Around The Card Room, Take 16

I typically do not collect items from fast food restaurants, but I made an exception in 2002 when the St. Louis area McDonald's started selling Cardinals bobbleheads. Sadly, I do not remember many of the details surrounding these, nor could I find them online. I do not know how much the cost or when during the season they were released, but I have always liked them and these are an item that has a connection to my kids.  

Here is what I do remember.  The set was comprised of J.D. Drew, Albert Pujols, Fernando Vina, and Jim Edmonds.  A new bobblehead was sold each week at McDonald's and the base and autographed baseball were sold during the last week. I think. 

"I will take a J.D. Drew and an orange soda"

Here is the back of the bobbleheads, which are made from hard plastic and are not ceramic.  

Beyond housing all of my baseball cards and memorabilia, the card room is also a second floor family room for my kids. They have spent countless hours playing in the room and also use the television to watch movies. Playing usually means making sure they do not knock over piles of baseball cards, nor touch any of the things hanging on the wall. 

However, my daughter in particular has always been a huge fan of action figures and took an early interest in the bobbleheads that are in the card room. Since most are ceramic they are less than ideal action figures for the average toddler. However, the plastic Cardinals bobbleheads were a part of her play schemes for years, making them one of the few pieces of baseball memorabilia that I allowed to double as a play toy for my kids.  

Here are J.D. Drew and Jim Edmonds at the vintage Little Tikes Doll House.  

J.D. Drew enjoying snack time. 

She has moved onto American Girl Dolls and other toys, so I have reclaimed my McDonald's Cardinals bobblehead set and placed them back on a shelf in the card room.  They held up really well through years of toddler use.  

Hardly a scratch.  

Back home in their spot on a shelf of bobbleheads.  

Sellers' Regret

I used to love Pacific autographs.

I had tons of them.  

One of my favorite Pacific autograph sets were the Die-cut autographs in the 2000 Omega set. They were great looking cards. 

Here is my copy of the Gary Sheffield autograph as an example.  

I did not have the whole set or anything. Putting together whole autograph sets is not really my scene. Always seems like a lot of time and money to accomplish that sort of thing, but I know there are plenty of collectors whose opinions differ from mine. 

So, roughly ten years ago I ran into such a collector in a Facebook collecting group. We had actually made a few trades when he posted that he trying to finish up a project to complete the Pacific Omega autograph set. He was missing two autographs, both Cardinals. Cal Eldred is a White Sox on his card, but I owned the card because he was on the Cardinals for three years.  

I sold him the two cards.  

Do I miss Cal Eldred?  

No. 

Do I miss the other card? 

All the time.  

I have not been the best about searching out Ebay and COMC for the card, but I also no that it does not come up often and can cost more than I am willing to spend when it does appear. Well, this weekend I saw a copy on a Facebook group for a reasonable price and ended up buying it.  

The card.  

One of the worst cases of sellers' regret that I have ever experienced.  

I have plenty of other Jim Edmonds autographs hanging out in my card room, but this was always one of my favorites. In retrospect, it is kind of crazy that I sold it, because I rarely sell off my cards. I give them away and I trade, not a seller though. I was being too nice.  

Here is the back of the card.....

Love that Pacific gives you a write-up about the player rather than one of those "Congratulations" messages that are typically stamped on the back of certified autographs.  

Love that Pacific used a picture of Jim Edmonds with frosted tips in his hair. It's the type of fashion statement that is the perfect intersection between bad late 1990s/early 2000s style and the persona of Jim Edmonds, or "Jimmy Ballgame".

Needless to say, the card is staying in my collection this time around.  

Around The Card Room, Take 7.

My card room is lined by shelves of bobbleheads. At this point, I add sparingly to the collection. There is not an infinite amount of space around the room and I am picky about which bobbleheads make the cut. It's got to be a great bobblehead of a player that I really like to get a space these days.  

For this week's post, I thought it would be fun to revisit my first bobblehead.  

Here's Jimmy.........

The Cardinals gave away this Jim Edmonds bobblehead at some point in 2001 to celebrate his 2000 Gold Glove Award. As previous discussed in another post, all the early Cardinals bobbleheads were attached to some sort of award. The Cardinals gave away three bobbleheads in 2001. Mike Matheny and Jim Edmonds were two of three, along with Mark McGwire.  

This bobble has started to show its age.

The red piping around the edges of Edmonds sleeves and the middle of the jersey has faded to a pink color. The Cardinals logo is a sticker, which has started to crinkle and is slipping on the right side.  

The back is similar.  

You can see the edges of the sticker, especially on the left side of the bobble.  

The rest of the color on the bobblehead has stayed true. Edmonds shoes, hat, and belt are all still red. The baseball diamond and Coca-Cola logo on the bottom have also maintained their color, as has the gold on his glove.  

The bottom of the bobblehead is labeled for his Gold Glove.  

I think some of the black paint from my shelves has ended up on the base. Might try to clean that up a bit while I have it off the shelf.  

Overall, not the best looking bobblehead, nor my favorite, but certainly a memorable one.  

Set Appreciation Post #18 - 2001 Donruss

Donruss. 

What is the first thing that comes to mind?

I bet most collectors would go with Rated Rookies......

or Diamond Kings......

Maybe if you're under 30, the answer is unlicensed baseball cards. 

After Pinnacle went bankrupt in 1999, there were no Donruss sets for two years. In 2001, Playoff attempted to revive the brand, plus do some revisionist history and create Donruss sets for both the 1999 and 2000 calendar years. It was interesting to say the least, but ultimately not very satisfying in large part due to the fact that Playoff messed up the two must-haves in any Donruss set. 

See above.   

The 2001 Donruss boxes included a graded card as a box topper. I believe Beckett was launching their grading service and Playoff was relaunching Donruss. The graded cards were largely late 1980s Donruss issues that included the likes of Devon White and B.J. Surhoff. Nothing wrong with either player, but not many collectors want one of their graded rookie cards as a box topper.  

What did I pull?  

 

Gary Sheffield was a good player, but what is the value of a 7.5 grade Gary Sheffield 1989 Donruss? Didn't Beckett originally charge $10 when they first started grading cards?  There is zero chance that this card is worth $10.  

Let's check out the back for the breakdowns on that 7.5 grade.

I am going to issue a spoiler here and let you know that Playoff went bankrupt too, which is why we have the unlicensed Donruss set produced by Panini. It took four years, but in retrospect it should have been four months.  

Here is the base card design.  

I honestly like the appearance of these cards. The colored borders are nice with the star background fading out from top to bottom. Simple player name bar with the player position and team logo on each side. I even like the 20th Anniversary logo that Playoff stamped on each card. Donruss was not a very expensive set either ($1.99 per pack), getting this across the finish line should have been as simple as Playoff providing a decent ser of Diamond King and Rated Rookie cards.

Here is the back of the card..... 

Again, it's simple, but it does the job for a base Donruss set. If Playoff really wanted to win me over, they would have gone landscape and used the standard 1980s Donruss card back. That's probably asking too much.  This is fine though. Plus, these cards have on-base percentage. We can't replace Barry Bonds if he leaves as a free agent, but we maybe (not) able to recreate him through the aggregate. 

Almost sure Billy Beane said that once.  

One of the things that stands out to me as I flipped through the cards in this set was the number of established, veteran players who were in odd places during 2001. I picked seven that stood out to me and got lazy with the scanning.  

All seven in one scan.....

So, that is Eric Davis on the Giants, Rickey Henderson on the Mariners, Jose Canseco on the Angels, Andres Galarraga on the Rangers, David Cone on the Red Sox, David Wells on the White Sox, and Hideo Nomo on the Red Sox. Nomo actually threw a no-hitter on the Red Sox, so maybe that one is not quite as jarring as the rest.

My favorite Cardinals card is Rick Ankiel.  

This was after his yips had started. His cards dried up by the end of 2001 and did not reappear until he came back as an outfielder. I like that you can see the pitch grip in the picture, which appears to be a change-up. The rest of the Cardinals in this set are the standard from the time, McGwire, Edmonds, Kile, Matt Morris, etc. No Pujols even though it was a 2001 product. 

Favorite former Durham Bulls player is Ryan Klesko, largely because he has the lamb chop sideburns on the back photograph. If you are not going to picture him on a surf board for his baseball card, highlighting his sideburns is the next best move.  

Which brings me to the weirdness of Playoff trying to recreate Donruss sets for both 1999 and 2000. This nonsense had never been tried before the 2001 Donruss set and has not been attempted since either. Well, at least I don't think it has been tried again. We are all lucky that everyone learned their lesson with this set.  

I cannot place my hands on many of my imaginary 2000 Donruss cards, which were sold in retail packs, so I will focus my energy on the 1999s, which were sold in hobby packs.  

Players were shown on their 1999 teams on a design that was not nearly as good as the one Playoff used for the 2001 cards. The 2000 cards are not great either.  Although, these do feel really similar to the set designs that Pinnacle was using for Donruss right before they went bankrupt.  

I personally like the back of the 1999 Donruss Jim Edmonds card. The design is nothing great, but Jimmy Edmonds lost his half-shirt Cardinals windbreaker and reverted to back to "Anaheim Jimmy" complete with frosted hair and designer, colored-lens sunglasses.  

Gripes about Yankees fans going to DisneyLand and then filling up Angel Stadium were not included on the back, which is really too bad. If you are going to make up cards from previous years, you might as well do some pre-trade foreshadowing.  

I am not saying Ray Lankford is going to find his own doctor if his knees ever need to be cleaned up, but he's not using the team doctors....

Finding your own doctor. That's not the type of thing that would cause hurt feelings and a trade, right?

Let's get down to business.

This is a Donruss set and we all want to see the Diamond King cards and the Rated Rookies. For me as a long-time collector, I have a really hard time with the 2001 Donruss set because of these two long running brand staples having huge flaws.  

This is the design for the Diamond Kings set.  

The artwork of Sosa is fine, but the giant border stinks. The Diamond Kings logo at the bottom also stinks. Playoff bought all the brand name and imaging rights for all of Pinnacle's old brands, why not use them? I did not scan the back, but the write-up falls short in comparison to previous Diamond Kings sets.  The checklist is also terrible. 

Traditionally, every team got a Diamond Kings card in every Donruss set regardless of where they finished in the standings. When I was in middle school and the Cardinals were medicore at best, I still got a Diamond Kings card of Felix Jose. For 2001, Playoff only included 20 players, which included multiple Braves and Yankees.  

Some players on the checklist were not even deserving of Diamond Kings card.  

Mark McGwire was oft-injured during the 2000 and 2001, but still ended up with a Diamond Kings card. There were plenty of other good choices on those Cardinals teams with Jim Edmonds, Darryl Kile, Matt Morris, and J.D. Drew.  

The 2001 Diamond Kings are a definite negative when grading this set, but nothing compared to the disappointment I have towards the Rated Rookies. Again, Playoff owned the name and branding rights for all of the Pinnacle brands. 

Rated Rookie cards should have the logo. This is the only acceptable answer.  

This is ugly.  

White border, black name bar, Anniversary logo.  Whatever.  I don't card about any of it, because some designer working for Playoff murdered this card by using some middle school quality Microsoft Word Word Art "Rated Rookie" logo. Worse, beyond using the logo at the bottom of the card in color form, they repeated the logo in the background of the border.

How much better does this card look with the standard Rated Rookie logo?  

So, how does it rank?

This set has been out 21 years and I have not forgotten the fact that Playoff screwed up the Rated Rookies and Diamond Kings.

No mercy.  

18. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

17. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

16. 2001 Donruss 

15. 2000 Topps 

14. 2012 Bowman Platinum 

13. 2000 UD Ionix

12. Topps Lineage   

11. 2002 Bowman 

10. 1988 Donruss 

9. 1995 Emotion XL 

8. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

7. 1998 Topps TEK 

6. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

5. 2001 Fleer EX 

4. 1979 Kellogg's 

3. 1998 Metal Universe 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

A Series Of Infrequent Posts

This has been a busy last few weeks.  I have been transitioning from being a virtual school teacher to being a hybrid school teacher.  That means that I am teaching half a class online while also teaching half a class in-person.  There were a lot of rules to follow to set up my classroom and a lot of logistical work to make it so that I can teach both simultaneously, but I think I have it set up well.  

Let's hope.  

After a two week break from this space, I have dedicated a small portion of my Sunday to writing a post about a few of the cards that have shown up during that time.  There are others.  Hopefully, I will get there during the next week.  

My first two cards are from fellow collectors that I have met online.  First up is a Ray Lankford from the 1999 Pacific Private Stick set.  The card is a mini, but the scan is not. 

This card was from Jon at A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts.  You can also follow him on Twitter at @pennysleeves.  Great blog, one of my favorite reads.  He found this on the Trading Card Database and thought of me.  Very generous and another reminder that I don't do anything on Trading Card Database, but I should.  

This is a parallel to the base version of the mini.  

The base version had blue backs, the parallels had red backs.  Really nice card that I did not have in my collection.  I will have to send Jon a few cards in return.  Man, I really miss Pacific.  I am 100% positive I write that every time I post one of their cards.  

Next, a few cards that I picked up from a long-time Facebook trading/buying/selling partner.  He always holds onto his Cardinals cards for me.  These cards included an autograph of Cardinals catching prospect Ivan Herrera.  

Sometime last month, I posted an Ivan Herrera autograph out of last year's Bowman's Best.  I always like when non-licensed card manufacturers make cards of catchers with their equipment on.  You can't tell that they have to airbrush all the logos off the card.  

I also picked up two Tink Hence autographs.  He was a two-way player in high school who was committed to play baseball at the University of Arkansas.  The Cardinals drafted him in the second round and offered him enough money to get him to turn pro.  I am not sure its been decided whether the Cardinals are going to develop him as a pitcher or position player.  

A draft card from Panini's Extra Elite.  Nice looking card.  

I also ended up with a copy of his purple Bowman Chrome autograph.  The border looks a little ridiculous with the red Cardinals stuff on the card.  I am excited to see what the Cardinals end up doing with this guy. 

Last card.  A Cardinals player on a non-Cardinals card.  Still a really nice item though.  

Edmonds signs baseball cards as infrequently as I post on this page.  I cannot pass up his cards when I see them at a good price.  

Set Appreciation Post #9 - 2000 Pacific Paramount Update

There was a 2000 Pacific Paramount Update set?  

Yes.  

Seems pretty random, right? 

Yes.  

Well, there was a lot of really weird stuff going on with this set. Let's check out a base card, which kicks off the weirdness of this set. Right off the bat, the first card seems a little bit off, if you collected Pacific cards around this time.  

Paramount Weird Fact #1- No Garrett Anderson?  What about Darin Erstad? 

 

 

Pacific sets were always set up with the teams arranged alphabetically by the city/state name of the team, with the players organized alphabetically by last name within the team set.  The Anaheim Angels were always the first team.  How many late 1990s or early 2000s Pacific sets had either Garrett Anderson or Darin Erstad as card #1?  

 

The answer is almost all of them.  

Pacific put out 12 different baseball card products in 2000.  Nine of the sets had either Anderson or Erstad as card #1.  Pacific Prism had Erstad, no Garrett Anderson card, but they included Jeff DeVanon (you may not know him for good reason) who had the first card.  I rolled my eyes too.  Vanguard had Troy Glaus as the first card, but only two Angels cards in the set.  

 

Same with the 1998 and 1999 Pacific cards, only Jim Edmonds was still on the team, and before Erstad alphabetically.  

Beyond Jeff DeVanon and Troy Glaus, there was also this Adam Kennedy card in the 2000 Pacific Paramount Update set, which was the first card in the Paramount Update set. 

Weird Paramount Fact #2 - The set was sold through the J.C. Penny Christmas catalog and limited to a print run of just 12,500.  I certainly did not get this set from the J.C. Penny Christmas catalog.  Instead, I got it from a local card shop in St. Louis whose owner ordered the sets for his store out of the J.C. Penny Christmas catalog, because it was loaded with Cardinals players.  

Here are a few.  

Here are three of them.  There is another Cardinals card later in the post.  

Gene Stechschulte is actually a pretty interesting player.  He did not have a very long career, playing three seasons all with the Cardinals in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a middle reliever.  I believe he had some arm or shoulder injuries.  What he is really famous for was hitting a home run in his first at-bat on the first pitch he saw. 

 

 

The Diamondbacks were winning this game 15-1 when Stechschulte hit the home run.  LaRussa put him into the game to pinch hit for the pitcher Mike James.  Stechschulte never threw a pitch in this game, but the Cardinals did use Bobby Bonilla for the ninth.

 

Weird Paramount Fact #3 - I own two copies of this set.  I bought one back in 2000, but also ended up with one a few years ago when a co-worker gave me some of his old baseball cards.   Pacific was a solid card manufacturer.  I cannot remember them ever have major issues with quality control.  However, for some reason there are odd sticker pieces that are attached to random cards in both my copies of the set.  

Again, weird for Pacific to have quality control issues.  

What is even going on here?  

The green striped piece on the Bret Boone card actually looks the same/similar to the bottom border of the card.  Only it's clearly a sticker if you could be here to touch it yourself.  Why is there a giant white sticker over Mike Lamb's head?  We will never know.  

 

If there were actually any rookie cards worth owning in this set, there were would likely be tons of annoying "Ebay 1/1" listing with random stickers all over the cards.  

 

Weird Paramount Fact #4- There are 100 cards on the checklist, but I swear at least 50 of the players in this set were not traded or signed as free agents during the year.  Lots of cards like......

.....Chipper Jones on the Braves.  

 

There is also a Derek Jeter on the Yankees, Tony Gwynn on the Padres, Cal Ripken on the Orioles, Barry Bonds on the Giants (free agent signing in 1993), Scott Rolen on the Phillies (traded in the future), Mark McGwire on the Cardinals (traded 3 years earlier), and Mike Piazza on the Mets (traded two years earlier).  

It feels like someone at Pacific said. "Lets make an Update set!".  A bunch of people sat down and started making a checklist. 

 

"Who got traded or signed as a free agent in 2000?  Ken Griffey, Jim Edmonds, and Juan Gonzalez."

 

They probably wrote down a few players who were rookies, a few free agent signings, and they were still 70 cards short of a set.  

"Meh, let's throw in an ARod card." 

This has to be the all-time record holder for traded/update set with the most players who were never traded, nor signed as a free agent during the calendar year.  

 

Weird, But It's Just The Uniform 

 

One of the best parts of getting out an old update set is looking through the cards to find players you know, on teams you don't remember they were on.  Like all old update sets, I found two players who were in unusual places in 2000.   

 

Rickey Henderson started to the 2000 season with the Mets, but was released and signed with the Mariners in the middle of the season.  He was 41, played 92 games, and managed to steal 31 bases.  Not bad.  I actually kind of remember him being on the Mariners, but it's not like I stayed up and watched a lot of Mariners games.  He was there, I did not watch very often. 

Nomo on the Tigers looks a little strange too.  I always think of him as a Dodger, but he played a lot of other places in between his two stints in LA.  I remembered the Mets and Brewers, but I went and looked him up on Baseball Reference.  The Dodgers traded him to the Mets in 1998, and he went back to the Dodgers in 2001.  In between he appeared, or was on the roster of the Mets, Cubs, Brewers, Phillies, Tigers, and Red Sox.  

Nomo threw a no-hitter on the Red Sox?  

Best Cardinals Player Who Deserved To Be In A Traded Set  

 

Jim Edmonds.  

 

Edmonds was traded to the Cardinals during Spring Training of 2000.  He was scheduled to be a free agent at the end of the season.  The late 1990s/early 2000s Cardinals were good at trading for pending free agents and getting them to sign before they hit the market.  They did this same thing with McGwire and Scott Rolen. 

Best Durham Bulls Player Who Deserved To Be In A Traded Set  

I am going to put two different Bulls players in this section.  I will go with one Minor Leaguer who was promoted to the Majors, along with one Major League who changed teams.  I will do the Major Leaguer first.  

 

 

Klesko appeared for the 1990 Durham Bulls.  After a long run with the Braves, Klesko was traded to the Padres for Reggie Sanders and Wally Joyner.  Love the facial hair.  I believe this was a homecoming of sorts for Klesko, who spent almost all of the second half of his career with the Padres.  Not a Hall of Famer, but a very good hitter. 

 

The former Durham Bulls player who appeared in the set as a Minor League call up was Jeff Sparks.  

 

 

He did not have a really long Major League career.  He only pitched in 23 games between the 1999 and 2000 seasons.  According to his Wikipedia page, his career highlight was a save against the Yankees at the end of the 1999 season.  His Wikipedia page says that he makes YouTube videos with former Dodgers reliever Mike Marshall. 

 

It's true.  

The Bulls get a mention on the back of the Jeff Sparks card.  

Best Player(s) Who Deserved To Be In A Traded Set 

I decided to balance this section with a traded/free agent player and a young player who got called up during the 2000 season.  Veteran player first.  

 

 Seemed like an easy answer.  

 

The rookie card.  Perhaps the only decent rookie card in the entire set.  

 

 Two time Cy Young Award winner in the American League.  His career was really shortened by injuries, but he was Hall of Fame quality when he wasn't hanging out on the disabled list.  He almost had that no-hitter the one time.  

 

 

How Does It Compare?  

 

The design isn't great.  I am not sure all of the weird and quirky aspects of the set are really all that positive.  While I love many things about Pacific Baseball Cards from this era, this is not one of their better efforts.  Where are the parallels?  Where are the interesting die-cut cards?  Paramount Update will occupy the 9th spot for the moment.  

 

Better set next week.  I will go with something a little older too. 

 

9. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

8. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

7. 2000 UD Ionix 

6. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3.1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 63- Kent Bottenfield

Kent Bottenfield most memorable season as a professional baseball player came in 1999 while he was pitching for the Cardinals.  Prior to landing a job with the Cardinals, Bottenfield had made appearances with the Expos, Rockies, Giants, and Cubs.  Most teams mainly used him as a reliever.  The Expos and Rockies had both used Bottenfield as a starter, but that did not go very well.

Bottenfield joined the Cardinals as a free agent in January of 1998.  He was a long reliever in 1998 and was thrown into the starting rotation at the beginning of the 1999 season.  Bottenfield's 18 wins, 3.97 ERA, and All-Game appearance are often cited as some of Dave Duncan's finest work as a pitching coach. 

Someone posted a clip of his All-Star game appearance on YouTube.  He gave up a few runs, but also struck out Ivan Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.  Definitely a highlight.....

Bottenfield really has a limited amount of baseball cards with the Cardinals.  So, a quick tour.  He did not consistently appear in sets, even after the 18 win season.  Most card companies put him in a few of their products, but he never was amongst the core of Cardinals players who made all of a brand's sets.  

Pacific was one of my favorite brands from this era.  They actually had a 1998 card of Bottenfield in their Omega set, but I like the card in the 1999 set better.  

Pacific also used him in some of their 2000 sets as a Cardinal after he was traded away.  Nice cards, but he had nicer 2000 cards I will get to in a minute.  

Upper Deck might have been the stingiest company with Bottenfield cards, but their sets were stuffed with McGwire, Ankiel, and J.D. Drew cards at this point.  Give a spot to Ray Lankford, Fernando Tatis, maybe a Matt Morris or Andy Benes.  Not much room for other players from the Cardinals.  His most notable Cardinals card in an Upper Deck product was his appearance in the team's McDonald's set from 1999......

These cards were sold at McDonald's restaurants in the St. Louis area, I believe as a set, not a giveaway at the stadium.  The usual suspects were in the set, but Upper Deck put several players in this set who were not in other sets in 1999.  Bottenfield and Shawon Dunston are the two of them.  

Bottenfield did not get a Topps card with the Cardinals in 1998 or 1999, but they did manage to squeeze him into the 2000 set.  

There were no traded or update sets in 1998 and 1999, so I kind of get it.  Still, it's hard to believe that a relief pitcher who popped up in more than 60 games in 1998 could not get a card in the 1999 set.  This was also the small set phase for Topps.  I believe they were down to 400 some cards in the base set.  

The best two Bottenfield cards with the Cardinals are his autographs, which both came out in 2000 after he was traded.  He has a Fleer and a Skybox autograph.  The Fleer is a FreshInk card, the Skybox is an Autographics.  Both were cross product autograph sets, not sure what products contained Bottenfield autographs.  I own the Skybox card....

It's like a piece of artwork.  Bottenfield is consistent with his autograph too.  I love it when players care about their signature.  This is a great looking card, 90% of it is the autograph.  

So, the end of Bottenfield in a Cardinals uniform took place at the end of Spring Training in 2000 when the Cardinals traded him to the Angels, along with Adam Kennedy, for free agent to be Jim Edmonds. 

The Cardinals seemed to frequently trade for players in walk years during the late 1990s and early 2000s, let them play in St. Louis for the year, and then sign them.  Edmonds had a great 2000 with the Cardinals and signed a contract in the middle of the season to stay in St. Louis.  He ended up playing on the Cardinals for 8 seasons in all.  He helped the Cardinals win the 2006 World Series, win two National League pennants, and reach the National League Championship three other times.  While he is off the Hall of Fame ballot for the moment, Edmonds should make it at some point through the Veterans Committee.  Whatever it is now called.  

Edmonds popped up on a baseball card as a Cardinal long before Bottenfield showed up as an Angel.  Although, Bottenfield only lasted half a season in Anaheim before he was traded to the Phillies for Ron Gant.  He was never able to match his 1999 season with the Cardinals, but Bottenfield stuck around for a few more seasons before retiring.