Just 10,000 COPIES!!!!

You haven't had to waste time going to a retail store over the summer to know that the card aisle is completely picked over at the moment.  Maybe you have been and seen the empty shelves and stacks of unsold MLB Sticker Albums with your own eyes.  Maybe you've seen photos of the empty card aisle on Twitter or in card groups on Facebook.  Maybe you've seen people selling their $20 Topps Series 2 blasters online for $50.  

It's pretty crazy out there.  

Meanwhile, I have been sitting here collecting other things besides 2020 Topps cards over the summer.  I just haven't made good time or progress with posting the cards that I have added, which stinks because I am doing a really good job with one of my beginning of the year goals.  

My three collecting goals were:

1. No New Sets From Packs  

2. More Cardinals and Durham Bulls single cards 

3. More Posts About Sorting Cards 

I will save my full performance review for the end of the year, but I am doing incredible on the Durham Bulls part of goal 2.  I know, if you read my blog you're probably thinking that you've seen plenty of Rays players on this page who used to play in Durham a year or two ago.  That's every other post.  

Right?  

I have not only done well with find the Michael Brosseau and Kirby Yates cards this summer, I have also loaded up on all sorts of fifty-cent and quarter cards of older Durham Bulls players.  The kind of players you don't have to go look up on Baseball Reference or ESPN because they're not weird three outcome super utility players on the Rays.  

I have a few new cards to share today that mostly fit my title, "ONLY 10,000 COPIES".  

Be excited.   

Do you remember the first serial numbered cards in your collection?  I am not exactly sure which was my first, but I do remember the 1994 Leaf Limited cards being amongst the first in my collection.  They were so exclusive that even the boxes the packs were in had a serial numbered.  I bought a pack or two of these, but you weren't guaranteed a serial numbered card in each pack. 

I ended up with a few of them, almost all Cardinals.  Not pulled from a pack.  

Just 10,000 copies!  

The Cardinals were terrible in 1994.  I could wait until someone else pulled one and get the Cardinals cards when they ended up in the $0.50 box at my local card shop.

So, one of my summer Durham Bulls pick-ups was a copy of the 1994 Leaf Limited David Justice card.  He played for the Bulls during the 1986 season.  Good looking card.  

The back of the card.  

Just 10,000 copies.  

Serious, these were awesome cards in 1994.  Way cooler than any Luis Robert card that you could pull out of Topps Series 2.  Although, Luis Robert is a really good player.  David Justice was too.  Luis Robert is just 294 home runs behind him.  

What's better than one card numbered to 10,000?  

If you were thinking, "Two cards numbered to 10,000", you are correct.  I will even stick with David Justice.  

Look at the top of the card.  It says 23 KT.  This card quite possibly cost me my entire paycheck, or the equivalent of two hot dogs on dollar hot dog night at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.  This card is from the 1992 Bleachers David Justice set, which featured three cards of Justice each numbered to 10,000.  One Justice card showed him in a Braves uniform, another as a member of the Greensville Braves, and this one on the Durham Bulls.  

That jersey is pretty sweet.  That's got to be a throwback jersey of some kind.  

Back of the card.  

Just 10,000 copies.  

Three things stand out on the back of this card.

1. That dog next to the word "BATS".  Why is that there?  

2. "World's Largest Manufacturer of Genuine 23 Kt Gold Border Cards".  Sounds so fancy.  Wonder why this company did not make more of a splash.  I bet these sets sold fast on QVC or Home Shopping Network.  

3. Love the faux signature at the bottom of the card with the inscription "Durham".  The other cards in the set have something similar.  If you are going to make cards that feel exclusive, they should get an inscription that feels more exclusive.  Give me "Bull City" or "City of Medicine" or "Research Triangle Park" or "Vinegar > Tomato".  

We've made it through two David Justice cards and a Gregg Jefferies that I barely acknowledged.  Can we get a third David Justice card?  

Last card of the post.  

Just 10,000 copies.  Make that 6,000 copies.  

This is from the 1999 Flair Showcase set.  Really nice looking set, which has a bunch of serial numbered parallels.  I believe that this was one of the easier ones to find.  Not sure of the exact odds, but I think you got two or three of these in a box.  Also not hard to find, and not very pricy either.  I am sure are there are some other good former Durham Bulls in this set that deserve a spot in the collection.  

That's it for today.  Hope everyone has had a great weekend.  

Cardinals From COMC

I have very specific places that I try to find my baseball cards.  New releases, autographs that are $5 or more, higher end singles are usually off of Ebay.  Almost all of my lower end cards come off COMC.  I usually add cards to my cart for a few weeks, usually as I am sorting out cards, and check out every couple of weeks.  COMC has flat rate shipping, which keeps cards that cost fifty cents really close to that price after shipping is factor into the overall cost.  Ebay, not so much.  

I find some really great looking cards on there, brings back a lot of good memories from long ago.  The brands and sets are fun to look at, as well as the different players.  

I made a post on the last day of 2017 about what I wanted to accomplish this year in terms of my collection and the different posts that I make in this space.  My goals were simple.  I had four of them, so let's run through them really fast, and then get to some baseball cards.  

1. I wanted to assemble fewer current year sets.  I have done really well with this goal.  So far, I have put together a Topps Series 1 base set and a Topps Heritage set.  There was also the 1983 inserts from the Topps base set, but I considered that a set project.  I am not sure how many sets have been put out between Topps and Panini, but I have missed a lot of them.  Verdict: Thumbs up  
2. More single cards. Just scrolling through my past months posts, I would say that this has also been fairly successful.  Some of my 1990s Cardinals posts are more player focused posts, but my last few posts, minus those Cardinals posts, include a single card of an NC State player, a single card of a Durham Bulls player, an Evan Longoria relic card, a Madison Bumgarner autograph, and a pair of posts about some new Rays prospects/players who have appeared for the Durham Bulls this year.  Verdict:  Thumbs up 
3. More projects.  I have posted one, granted I completed that one project, but I can still do better here.  I have wondered if this isn't a great topic to write about as this year has gone on.  At different points I have averaged a post per day in this space.  In recent year, I have been posting two to three times a week.  Roughly a dozen posts per month.  Makes it hard to squeeze in the other posts about single cards.  I feel like those posts take longer to write, so they get squeezed in the whole time management thing.  You know, wife, kids, and work all come before writing about baseball cards under the guise of a giant wooden bull landmark in a nearby baseball stadium.  Verdict: Thumbs down 
4. More Durham Bulls and Cardinals posts:  I have done well with making my 1990s Cardinals posts and Project Durham Bulls posts.  Throw in plenty of other posts about other Cardinals cards that I have traded, or bought, same with the Bulls.  Verdict: Thumbs up 

Which brings me to this post.  I feel like this post fits with several of these goals: more single cards, along with more Cardinals cards.  I would love to turn some of those single cards posts and Cardinals posts into some time for older sets and players.  I know the 1990s Cardinals posts cover that to some extent, but those 1990s cards are some of my favorite sets in my collection.  

Enough talk.  Let's look at some cards.  

My first card is from the 1998 Donruss Preferred set.  I don't have this entire set, not really close, but I have plenty of single base and insert cards.  This is from the Great X-Pectations insert set, which paired veteran players and young players based on their position, or some sort of similar playing attribute.  The front of this card features Rangers Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez.  The back has a younger Cardinals player.....

catcher Eli Marrero.  I generally really liked this set, I just always wished that there had been a little cleaner look to the back of the card than what is actually there.  The placement of the brand logo, MLB logo, and Players Association logo, along with the Copyright information give it that back of the card feel.  The brand logo is repetitive from the front of the card, and I think the could have used space towards the bottom of the card for the copyright, MLB logo, and Players Association logo.  The younger player side would have had a smaller scale picture and design, but I think it would have been a cleaner look.  

Serial number has to go somewhere.  If you didn't collect cards in the 1990s, don't laugh at the print run of 3,000, that was a serious number back in those days.  

Next card is also a Marrero.  

This is from the Leaf Rookie & Stars set, also a 1998 product.  I never put this set together solely based on the ridiculous price of the Troy Glaus rookie.  Nice player, even was a Cardinal for a few years, but not worth whatever his card in this set sells for, or sold for when it was released.  

Next, also an Eli Marrero.

or as Topps listed him on their cards Elieser Marrero.  All of these Marrero cards are prospect cards, yet he turned into a utility player.  He really was a good prospect and ranked as a top 100 prospect at the time he reached the Majors at the end of the 1997 season.  Two different events really wrecked his career.  First, he missed most of a season towards the beginning of his career with thyroid cancer.  The Cardinals ended up signing Mike Matheny, who then became the full time catcher.  

Marrero did return and was used as a utility player by Tony LaRussa.  He was actually he useful part and good player in that role, but he tore up his knee in a game at Wrigley Field in 2002.  The game probably should not have been played, as the weather conditions were horrendous and both teams were upset about playing.  Marrero played a few more years after the knee injury, had one good year with the Braves, but the rest of his career saw him limited to 50 games, or less per season, and he did not hit above .220.  

Next.  

Not a rookie card, but this is early, or late depending on how you are looking at it, in the career of Alan Benes.  He was better than Andy, at least prior to his shoulder injuries, he just did not play a very long time.  

Last one for today.  

Not a Cardinals card, but a card of a long time Cardinals player who also happens to be from the St. Louis area.  Bernard Gilkey was part of the wave of young players who replaced the 1980s Whiteyball Cardinals along with Ray Lankford, Todd Zeile, Felix Jose, and others.  Gilkey had some good years with the Cardinals, but was traded to the Mets in January of 1996 after the team signed Ron Gant.  

Gilkey's best season was 1996 with the Mets.  

He hit more than 30 home runs, drove in more than 100 runs, hit over .300, and had an on base percentage near .400.  He also landed a role in Men in Black missing a fly ball in Shea Stadium when he sees a UFO flying over New York.  Unfortunately Bernard had some problems with substance abuse, a bunch of DUIs, his stats dropped off, and he found his way out baseball.  

This is a nice card from one of my favorite sets, Flair Showcase, which was around for a fairly long time.  I think I might actually have something close to a complete set of these cards.  Even so, I know that I do not have this Row 0 card, which is serial numbered out of 2000.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 17- Royce Clayton

It's pretty hard to be a professional baseball player.  It's really hard when you have to replace a legendary player.  It's even tougher when you have to replace a legendary player because they are retiring after they had a fight with the team's manager.  The Cardinals traded for Royce Clayton from the Giants before the 1996 season.  Ozzie Smith was at the end of his career and newly hired Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa was unwilling to keep Ozzie as a starter.  By the end of his career Ozzie could barely throw the ball across the infield and did not hit much at all. 

Ozzie announced his intention to retire early in the 1996 season.  It turned the 1996 into a big farewell tour of sorts for The Wizard.  

Meanwhile, Clayton got the majority of playing time for the Cardinals at shortstop.  The team won its first division title since 1987 and the shortstop contributed solid defense and batted lead off for the Cardinals.  Clayton also played well for the team in the Postseason against the Padres and Braves.  He batted over .300 in both the National League Division and Championship Series with 9 hits and scored 5 runs.  

Clayton had a decent 1997 season with the Cardinals, played part of the 1998 season for the team, but he was traded halfway through the season to the Rangers, along with Todd Stottlemyre, for Darren Oliver and Fernando Tatis.  Clayton was a free agent to be and the Cardinals seemed ready to move on.  They would end up trading for Edgar Renteria that offseason. 

Clayton would play a total of 17 years making appearances for the Giants, Cardinals, Rangers, White Sox, Brewers, Diamondbacks, Nationals, Reds, Blue Jays, and Red Sox.  

His most important baseball role was actually played after his retirement in the movie Moneyball.  Clayton played the role of A's shortstop Miguel Tejada.  

As far as baseball cards go there are some limitations to the number of Clayton cards in a Cardinals uniform.  First, he was only on the team for two and a half years.  Limited time, limited cards.  Second, Clayton was not a star player, and while he replaced a legendary player, card companies did not rush to throw him into a bunch of extra sets. 

My favorite Clayton card is his 1997 Topps card.  It's got a nice action shot of him jumping over Giants outfielder Mark Carreon in Candlestick Park.  Over the years, I am only posting my favorite Cardinals Topps card of Clayton, he's actually had some really nice base cards.  Does Topps even put action shots like this in their sets anymore?  Doubtful. 

The 1997 Topps set is not their best effort, but as a Cardinals fan the set gets some high marks for player selection.  The Cardinals turned over a lot of their roster in 1996, but since Topps did not have a Traded/Update set that year, most of the new players did not make their base set debut until the 1997 set.  That included Clayton, Ron Gant, Dennis Eckersley, and Andy Benes.  While it's not quite Clayton's first Cardinals card, it's his first in a major base set. 

Clayton did make a few really good sets too. 

One of my favorites is his 1997 Flair Showcase card.  Definitely a nice product from that era with nice card stock and good finishes on the card.  I like the contrast of the black and white background picture with the color action shot in the front.  I like the white Cardinals uniforms, but I also really enjoyed the blue batting practice jerseys from the late 1990s.  The Cardinals no longer wear them.  In some ways I sort of wish the color and black and white pictures were switched around.


A song from 1997 off my IPod.

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 11- Dennis Eckersley

If you really like Dennis Eckerlsey this might hurt just a little bit.  I have no problem with Eck being in the Hall of Fame and can say that he was truly a great pitcher throughout most of his career.  As a person who grew up in the 1980s/1990s I remember him best as a starting pitcher for the Cubs and a relief pitcher for the A's.

Those A's teams were always entertaining and won a lot of games, even if they only managed to win a single World Series.

Eck was brought over to the Cardinals before the 1996 season along with half a dozen other former A's players.  It wasn't one of his better efforts, but it sort of all got swept under the rug.  The Cardinals ended up making the National League Championship Series that season and Eck saved 30 games.  He was good when it counted....

but the next season was a different story.  The Cardinals were not very good in 1997 and Eckersley was part of the problem.  The fans, often portrayed as "the best", booed Eckersley after he blew saves.  The Cardinal years were basically the end of his career.  Eckersley returned to the Red Sox for a season in 1998, but he was not their closer.  

Lets talk about Eckersley cards.  First up, why have card companies made baseball cards of Eckersley as a Cardinals player since he retired?  I'd love to own a nice Eckersley card with him on the A's, Indians, Red Sox, maybe even the Cubs.  The Cardinals?  

Say it ain't so.  Let's look at some 1997 Cardinals Eckersley cards.  I am going to go with three different cards for this post. 

First up is a 1997 Bowman card.  I have posted other cards from this set in other posts in this series.  More or less, I love the black border on these cards.  I know these are not the best Bowman cards from this decade, but I just love the way that these cards look.  Plus, I love the picture of Eck on this card.  One eye closed and his hair blowing in the wind.  Sweet picture.  

This is a really good picture too.  The Flair Showcase cards were high gloss, great card stock, and high end for the late 1990s.  I really like the contrast on these cards with the color picture in the front and the black and white picture in the background.  

This is another favorite from 1997.  The first year that Skybox issued the EX product.  It didn't have too long of a run, but there are a lot of 1990s cards collectors who love these translucent cards.  The sky in the background with the purple and pink frame are an unusual combination, but they work.  I also like the picture of Eckersley pointing.  That was sort of his signature move at the end of a game.