Classic Big Mac

I have been posting a lot of older Durham Bulls cards during the past month, but I also wanted to get around to some older Cardinals cards this summer too.  However, rather than going with pre-World War II cards, I have been working more on cards from the 1990s and early 2000s.  Primarily, I am trying to find some nice non-Cardinals cards of some former Cardinals players.  I have had a list going for awhile, and it's time to cross a few off.

For today, I have two new Mark McGwire's that are inserts, one of which is a die-cut parallel of the other card.  Base insert card first....

This is a Holoview insert from the 1994 SP set.  It's also hard to scan cards with holograms, but the space around the bottom of the card was the highlight of these cards.  Pretty high tech at this point.  You can see McGwire's face on the right side, and the SP logo on the right.  There is more there, but they did not scan well.  Love the perm/mullet look from McGwire. 

Same card, but the die cut versions of these cards are a lot harder to find.  This is my second Holoview Die-Cut card in my collection.  I added an Ozzie Smith a few years back.  

Happy to add a second.  

I Love The 1990 Cardinals Part 65- Allen Watson

The Cardinals had 5 of the first 44 picks in 1991 MLB Draft.  The team chose California high schooler Dmitri Young with the 4th overall pick.  The other four picks?  Allen Watson is obviously one of them, the post is about him, but they also got Brian Barber and Dan Cholowsky.  Young and Watson made it the Majors and played for awhile, Barber played a short time, and Cholowsky never made it past Triple A. 

Young, Watson, and Barber all have a significant number of cards, Young obviously has the most of the group.  Cholowsky actually has baseball cards in Bowman, Stadium Club, and the Upper Deck Minors sets. While he never made the Majors, some card companies still thought highly of him.

Watson seemed like he was going to be someone for awhile.  He cruised through the Cardinals Minor League system and reached Busch Stadium by July of 1993.  He has a Stadium Club card to commemorate the occasion.

I am actually fairly certain that I saw his Major League debut, which was a 7-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves.  I need to double check my ticket stub box.  It would have been cool if Topps had put an actual picture from the players debut game on the front of these cards.  Watson debuted in St. Louis, card has a gray uniform, I am slightly disappointed.

Watson was in Baseball America's Top 10 Prospects prior to the 1993 season, so it was a pretty big deal when he reach the Majors.  The majority of his baseball cards treated him accordingly.

First off, when he first got drafted he started appearing in Bowman and Minor League sets right away.  My favorite Allen Watson card from his time in the Minors has to be his 1992 Upper Deck Minors card, which is quite unique.....

I am not sure why Allen Watson is wearing half a road uniform and half a home uniform.  Not something you see everyday on a baseball card.  I also like that he is hitting.  Sure, there is the occasional pitcher hitting card, but this looks like he is hitting balls for infield practice.  

Watson appeared in some of the more prominent 1990s sets.  Good rookie cards in the 1993 SP set?  Sure there is a Derek Jeter rookie card in that set, but there was also an Allen Watson.  Good card back in the 1990s. 

Watson also appeared in many of the rookie/prospect insert sets.  My personal favorite is the Flair Wave of the Future. 

These were printed on really nice stock and had nice printing and finish.  That wave in the background is sort of cheesy in this set though.  If this were a card in the 1998 Metal Universe set, it would be slam dunk best prospect card ever.  

Watson had a decent 1993, but his star faded fast with the Cardinals.  He got 22 starts with the team in 1994 and another 19 in 1995.  His ERA was near 5 during both seasons.  Allen Watson faded from trendy insert sets and shiny foiled prospect cards, and settled into the baseball card world as a player who got a token base card in the Topps and Upper Deck sets.  

I actually really like his base Topps cards from 1994 and 1995.  

Not a huge fan of the 1994 set, but I like the Watson card.  Love that background with the astroturfed Busch Stadium, blue walls, and faded red seats.  The Cardinals freshened up the stadium in between 1995 and 1996, so this was near the end of this stadium configuration and appearance.  

1995 did not have a great background, although the picture was clearly taken in Busch.  I like this card more for the action shot.  

The ball in the picture has always looked a little funny to me.  I know it's an action shot, so the ball was likely to turn out blurry, but this looks like Topps has tried to somehow crop the ball.  

At the end of the 1995 season, the Cardinals hired Tony LaRussa to manage the team and turned the roster over.  One of the first moves the team made in remaking their roster was to trade Watson to the Giants for Royce Clayton.  

Clayton was also a former first round draft pick who had not lived up to expectations.  When he arrived in St. Louis, Tony LaRussa made him the starting shortstop, putting Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith on the bench.  Ozzie would retire at the end of the season. 

Watson would go on to play for the Giants, Angels, Mets, Mariners, and Yankees.  He was on the Yankees roster in 1999 when they won the World Series against the Braves.....

earning him a World Series ring.  Watson was also on the 2000 Yankees, but only pitched until August before he was placed on the disabled list.  He never played again in the Majors.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 45 - Andy Benes

I already covered Alan Benes, so I am out of Benes posts after this one.

The Cardinals signed Andy Benes as a free agent prior to the 1996 season.  He had ended the 1995 season with the Mariners, but had previous played seven seasons with the Padres after they selected him first overall in the 1988 MLB Draft.  Benes was decent with the Padres.  He threw hard, ate up a lot of innings, and got a decent number of strikeouts.  The Cardinals signed him for two years as a part of their team makeover, which included hiring Tony LaRussa, and trading for half of the Oakland A's.

For the first two months of the 1996 season Benes was a bust.  He went 1-7 and was not making it deep into games.  Then just like John Tudor in 1985.....

Benes was unbeatable the last few months of the season, ending the year with a 18-10 mark.  Just to put to rest some of the comparisons between the two, a few numbers.....

-Tudor went 1-7 too, but ended up 21-8.  

-Benes had an ERA of 5.92 and a record of 1-7.  Not very good.  

-Tudor had an ERA of 3.74 and a record of 1-7.  He was always a pretty good pitcher.  

-Benes had 8 games where he pitched into the 8th inning or later after his 1-7 start 

-Tudor had 18 games where he pitched into the 8th inning or later after his 1-7 start 

-Benes lowered his ERA from 5.92 to 3.74 

-Tudor lowered his ERA from 3.74 to 1.93 

-Benes had 17 games after a 1-7 start where he gave up 2 runs or fewer.  

-Tudor had 20 games after a 1-7 start where he gave up 2 runs or fewer.  

Again, Benes had a good run the second half of the 1996 season, but still not the same as Tudor had in 1985.  Both pitchers did manage to get their teams into the Postseason.  Tudor got the Cardinals into the World Series against the Royals, the team lost in seven games, while Benes got the Cardinals to the National League Championship Series.  The Cardinals lost that to the Braves in seven games.  

Benes had some nice cards during his first season on the Cardinals.  My favorite card is his 1996 Leaf Signature autograph.  

There were a good deal of Cardinals in this set.  A few were a little odd, like Rick Honeycutt and Mike Gallego.  I thought of Benes as being more of an actual Cardinals player with a card in that product.  I am not going to be saying much about his second run with the team, which was in the early 2000s, but I think that it contributed to this being a card that I enjoyed having in my collection.  My favorite Cardinals card in the Leaf Signature set is still either Pagnozzi or Brian Jordan.  

Next. 

Alan Benes was a pretty big prospect for the Cardinals in the mid 1990s.  The team brought him up at the end of the 1995 season and stuck him into the rotation at the beginning of the 1996 season.  I am not sure how many dual cards there were of Andy and Alan, but this one is pretty nice.

Last one for 1996.

The Fleer set from 1996 is one of my favorite.  Not flashy, not expensive, or limited in anyway.  It's a really simple design with some really good pictures.  I like this picture of Benes.  It is a really good representation of what he was as a pitcher.  He was big, much more of a thrower than a pitcher, and there were always a ton of sliders. 

The 1997 season was not kind to the Cardinals, but Benes had one of the better years of his career.  In all, he went 10-7 on a really mediocre team and averaged almost a strikeout per inning.  At the end of the season, the Cardinals and Benes tried to work out a new contract, but missed the signing deadline which used to exist for players to return to their current team.  His contract was voided.

A newspaper snippet.....

Many Cardinals fans were upset that Bud Selig voided the contract in light of his team, the Brewers, moving into the National League Central with the Cardinals that offseason.  Benes ended up signing with the Diamondbacks.  Over his final season with the Cardinals, there were a few more nice Benes cards. 

Some of my favorites.....

His 1997 Topps, or Topps Chrome.  Same card, different finishing touches.  

His 1997 Upper Deck card.  Pretty intense look on his face, the Wrigley back drop helps, and every body a card where there is a pitcher hitting.  

Last 1997 card....

is a Flair Showcase.  A high end card is always nice.  I really like the color photo overlaid on top of the black and white photos on these cards.  Really nice look.  

Last card for the post comes from 1998.  He did have a few and most were really ordinary looking, but his 1998 Pacific Crown Royale card was a really good card.  Flying under the radar.......

Anytime you can find a piece of cardboard with a player in a throwback uniform of any kind, it is usually a really card.  This Benes card is no different.  The lines around his name sort of block out the socks, but they are the real baseball socks with stirrups.  Pacific made half of their Cardinals sets in 1998 from whatever game they wore these St. Louis Starts uniforms.

30 Year Top 50: 1994 SP

#12-I have had several sets on my countdown which I have noted as potential risers as more time passes and the players with key rookie cards in the set have a chance to play more and further establish their credentials as star players.  This set is one that is the opposite.  Over the past decade, the 1994 SP set has gone from one of the baseball card industries most important releases to a nice card set.  The set's legacy belongs to one card:

1994 SP Alex Rodriguez

The Alex Rodriguez rookie card in this set is one of his most popular and important rookie cards.  From the time of it's release through the mid 2000s this card was highly though of, highly desired, and very valuable.  I actually did not get this card at the time of it's release and instead picked one up years later.  I don't remember the exact year that I ended up buying the set, but I know it was in the early 2000s and I paid a little over $100 for the set which included my copy of the Alex Rodriguez rookie.  

Since his trade to the Yankees in 2004, ARod's career has taken a bit of hit for various reasons.  Besides taking a dip on the field, the market for Alex Rodriguez cards has really tailed off.  The 1994 SP set can now be found routinely for less than $50 and an ARod rookie card, which accounted for 90% of the $100 cost of my set, can now be found for under $30.  

1994 SP Chan Ho Park

The set does have a few other nice cards, such as the rookie cards of Billy Wagner, Derrek Lee, and Chan Ho Park.  The rookie cards in the set are generally in the first twenty cards of the SP set.  The cards are apart of the Premiere Prospects subset which were foil cards and generally pretty condition sensitive, which helped drive some of the value of the Alex Rodriguez rookie card and some of the other decent rookies.  High graded copies of the foil cards can run pretty high still.  

1994 SP Die Cut Mark McGwire

The 1994 SP set also featured a die-cut version of each of the 200 cards in the set.  The foil rookie cards are highly desired, but many collectors love the looks of these cards and they tend to be a pretty popular find.  In many ways, I don't understand some of the grading on modern cards since the machinery used to print and cut the card is usually so precise that it is easy to find mint cards, but for whatever reason the die cut version of these cards can be a little bit tricky.  I have found that the top inside corners can be tough.  

While this is a great set and gets a great spot on my countdown, I would hold off on adding this set to your collection if you are looking to add the whole set, or just a few cards.  Alex Rodriguez is signed through 2017 with the Yankees, and if trends hold true, the worse he plays the more this set will tumble in value.  I would guess if I revisited this countdown again in another ten or fifteen years this set would probably be much lower.  I would guess at some point the ARod rookie is a $10-15 card and the set is $25-$30.