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 - 1991 Score All-Star FanFest

The 1991 Major League All-Star game was in Toronto, Canada. It would be safe to assume that the 1991 Score All-Star FanFest Ray Lankford card was given out at that event. A Canadian Ray Lankford card that is not an O-Pee-Chee? No Tim Horton's logo? It's not written in both French and English?  

Let's learn more, eh?  

 

I bought my copy of the Lankford FanFest card from a local card shop roughly two decades ago while I was still living in St. Louis. The shop was in south St. Louis County. It was slightly disorganized. There were stacks of cards everywhere and you never quite knew what to expect. The store owner was his own person. Cool guy, but definitely lived by his own rules. The shop was a short drive from my school at the time, so it was a good afternoon stop from time to time. 

This Lankford card was in a $0.50 bin, or something of the sort. Seemed like a cool card, not very expensive, and one that I did not own. I bought it. I was a little surprised that a young Ray Lankford made an All-Star FanFest set. Usually those types of products are filled with big names.  

Here is the front of the card. 

Score actually made the All-Star FanFest set focused on young players. After all, we were at the beginning of the prospect boom. The checklist had Ray Lankford, Hensley Meulens, and Chuck Knoblauch just to name a few. There are only 11 cards in the set, which I do not own. I was happy with just the Ray Lankford card. I like the picture that Score used with the Wrigley Field ivy in the background. I also love the double-ear-flapped helmet. The design around the borders looks very 1990s. It's dated, but I am sure that it had some strong appeal back in 1991. 

Let's talk about the back of the card. 

This is the painful part of this story.

I want to kick myself. 

Notice the bottom of the card has a banner that identifies this as a card from the 1991 All-Star FanFest. Well, apparently Score used this set of cards as a promotional item at two other events. One of the events was The National Sports Card Collectors Convention, or "The National", which took place in Anaheim that year. 

The third one?

Back to the store owner. 

Every good baseball card store owner good stories about cards, or different items in their store. Beyond cards, this store was always filled with promotional items of all kinds. Many of them were oddball giveaway items from Cardinals games. Yes, he sold the bobbleheads, but we're talking about stuff like "Bud Light Bucket Hat Night" or "Tino Martinez Kids Shirt Day". At one point he had a pair of Jockey underwear autographed by Jim Palmer. I usually ignored all of that stuff.  

The day I buy this card, he sees me pick out the FanFest card, and he goes on some long-winded story. It was about a guy he knows who worked at the Convention Center in St. Louis as a contracted janitorial service. I am all ears to hear where this is going about a janitorial service and baseball cards. Anyway, this guy he knew used to end up with items at the end of conventions and would just put them in his basement. All sorts of odds and ends. He was in the process of downgrading to a smaller home and had dropped off a box of Score baseball card sets from a candy convention. 

The story ended with the sales pitch of....."Only $10 for the whole set"

There was a long pause. In my mind I was thinking.......

He points to a cardboard box with a piece of paper taped to the front labeled "Candy Convention Cards $10". They were right next to all the late 1980s and early 1990s traded box sets, which were all $5 each.

Candy Convention Cards?    

I did not budge and did not deviate from whatever pile of cards I was sifting through to look at the promotional items from some guys basement that he got cleaning up the Convention Center. The story about the convention center stuck though. It was definitely one of that owner's better stories and he was not even drinking beer in the store that day. 

Two or three years later, I got on a big kick about tracking my Ray Lankford cards. I found a checklist and started crossing off cards and trying to find the ones I did not own. Most of the junk wax cards were checked off right away, but there were a few I was missing. One of them is a 1991 Score National Candy Wholesalers Convention card.

The National Candy Wholesalers Convention in 1991?  

It was in St. Louis. 

It was in St. Louis at the Convention Center.

They also had hockey cards with the same design as the baseball cards. This is not my Brett Hull card, but you can see the label on the bottom. It's slightly obscured by the COMC watermark. 

I have not seen the Candy Convention Ray Lankford card in the wild. I have also promised myself to never pass up another set of cards that were leftover at the St. Louis Convention Center and picked up by someone who runs a janitorial service.  

Random Ray - 1990 Score Rookie/Traded

Another week, another now defunct brand of baseball cards that I miss.  I really liked the 1990 Score set, which felt very close to the original 1988 debut product.  These are not expensive cards by any means and I loved the bright colorful borders.  Score cards also frequently had good action pictures.  Most of the 1990 Score Rookie/Traded cards have orange borders. Takes away a bit from the regular 1990 Score set that looks like a rainbow jello mold when sorted into a complete set with the different colored borders.  

The 1990 Score Rookie/Traded Ray Lankford card has him batting during a Spring Training game. The batting practice jersey and uniform number are a dead giveaway.  The only number Ray Lankford wore as a Major League player between 1990 and 2002 was 16 for both the Cardinals and Padres. The second number on his jersey is not clear in the picture on the front of the card, but you can see it's a 50 something.  I like the action photo of Lankford hitting.  

The back of the card.  

You can see Lankford's jersey number listed as 57.  I did not scan the Bernard Gilkey card for this post, but he is wearing 56 in his picture. Seems to be a pattern with handing out uniform numbers at Spring Training.  

Score used to write a short term player on the back of each player's card. Yes, there were always stats, but you could learn a lot about a player by reading their Score card. This is an update card, so naturally most of this information is about Ray's Minor League career. They got his Texas League MVP, which was his big accomplishment and they generally did a good job of describing him as a player.  "Contact hitter" is not quite right.

The headshot is nice.  Quality card.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 68 - Chuck Carr

The 1980s Cardinals "Whiteyball" teams were known for their speed and aggressive base running.  There were few players on those teams who were not capable of swiping a base when the team needed to manufacture a run.  The height of the "Running Redbirds" was the 1985 National League Championship team, which featured Vince Coleman's 100 stolen bases, Willie McGee with 56 stolen bases, and then more than 30 steals out of Tom Herr, Andy Van Slyke, and Ozzie Smith.

They were fun to watch.

With the success of the running game at the Major League level, the Cardinals filled their Minor League system with players who were capable of pressuring defenses and pitchers with the threat of stolen bases.  Several popped up with the team in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.  

The one you may know best is long time White Sox outfielder Lance Johnson.  

The "One Dog" only played 33 games in St. Louis before he was traded for starting pitcher Jose DeLeon.  He went on to play 14 years, stole more than 300 bases, and collecting 1,500 hits.  Pretty nice career.   

Alex Cole was another speedster who was drafted by the Cardinals in the 1980s.  While Cole never played for the Cardinals, he stole more than 50 stolen bases in 4 different seasons in their Minor League system.  

He was also traded away for starting pitching, going to the Padres for Omar Olivares.  Cole did not have the success that Lance Johnson enjoyed, but still managed a 7 year career as an outfielder off the bench primarily for the Twins and Indians.  

Which brings us to Chuck Carr.  

The Cardinals did not actually draft Chuck Carr, his career started with the Reds.  He bounced around a bit and eventually ended up with the Mets.  However, he was blocked in the Mets outfield due to the fact that the team signed Vince Coleman away from the Cardinals.  

The Mets traded him to the Cardinals.  The Cardinals used him in 22 games towards the end of 1992, which got him 64 at bats, and he managed to steal 10 bases.  This was after Carr stole 61 bases in Triple A and Double A during the 1992 season.  

Card companies pounced on the Cardinals new speedy outfielder.  We got two pure Cardinals cards.  

Always liked these 1993 Score cards.  Decent design, the Cardinals cards have some nice photography.  Carr is by no means a "favorite player", but this is a great picture of him running down the line at Wrigley.  The Cardinals went away from their polyester pullovers in 1992, so it was nice to see cards like this that showed off the classic Cardinals uniforms.  That 100th Anniversary patch on the sleeve was sharp too.  Quality card. 

Carr also had a 1993 Donruss card with the Cardinals, but he was fielding the ball in Wrigley Field instead of running.  Same company, same game.  He played in one game in Wrigley as a Cardinal, and he went 0-5.  

Guess that Score card is showing a ground out.  

and then there are two cards with a Cardinals picture, but with Marlins logos.  

There is a Donruss Update card with the Expansion Draft logo on the bottom of the card, which is where Carr went after the Cardinals left him unprotected.  Say, that picture looks familiar.  

His Fleer card is a little odd.  Check out his grey pants and white jersey.  This looks like Spring Training Photo Day.  I like the border with Marlins update.  Subtle, but better than "NOW WITH MARLINS"   

Let's talk about the rest of Carr's career.  He spent a few years on the Marlins, and then ended up on the Brewers.  This is the important and memorable part of his career.  He did not last long in Milwaukee, apparently he did not agree with all of Phil Garner's strategy decisions.  Luckily, James Nelson from the Milwaukee Sentinel celebrated the 20th Anniversary of one of the great moments in 1990s baseball a few summers back and offered a retell of the incident.   

From his May 16th, 2017 article:

"In the 8th inning of a game in Anaheim, the Brewers were trailing 4-1 against Angels' ace Chuck Finley. Leading off the inning, Carr had a 2-0 count and was given the signal to take a pitch. He ignored the sign, swung and popped out.

Brewers manager Phil Garner who had already had two dustups with Carr in the still-young season confronted the player at his locker about the at-bat, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Carr responded in the third person: "That ain't Chuckie's game. Chuckie hacks on 2-0."

And that was the end for Carr in Milwaukee. He was sent to the minors the following day, refused the assignment and was cut, forfeiting his $325,000 salary."

and that was the end of Chuck Carr.    

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 61 - Tom Niedenfuer

Tom Niedenfuer once had a really bad week against the Cardinals.  

There was Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series.  Niedenfuer was pitching the bottom of the ninth inning in a tie against the Cardinals.  Willie McGee started the inning by popping out to third base, which brought up Ozzie Smith.....

Then a few days later in Game 6, with the Dodgers leading 5-4, he faced Jack Clark with the go ahead runs on-base.  

For what it is worth, the long time Dodger reliever also appeared in the 1981 Postseason and helped the team win the World Series against the Yankees.  He pitched 5 innings in the Series and was perfect outside a pair of runs that scored on a Bill Russell error.  

Niedenfuer was a pretty valuable and versatile reliever for the Dodgers.  He earned a total of 64 saves over seven seasons in Los Angeles, but also worked as a middle and long reliever along the way too.  The Dodgers traded Niedenfuer to the Orioles in the middle of the 1987, where he also pitched in 1988.  He spent 1989 with the Mariners, he is from Washington state, but was released in a roster crunch at the beginning of the 1990 season.  

Niedenfuer had been terrible for the Mariners in 1989.  His ERA was over 6 and he had as many strikeouts as walks.  Never a good thing.  The 1990 Cardinals were terrible, so they had room for anyone who would help them get through the season.  Niedenfuer was signed in April and played the entire season with the Cardinals.  A reliever coming off a season where his ERA was over 6 and a last place team sound like a recipe for disaster, but it actually turned out well.  

In all, Niedenfuer pitched 63 innings for the 1990 Cardinals. Despite an 0-6 record, he had an ERA of 3.46 and was one of the more reliable pitchers on the team.  Especially during the first half of the season, most of his 3.46 ERA actually came towards the end of the season.  In a June 9th game against the Expos, with the Cardinals losing, he pitched three perfect innings in long relief to lower his ERA on the season down to 1.63.  You can imagine as a long reliever on a 90 loss team, he got put into some real bad baseball games.  

So, lets get to Niedenfuer's Cardinals cards.  None were made in 1990 while he was on the Cardinals.  No traded sets, nothing.  Both of his Cardinals cards were made in 1991.  

He made an appearance in everyone's favorite 1991 set, the yellow bordered Fleer.  This is a large set, so most teams had 25-30 players featured on a card.  Many of the card companies focused on the young Cardinals players at this point.  Lots of Todd Zeile, Felix Jose, with an Ozzie Smith card sprinkled in for some balance.  Niedenfuer managed to get one of the 27 Cardinals cards in this set.  

Niedenfuer also appeared in the 1991 Score set.  I know, the pictures on the cards made me do a double take too.  Both feature him in an action shot mid delivery.  Same point of his delivery too.  The Fleer card is on the road though, maybe Candlestick, and the Score was taken at Busch.  He's throwing two different pitches too.  The Fleer he has his thumb bent under the ball, not sure what that is going on there.  The Score he has his fingers in a circle, so some sort of changeup.  

That's it for Niedenfuer and the Cardinals.  He retired after the 1990 season at age 30 and spent time with his two daughters and his wife, who is actress Judy Landers.  I don't remember who specifically, but it appears she was in all sorts of television shows and movies including The Love Boat, Happy Days, Night Court, Charlie's Angels, B.J. and the Bear, The Jeffersons, L.A. Law, Murder She Wrote, and The Fall Guy.  

I seriously do not remember her.  

Topps did give Niedenfuer a card post-retirement in their 2005 Fan Favorites and Retired Signature sets.  He rightfully appears in a Dodgers uniform.....

on a 1983 style card, which was the best season as a player.  His card in the Retired Signature set is an autograph, but I do not actually own a copy of the card.  It's out there, somewhere.   

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 53 - Dmitri Young

This is a nice post about Dmitri Young.  He has had sort of a bad rap amongst Cardinals fans for awhile, but I really do not see what people have against the guy.  The man collects baseball cards and at one point Dmitri also had one of the most incredible baseball card collections out there before he cashed out 2.5 million dollars.

The Roberto Clemente rookie in his hand sold $400K alone, which is ridiculous, but if he got someone to pay that much good for Dmitri.

A little bit longer post today for my 1990s Cardinals post.  I like Dmitri even if Cardinals do not like always like him.  

Back to baseball.  The Cardinals have finished in last place once over the last 70 or 80 years.  It has not happened much, but I am not in the mood to go look it up at the moment.  The one time it has happened in modern baseball times was in 1990.  Whitey Herzog quit in the middle of the year, so did Terry Pendleton.  The team even traded long time fixture Willie McGee to the A's to bolster their playoff run.  Hot mess.

The Cardinals had the fourth overall pick and used it on 17 year old Oxnard, California high schooler Dmitri Young.  He was on USA Today's All-American High School baseball team and had received a scholarship to baseball at Miami.

Dmitri had some big numbers at several of his stops along through the Cardinals Minor League system.  In his first full season in the Minors he hit .310 with 14 home runs and 36 doubles in A-Ball with the Springfield Cardinals.  Later, when he reached Triple A Louisville, he hit .333 with 15 home runs, 31 doubles, and even managed to swipe 16 bases.  Won the batting title.

Young was not without his controversies before reaching St. Louis.  Namely, he went after a fan in the stands while he was playing for the Arkansas Travelers, who were the Cardinals Double A team at the time of the incident.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Young spoke about this incident a few times during his career, while he would have handled the situation differently, it definitely hurt his relationship with the Cardinals and some fans in St. Louis.  I still collected a few of his Minor League cards.  Probably one of my first times every dealing with a product outside of the usual Major League Baseball products in the early 1990s was tracking down a few Dmitri Young cards  

I have a few favorites.  

I think the 1994 Upper Deck Minor League card is my favorite.  The most professional looking of all his Minor League cards in my opinion and I love the action shot.  Dmitri Young actually spent the majority of his time in the Minors playing third base and left field.  The Cardinals dabbled with him at first base in the Minors, but did not play him extensively at that position until his second stint at Triple A in 1996.  

I'm just throwing up this Classic Best card because the scan was handy, but Dmitri has a ton of these odd-ballish cards from 1991 and 1992.  He was in the lower Minors and on many of the cards it shows.  The Cardinals must have gone through some phase in the late 1990s where their Minor League teams all wore surplus polyester uniforms or repurposed shirseies from the team store.  

Didn't Pedro Guerrero retire sometime around 1991 or 1992?  

Would not shock me.  There are a few where Dmitri Young is just wearing a slugger bird logo shirt.  

The Cardinals ditched this logo in 1992, but it's all over their Minor League cards from that era.  Old man Busch was saving himself some money, also not putting anything on the team store on clearance.

Dmitri ended up getting called up by the Cardinals at the end of the 1996 season, just in time for the team's Postseason run.  They were not supposed to make the playoffs the first season that LaRussa managed the team, let alone get within a game of the World Series.  Dmitri did not contribute much during the final weeks of the season, nor during the first part of the National League playoffs.  However, he had a huge hit in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead in the Series against the defending World Series Champions.  

It was one of the few good moments from a frustrating National League Championship Series.  Card companies seemed to magically remember that Dmitri Young was around and was going to get playing time the following season.  Really the only season where he had a full slate of Cardinals cards turned out to be 1997.  

Best card.....

is from Collector's Choice because they gave him a highlights card for hitting that triple in the National League Championship Series.  The front picture is from the actual hit. The back of the card.....

very well done by Upper Deck.  

A few more.  Bowman gave him an autograph card.  He also had one in the Donruss Signature set, but the Bowman is a little bit nicer looking in my opinion....

It is also a little harder to find and will cost you $3 instead of $2.  That's without shipping.  A few more recognizable brands.  Donruss gave him a Rookie Diamond Kings.  Not the same as just a regular Diamond Kings card, but they were not making the Rated Rookie cards at this point.  

Almost all of the rest of the Dmitri Young cards from 1997 came from the Pinnacle brands.  I am pretty sure that had a photographer show up for infield/batting practice one day, and they came up with photos for every Dmitri Young card for the rest of that season.  

Pinnacle Inside......

Blue road practice jersey with a red turtleneck in Candlestick Park.  

Candlestick Park, Blue jersey, red turtleneck.  Look, Dmitri wears Nikes.  

New Pinnacle, was like New Coke in many ways, and apparently used recycled pictures that were just cropped a little differently the photos used for other card products.  

Cannot quite see his batting gloves in this picture.  

Finally a Fleer Ultra to close out 1997.  

Good picture of Dmitri playing first base, which is what he did most of the time during the 1997 until the end of July.  His first full season in the Majors was a disappointment.  He never did show any of the pop, nor drive in his swing that made him one of the better players in the Minor Leagues.  

The Cardinals needed offense and they ended up trading for A's first baseman Mark McGwire.  He was a free agent to be, but had spent the majority of his career playing for Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa and the front office was convinced they could sign him if they got him to play a few months in St. Louis.  

McGwire hit and ended up signing a contract with the Cardinals.  Dmitri Young was traded to the Reds for washed up reliever Jeff Brantley.  He still appeared on a few early 1998 releases as a member of the Cardinals.....

Dmitri seemed like a guy who needed a change of scenery early on with the Cardinals.  Not usually the way things go in St. Louis.  Add in the fact that the Cardinals got hosed on the trade by an in division rival, and I think that has added to some of the negativity around the legacy of Dmitri Young according to Cardinals fans.  

In a curious twist to the Cardinals trading him to the Reds during the 1997 off-season, he was actually selected by the Devil Rays during the expansion draft and traded back to the Reds.  He did not have many cards in 1998.  However, his first season in Cincinnati was a huge success that made him a regular in sets for most of his playing career.  

Dmitri played four years for the Reds and never hit less than .300 and had an on-base percentage of .353 during that four year span.  

He also spent five years with the Tigers and managed to still hit even though he was frequently the only quality bat in their lineup.  In 2003, he made the American League All-Star team, almost hit 30 home runs, and had a .909 OPS.  The Tigers lost 119 games.  It was statistically his best season as a professional player.  

He ended his career by playing the Nationals during the 2007 and 2008 seasons.  Dmitri was only 34 years old when he retired from baseball.  During his last two seasons with the Nationals he hit .310/.382/.469 and even made the National League All-Star team in 2007.  He became a fan favorite of sorts with the Nationals, who were in their early days in Washington.  Dmitri Young had talked about trying to make a comeback at one point, but he stayed retired.  

Very nice career overall.  I have always been convinced that if he stayed in St. Louis, he would have never had the career that he had playing for the Reds and Tigers.  While Cardinals fans can grade Dmitri Young rather harshly at times, but there are much worse things that can happen with high draft picks than having a 13 year career with a few All-Star Game appearances.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 49 - Stan Musial

I know Musial's last season was in 1963.  If you had asked me that question after 1988, I for sure would have known the answer since Topps gave him a Turn Back The Clock card in that year's set.  Pretty sure that this was my first Musial card.

 

Not many cheap Musial cards hanging out at the baseball card shops in St. Louis during the late 1980s.  So, this Topps card was as good as it got until the 1990s.  

There are many things that the 1990s got right on baseball cards.  One of the most important in my opinion is the reappearance of retired players.  How many brand new cards did Stan Musial get during the 1980s?  Not many.  In making this post, I had to narrow down a huge long list of different sets he appeared in during the 1990s just to get it down to a few favorites.  Even more Musial cards have been released over the nearly twenty years since the 1990s ended.  

I know there are modern collectors who get a little annoyed with the older players popping up, but it's a great way to introduce younger collectors to the older players and Hall of Famers.  Also a great way to create some inexpensive cards of players who have outrageously priced vintage cards.  Some of them are really nice looking, well designed cards too.  

Here are a few of my favorite Musial cards from the 1990s.  

First up is a card from the Cardinals 100th Anniversary set.  I am actually going to do a 1990s Cardinals post on this set, not to give away too much, but it was a small set that Pacific put together for the team.  The cards came in packs and were sold at McDonalds.  I managed to put together a set during the summer of 1992.  You can still find the packs floating around, not expensive.  Fun times.  

I like this Pacific Musial card.  Love the batting stance, one of the most identifiable things about Musial.  

If you have never been to a Cardinals game, he's got a giant statue outside of Busch Stadium with his distinct stance.  Not sure if people still do this at the new Busch Stadium, but back in the day at the previous Busch Stadium everyone used to make the Musial statue a meeting place before the game.  Sort of a zoo.  I preferred the Gas House Gang flag behind Stan, off to the left with the red and green flags.  

Old picture.  The card is seriously great, so is the set.  Check them out.  

Musial also appeared in more mainstream sets.  This Score card was one of the first that I remember seeing, which was in the 1992 product.  The card was part of a small little insert set that Score stuck into packs that featured Musial, Yaz, and Mantle.  There were autographed versions of these cards, but the fifteen year old me just got the regular base card.  I wish the picture had the classic Musial batting stance, obviously getting ready to hit here, or he's taking a pitch.

The adult version of me should track down a copy of the autograph.  One of the few older Musial certified autographs missing from my collection.

Twoish more.

In 1999, Fleer decided to use Stan Musial on the packaging for their flagship base set.  It was during those years it was called Fleer Tradition instead of just Fleer.   I was surprised at the time.  Although, the packing also featured J.D. Drew.  In 1999, baseball people were pretty sure that J.D. Drew was going to be the next Mickey Mantle/Stan Musial/Great Generational Hall of Fame player.  He ended up being a good player, but I am not sure he could have ever lived up to the hype.  

The boxes of Fleer cards.  Not my picture.  

Fleer placed Musial into the base set, plus they made a really nice insert set that highlighted different parts of Musial's life and career.  I believe it was only 10 cards.  Nice looking set though....

There are also autographed versions of the insert cards.  Not too difficult to find, but the base cards are great looking without the signature.  Highly recommended.

Musial also signed a lot of cards during the late 1990s.  They could be there own post, so I am going to limit myself to one autograph for this evening.  I have a favorite......

Not to say that his Greats of the Game, or SP Signature autographs are not worthy of a spot in your collection, they are, but I love these Century Legends cards.  I love the black and white picture with the blue autograph, great look.  Musial continued to sign as his health declined later in life, if you are going to take the time and money to buy one of his autographs, the 1990s era cards are definitely your best bet.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 48 - Rick Sutcliffe

A few weeks back I did a post on Tom Henke pitching his final season in a Cardinals uniform.  That was a great short term signing of a veteran player for the team.  There were a few others during the 1990s that did not work out quite as well.  Mainly, I suspect that some of these players were really on the Cardinals because they agreed to play for next to nothing.

If August Busch III is reading, you are welcome to correct that assumption in the comments.  

Just to state for the 40th time since I started writing this thread of 1990s posts, the Cardinals went cheap after August II, Gussie, died and his son took over the team.  Rick Sutcliffe had won 10 games with the Baltimore Orioles in 1993, but his ERA was 5.75.  Maybe that's not horrible pitching in Camden Yards during the steroid era, but he was clearly not the guy who led the National League in wins during the 1987, the Rookie of the Year in 1979, and the Cy Young in 1984. 

Most important reason for Rick Sutcliffe making an appearance on the 1994 Cardinals?  His salary was $250,000.  That was not the Major League minimum in 1994, but the players near him in terms of salary on the Cardinals included Vincente Palacios, John Habyan, Rheal Cormier, and Mike Perez.  Not the pricy part of the payroll.  

The 1994 season was Sutcliffe's last as a Major Leaguer.  He had two long stints on the disabled list, which limited him to just 16 starts in what amounted to half a season's games.  He actually ended up with a winning record, 6-4, in spite of the fact that his ERA ended at 6.52.  Sutcliffe had several games which did a lot to jump his ERA up, probably a little inflated.  

On to baseball cards.  I will do four cards for Sutcliffe, two from 1994 and two from 1995.  A few bonus cards at the end.  

Sutcliffe was always a mullet type of guy and this card shows off that hair.  He actually had some shorter hair at some point with the Cardinals.  I also like the sunglasses.  I know those were probably really cool in 1994.   I am not a glasses type of person, never worn them, and I don't do sunglasses either.  This pair actually remind me of Kenny Powers.  I guess you throw in the mullet......

makes me want to check to see if Rick Sutcliffe has ever taught P.E. class in North Carolina.  I like the Stadium Club cards, always nice photography.  I like the picture on the card, but I always thought the label maker bottom is little bit odd.  Wasn't there a Simpsons episode out around this time where Bart gets a label maker from his aunts for this birthday?  

and there you have it.  This was during Season 3, which aired in 1992.  Someone at Topps watched this episode and then designed this Stadium Club set.  

Next card.  

This is the short haired version of Rick Sutcliffe.  Not clearly as cool as the mullet.  This is much more along the lines of Rick Sutcliffe the guy who works on Sunday Night Baseball.  Throw a shirt, tie, and sport coat on him....

This card is from the 1994 Score Traded/Rookie set.  Everyone remembers these cards for the ARod rookie.  Always kind of liked the red borders with the Cardinals cards, but it stinks that the team did not have many cards in the set.  I think the best Cardinals card is either this Sutcliffe or John Mabry.  Slightly depressing.  

That was really it for his 1994 cards with the Cardinals.  He also had a few with the Orioles, but overall Sutcliffe just did not have many cards that year.  You can only imagine, given the season he had in 1994, that the selection of 1995 was even more sparse.  Sutcliffe had two different cards the year after he retired.  

First up.  

A Collector's Choice card.  Upper Deck always had nice photography on their cards.  Nice shot of Sutcliffe signing autographs.  Not sure what else is going on here.  

Next.  

Another Score card.  Nice enough picture and a decent card to go out with.  

One thing that is slightly disappointing about Sutcliffe's 1995 card selection is the fact that he does not have a Topps card.  I know that in 1994 Topps gave him a card with the Orioles......

which is understandable since he played the 1993 season with them.  Given the longevity of Sutcliffe's career, the fact that he won several major awards, it would have been nice if Topps had given him some sort of send off for the end of his career.  For what it is worth, they did end up giving Sutcliffe a few cards in the mid 2000s, which are pretty nice.  

and they thankfully avoid his time with the Cardinals.  The retirement years Sutcliffe cards only had a two year run, since there has not been a single card made of the former pitcher.