I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 34 - Matt Morris

Matt Morris was selected by the Cardinals in the first round of the 1995 MLB Draft out of Seton Hall.  It only took him a year and half to reach the Majors.  Morris made his debut with the Cardinals during the first week of the 1997 season.  In all, he made a total of 33 starts, pitched 217 innings, and won 12 games, which tied Todd Stottlemyre for the team lead.

My two favorite draft/amateur Matt Morris cards actually came out roughly a decade apart from each other.  His first Bowman card, which was not quite as ridiculous as it has become in recent years with rookie cards, appeared in the 1996 set.  Not sure what number he is wearing in this card, but the 60 something tells me that this is likely from Spring Training in 1996, since he was still in college during the 1995 Grapefruit League.

Matt Morris also pitched for the USA Baseball program while he was in college at Seton Hall.  I not only collect the current players on the team and the former players whom I enjoyed watching play, I also have gone back and picked up some other players from before my time living in central North Carolina.  Mostly former Cardinals.

Morris is in the 2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball 25th set.  I know that these are really easy to find, basically the junk wax version of modern autographs, but if you like the players in here why not.  Sure, the silver stickers are not the most attractive, but I like looking at the old head shots of players.  Some real classics in here.  Morris is in a few other USA Baseball products as a relic, but I believe this is his only autograph as a member of the College National team.   

At the end of the 1997 season, Morris finished second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting behind Scott Rolen.  In 1998, Morris had a great start to the season before he needed to have Tommy John surgery and missed the second half of the season, along with all of 1999.  Morris still appeared in several late 1990s sets.  

My two favorites.  First up.....

The Crusade cards are a pretty popular parallel set from the late 1990s.  These cards run across several different Pinnacle brands.  I remember them best from the Donruss and Leaf sets.  Like parallels of today, the different colors had different print runs.  This card is the green parallel, which is the most common of the Crusade parallels with a print run of 250 copies.  

My other favorite Matt Morris card from the late 1990s.....

is his Stadium Club Co-Signers card with Roger Clemens.  Some of the combinations on these cards make complete sense and are absolutely great cards.  I have a copy of the Andres Galarraga and Larry Walker card, both Rockies at the time, which is easily one of my favorite from this set.  Others are real head scratchers.  Tim Salmon and Todd Hundley?  Scott Spezio and Tony Womack?  Not sure about those.  

I guess the Clemens and Morris pairing was supposed to be one of those cards that somehow showed the torch being passed from one generation of player to another.  Except Roger Clemens was a really good Hall of Fame player, don't tell me about steroids, while Morris had some good moments.  Not a Hall of Famer.  Just a good looking card, bit of a conversation piece as a Cardinals fan considering Clemens ended up in their division with the rival Houston Astros.  

Always wondered what Clemens was doing during this inning during Game 7 of the NLCS in 2004 against the Cardinals.  Pitched to Pujols with first base open, then served up a meatball to Rolen.  Thanks for the National League pennant.  

Morris stayed with the Cardinals until 2005.  He had a great year in 2001 when he led the National League in wins with 22.  The rest of his time in St. Louis was spent as a middle of the rotation starter.  Probably his most memorable 2000s moment with the Cardinals was giving up Ken Griffey Jr.'s 500th home run on Father's Day in 2004.  

He ended his career by playing a few years with the Giants and Pirates.  Morris retired in 2008 after the Pirates released him at the end of April.  He had an ERA of 9.67 at the time the team released him.  Not a Cardinals card, but Topps managed to squeeze him into their 2008 Series 2 set, making this his final baseball card.  

Yes, it's airbrushed.  No one has made a Matt Morris card for the past decade.  Not sure if that will change, but if Topps can make a Joe McEwing card in a set last year, than I am not going to count out getting another Matt Morris card at some point.  

#MyCardMonday

Here's a different name for this week's #MyCardMonday: Matt Morris.  Matty Mo was a stalwart in the Cardinals rotation for almost a decade start around 1997 running through 2005.  He had some good years and some mediocre years, but was the best pitcher on several of the late 90s/early 2000s Cardinals teams.  Morris was a little bit tricky to collect.  He had a few autographs and a few relic cards, but nothing too spectacular.  I think at some point I owned a patch card of his from the 2003 UD Authentics set, but sold it after he left the Cardinals for the Giants.  I still have a nice autograph of the Cardinals hurler from the 1997 Donruss Signature set and he also signed for the 2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball set.  Oh and he signed in a Stadium Club Co-Signers set.  This dual Morris relic out of the 2004 Donruss Diamond Kings set was always one of my favorite Matty Mo cards.  I loved the artwork on these cards and opened several boxes of this product.  Really fun open.  

I Lost Ray, but I got...Part 3

To summarize Parts 1 and 2.  I lost a Ray Lankford card on Ebay.  It sold for a lot.

I still ended up picking up a bunch of Donruss Crusade cards from the same seller, all but one cost me less than $5.  So, far I have shown off a nice Juan Encarnacion and Fernando Tatis.  Both nice additions to collections and both former Cardinals.  Today, I have a player actually pictured in a Cardinals uniform.

This is actually my second copy of this card, but the Crusade cards are nice, and for less than $5, I am happy to have two copies. Morris was one of the better pitchers on the Cardinals in the late 90s.  While the Cardinals teams from that era were brimming with offensive fire power, the rotation was headlined by Morris, the two Benes brothers, and Donovon Osborne.  There was also Kent Merker, Manny Aybar, Kent Bottenfield, and Mark Petkovsek.  Needless to say, the Cardinals did not make an postseason appearances with that rotation.

Talk amongst yourselves: Alan Benes would have been better than Matt Morris.

Morris actually ended up being a solid starter for the Cardinals and even had a few memorable seasons that few people seem to remember.  Most notable was his 22-8 season in 2001 where he finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting.  After that season, Morris slowly started to slide and left the team after the 2005 season for the Giants.  He ended his career as a Pirate.

Matty Mo and Roger Rocket Together On One Card, For One Night Only.....

I picked up a really cool card this week from a fellow collector on Facebook.  This is my second copy of this card, I traded the other one for something really cool, and jumped at the chance to add this card back to my collection.  At one point, this was a pretty tough card, but Roger Clemens has kind of slid down the ladder a bit.....

The Morris signature is actually a little bit better on this copy and does not fade off at the end like my previous copy.  I am a big fan of the old Co-Signers autographs, even if sometimes the connection between the two players is a little bit hard to guess.   Clemens and Matt Morris?  They are both right-handed?  They are both wearing the same brand of shoes?  I'm not sure, but I am not sure it really matters.  Clemens (steroids or not) was one of the best pitchers I ever saw in person and Morris was a good Cardinals pitcher for nearly a decade.

Matty Mo & Rocket Roger Co-Signers

I picked up a cool copy of a Tony Womack/Scott Spiezio Stadium Club Co-Signers autograph a few week ago and got on a slight kick with trying to find a few other Cardinals on some Co-Signers cards.  The search was a little bit slow at first, but I found a really cool one at a great price.  So, I wonder how Topps decided to put these two players on the same baseball card....

1998 Topps Stadium Club Co-Signers Matt Morris/Roger Clemens Autograph 

By themselves, both players are pretty cool.  Most people are more than familiar with Roger Clemens and need little to know introduction to the right handed pitcher.  Matt Morris had some nice seasons with the Cardinals in the late 90s and early 2000s, but bounced around between the Giants and Pirates at the end of career during a few more than forgettable seasons.  

I understand that both players are right-handed pitchers, but there is little to connect the pair outside of that one similarity.  They were both on different teams and they differed greatly in style.  Morris featured a big curve ball and was a successful ground ball pitcher.  Clemens struck out more than five thousand batters during his career.  

I took a quick glance over at Baseball Reference to see if Topps could have made a better combination of players on a Co-Signers card for Roger Clemens or Matt Morris.  The Cardinals really had a pretty poor pitching staff that year.  Sure, the offense was great, but Manny Aybar...No.  The Blue Jays actually offer a few combinations.  Namely two young pitchers on the 1998 Jays: Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay.  How cool would a Clemens and Carpenter card be?  Halladay would be equally as sweet. 

Morris and Clemens are truly an odd combination, but a welcome addition to the collection.  

30 Year Top 50: 2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball

#32-There have been a few large autograph sets released over the past 30 years.  I already posted one in my Top 50 countdown with the 1999 SP Signature Set.  Today's post also features a mega autograph set released by Upper Deck.  Most people associate the USA Baseball cards with Topps, but it was actually held by Upper Deck from 2002 until 2009.  During that time Upper Deck put out quite a few USA Baseball cards, but I feel like this set was their best effort.

The 2004 USA Baseball set was issued as a box set with three autographs in each box.  The sets are still pretty readily available today and aren't very expensive given the potential for a really good autograph.  One of my favorite autographs I pulled out of a USA Baseball box was this John Smoltz autograph.

2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball John Smoltz Autograph

This card launched my interest in this set of cards.  It's a really good card, but it's also one of the few cards that Smoltz had signed during his playing career.  Choose your favorite secondary card site and you will find plenty of 2012, 2011, 2010 Smoltz autographs.  During his career he signed very few cards and often at low print runs.  This card is not too difficult to find and is a great way for an average collector to add a Hall of Fame pitcher's autograph to their collection without breaking the bank.  

In fact, there are lots of people that signed for this set.  As a Cardinals fan I was able to easily find a few former Cardinals to add to my collection from the set.  Even Mark McGwire signed for this set.  There are only 20 cards, but it's McGwire.  

2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball Andy Benes Autograph

2004 Upper Deck Baseball Matt Morris Autograph

These two cards above are perfect examples of cards in this set.  Both Matt Morris and Andy Benes were above average pitchers for multiple seasons for my Cardinals.  Both made All-Star games and both appeared on playoff teams.  They both have autographs in a few other sets, but there aren't tons of Andy Benes and Matt Morris autographs floating around.  The fact that Upper Deck gave Andy Benes an autograph four years after he retired and Matt Morris an autograph towards the end of his career is pretty cool.  As a person who loves the game, and not just the cardboard, I always like finding unique autographs of players I watched.  Which brings me to my final point about this set.

I love the Cardinals.  I love autographs.  I try to find all the certified autographs I can of Cardinals players.  Sometimes that's easy.  Sometimes that's not.  For example, I have enjoyed watching Kyle Lohse pitch the past five years as a Cardinal, but the man does not have an autograph or even a relic card.  Nothing.  There are other players like him too. 

The USA Baseball set has a slew full of players who are first time signers, or extremely limited, who signed for this set.  I would love to get my hands on a Braden Looper autograph.  He does have one of those minor league, Best, autographs.  It's not really pretty, but he does have an autograph in this set and was on a World Series winner in 2006 with the Cardinals.  I will get around to one someday.  

Like the 2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball Set?  Not in my Top 50 is the USA Baseball releases in the 2011 Topps sets.  Topps placed USA Baseball products in several sets last year.  While it's not clear what impact the players included in the set will have in the Majors, the card products were really nicely made.  Here's a looking using the cards of my favorite Duke baseball player: Marcus Stroman.

2011 Topps Chrome Marcus Stroman Autograph

This card would be my favorite on the list if Topps hadn't used sticker autographs on the card.  Most of the Topps Chrome autographs from the 2011 set are on card, so I can't imagine that getting a few more cards signed would be that big of a deal.  

2011 Bowman Sterling Marcus Stroman/Erich Weiss Dual Autograph 

2011 Bowman Sterling Marcus Stroman Jersey

2011 Topps USA Baseball Marcus Stroman Red Autograph

2011 Topps USA Baseball Marcus Stroman Triple Relic Auto 

  

2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball Matt Morris Autograph

This card was really cheap, but is a must have for anyone who watched the Cardinals during the past twenty years.  Matt Morris might have been the only decent pitcher on most of the late 90s teams and was a good solid starting pitcher for most of the early 2000s.  His run with the Cardinals did include one spectacular season in 2001 where he won 22 games and finished third in the Cy Young voting.  His career ended with a few years in San Francisco and a few starts with the Pirates.

2004 Upper Deck USA Baseball Matt Morris Autograph