, many of the products featuring some of the great amateur baseball players in the country would not be produced, or at least not as popular.

1.  Well Loved Cards

In the time I spent sorting out my cards from the 1985 Topps set it was plain to see which cards in my stacks I actually owned in 1985.  I was a second grader at the time and really enjoyed collecting cards.  I am not sure I really understood taking care of my cards, but I went back and recollected these cards later on as an adult.  While I sorting out my cards in to sets I have generally taken out the doubles, I am holding on to these gems from my younger years.  I did not draw, or mark on cards, but I clearly handled them frequently.  Anyway, I do not quite have a complete set of 1985 Topps cards collected by my second grade self, but I am really close.

2004 Donruss Timelines Eric Davis Autograph

Added a new Cardinals autograph to my collection earlier this week.  I had plenty of time after getting snowed in for half of a week.  I am sure that most people do not remember Eric Davis as a Cardinal, but he did make a brief appearance for the team in 1999 and 2000.  He was mainly a fourth outfielder on the team playing behind Jim Edmonds, JD Drew, and Ray Lankford.  The best years of his career were spent on the Reds and Orioles.  I always put Davis on the Reds.   

The new autograph comes from the 2004 Donruss Timelines set.  This was a pretty high end product at the time with lots of good autographs, but most of them are on stickers.  If you look around you can find some cool buybacks of some 80s players in the set.  I have a cool Carney Lansford.  If you are not old enough to remember Eric Davis.....

His best season, in my opinion was in 1987 when he posted 37 home runs, 50 steals, and an OPS of .991.  He was Mike Trout before Mike Trout.  He also had a season with 27 home runs with 80 steals.  Davis was also on the 1990 Reds team which beat the heavily favored A's in the World Series.  Davis set the tone for the series in Game 1 with this home run.  Truly a unique talent who probably did not get his due at the time.  His highest MVP finished through all of these seasons was 9th.  And people complain about trout finishing second.  

Davis had some missable seasons with the Dodgers and Tigers before bouncing back for a season with the Reds and a pair of good seasons for the Orioles.  His time in Baltimore was cut short after he was diagnosed with colon cancer.  He wrote a book about the experience.  After being treated for cancer he finished out the 1998 season with the Orioles and then spent the rest of his career with the Cardinals and Giants as a reserve.  

30 Year Top 50: 1987 Donruss

#31- I will have the 1987 calendar year of major baseball card releases covered after this post.  The year was great for rookie cards which I always think ultimately drive a set's significance over time.  Other factors such as innovation, style, and design can also factor in, but the 1987 Donruss set lacks all of those factors.  The 1987 Donruss set offers many of the usual suspects of rookie cards from that year including Barry Larkin, Palmeiro, Will Clark, Wally Joyner, and Barry Bonds.

1987 Donruss Barry Bonds

Many of those other same players also appear in the Fleer and Topps releases, but I think that this set has two major advantages over the other releases.  First, this set was the of the last dark bordered sets produced by a major card company before the arrival of Upper Deck in 1989.  Upper Deck forced the other card companies to elevate the quality by changing their card stock and cutting methods.  The cards looked great, but it also eliminated some of the imperfections collectors would run into with older sets.  Especially older sets with darker borders.  The second reason:

1987 Donruss Greg Maddux

The inclusion of a Greg Maddux rookie.  Maddux also appeared in the 1987 Topps Update release, but this card is frequently considered the Gold Standard for his rookie cards.  Maddux is a sure fire first ballot Hall of Famer, but he can fly under the radar at times with his baseball cards.  This card isn't a hard find and raw copies of the card will only cost collectors a few dollars, but finding one with a high PSA grade will cost you over $50.  

Like the 1987 Donruss Set?  Not in my Top 50 countdown is the 1985 Donruss set.  Similar to the 1987 set, the 85 release is filled with important rookies and also features a dark border that can be condition sensitive.  Finding raw copies of the set and singles is not difficult and generally is inexpensive.  

1985 Donruss Eric Davis

The Eric Davis cars above is one of his three rookie cards released in 1985, however the stars of the 1985 Donruss set are Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett.  The Clemens card is the better of the two cards, but has been set back in recent years due to the linkage of his career to the use of steroids.  

1985 Donruss Roger Clemens

The other important rookie card is the Kirby Puckett rookie.  Puckett had his career cut short due to injuries and glaucoma, but was still elected to the Hall of Fame.  This is my least favorite of his rookies, but still proudly own a few copies.  

1985 Donruss Kirby Puckett