Baseball Card People Are The Best.......

I received a package of cards from Mark over at San Jose Fuji a few weeks back, it took a day off school to get them scanned with a write up. Mark has been writing on that blog for more than a decade and it is easily one of the best blogs out there. Definitely worth your time to go check out.  

Here are the cards in the package.  

First up is an oversized card of former Cardinals second baseman Tommy Herr.  

The card comes from the 1986 Donruss All-Star Pop-Ups set.  You can see the outline around Herr, which can pull out or push in, the card stand-ups with the Metrodome in the background. The 1985 MLB ALL-Star Game was hosted by the Twins and Herr was the National League starting second baseman over Ryne Sandberg.  

The back of the card features the All-Star Game logo and directions for the fold-out.  No mention of Herr getting 110 RBIs with only 8 home runs in 1985, which I find to be one of the cooler stat lines from the decade. Still, I love these cards.   

Next up, a 1981 Kellogg's card of Gary Templeton.  

The 1970s and 1980s Kellogg's sets are always so much fun. This was the only full-sized, non-mini Kellogg's set from the 1980s and prominently featured all the concrete, cookie cutter stadium from this era of baseball in all their glory, including Busch Stadium.  

The arches.

The red seats.  

The concrete overhang.  

There are non-Cardinals players with pictures inside of Busch Stadium from this era as well.  Great card of a guy who was one of the better shortstops in the National League during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  

Next up, more 1981 Cardinals cards.  

This trio of cards is from the 1981 Topps Scratch-Offs set. Great little oddball set. Love that the Cardinals players are all wearing the powder blue road unis on these cards. Great hair on display here as well. 

Next up. 

This might be my favorite card in this package.   

I do not think I have ever seen this card and I have never heard of Holsum Bread. Still, I love the looks of this round card with the red border. Definitely trending towards some type of product that appealed more to kids during Vince Coleman's time with the Cardinals, I did some digging into the background here.  

The card comes from the 1990 Holsum set, which was a small 20 card set distributed in packages of white bread. Holsum was a common bakery brand during the 1980s and 1990s. However, there is not a Holsum Bread Bakery in St. Louis, rather the Holsum products sold in that market are contracted out to a regional bakery there that sells Holsum Bread under various brand names. So, the Holsum Bread Brand in the St. Louis area........

We did not eat Bunny Bread in my house.

I missed out, but I like this card even more after playing connect the corporate bakery dots online.  

Next up.....

One cannot have Vince Coleman and not Willie McGee.  This is from the 1988 Topps UK Mini set. Good looking design and I love the photo on the front of the card. Not many 1980s Cardinals cards with photographs inside of Busch, but these sorts of ground level shots are really rare. I believe this might be from a 1987 World Series game. McGee has a patch on his front sleeve, it is blurry, but those playoff games were the only time the team wore a patch that season.

Mark also included a nice relic card of pitcher turned outfielder Rick Ankiel. Before Othani, there was Ankiel. Not quite the same player, not the same circumstances either.  

Onward........

The next three cards are from the 1995 Signature Rookies Autographs, which borrow their design from the Old Judge tobacco cards. The majority of players in this set are from the high Minors with a surprising number being former Major League Players.  

Petkovsek was a long reliever for the mid 1990s Cardinals teams. He actually won 11 games for the 1996 National League Central team that came within a game of getting to the World Series. Since Petkovsek was in the Majors at the time this card was produced, I am curious as to where they got the uniform for this picture. Prior to being on the Cardinals, Petkovsek had been pitching for the Louisville Redbirds and Tuscon Toros.  Looks like neither.  

Frascatore was another 1990s relief pitcher for the Cardinals. He had played with the Cardinals in 1995, but spent a lot of time going in between St. Louis and Louisville.  This looks like a Memphis Redbirds uniform with a random "O" airbrushed onto the hat.  

Last up, T.J. Matthews. He was a high-leverage reliever who was Eckersley's set-up man when LaRussa first started managing the Cardinals. Matthews ended up getting traded to the A's in the Mark McGwire deal. Matthews is actually wearing an Arkansas Travelers uniform on this card. The hat may be altered slightly, but that was the Cardinals Double A team at the time.  

Nice looking cards. All three have great signatures too.  Can you imagine signing 6,000 copies of a card?  

Last card from the package.  

I recently learned an interesting Sean Lowe factoid at the end of the 2022 baseball season.  

For background......Sean Lowe was selected by the Cardinals in the first round of the 1988 MLB Draft. His first baseball card was in the 1989 Bowman set. He was oft-injured and ended up spending the majority of his short career as a middle reliever for the Chicago White Sox.  

Cool factoid.  

On Jun 16, 2001 the Cardinals were playing the White Sox and leading 6-3 in the seventh inning. Shortstop Placido Polanco started the inning with a walk, which was followed by a J.D. Drew single. The White Sox brought in Sean Lowe to pitch to Pujols.  

What happened next, only happened once in the career of Albert Pujols.....

It's hard to read, but Pujols sac bunted Polanco and J.D. Drew over a base.  

Overall, this was a great package of baseball cards. I am always impressed by the generosity of the people in this hobby. Thank you, Mark, I will drop something in the mail for you one of these weekends.  

A 1980s Card Part 29- 1981 Kellogg's Garry Templeton

Garry Templeton was one of the best shortstops in the National League during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  The switch-hitting shortstop led the league in triple three straight years, made two All-Star Games, and regularly stole 30 bases.  In 1979, he had 211 hits for the season, which included more than 100 hits from each side of the plate.  I am not sure how often that has been accomplished, but it seemed like a neat factoid to me.

Garry Templeton ended up getting traded to the Padres for Ozzie Smith.  I am certain that few Cardinals fans really miss him.  Yes, it's easy to forget about a player when you get a Hall of Famer in return, but there are other reasons that Templeton is forgettable player around St. Louis. More on that later in the post. 

Anyway, my favorite baseball card of Templeton in a Cardinals uniform is his 1981 Kellogg's card.

The yellow borders have grown on me over the years.  I picked up a few Kellogg's cards at some point 15 years ago, but I always skipped this year due to those borders.  I think that the stars around the edges also busy up the card.  Again, it's grown on me.  I like the Kellogg's logo at the top of the card and the funky shape around the picture.

I used to always think that the picture was in Busch Stadium, but I spent some time looking at this picture a bit closer last week and changed my mind.  Pictures on cards taken inside of 1980s and 1990s Busch Stadium are always a good selling point for me. Yes, there are red seats and there are openings around the top, but Templeton is wearing a red blue uniform.  The middle deck also looks like it has seats, whereas Busch Stadium had a restaurant with glass windows.

My guess is that the picture on the card was actually taken in Riverfront Stadium.  This photo is from the 1990s, but you can see the openings around the top of the stadium and the middle deck was a seating area. 

I still like the picture regardless of the stadium. 

Here is the back of the card.

I like the Tony The Tiger logo up in the top corner.  The backs of the Kellogg's cards are always way too crowded for my taste.  There is so much information here.  The main thing that stands out for me is "The Franchise" line about half way down the back.  Templeton was likely viewed as "The Franchise" during this time, but he had a little run in with the crowd at Busch Stadium one afternoon while playing the Giants. 

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"Templeton, playing on a sore knee, struck out on Gary Lavelle's curveball in the dirt. The ball momentarily escaped catcher Milt May, perhaps unbeknownst to Templeton, who failed to run to first base. Fans booed and Templeton answered with a one-finger salute."

This picture of Templeton getting pulled into the dugout by Whitey Herzog is sort of a classic with Cardinals fans.  

Anyway, you know the rest.  Templeton was traded to the Padres for Ozzie Smith.  Templeton was never the same.  Ozzie learned how to hit.  I need to do an Ozzie Smith card.  

A good song from 1981 is David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes.....

Is he supposed to be Pagliacci the clown?