Random Ray - 1998 Sports Illustrated Then & Now

Sports Illustrated made baseball cards in the late 1990s.  

Actually, Fleer made the cards, but they were branded as Sports Illustrated cards.  Yes, there were several Sports Illustrated card products.  I don't know the difference between the "Then and Now" set and the regular base Sports Illustrated cards.  Honestly, I am not sure exactly sure what Fleer and Sports Illustrated were trying to do here.  I think the cards were supposed to be a Stadium Club type of set.  After all, Sports Illustrated was always all about the photography, so was Stadium Club.  

Anyway, Sports Illustrated flopped as a baseball card brand.  

I am not really sure I would say that the photography in this set was great.  I think I would describe them as more unique than anything else.  Is this a great photograph of Ray Lankford?  He is wearing Ron Gant's batting helmet backwards and he's bunting the ball.  There is grass behind him, so it's not like he's in a batting cage or anything.  I am guessing he was just messing around during Spring Training.  

I am not going to post all of Ray's Stadium Club cards to prove a point on a post about a Sports Illustrated card, but let's just say those pictures are a lot better.  

Ray Lankford was never much of a personality while he was playing for the Cardinals.  He just showed up and played baseball.  As for the bunting, young Ray Lankford might have dropped one down from time to time, but he was hitting behind Mark McGwire by this point in his career.  

Just an odd picture on the card.  

The back is weird.  

The stats are tiny and the majority of the back some sort of Sports Illustrated rating system where Harmon Killebrew, Lou Brock, and Brooks Robinson evaluate the players based on speed, power, and defense.  The ratings for Ray seem pretty fair.  Only in the steroid era could you hit 30 home runs and 35 doubles and get an "average" power rating.  There are other cards in this set that are a little bit off.  I applaud the effort by Fleer to come up with an original card back, but this does not really do anything for me.  

In conclusion, the Sports Illustrated brand did not last long in the baseball card world and that's not a bad thing.    

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 74 - Edgar Renteria

Ozzie Smith was the Cardinals shortstop for much of the 1990s, and was eventually replaced by Royce Clayton after he retired.  In 1998, the Cardinals traded Clayton away to the Texas Rangers, in the middle of the season, for third baseman Fernando Tatis.  The Cardinals played all sorts of different players at shortstop during the second half of the 1998, none of them were good.  

Prior to the 1999 season, the Cardinals traded Braden Looper, Armando Almanza, and Pablo Ozuna to the Marlins in exchange for Edgar Renteria. 

He's wearing teal on his rookie card.  You should buy this card.  

Renteria was only 19 when he reached the Majors, and 22 when he was traded to the Cardinals.  He was a work in progress at this point in his career, but he had also made a name for himself as one of the few Major Leaguers to have a walk off hit in the deciding game of the World Series.  

Only one year of 1990s baseball cards for Edgar Renteria in a Cardinals uni.  It was not actually really all that great for two reasons.  Kind of makes this a short post.  

Reason One- Topps used the same picture in all of their products.  All of their products.

Here's his 1999 Topps card.  

  

and his 1999 Topps Finest card.  

I think the smile is slightly different.  

I could scan his Bowman card and put it on here, but you will never believe the picture that Topps used for the card.  He's actually not holding the bat, but everything else is the same.  The photographer from Topps spent a whole two minutes taking pictures of Edgar Renteria in Spring Training.  

and I am spent.  

Reason 2- He has a bunch of cards that have a Cardinals logo, but the picture shows him as a Marlin.  

Like this one....

or this one.....

Of course, there are a few different Edgar Renteria cards from 1999 that get it right.  

and they are pretty nice.