I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 38 - Ozzie Canseco

The player born on July 2nd with the most home runs?  Most RBIs?  Most WAR?  Most hits?  All of the answers to this question are the same.  They are all former Oakland A's outfielder Jose Canseco.   Obviously not a Cardinal.....

at any point during his career, but the Cardinals did sign Jose's less successful, less expensive twin brother.  It was a true 1990s Cardinals move.  Jose Canseco would have cost a lot of money.  He was brash and over the top.  So, enter Ozzie Canseco.  What was Ozzie Canseco like?  I honestly have no idea, outside of the fact that he was on the Cardinals.  He also had baseball cards.

The whole Ozzie and Jose situation reminds me a lot of The Simpsons episode where Springfield hosts a film festival, Mr. Burns decides to enter a film to spruce moose up his image, but goes cheap and hires Senor Spielbergo instead of Steven Spielberg.

Jose was known for his combination of power and speed.  He hit long, loud home runs.  The one I best remember was his home run against the Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series against the Blue Jays.  

That highlight clip of Jose's features one more home run than Ozzie hit during his entire Major League career.  That's right, Ozzie had zero Major League home runs.  He also only had 65 at bats in the Majors over three season.  

If you collect baseball cards, you probably better remember Ozzie Canseco cards with the A's in the early 1990s.  They were pretty popular, pretty much just based on the fact that he was Jose's brother.  I am pretty sure that there were some pretty horrific trades back in the early 1990s based on collectors getting their hands on Ozzie Canseco cards.  

Maybe not that popular, but yes.....

So, how did Ozzie Canseco get on to the Cardinals?  Awhile ago, unfortunately I cannot find it, a fellow collector argued with me that Ozzie was a part of the Willie McGee trade in 1990.  Not really, that was Felix Jose.  Ozzie Canseco, Ozzie Smith, Jose Canseco, Felix Jose, it's all confusing.  Right time frame though.  The A's released Ozzie, not Jose, was released at the end of the 1990 season.  Ozzie Canseco, not Smith, spent 1991 in Japan, before he signed with the Cardinals in 1992.  That was a team with Ozzie Smith.  

Ozzie Canseco played a few games with the Cardinals in 1992, but spent most of the season in Triple A Louisville.  He played a total of 98 games that year in the Minors, he hit 22 home runs and drove in 57 runs.  He did not do much with the Cardinals that season.  1993 was similar for Ozzie, he spent most of his time in the Minors, did little with the Cardinals, and was traded to the Brewers at the end of the season.  

So, what 27 year old Triple A prospect gets a bunch of baseball cards?  Ozzie Canseco.  

He had a couple, I am going to look at three really quick. 

First up is his Donruss card.  What is going on with this card?  Not much, Ozzie is hitting, or maybe striking out?  You decide.  

Now, it's time for my favorite two Ozzie Canseco cards.  First, there is a 1993 Stadium Club card.  The Cardinals wore their batting practice jerseys in Spring Training games, so this is from some time during a practice game.  There is a slight resemblance to Todd Zeile in this picture.  

Todd Zeile probably played with his batting gloves while he was running the bases.  Todd Zeile was also not that buff.  Last one.  

I used to love getting the Cardinals giveaway set.  There were some really great cards in these sets.  The 1993 set, which this card comes out of, is probably my least favorite.  However, it's still a really nice looking set.  I like the view of the mullet on this card.  

A Venerable Old Card Part 10

We are now a few weeks into the 2016 baseball season.  I have watched a bunch of games and been thoroughly frustrated with the start that my Cardinals are off to this year.  It's early and I still hold out hope, but it's clear that there are a few holes on the roster and they are not really being helped by the fact that Mike Matheny seems to regress every year that he manages the team.  

One of the best stories on the Cardinals so far this year has been rookie shortstop Aledmys Diaz.  He is on the roster at the moment because Jhonny Peralta hurt his thumb in Spring Training.  Peralta was then replaced by Ruben Tejada who managed to also end up on the DL at the end of Spring Training.  Enter Diaz, all he's done is hit.  Right now he has a .480/.509/.860 slash line with 3 home runs, 8 doubles, and 11 RBIs.  

It would be nice to have an Aledmys Diaz card, but right now they are only Minor League team set cards available.  Given that slash line you'd think that Topps might throw him into their now ToppsNow cards, but no.  Anyway, the Cardinals ended up with Diaz after he defected from Cuba and was signed as a free agent.  While Aledmys is currently the only Cuban player on the Cardinals roster, the team has dabbled into the world of Cuban players before.  

In fact, 23 years ago during the 1993 season, the team actually had two Cuban players on the roster.  Let's start with the name player......

Everyone remembers Ozzie Canseco, the less successful twin brother of Jose.  I am always puzzled as to how Ozzie Canseco ended up with a few Cardinals cards considering he played 6 games for the team in 1993 and 9 games in 1992.  He was a career .239/.352/.348 hitter for the Cards with no home runs.  Clearly the popularity of Jose at this time helped out Ozzie with his appearances in baseball card sets.  On to the better player......

I am pretty sure not many people remember Rene Arocha, but he was not a total scrub.  First, he pitched on some really thin Cardinals teams in the early 1990s.  I know people do not think of the Cardinals as bad, cannot remember a time they were bad, but they were bad in the early 90s.  Much of their misery was caused by the owner, August Busch the something, because he did not spend any money on the team.  The Cardinals had some promising prospects and some cheap veteran fills.  Arocha was one of the veteran pickups.  

In three seasons as a Cardinal Arocha pitched a total of 124 games, started 36, and won 18 games.  He posted an ERA+ of 104 for the Cardinals.  While that does not sound like anything that is too great, given the state of the Cardinals at the time, it was not half bad.  Scary as it sounds, Arocha was actually the Cardinals staff leader in ERA+, came in second in wins, and second in strikeouts.