Upper Management Type

It's truly amazing how many former Durham Bulls players and managers have gone on to work as a managers in the Major Leagues.  Last season, there were two former managers, Charlie Montoyo and Brian Snitker, along with two former players, Kevin Cash and Rocco Baldelli, who were all managers with Major League teams.  All four led their teams to the playoffs.  

This is not a new trend with the Durham Bulls.  

Just in the past week, I have posted cards of Doug Rader and Mayo Smith.  Both were Durham Bulls players and both had stints working as managers in the Majors.  For today, I am going to focus on a different player/manager, spending a little time on Gene Mauch.  I have picked up a few cards of this well-known manager over the past few weeks.  

Mauch played with the Durham Bulls in 1943 as a 17 year old infielder.  He would play in the Majors for 9 seasons with the Dodgers, Cubs, Braves, Cardinals, and Red Sox.  He was a light hitting utility player, who only once played in more than 70 games in a season.  

Mauch has a few cards as a player.  

I haven't been too successful with collecting his player cards.  This 1957 Topps might be about it.  Really, we are here today for his manager cards.  So, these are the latest additions to my collection: 

Mauch's first managerial job in the Majors was with the Phillies starting in 1960.  He took over a perennial loser and turned them into a winning team.  It just took a few years.  In 1961, the Phillies lost 107 games, which included a 23 games losing streak.  Mauch has this sort of dubious reputation as a manager in some circles.  The long losing streak in 1961 is apart of that reputation.  

The back of the card has his player stats, with his managerial stats squeezed onto the bottom.  

I thought it was interesting that his Minor League managing record was included here.  

Next up is Mauch's burlap sack card from the 1968 Topps set.  

This was Mauch's final season with the Phillies.  In fact, he did not make it the whole season.  The team fired him after a 28-27 start to the season.  In learning more about Mauch in recent years, it somewhat surprises me that he last another three and a half years after the 1964 collapse.  I am not going to rehash the last two weeks of the season, but he made a few mistakes.  At the same time, his six winning seasons with the Phillies during the 1960s were one more than the team had during the 1950s, 1940s, 1930s, and 1920s combined.  

The first three quarters of the 20th Century were not kind to the Phillies.  Mauch was the team's winningest manager until Charlie Manuel passed him 2011.  

The back of this card actually mentions that he played for the Durham Bulls in 1943.  

Next.  

A pair of Expos cards.  I already have a few Mauch Expos cards from the fake pizza franchise promotional set I worked on last year.  Still a little upset that there is not really a La Pizza Royale restaurant in Canada.  

If I ever flee to Canada to start a pizza place, that's going to be the name of the restaurant.  Still really cool cards.  Yes, I still have them.

These are not fake.  

First up is Mauch's 1970 Topps card.  He was in the 1969 Topps set as the Expos manager, so this is his second as their manager.  It looks like Mauch is signaling for a new pitcher, but given that he was managing an expansion team, it is just as likely that he was hailing a beer vendor.  

The back of the card is slightly off-center.  

 I like the manager's cards where Topps went with the managerial records much more than the player records.  I also like that they included his Minor League experience as a manager, which was a surprising feature on the 1961 Topps towards the top of the post.  Topps also makes mention of his Minor League playing career at the top of this card, but nothing specific about the Durham Bulls. 

Love the design on the 1972 Topps cards.  Mauch was 47 when this card was made, but managing the Phillies and expansion Expos aged him horribly.  There is also something not quite right about the front of his jersey in this picture.  It looks like Topps airbrushed it, but I am not sure why they would do such a thing.  

Back of the card has a cool fun fact about catchers and foul pop outs.  

Last card for this post.  

I like these 1978 Topps cards with the player and manager picture on the front of the card.  Currently, there are a ton of catchers who are managing teams.  They have slowly taken over from utility and bench players who were frequently managers during the 1970s and 1980s.  At least, that's how it seemed at times.  

And we are back to this odd mix of player stats on the back of a manager card.  We get it, Gene Mauch was not much of a player.  There are a lot of people who don't think he was much a manager either, but I he stuck around a long time, even if he did not manage to the win a World Series.  

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.  

More Of Your Favorite 1970s Durham Bulls

I got another stack of 1975 Topps Minis that I am going to split into two different posts.  

I am going with four cards for this post, a few more at some point during the next week.  There are a total of 23 former Durham Bulls players with cards in the 1975 Topps Mini set.  Out of the 23, I had 7 of the cards when I last gave an update in October.  These four will jump me up to 11, roughly half way.  With another stack on my desk, I am going to hopefully wrap up this project before the end of the year.  

Let's get into the cards.  

First up, I am going with the player I consider the greatest Durham Bulls player ever.  I guess you could make an argument for Chipper Jones, but I would still take this guy.  I cannot find a stand alone clip, but Morgan actually mentioned his time as a Durham Bulls during his Hall of Fame speech.  

Specifically, he talked about the influence Bill Goodman, the manager of the Bulls at the time Morgan played there, had on his career.  Goodman was also the Red Sox starting third baseman for much of the 1950s, and won the 1950 American League batting title.  

Not the best condition, but I will look for an upgrade later.  The edges of the card have some paper loss and chipping, and the corners are all soft.  I got the card for next to nothing, so I really cannot complain.

Next up we have Mike Jorgensen.  He actually played with the Raleigh-Durham Mets, but same thing as the Bulls.  He ended up making it all the way from the Carolina League, with the Bulls, to the Majors with the Mets in a single summer.  That's pretty impressive.

The Mets traded Jorgensen to the Expos for Rusty Staub.  Jorgensen ended up back on the Mets later on in his career.   He actually ended his career with the Cardinals when I was a kid.  Jorgensen was a left-handed bat off the bench and a back-up first baseman to Jack Clark.  He also ended up briefly managing the Cardinals during the 1995 season.  

Last two.  

Matlack was another Raleigh-Durham Mets player.  I have spent a lot of time on him in past posts, so you can search around and find Matlack cards.  Definitely an underrated player of the 1970s.  

Frisella was on the 1967 Durham Bulls, and had a great season while pitching in the Carolina League with the team.  He was a solid Major League player too, almost exclusively used as a reliever.  Sadly, he died in a dune buggy accident during the offseason in 1977.  

Let's check the updated checklist, remember the red highlighted cards are the ones I have already found.  

#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 

A few more later in the week.  Hopefully.  

From The Company That Brought You The Oreo Cookie, Comes Canadian Baseball Cards

Nabisco makes some really good stuff.  

There is the Oreo Cookie, Ritz Crackers, Chips Ahoy!, and Fig Newtons just to name a few.  

Nabisco also made baseball cards.  I know a lot of collectors don't like the off-brand food cards from the 1990s for the same reasons that they do not like the current run of Panini cards.  The logos are airbrushed out on the players uniforms.  

I generally agree, but it's Nabisco.  I put them ahead of Panini because of their delicious snack foods, but they also they also make a much better baseball card.  Nabisco has come up with some quality cards in the past.  Logos or not, the 1993 All-Star Legends autograph set has a really strong checklist.  Honestly, I don't care that Don Drysdale doesn't have a Dodgers logo.  I don't care that they made the Dodger blue a little darker.  This is a great card.  

Well, in my quest to find some cards of former Durham Bulls players this summer, I ran across several who appeared in a Nabisco set from Canada.   The set is called Nabisco Tradition.  No word on whether Fleer ripped off the name from Nabisco later in the 1990s when they rebranded their base set.  I am a little unclear on all the details behind the product, but there are a total of 36 cards in the set that is divided evenly between Expos  and Blue Jays players.  All of the cards featured players from previous Expos and Blue Jays teams, no current members of the teams were included.  

As far as the Durham Bulls cards that I picked up, there were three cards in all.  Each a name the average baseball fan from the 1970s and 1980s would recognize.  The two appeared for the Bulls in the 1960s, the other in 1970. 

Let's look at the cards.  

The lone Blue Jay in my trio will be first.  

Not always a fan of "cartoon" cards, but these are really well done.  I am impressed that the card designer was able to squeeze the notable accomplishment of Cliff Johnson onto the front of the card in both English and French.  A little busy, but not too bad.  

Back of the card, also in French and English.  

Cliff Johnson was on the Blue Jays at the end of his career, which was in the mid 1980s.  I remember getting his cards as a kid.  Always on the Blue Jays, maybe a Rangers card or two in there too.  He appeared on the Durham Bulls while the team was in their weird late 1960s/early 1970s phase.  By weird, I mean Cliff Johnson actually played for the Raleigh-Durham Triangles.  

If you are unfimiliar with this area, Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill make up the Triangle.  Raleigh-Durham is actually an airport that is halfway between Raleigh and Durham.  Renaming the Durham Bulls the Raleigh-Durham Triangles would be like renaming the Yankees the LaGuardia Big Apples.  

Dumb.  

Anyway, since moving to North Carolina, I have learned a little more about Cliff Johnson's baseball career.  I always assumed he was some bench player who occasionally hit home runs based on the baseball cards of my childhood.  It turns out Cliff Johnson was a catcher, first baseman, and DH who won two World Series with the Yankees in the late 1970s before he became a pinch hitting home run hitter.  

By the way, Matt Stairs passed Cliff Johnson as the all-time pinch-hit home run leader, but it took him almost an extra 200 plate appearances to get there.  

Next. 

Favorite thing on this card is that the artist has Rusty Staub choking up on the bat.  Small detail, but something I learned about him when he passed away a few years back.  Not really surprising that he is in this set focused on older Expos players.  He had some great seasons during the 1960s and 1970s, several in Montreal, also really popular with Expos fans.  

Back of the card.  

I like that there is an explanation of the Expos logo. 

Staub appeared for the Durham Bulls in 1962 after the Houston Astros drafted him out of high school.  He was the Carolina League MVP that season.  The Bulls had Joe Morgan pass through town the following season, and the team retired his jersey.  Wish the team would do something similar for Staub.  At least give him a bobblehead.  

Last card.  

This is the part of the post where I advertise something.  

Do you like podcasts?  

I like baseball podcasts, started listening to them about two years ago.  One of my favorites is Baseball Beyond Batting Average.  Basically, it's two knowledgable baseball fans talking about all things baseball with a heavy lean on numbers.  If you don't like statistics, you're a big fan of the game-winning RBI, it's probably not going to be your cup of tea.  

Even if you don't decide to listen to the podcast, the two guys who make the Podcast have great baseball card related accounts on Twitter.  One is Baseball Card Backs and the other is IDrawBaseballCards.  

The last episode of Baseball Beyond Batting Average was all about underrated players from the 1970s.  They did a great job of picking out two players at each position who need a little more appreciation for their career numbers.  They won me over at Gene Tenace, but Ken Singleton also came up as one of those players.  I completely agree, more people should pay attention to Ken Singleton.  Not sure you could convince me he's a Hall of Famer, but he's at worst in the Hall of Very Good Players.  Maybe if he were playing today, with the heavier slant on advanced stats, more people would appreciate him.  

Singleton briefly played for the Durham Bulls.  (Checks notes)  

Singleton briefly played for the Raleigh-Durham Mets.  

He also had three great years playing with the Expos in the early 1970s.  Singleton was originally on the Mets, but was traded to Montreal for Rusty Staub early in his career.  Apparently he set the team RBI record in 1973.  You learn something new everyday.  

The artist did a good job with the details on this card.  The old 1970s Expos uniform has a lot of good and accurate detail, along with Singleton have the giant sideburns.  

The back would be better if they had included a fact that had something to do with Ken Singleton.  He was not on the Expos in 1978, so he did not hit one of the 8 home runs against the Braves during that game.  If Nabisco can come up with a Cliff Johnson specific highlight, they can come up with something for Ken Singleton.  

More 1970s Durham Bulls next week.  

No, The Pizza Was Not Good

I have been working on my La Pizza Royale set the last few weeks, chasing down all the color variation cards of two former Durham Bulls players that appeared in the 1970 Expos team set. 

Mauch played for the Bulls during the early 1940s, Staub during the early 1960s.  

So, last week something happened in my pursuit of collecting these cards.  I revisited the old Google website to see if I could dig out anymore information about the cards.  Anything.  When you type in "Montreal Expos La Pizza Royale" the first hit is a Trading Card Database page with the checklist.  

You can click on the 1970 sets link on the page and find checklists for all four color variations of these Expos cards.  Look, it's right next to Jack In Box.  

I really do not need the checklist though.  There are blue, green, red, and yellow cards of Staub and Mauch.  I need eight total cards to complete this little project.  So, at this point I typed in "La Pizza Royale" and I started to get suspicious.  

There are no La Pizza Royale stores.  

That's really not all that suspicious by itself considering that these cards came out in the early 1970s, but do you know how much people love pizza?  Type in the name of a pizza place that closed in your hometown and there is likely something about it floating around on the internet.  

Anyone in St. Louis remember Pantera's?  I know there is still one in O'Fallon, but there are people selling their old menus online, as well as several sites that have stories about the old anti-St. Louis style pizza.  

So, after a deep dig here is what I know:

1. The only "La Pizza Royale" restaurant is located in France.  I do not know if the pizza is good, but it looks a little weird.  Perhaps the French are as talented at pizza as southerners are at pasta.  Not a compliment. 

2. The "La Pizza Royale" set was actually created by Bob Solon.  Here is a snippet from a write up about the man who just went ahead and printed his own baseball cards.  

"Bob developed an affinity, or perhaps more accurately an affliction, for going after regional and team issues in quantity. Anyone could go to a store and buy the one annual issue of Topps cards, but Cardinal postcards, Seattle Rainiers issues, Kahns, Kelloggs and other regionals were a challenge................ The 1970 La Pizza Royale Expos was a set that I had been looking for to add to my type card collection. I finally found one card a few years ago. It is amazing that I found a single card. I should have asked Bob for a set. Bob and friends made up the name La Pizza Royale as well as about 800 sets and issued them to collectors for a few dollars a set. The photography, write-ups and sales were quite an accomplishment and a lot of work".

Fairly certain Bob would get slapped with a cease and desist order faster than you could order a real pizza from a real restaurant if he just printed a bunch of cards of Major League Baseball teams today.  

3.  The "La Pizza Royale" cards are still a neat little set, and I will just go ahead and finish off the set since I have already started.  In fact, I just picked up the red copy of the Gene Mauch card last week.  

4.  Yes, I am a little disappointed, but it is a three day weekend and there are several local sports teams in action.  I am off to watch a few games.  

Another of the La Pizza Royale

I found another La Pizza Royale card of a former Durham Bulls player this week.  Last week I made a post with my first card from this set featuring Rusty Staub.  This is obviously a manager card from the set, but Gene Mauch was a player while he was on the Durham Bulls during the 1943 season.  He has a few 1950s cards a player, but not manu. 

Here is the new Pizza Royale card. 

There are several different color variations for each of these cards.  This is the blue/purple card of the long time Major League manager.  There are a total of four colors in the set: blue, green, yellow, and red.  Hopefully I will get around to getting all four color variations of both the Mauch and Staub cards, but it is going to take a little bit of patience. 

This is my second Gene Mauch card that I have added to my Durham Bulls collection.  I know I have a bunch of his cards with the Angels and Twins too, but those are all sorted into sets.  This was my first from earlier this year......

Hopefully I will have a few more La Pizza Royale cards to post in the coming weeks. 

Royale LeGrand Orange

I do not always buy cards off of COMC, but rarely a week goes by where I do not visit the site and add a couple of items to my cart.  I use it as more of a place holder than an actual shopping cart.  

There are all sorts of great cards to explore, but I like to dig pretty deep on some of the items.  I have really been trying to find some unique cards for some of the players and teams I collect.  In the end, I will buy a large percentage of the cards in my cart, but usually not all at once.  Slowly over time.  

One of my most recent groupings of cards that I have explored has been the 1970 La Pizza Royale set.  They are Expos cards.  No, the Bulls were never an Expos affiliate, just a fluke that a group of their former players ended up in Montreal.  

So, a few of these cards have sat in my cart the past few weeks while I have tried to figure out more about them.  I still do not know much, but they look pretty neat.  

The cards come in different colors, but they all seem to be roughly around $5.  I was mainly interested in finding copies of the Gene Mauch and Rusty Staub cards.  Both played for the Bulls back in the day, both were important Major Leaguers for different reasons.  Since Ebay bucks rolled in the other day, and the COMC cards are double listed as Buy It Nows on the Bay, I rolled the dice on a copy of one of the Rusty Staub cards.  

Le Grand Orange in Montreal.  

I ended up with a copy of the green card.  The picture is the same no matter the color.  The position at the bottom is always written in French.   It's a really nice card too.  These La Pizza Royale cards are larger than normal cards, and they are on fairly thick card stock.  For cards that were likely a restaurant giveaway, they are as good as it gets.  

A quick comparison to a standard baseball card.  

There is a slight ding in the bottom left-hand corner of the Staub card, which probably helped keep the price more in line with the commons, but Staub is the best card in the in the La Pizza Royale set.  Overall, this is a great addition to my Durham Bulls collection, and likely the first of several La Pizza cards that I am hoping to find.  

Random Cards A Century Apart

I have been on vacation for the past week, and have enjoyed sitting around sorting out some cards and watching baseball.  I have sorted out a few thousand cards, but that's for a later post. 

I have also enjoyed checking out the baseball playoffs.  One of the best perks of my job is the fact that I get the first two to three weeks of October off.  Always nice. 

On to cards. 

While I have been sorting out all these cards, I have run across more than a few cards that I wish I had taken the time to post when I bought/traded for them.  In looking at the stack I pulled out on Tuesday, I decided that there were two cards that were clearly better than the rest of the stack, or so they seem that way for the moment. 

First card. 

I posted my first card of George "Possum" Whitted way back in August.  The Durham native primarily played for the Phillies, Pirates, and Cardinals from 1912 until 1922, so his cards are quite old and often quite expensive.  Possum also managed and played for the Durham Bulls for six years during the late 1920s and early 1930s.  

This card is from the long running Exhibits cards, which are more or less postcards with baseball players.  There are still a lot of people who like collecting them.  Personally, I have never done much with them, but I am not really in line to drop a few hundred dollars on a Cracker Jacks or Famous & Barr card of him.  Let's try one out.  

The card years on the Exhibits tend to be over multiple years.  This card is listed as a 1921 in many places, but other sites have it as a 1921-1924.  Either way, it's almost a century old, and still in relatively good condition.  The corners are soft and the dings and scratches are on the card, not on the top loader.  

I like the simplicity and the fact that this card has an actual photo of Possum.  My first card was a drawing.  

Next.  

I still do not buy directly from Topps, but I spent one day of my summer looking for different cards they have sold on their website that I have missed out on.  More of those for a later date, but know that I am not going to let the whole Aledmys thing go yet. 

Since I did not buy it from Topps, some guy on Ebay got my money instead.  Although he paid Topps for the card, so really Topps still made a bunch of money off of this card even though I bought it from someone else. 

Some other reasons why this card is here:

Who wouldn't want an Expos card? 

Have I ever told you about how St. Louis people obsess over what high school they went to?  Max Scherzer and I went to different high schools, but in the same school district.  Also a decade apart from each other.   

Max Scherzer went to Mizzou.  I did not, but I still like their sports teams. 

Max Scherzer is good. 

Max Scherzer is wearing an Expos uniform. 

After getting the Possum Whitted card, I specifically thought about how great these two random cards would look in a post together. 

My work here is done.  Off to watch baseball for the rest of the day. 

I'm Fine With The Expos

In my new tradition of not buying current products, I skipped doing much with this year's Topps Archives product.  You know that they always have great autographs in that set though, so I had to go check out what was available on Ebay.  The Cardinals selection was underwhelming, but there were former Cardinals in the set wearing other uniforms. 

They are in the Expos Anniversary Set. 

I'm fine with the Expos.  It's not like it's the Cubs Anniversary set, but even then, if it's the right Cardinals player I am going to go for it.  Let's check out the cards. 

This is Ken Hill's second appearance on the blog this week.  Personal best for writing about Ken Hill.  Solid starting pitcher during the 1990s, he actually made his Major League debut as a Cardinal, but was traded to the Expos after a few years.  Hill's best years were as an Expo, so it's probably pretty fair to put him in an Expos set.  Although, I am not sure how many people would associate him with that team? 

This guy is definitely an Expo, or maybe a Rockie. 

Nobody remembers Andres Galarraga playing for the Cardinals, and I have a feeling that if you asked Andres about it he would prefer you forget about it too.  Not his best year.  Interestingly enough he was traded to the Cardinals for Ken Hill.  Kind of connects my two former Cardinals cards here.  Hill ended up getting traded back to the Cardinals, Galarraga went on to hit a lot of home runs and win a batting title or two with the Rockies.  

All the Expos cards in the Topps Archives set are on the 1969 Topps design.  There are also non-autographed versions of all these cards.  Might have to get the Bartolo Colon Expos cards, not willing to shill out for the autograph.