Cards I Love Part 7- 1998 Fleer Tradition Update J.D. Drew

I was positive that J.D. Drew was going to be a great baseball player.  He was incredible in college, and I thought that would carry over to professional baseball.  When the Cardinals drafted him out of Florida State in 1998, I got really excited to see him on a baseball card.  Drew got through the Cardinals Minor League system in half of a season, and made his Major League debut the same night Mark McGwire hit his 62 home run.  

He pinch hit for Kent Merker in the 6th inning, and then stayed in the game in place of Ron Gant in left field.  

There were three early J.D. Drew cards that I loved at the time, and that I thought would be a good start to a collection of his cards.  I still love all three of them to this day.  Obviously my favorite is the 1998 Fleer Update, which I will talk more about in a minute.  The other two were 1999 cards.  

One is the 1999 Pacific Private Stock card.  

I like the design of these cards.  They were released early in the 1999 card calendar, so probably one of my first J.D. Drew cards after his 1998 Fleer Update.  I think it was pretty highly sought after at the time, but you can find it for little to nothing now.  A dollar might be too much for this card.  

I also liked his SPx card, which was autographed.  

Lastly, there was the 1998 Fleer Update card.  You could only get the card in a box set, and I went to college in a town without a real baseball card store.  Technically, there was one there, but the guy who ran it was a jerk.  I did not really like to go in there if at all possible.  So, I had to acquaint myself with a little website known as Ebay.  

It looked awesome in those days.  

I don't remember what the boxed update sets cost at that time, maybe $20 or so.  PayPal was not a thing at that point that I was aware of, so I had to find a place to buy a money order in the little town I was living, and send off to get my Fleer Update set.  It was my first ever Ebay transaction, so it was kind of a big deal.  

The closet place to campus to get a money order was a hole in the wall store front that also offered notary service, P.O. boxes, and all sorts of odds and ends.  Basically a ma and pa UPS store with an old guy smoking cigars.  I put my money order in the mail, and a week or two later I had a package slip in my mailbox at college.   

(Glowing sound) 

You can find these sets for so little now.  A couple of bucks max.  

There are other good players in the set, but all I really cared about was the J.D. Drew rookie card.  It was a thing of beauty in my opinion.  

Here is the front of the card.  

and the back of the card.  

Drew never lived up to his hype, but at the same time he was not really as big of a bust as people some times make him out to be.  He was an above average for the majority of his career and had some healthy career numbers by the time he retired at the end of the 2011 season.  

If nothing else, he was the reason the Cardinals ended up with Adam Wainwright.  

The 1998 Fleer Update card is still sorted in with all of my really good rookie cards.  Plenty of reason to still love this card.  

Weekend Countdown: Top 10 Fernando Tatis Cardinals Cards

This past week was the twentieth anniversary of Fernando Tatis hitting two grand slams in one inning.  It does not feel like it has been that long, but here we are.....

Tatis has also gotten a few mentions recently too with the play of his son Fernando Tatis Jr..  Kid is off to a really good start.  

Here are this week's rules:

• This post is only of cards of Fernando Tatis on the Cardinals both in picture and in label.  No "now with Expos" or "now with Cardinals" cards.

• My actual favorite Fernando Tatis card is his 1998 Skybox EX Essential Credentials card. 

• The ten cards are ranked in order of how much I love them.  

10.  1999 Fleer Tradition - I like the St. Louis Stars uniform on the card. 

9. 1998 Fleer Update - I like the St. Louis Stars uniform on the card.  This is also the first card that Fernando Tatis had in a Cardinals uniform.  In fact, this is the only 1998 Cardinals card of Fernando Tatis.  There were not many update sets that year, no Topps or Upper Deck.  This was it.  Picture looks familiar.  

8. 2001 Topps - One of his last Cardinals cards.  Always liked this picture with the dark background and the white home Cardinals uniform.  Also like that the card is landscape.  

7. 1999 SP Signature Autograph - This was a good set for Cardinals autographs.  Love Fernando's signature.  You can clearly read the "F. Tatis", but it has a really unique.  

6. 2001 Fleer Autographics - One of Fernando's last autographs as a Cardinal.  I had a ton of these cards, always sort of liked these.  

5. 2016 Bowman - Remember when Fernando Tatis Jr. was a White Sox prospect.  Hard to believe that the Padres got him for James Shields.  

4. 2016 Topps Archives - The first year I collected was 1983.  Big fan of the design.  I am not sure how exactly it is connected to Fernando, but this is a great card.  

3. 2000 Fleer Tradition - Great looking card.  Complete rip off of the 1954 Topps set.  

2.  2000 Pacific Revolution - My favorite Cardinals autograph of Fernando.  I like the green background on this card.  Nice look.  

1. 2001 Topps Heritage - Glad that Topps found a way to squeeze Fernando into this set.  This had been released after he was traded to the Expos, obviously could have easily not been a Cardinal here.  Also has to be about his final Cardinals card.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 58 - Fernando Tatis

The Cardinals picked up third baseman Fernando Tatis from the Rangers in July of 1998 in exchange for shortstop Royce Clayton and pitcher Todd Stottlemyre.  The team was not in contention and the Tatis was seen as a possible replacement for the aging Gary Gaetti, who was not playing well, and ended up getting released by the team later on in the summer.  Fernando Tatis ended up playing 55 games for the Cardinals during the second half of the year and had a .287/.367/.505 line with 8 home runs, 16 doubles, and 26 RBIs.  

Tatis had one Cardinals card during the fall of 1998.....  

which appeared in the Fleer Update set.  Actually a nice card showing him wearing a St. Louis Stars throwback jersey the team wore during for a game that summer.  Tatis had some sweet dyed blonde hair when he first got traded to St. Louis, but it would not show up on any cards until the 1999 releases.  

Many of his Topps cards had the blonde hair.  I really like the picture that Topps used on his base and Chrome cards.  Always nice to get a shot of a player interacting with the crowd.  Some of the other Topps products used recycled pictures, but that seemed to be common across the board with Tatis during the summer of 1999.  

For example, this is his 1999 Fleer card......

Looks familiar.  

Tatis's most notable on the field accomplishment took place in 1999, which probably helped push him into a few more baseball card products.  His feat was rather unique....

Tatis also started showing up in autograph sets as a Cardinal during the summer of 1999.  He had always been a good signer as a Ranger, which also continued during his time in St. Louis.  I am pretty sure that his first autograph as a Cardinal showed up in the 1999 SP Signature set.  

He also appeared in the Skybox Autographic set.  While in subsequent years the Autographics set was cross product, in 1999 all of these cards were in the Skybox Premium product.  

Actually a nice product for Cardinals collectors with several different players appearing in this set with autographs including J.D. Drew, Ray Lankford, and Joe McEwing.  McEwing was pretty hot at the time, not so much now.  

Tatis had a great year on the field during 1999 beyond the two grand slams in one inning.  He hit .297/.404/.553 with 34 home runs, 31 doubles, and 107 RBIs.  Tatis also had 21 stolen bases.  Pretty solid effort.  

Fernando had some pretty good cards in 2000.  My favorite base card was his 2000 Fleer.  One of my favorite sets of the year.  Love this design which is basically the same as the 1954 Topps set.  The whole retro set idea is pretty popular these days, would like to think that this set along with some of the Upper Deck Vintage cards might have started that trend.  

Fernando also had a few autographs during the summer of 2000.  Two of my favorites....

are his Topps autograph.  He also had a nice autograph in the Pacific Revolution set.....

although he's in about a dozen other autograph sets from that summer.  Plenty of choices.  Unfortunately, Tatis had some injury problems during the summer of 2000 and had trouble duplicating his performance from 1999.  He was traded in the offseason to the Expos for pitching help in the way of Dustin Hermanson and Steve Kline.  

One of his final cards in a Cardinals uniform appeared in the iconic 2001 Topps Heritage set.  

Tatis went on to play three years with the Expos before he disappeared for awhile.  He tried a comeback with the Devil Rays, but did not make the team out of Spring Training.  In 2006, he ended up making the Orioles where he appeared for a handful of games.  Eventually, he would end up making the Mets in 2008.  Tatis would play three years in New York before retiring for good.  

He still shows up in baseball card sets, especially as an autograph signer.  Two years ago, he appeared in the Topps Archives set as a Cardinal.  Very nice card, had to pick one of them up....

While he was only on the Cardinals for a short time, he is still a pretty popular player with Cardinals fans who were around to watch the team during the 1990s.  Amazing what hitting two Grand Slams in an inning will do for a player.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 47 - Rick Ankiel

Almost all of Rick Ankiel's career took place in the 2000s, but the Cardinals did call the uber pitching prospect up for a few games in 1999.  In all, Ankiel appeared in 9 games, 5 as a starter, and pitched a total of 33 innings.  Just a cup coffee before the team put him into the rotation in 2000.

The Cardinals drafted Ankiel in the second round of the 1997 Amateur Draft.  He had committed to play college baseball at Miami and his agent, Scott Boras, had told teams that he was going to need an enormous bonus if they wanted him to sign.  Ankiel should have been a Top 10 pick.  The Cardinals paid Ankiel 2.5 million dollars, a record bonus for a second round pick, and signed him just three days before he was supposed to take his first college class.

Ankiel cruised through the Minors.  In 1998, he pitched for two different Cardinals A ball teams, won 12 games, and struck out 222 batters in 161 innings.  The following season, pitching in Double and Triple A, Ankiel went 13-3 with 194 strikeouts in 137 innings.  The Cardinals called him up.

Let's switch over to cards.

Ankiel had plenty of baseball cards during the first two years of his career, but probably not from the places you would expect.  There were no Bowman cards, which was an oddity for a late 1990s prospect.  In fact, his first Bowman card came out in 2000, after he had reached the Majors.

There were plenty of Minor League cards though.

There are several team and league issued cards out there.  Nothing really expensive, but some of the cards take a little bit of patience to find.  He has a card in the 1999 Texas League Top Prospects set, but there is not a single copy of this card on COMC and only one on Ebay.  He also has team issued cards for Prince William, Peoria, Arkansas, and Memphis.  I paid $3-$4 for this card a few years back.  

Ankiel also had some mass produced Minor League cards.  

I really like some of these Minor League cards.  I am not sure where the Just card company came from, and I do not know where they went, but for a short time they made some nice cards.  They probably completed over populated the autographs of several players, but it's nothing that Topps or Upper Deck wouldn't have done once they reached the Majors.  Ankiel signed a ton of cards for these sets.  

Upper Deck made Minor League cards in the late 1990s. 

An answer to the Bowman sets.  

Ankiel was featured prominently in these sets.  In fact, as a Cardinals fan these were great sets.  The team had several prospects in the set, including the two biggest names.  Beyond Ankiel, the set also had cards and autographs of outfielder J.D. Drew.  The Ankiel autographs in the Upper Deck sets were nice, but I liked the base cards too.  

Shiny, modern, everything you'd expect from an Upper Deck set.  

Ankiel had two important Major League issue cards during the 1999 season.  The lesser of the two cards was in the Fleer Update set.  

Nice action shot of Ankiel pitching.  I like the high socks, Ankiel always wore these while he was a pitcher, and the Sunday hats from the 1990s.  The Cardinals still wear these hats on occasion now, but they used to come out every Sunday home game.  In fact, Ankiel only pitched one Sunday night game in 1999, so it's not hard to narrow this down to a late August start against the Braves.   The Cardinals lost on a Chipper Jones home run in extra innings.

Last card.

The best Ankiel rookie card was his 1999 Upper Deck Ultimate Victory.  The regular Victory set was an inexpensive retail product.  The packs were around a dollar and you were guaranteed an insert card of either Ken Griffey or Mark McGwire.  The Ultimate Victory set was a fancier version of the same set with a shorter checklist.  Sort of like Topps and Topps Chrome.  

Ankiel, Josh Beckett, Alfonso Soriano, Pat Burrell, and several other good players had rookie cards in this product.  I do not remember the exact price where this Ankiel card topped out, but it was quite expensive at it's peak in 2000.  

That's it for cards. 

From here, it's really hard to summarize Ankiel's career after 1999 and do it justice.  Instead, I leave you with him opening a pack of baseball cards 

Ankiel has recently written a book detailing his career, or there are others who have tried to summarize.  It definitely had it's own unique path.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My favorite was his 1998 Fleer Update card.  

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

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

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

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

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

First up.  

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

Last.  

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

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

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