Random Ray - 1993 Upper Deck Home Run Heroes

I am a huge fan of the 1993 Upper Deck set. Simple design, great photography, it might be my favorite Upper Deck product of all-time. If you have not checked out the 1993 Upper Deck set blog written by Night Owl, you are missing out.  

Here is the front of the card........

Wrigley always makes a great background for baseball cards. The ivy wall is the obvious answer, but the short brick wall behind home plate is also a classic landmark for those of us who are old enough to have watched day Cubs games on WGN in the summers. 

Beyond the background, I love the action shot of Ray Lankford hitting. He had a great left-handed swing and always hit well against the Cubbies. In fact, in 158 career games against the Cubs, Lankford had 23 home runs, 7 triples, 30 doubles, and 26 stolen bases. 

I loved the blue Cardinal hats in the 1993 card sets. The team stopped wearing them in the late 1960s and brought them back as their road hat in 1992 as part of their 100th Anniversary. The patch on Lankford's sleeve is also part of the 100th Anniversary. 

A closer look at the patch......

Back of the card.  

This is a really good write-up about Lankford, his skill as a player, and his potential to be a star when he was a younger player. The Cardinals were not very competitive during the early 1990s, so it's nice that someone at Upper Deck was aware of a good player on a team that was a perennial mediocre team at best.  

Random Ray: 1997 Bowman Chrome

The 1997 Bowman Chrome set is really underrated. It was the first Bowman Chrome set. I love the design and it's got a great checklist. There are rookie cards of players like Adrian Beltre, Lance Berkman, and Miguel Tejada. I am probably forgetting a few other players. There are also early cards of Roy Halladay, Nomar, and Jeter. What else do you want out of a Bowman product?  

There are also a handful of veteran cards, including Ray Lankford.  

Here is the front of the card.  

The Bowman base set and Chrome design varied in 1997. The Bowman base set had solid black borders while the Bowman Chrome product had stripes. Both are appealing and I like the contrast between the dark stripes or black border and the red inner border on the Cardinals cards. 

The Ray Lankford card has a nice action shot of him running the bases. Looks like he is trying to avoid being hit by the ball in between bases. The Cardinals have good looking uniforms. Not surprisingly, the red Budweiser sign in the background has been air brushed out.  

Back of the card.  

I love the Bowman card backs where it shows the player stats versus individual teams. The cards from the early 1990s had more stats, like hits and runs for the position players, but I still like this simplified version with the player picture on the right side of the card.  

That stat line against the Cubs is glorious. 

That stat line against the Braves is not so glorious.  

    

The player picture on the left is interesting in that Lankford is wearing a batting helmet without any ear flaps, which was against the rules at that point. The Cardinals still had Gary Gaetti and Ozzie Smith wearing the flapless batting helmets at this point, but they were grandfathered in because of age. Although the helmet is labeled "16" and clearly belongs to Ray. Must have been something he wore around during batting practice.  

Random Ray - 1994 Topps Gold

Last week, I spent some time sorting out some 1990s sets and ran across a stack of 1994 Topps Gold cards. These per-pack-parallels were so much better than the one-per-box Topps Gold cards that current populate the Topps flagship product. 

Let's take a look at the 1994 Topps Gold Ray Lankford card.  

 

The difference between the Topps Gold and base cards in the 1994 flagship set are simple. There is the logo on the top left corner of the card and the player name in the bottom left. On the base card, both are white, while they are Gold Foil on the Topps Gold card. Simple changes, but they make for a nice looking baseball card.  

I don't want to take away from this great looking Ray Lankford card, so I am not going to post a modern Topps Gold card, but if you have never seen one, the border of the card is gold foil. It's a bit much. 

Beyond the gold foil, I love the action photograph of Ray Lankford on the front of this card. Almost positive that this is in Wrigley based on the dark green background. I wish it were a little less blurry, but I cannot think of another mid 1990s baseball stadium with dark green walls and grass.  

Back of the card.  

Standard Topps baseball card stats and biographical information. I like the little photo on the side and the little write-up on the bottom. Any time you get a write-up that compares Ray Lankford to one of the all-time franchise greats, or a Hall of Famer, I am going to be a fan. Lou Brock and Ray Lankford sound good in the same sentence.  

I know this is one of the Topps least popular base sets of all-time, but I honestly don't mind. It's not the 1983 or 1984 Topps set, but it's also not 2001.  

Random Ray - 2023 Panini America's Pastime Autograph

There have now been three Ray Lankford autographs this calendar year.  

A fourth different Ray Lankford autograph is currently in the mail and should be here later this week.

Here is the latest from Panini's America's Pastime product. I do not know anything about these cards outside of the fact that there is a Ray Lankford autograph. It's actually a really nice card. Thick card stock, nice finishing touches on the front of the card including the autograph, which is on-card. Also love that Lankford signed his number 16.

 

The design is alright. We've got a giant US map covered in an American flag. Feels like something that came from stock photos. Could we get something more specific to the Cardinals or St. Louis? A toasted ravioli, a can of Budweiser, or a picture of the Arch? Feels like there is something more that could be done with this theme.  

The photo feels like it is from the late 1990s or early 2000s.  

The important thing is that there is a Ray Lankford autograph.

Here is the back......  

which talks about his 1991 season. Unfortunately there are a few errors here.

First, the cycle game facts are off. Lankford was not the first Cardinals rookie to hit for the cycle, just the first in a long time. Prior to Lankford, the last Cardinals cycle was Willie McGee against the Cubs in 1984. Cliff Heathcote hit for the cycle as a rookie for the Cardinals in 1918. We all remember that one.  

Ray Lankford also led the National League with 15 triples in 1991, not 13. His 15th triple of the year was his third hit during the cycle game.  

Lankford also only hit 9 home runs his rookie year, so that "power-speed" thing might have been a bit of an exaggeration.  His home run during the cycle game, the date is correct- it was at the end of the season, was only his 7th of the season. 

Hey, Panini got the centerfield thing right.  

Random Ray - 1998 Stadium Club

I have posted almost every Stadium Club card of Ray Lankford, missing just a few. 

Here is the front of this week's random Ray Lankford card......

Nice action shot of Ray fielding a ball in the outfield. Not sure if this is a line drive or a tall hop off of the artificial turf shown in the picture. Either way, it's a nice, tightly cropped photo of the former Cardinals outfielder. There were not many teams playing on artificial turf that season, only the Pirates and Reds. However, I could not figure out when or where this game took place as the Cardinals played multiple day games against both teams.  

Back of the card. 

I love the effort here. The borderless, full color photo in the background with the stats over the top of the photo is a really good look. While the photo is the best thing here, I really like what Topps tried to do with the stat box. Before I get there, I want to go over my one negative, which is the fact that there are two little factoid boxes. There is the "Bottom Line" at the bottom of the card and then another little write-up above the stat box. I think that space could have been better used.  

I know, it's hard to read, and I am saying this as a person with really good eyesight.  Essentially, they use the quintessential back-of-the-card stats, home runs, RBIs, runs, hits, etc, and then add in the players ranking for that star within the Top 40 of all MLB players. 

For an underrated player like Ray Lankford, it really shows how good his numbers were playing for bad Cardinals teams. That's a lot of Top 40 stat finishes and if you squint your way to read all the numbers, there are a bunch of numbers within the Top 10. On the last line, which is 1997, Lankford finished in the Top 10 in home runs, walks, and on-base percentage.  In 1996, he was top 10 in walks, stolen bases, and triples. 

Really good idea, they just needed to crank up the font size a few notches.  

As a side note, the fact box mentions that Ray Lankford was closing in on the all-time home run record at Busch Stadium II. Lankford ended up with the record with 123 home runs, At the time he was traded to the Padres in 2001, Ray had 119 Busch Stadium home runs, but Mark McGwire would tie him late that season. Ray Lankford broke the tie and set the Busch Stadium home run record as a member of the San Diego Padres in 2002.  

The tie-breaking home run was hit off of Woody Williams who was traded to the Cardinals for Ray Lankford. 

Random Ray - 1998 Pinnacle Jumbo

Ray Lankford was once in the All-Star Game Home Run Derby.  

The video is kind of grainy and Chris Berman spent the majority of Lankford's time batting talking about Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr, all of which reminds me that Chris Berman is in the same ballpark as Matt Lauer. 

Here is a photo of Ray in the 1997 Home Run Derby at Jacobs Field. Errr Progressive Field.  

Ray did not win the Home Run Derby, but he did get a Pinnacle card commemorating his appearance in the annual All-Star Game event that happens to be a personal favorite. For this post, I am actually using the Jumbo version of the card. It's larger than the regular card (of course) and it also has a different card number. The regular Pinnacle Lankford card is 195 in the set, the Jumbo card is 14.  

Here is the front of the card......

Let's start with the obvious. "Goin Jake" is a great subset name for this group of All-Star Game cards.  

The picture of Lankford in the foreground is from the Home Run Derby. Nice action shot of Ray taking a swing during the derby. I kind of dig the All-Star Game batting practice jerseys with the National League label going across the front with the All-Star Game logo underneath and the team logo on the sleeve. I thought the Cardinals had kicked the circle logo with the Redbird logo to the curb at this point, but apparently not.  

The background is the interesting part of this card. I assumed that this picture was from the All-Star Game introductions, but there are way too many players wearing jackets and uniforms that match. Watching the player introductions from that All-Star Game, the players did not wear jackets and the players still wore their team uniforms. No goofy Nike All-Star Game jerseys.  

I would guess that the background picture is from something like the Indians Opening Day Game or maybe a playoff game. Some other event that featured player introductions.   

Back of the card.  

Nice write-up on the back for Lankford. I am dumbfounded how it took Ray Lankford until 1997 to make an All-Star team. The Cardinals were terrible in the 1990s, like one player at the All-Star Game bad, but Ray Lankford was typically their best player. How did it take him this long to make it? 

A few minutes of research shows that people were still voting Ozzie Smith on the All-Star team even after his throwing arm fell off at the end of his career.  

I like that we also get a second photo from the Home Run Derby. 

Overall, a really nice card celebrating one of the best moments of Ray Lankford's career.

Random Ray - 1999 Topps Gallery

I was always a big fan of the Topps Gallery cards in the 1990s. 

Good looking set with nice inserts.  

Here is the front of the 1999 Topps Gallery Ray Lankford card.  

The texture on the front of the card is really neat, but unfortunately lost on the scan. It's printed on card stock, but has sort of a canvas feel to it. Definitely a unique feel to the card when you pick it up. Previous renditions of this product had a frame design around the edge of the card, which allowed for a bigger player picture, but I like the white edges with the hazy, colored border around the photo.  

The base cards all had an action picture. Here we have Lankford looking in towards home plate as he is running. It's likely a hit and run, but we will get that on the back of the card. Ray had good speed until the end of his career when his knees got a little gimpy. Even after he moved to left field and stopped stealing bases, Ray was still a good base runner.  

Definitely an old cookie cutter stadium here with the astroturf and baggie, likely covering up football seating, behind the outfield wall. Leaning Philadelphia. 

Back of the card.  

I am not big on busy card backs, but this one actually works for me.  

I like the picture at the top. Easily the highlight of the back. A little curious as to what is going on in the picture. Guessing that Ray is looking for a ball mark on the bat. Something you don't see everyday on a baseball card.

I also love the stat breakdown in the middle where you can see the player performance by month. Something different, impressed that they had on-base percentage on a baseball card pre-Moneyball.  Ray had a really good September in 1998.   

The bottom section is fine. I think I mentioned on a previous Random Ray post that the default Topps comment for the back of a Ray Lankford card was that he played football at a junior college and rushed for 1,000 yards. The Carl Nichols factoid appears frequently too, but he was a catcher, not an outfielder. Guess the editor was having an off day. I actually wish they had skipped this information and gone into more detail about the front picture under the Front Photo heading.  

Clearly, he's running on a hit and run. Who was hitting and where were the playing? Did they win? It was 1998, so McGwire probably hit a home run and they lost.  

Random Ray- 2023 Donruss

I am surprised to be here writing about a brand new Ray Lankford card from a Donruss set.  

I thought Ray might get a Topps Archives card at some point, but Donruss?  

Here is the card.  

The front is really busy, but it does a great job of distracting me from the fact that the Cardinals logo has been airbrushed off the front of Ray's jersey and hat on the front of this card. The photo is obviously from Wrigley Field and was taken during the 2004 season, as Lankford is wearing 12 on his uniform. He wore 16 the rest of his career, but Reggie Sanders was wearing 16 for the Cardinals in 2004.  

Ray Lankford was a bench player in 2004, so I thought I might be able to narrow the photograph down to a single game. However, the 2004 Chicago Cubs had zero left-handed starting pitchers, so Ray played a lot of games against the Cubs that season. Many of those games were day games at Wrigley Field.  

Back of the card.  

A little less busy than the front of the card and I like the green color.  

The write-up on this card is also really nice. It would be really easy to write up something about one of Lankford's seasons from the late 1990s when he was batting behind Mark McGwire. He had some good stat lines, but I like that Donruss went with numbers from early in his career, little bit more challenging, and made a good connection with another player from St. Louis.  

Very well done, Panini.  

Excellent card.  

Random Ray - 1995 Stadium Club Members Only

I was into Stadium Club, but I was not in the Stadium Club.

Stadium Club had some exclusive club of card collectors who could buy fancier versions of Topps products in the mid 1990s. At some point during the year, for the low price of just $200, Stadium Club members could purchase said-fancy set, and not feel a sliver of doubt in their sound purchase. 

Feels like this "Stadium Club" should have had an infomercial.  

Every other great consumer product of the 1990s had one. 

Fortunately for me, there were other people who did spend $200 to join the "Stadium Club" in the 1990s and all of their Stadium Club Members Only cards are now in all the quarter boxes at card shops across the country.  

Here is my Ray Lankford......

I love the picture of Ray Lankford in his batting stance. Not sure about the four colored boxes, and I was trying to figure out what they colored over in the background. No idea?  It's like someone at Topps figured out how to put a picture of a baseball card in the Apple Photo Booth Warhol filter.  

Not sure I am a huge fan of this look on a baseball card.  

Back of the card.  

No stats, but this is a nice write up.  

Ray was certainly a talented player. Too bad a was stuck on a team with Tripp Cromer and Tom Urbani. 

Not my favorite card and I am still trying to figure out how Topps got people to join the Stadium Club.   

Random Ray - 1992 Pinnacle

Score was always one of my favorite late 1980s/early 1990s baseball card brands. When they introduced Pinnacle, their premium brand in 1992, did I rush out and buy these cards?  

No.   

These cards were $1.99 per pack and the regular Score cards were $0.50. I got so many more cards for my money by sticking to the non-premium brands of baseball cards. I did not do much with Pinnacle cards until I was an adult. The boxes have never been as cheap as other junk wax era products, because there are some sweet autographs of Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio. Never mind the fact that the odds of pulling one of those cards is steeper than winning the Powerball.

Here is the Lankford.  

I like the overall design with the black border. It would be nice if the picture were a little larger and the border were thinner, but I can live with it as is. 

Many of the cards in this Pinnacle set have nice action shots, including this Lankford. Being a card from early in his career, I like that his jersey is dirty on in the picture. Lankford was a big stolen base/speed threat the first few years he played, but slowed down as he moved into the middle of the lineup. His knees weren't the best at the end of his career either.  

The red color name bar stands out nicely with the black background. 

Back of the card.  

It's busy, but there is a lot to like here. I like the contrast with the dark background and the white writing over the top. The black and white back pops and it is easy to read the write-up on the side of the card and the stats. The transition over to the green name bar and accents is nice on the eyes. The center photo is not the best, but this looks like something from Spring Training media day, aka stock scoreboard photograph. 

I couldn't find his 1991 or 1992 team photo, but all the same energy as the photo below which graced Major League video boards whenever Lankford took an at-bat in 1998.  

 

Speaking of which, the person who did the write-up actually knew something about the Cardinals and Ray Lankford. Although, the team really let Vince Coleman leave as a free agent, because their owner, one of the August Busch kids, was cheap. Same with McGee, but they traded him before he became a free agent. That stat line is incredible with nearly double-digits in all the extra base categories and nearly 50 stolen bases.  

Random Ray - 1997 Donruss Preferred

Donruss Preferred were the cards that came in commemorative tins. It was all part of the late 1990s phase where card companies tried to one up each other through stupid packaging. The tins were better than the cards that came in the cans, Pinnalce Inside. Those had horrible packaging and mediocre cards. Donruss Preferred was at least a very nice product.  

Here is a picture of a Donruss Preferred tin. It's not mine, just a picture I found on the internet.  

Here is the 1997 Donruss Preferred Ray Lankford card.  

This a card did not scan very well, so I am going to put up a second picture. 

Such a great looking card with the gold foil card. Not sure this needs a lot of explanation, just a great looking card. The name plate, team names, and brand name are all small with the player picture taking center stage inside the gold frame. Why can't we have cards like this now?  

Back of the card. 

Simple stat line and the color photo are nice. The small write-up is quality, nut the biographical information on the right-hand side seems a little out of place. It's a small thing though.  This is a really nice card. 

Random Ray - 1993 Triple Play

Triple Play was for the kids.  

I was a teenager in 1993, but I collected these cards. I have a ton of them thanks to my summer job the following year. I spent my time away from school that year pushing in grocery carts and occasionally bagging. I could also check on Sunday before the liquor aisle opened up at noon. Inside the front door of the store there was a small customer service counter that sold high-end liquor, candy bars, cashed checks, and had a few boxes of neglected baseball cards. 

My parents shopped at the store where I worked when I was a kid and I remember buying baseball cards there all the time. Apparently at some point in between my childhood and high school, buying baseball cards at the grocery store fell out of favor.  Honestly, I had stopped by cards there myself in favor of the Ben Franklin that was a short walk from my parents work.  

The cards were all at least one year off and all were discounted. Triple Play cards were really inexpensive when they were current year, but the grocery store charged forty cents for a pack the summer I worked there. I know they were not that cheap. Triple Play had a small checklist and there were a healthy number of cards in each pack, so I have the whole set.  

Here is the Ray Lankford. 

I really like the black borders with the warm red and orange colors used on the card. The photo is also above average for a "kids product". Given the proximity of Lankford to the stands and dugout, I am guessing he is standing on the on deck circle here. I would venture to say this is in Shea Stadium. The dugouts were blue and had a really thick roof.

Back of the card.  

Love the set up here with the color photo taking up roughly half the back and the stats and write up filling in the other half. The portrait photo is nice. I like how the player uniform number is included in the background behind their name. I was wondering if it was taken at the same time as the picture on the front or if this is a photo day special from Spring Training. Both road uniforms, his batting gloves and bats look used, rather than something staged.  

The stat line is small, but this is geared towards kids so I understand keeping it simple. Nice little fact box for Lankford that is teamcentric. It's better than some of the cards that have quotes on the back.  

Tom Pagnozzi says.......

Yes, stay in school, listen to your teachers, and work hard. No, I do not think Tom Pagnozzi actually said that to anyone who worked on making this set of baseball cards. 

Random Ray - 1993 Finest

Going big this week with a 1993 Topps Finest Ray Lankford.

Not the refractor, but maybe I will post that card one of these days.  

The 1993 Finest set was a huge deal at the time of its release. Definitely one of the best card sets of the 1990s. At the time, this was super high-end, but within reason and sanity. These cards were $3.99 a pack, which was steep for a pack in the mid 1990s. Compare that to the multiple hundreds of dollars box/pack/guaranteed handful of autographs stuff that Topps sell these days. As I said, within reason and sanity. 

Here is the front of the card.  

Fairly simple design that I have always enjoyed. The banner at the top bothered me back in the 1990s when these cards first came out. Seems like a lot of space for the brand name, but at least it does not limit the size of the player picture. I am going to overlook this one. 

I also love the red nameplate at the bottom with the silver/gray player name. Great color combination with the bright background and light colored writing. The reds are a little different, but they essentially reversed the color scheme for the Topps logo box next to the player name plate. 

The center is its own thing, but I love the circle behind the player. Draws your eye to the picture, which is a nice feature on a card without any sort of playing/stadium background behind the player photograph.  

The back is also really well done.  Same color scheme on the back nameplate. The stats are a little small, but simple. Nice player photograph and clear card number. The team name being in a large font feels a little off, but nothing too bad. I also never quite understood the background with the old-time looking sketches of baseball players. I would have gone solid color, but maybe they were trying to do some sort of old meets new thing with the pictures.  

Random Ray - 1995 Score

Score was always a pretty solid baseball card set. You were going to get a decent design with a reasonably priced product. Of all the sets that went away when Pinnacle went bankrupt, Score is one of the sets that I miss the most. 

The older Score sets have generally aged well and I really enjoy flipping back through and looking at the cards. For my Random Ray post this week, I picked out his card from the 1995 Score set after looking through it for a few minutes last week.  

Here is the card.  

This is the only Score set from the 1990s that I did not complete at the time of its release. My set still has a few missing cards. Not sure the high school version of me liked the tan and green color scheme on these cards.  The design is a little weird with the green and brown design around the border and blueish name plate. 

Whatever you think of the design, the picture is great. Love the action shot of Ray Lankford running the bases. Road uniforms are always a bonus.  This is in old Candlestick Park with the huge retired numbers on the wall in the outfield. The number 27 belongs to.......

Back of the card.  

On-base percentage in 1995?  

Besides being ahead on Moneyball stats, the card back has a nice write up, and the portrait picture on the side is quality. As much as you may not like the tan color on the front of the card, it provides a nice contrast with the black ink on the stats area on the back of the card.  

Overall, this is an underrated 1990s card. Not the typical Score card from the 1990s, but this set has done well with time. Might have to go finish off my set on Sport Lots.  

Random Ray - 1994 Leaf MVP Contender

I am trying to only use base cards on my Random Ray posts, but for today I am going to use an insert card. I stumbled across a stack of these 1994 MVP Contender cards a few days ago and felt the need to reminisce in a blog post. These were really popular back in the mid 1990s and were inserted at just 1 per box and limited to just 10,000 copies.  Those numbers sounded super scarce back in the day.   

Not exactly a rare insert after all and these sell for roughly $1 on COMC and Ebay.  

I am going to go ahead and post the more exclusive "Gold" copy of the card, which is even more limited at only 5,000 copies. It's so limited that it will cost you an extra $0.50 to buy it. The Gold copies were actually a redemption card that you could get by mailing Leaf two of the regular MVP cards.  

This feels so exclusive.  

I like the overall design of the card with the National League logo in the back, done in greyscale, with a color photo of Lankford over the top. Maybe I am partial to the red, but I think the bright colors on the uniform actually help this card have a little more pop with the higher contrast. I also have a copy of the Andres Galarraga card from this same insert set, which is a good looking card, but lacks the color contrast with the black and purple Rockies uniform. 

Still a nice card, but you can compare the contrast between the two cards. Andres Galarraga was also briefly a Cardinal in the early 1990s.

I am not always huge on large text, but I actually do not mind the large MVP text on the side of the card.  

The back is a little thrown together with the National League logo tying together the two sides of the card. I like the gold letters on the top and side with the black and gray backgrounds. Good color contrast. I also like the effort on putting a full player photo on the back.  It feels like the just threw it on there. The write up on the bottom of the card is nice making a connection between Ray's 1994 season and Lou Brock's 1967 season. 

Small detail. I like the MLB logo that Leaf used on the side of the card. This is the logo that the players wore on their uniforms during the 1994 season.  

Random Ray - 1999 Topps Finest Refractor

Do you know how many late 1990s and early 2000s Topps products have the same photo of Ray Lankford? Several others are similar enough that you have to wonder if they came from the same game, maybe even the same at-bat.  

It's worthy of its own Random Ray post one of these days.  

This is the picture, which is on a Topps Finest Refractor for today's post.  

Did Topps only have one or two photos of Ray Lankford available for their 1999 baseball cards?  

The answer appears to be yes.  

Give me a photo of Ray Lankford wearing a gray Cardinals road uniform in the follow-through of his swing and I will guess 1999 or 2000 Topps (insert the name of product). Given where his head and eyes are looking, I am guessing he hit the ball somewhere.  The astroturf around the home plate area leads me to believe this photo was likely taken in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or Cincinnati. The number of stadiums with artificial turf in 1998 was limited to a few remaining cookie-cutter parks.  

The design is fine. I am happy it is minimal and the main focus of the card is the photograph of the player. We have got the protective coating thing on this card. I left this one on the card.  

Back of the card.  

I like the small photograph of Ray clapping in the top corner.  It's something different from the front of the card, always a positive.  

The Finest Moment and Finest Career Achievement both have nice write-ups. As a person who saw Ray Lankford hit for the cycle in-person, I love all the baseball cards that mention that game.  As a person who enjoyed watching Ray Lankford as a player, I am going to have to disagree for the Finest Moment from 1998. 

I would have actually picked out Lankford's eighth inning home run against the Cubs on the night of Mark McGwire's 62nd home run. Lankford was the lone left-handed batter stuck in the middle of McGwire, Ron Gant, and Brian Jordan. McGwire walked frequently, Lankford did a great job of making teams pay for putting Big Mac on base. 

The night of McGwire's 62nd home run, the Cubs walked McGwire to pitch to Ray Lankford with the score tied at 2 in the 8th inning. The result.....

The McGwire years were also Lankford's best years.  He set career highs in a lot of offensive categories outside of stolen bases. Ray stopped running after the Cardinals dropped him into the middle of the lineup. This moment felt a lot more emblematic of Ray Lankford's 1998 season than some random game against the Expos where he went 4-4.  

The home run was even on a low fastball over the middle of the plate. Ray Lankford did not miss low fastballs.  

Overall, a solid effort here by Topps. I just wish we could have more than one photo of Ray Lankford on their 1999 baseball cards.  

Random Ray - 1995 Topps Finest

This card was the beginning of a really bad, although short-lived trend. During the second half of the 1990s, Topps decided to place a protective sticker over the front of all their Finest cards. My bad, it's a "coating", which is fancy-speak for sticker.  They were annoying in that they covered up the photograph on the front of the card. The stickers also presented an odd dilemma. Do I peel the sticker off and enjoy the card the way it should or do I leave the sticker in place?  

Does removing the sticker diminish the value? Is it still in mint condition if I remove it? 

I left the sticker alone.  

I really like this photograph. There are plenty of cards with Ray Lankford wearing sunglasses, but I cannot think of another card where he is wearing regular glasses or goggles. In fact, I took a quick stroll through a few of the Cardinals social media pictures from their recent team Hall of Fame events (Lankford is in) and I cannot find a picture of him wearing glasses there either.  

Maybe there is another reason to wear glasses? 

Cut down on glare? 

Windy and dust?  

I do not know. I do not wear glasses. What I do know is that the Cardinals need to go back to wearing their blue hats on the road full-time. I know that I say that in every other Random Ray post, but I honestly cannot say it enough. I want blue hats all the time on the road.  

Back of the card.  

The stats are simple, but solid. 

The Finest Moment is actually a really nice moment.

The color photo of Ray Lankford on the side looks nice with the green and gray in the background.  

Good effort here by Topps on this Finest card.  

Random Ray - 1995 Donruss

If you feed different design elements and characteristics of 1990s base sets into a computer, ran an AI program to design a set of cards based on the input, the result would be the 1995 Donruss set.   

Here is the front of the card. 

What generic 1990s design elements are here? I feel like this is one of those Highlights magazine hidden picture pages. Those were always fun.  

-Shiny, redesigned Donruss logo at the top of the card.  

-A home plate cut out on the front of a baseball card.

-A banner with the team and player name. 

-Random Stars!!! 

-Multiple color photos on the front of the card. 

The overall result of merging all of these design elements onto one card? This is a card that I could really take or leave. To be honest, I picked it out of a box with a large quantity of Ray Lankford cards. Whatever I picked out, I was going to scan and write about.  

It's odd that Ray Lankford has a sliding glove or wrist brace in his back pocket. He usually kept his batting gloves on while he was running the bases, none of those extra base running gizmos. Wonder what is going on there? 

No, idea.  

Back of the card.  

How did Donruss do on the back of the card?  

-Giant team logo. 

-Color photo of player. 

-More banners.  

-More home plate shaped boxes.  

-The stat box is made up of other small boxes.  

My. mind. is. blown.  

Completely amazed.  

I have to work tomorrow, otherwise I would keep typing.