Double Helping of Piscotty

Thanksgiving has been good this year.  My in-laws were in town from northern Michigan and my wife and her sisters made a really good dinner.  I got the day off of work and had some really good time with my kids today.

I couldn't fit the cranberries on my plate and passed on the sweet potatoes.  Pretty sure I am one of the few people who lives in North Carolina who is not crazy about sweet potatoes.  

I had a good time today sorting out a few cards and sets that were lingering around my baseball card room and I also had the chance to sit down and scan a few cards.  Tonight I am going to share a pair of picked up a few weeks ago that were in my stack of cards that I sorted out today.  

Piscotty is one of my favorite current Cardinals.  First card.  

Love the Strata cards.  The cool thing about these is the authentication sticker that can be traced to a specific game.  Some of the jersey swatches are tied to some eventful games, others not so much.  Last month I picked up a Strata card of Astros card Dallas Keuchel who did not even play in the game tied to his jersey swatch.  

The Piscotty swatch?

The Cardinals won the game 10-2 against the Reds and Piscotty even played in the game.  He was hitless, but did walk and scored a run on a double by Mark Reynolds.  Not the best stat line by any means, but given the game that was connected to the Keuchel swatch, I am happy just knowing that Piscotty was actually in the game.

Next.

I have always really enjoyed the Bowman Inception cards and this year's were no different.  On-card sigs, nice design, etc.  Very cool.  Piscotty has actually been in previous Inception sets, but this might be my favorite autographed card of his over the past few years.  I like the card dark background with the faded area for the autograph.

Yes, I Am Excited Too Stephen

I bought a few ToppsNow cards during the 2016 season, but I generally avoided the cards.  Topps released a few hundred cards throughout the summer and fall and I am pretty sure that I own less than 5 of them.  It's not that I am totally against the idea of having an on-going set featuring cool events from throughout the season, it's just more about spending $10 every time something cool happened with a player, or team, that I collected.

Not going there.

While some of the cards are low print runs, and carry a premium on sites like Ebay, I have started to find a few cool cards that are a little bit under cost from their original $9.99 cost.  So, like anything I collect I have started to piece together some of the Cardinals cards and a few former Durham Bulls players.

Today, I am going to share a pair of new Cardinals Topps Now cards.  First up is outfielder Stephen Piscotty with a go ahead home run against the Cubs.....

There is so much to love about this card.  I am a fan of seeing players show a little bit of emotion, I am sure that Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez would have drilled Piscotty on his next at bat for pulling something like this, but I think it's good for drawing younger fans to the game.  You hit a home run 40 feet over the left-center field wall your allowed to be excited.  Especially when it is against a rival team.....

The video cuts away from Piscotty's leap, but you get the idea.  He was pretty jacked up about the home run.  A no doubter too.  Next....

This is actually my second copy of this card, but I got a deal on it from the same collector who flipped me the Piscotty card.  I have said it several times over the last few months, I am excited about the future of Alex Reyes.  Here's a little taste of the 101 MPH heat advertised on the front of the card.

First Hallmark, Now Topps

Sometime in the spring of 2004 I took a little bit of time out of my Saturday morning to drive to 1,000,000 Baseball Cards in the western part of St. Louis County.  It's been one of the more successful sports cards shops around that city, many other stores have been shuttered over the last twenty years.  On this particular Saturday I was going to check in on the dime and quarter boxes of Cardinals cards, along with any new wax that might catch my eye.

Surprisingly upon walking into the store I was handed a stack of cards and told it was National Trading Card Day.  There were an assortment of football, basketball, and baseball cards in the stack with cards from all the major brands of the day.  I'm not going to say that I was jumping up and down over the free cards, but free cards are free cards.

My favorite card out of the bunch has to be the Donruss Albert Pujols.

I never added National Trading Card Day to my calendar and I have not celebrated it since the day I was told about more than a decade ago.  I have run across the group of cards celebrating the "holiday" a few times over the years, but I don't give them much thought.  

Until this year earlier this summer.  

A few weeks back I was hanging out doing the things I do in a day: Working, driving to work, probably doing something around my house, and hanging out with my wife and kids.  It might have actually been kid when this took place.  Out of the blue, half of the card collectors on my Twitter feed, like literally half of my Twitter feed, and every Facebook card group I belong to started stammering about National Baseball Card Day. 

Naturally, I had to dig out the boxes with my set from 2004 thinking that National Trading Card Day and National Baseball Card Day were the same thing.  They were not.  National Trading Card Day has apparently disappeared, but never fear Topps invented National Baseball Card Day.   

Just like we can count on Hallmark to give us National Secretary's Day and National Office Assistant Day and Office Staff Appreciation Week, we now have card companies making up holidays.  Personally, I am hoping that National Baseball Card Day goes the way of National Trading Card Day and quickly disappears.  

However, it appears that Topps did give out cards or packs of cards.  I am not sure.  I personally received absolutely nothing from them.  I blame the airbrushing article, or maybe I was just not aware of how to receive the cards or packs this year.  

Anyhow, I ended up with a National Baseball Card Day Baseball Card.  They appear to be nicer than the cards that were given away for National Trading Card Day.  

Albert Pujols cards are nice, but Stephen Piscotty autographs are better.  As much as I like the idea of having Stephen Piscotty cards, especially the autographed variety showing up in my mailbox, I am still not thrilled with the idea of having a holiday for baseball cards that Topps somehow invented to promote snazzy and shiny cards.  

I actually made a post on National Baseball Card Day before I knew that shiny cards were being showered on collectors and that said "holiday" was created by a large company who happens to be in the business of baseball cards.  Initially I thought that it would be more of a holiday (no quotes-real celebration) that celebrated cards in general.  Collectors could share out cool stories about cool cards in their collections, non-collectors can tell you stories about how they used to collect, and others can just look at you crooked because you're thirty something and still collect baseball cards.

Just me?  

I am happy to have a nice Stephen Piscotty card, but he has had nice cards in almost every Topps set this year.   Just my opinion, but if we are going to have a card company created holiday, perhaps Topps should shower some kids with cards and not adults who turn around and sell and trade the cards to other adults.  After all, if they truly want the "holiday" to stick around and combine it with free stuff, perhaps there would be no better place to start than sparking a kids interest by giving them something cool that can be a good moment to share during a future National Baseball Card Day.  

A Bowman Cardinal With A Yankee. Twice.

I kind of skipped over the whole Bowman thing this year which is really unusual for me since I really like following along with the Minor Leagues.  I ended up not completely skipping the set outright, I did end up with a copy of the set, I just didn't bust open any packs to put together.  Just helped out by the generosity of a case breaker.  It's a little late to the party, but I have put together a few autographs from Bowman over the past few weeks.

My first Bowman autograph is a Cardinals prospect.  I bought the card and the seller threw in a Yankees autograph really cheap, so I couldn't pass it up....

This Piscotty autograph was one of the first cards I wanted to find out of Bowman.  I have been looking for a new Cardinals player to collect and have enjoyed picking up some Piscotty cards the last few months.  The right fielder is also having a great season with a .299/.374/.497 slash line, 13 home runs, 23 doubles, and 53 RBIs.  Looks a lot better than whatever Jason Heyward is batting at the moment.

My cheap Yankees autograph.....

Luis Severino was a really highly touted prospect back in 2015, but has not really done well in the Majors.  This year he is winless and has an ERA of 7.46.  At the same time he has pitched really well for Scranton in the International League.  I guess if he does not pan out this can go in my good Minor Leaguers box, but hopefully he can put it together for the Yankees.

So, my next two Bowman cards are similar to the first two autographs: One Cardinals autograph that I wanted and a Yankees card that was sort of put into the trade.  Cardinals autograph first:

Little bit of a gamble here, but DeJong has been one of the Cardinals better power prospects.  The team is not really great at developing power hitters, but this former Illinois State star might break the mold.  Last year DeJong hit 9 home runs in just 66 games in Rookie and A Ball.  This year he's on the Cardinals Double A affiliate in Springfield, Missouri where he has 17 home runs, 17 doubles, and 59 doubles.  Sounds good until you look at the 104 strikeouts and .314 OBP.  The Cardinals already have Randal Grichuk.....

My Yankees more or less throw in.....

Feel like Refsnyder is somewhat similar to Severino in some regards.  He's been good in the Minors, played better in the Majors than Severino, but not sure if the Yankees are going to give him much of a chance with Starlin Castro playing second.  I keep waiting for him to be traded......either of them.

Cards Malaise

For the last year, maybe two, I have felt a sort of malaise about collecting Cardinals cards.  I like players like Matt Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Matt Holliday.  However, there has just been a blah feeling about collecting their cards for the past year or so.  Holliday and Wainwright do not appear as signers in certified autograph releases anymore and their cards tend to be the same pattern of base cards mixed in with a few relic cards.  Matt Carpenter does sign for card companies, but I am not sure I am really excited about him as a collector.  I know that's not always been the case.  I loved this card way back when......

Maybe there have been too many Lance Lynn, Kolten Wong, Matt Adams cards the past few years that have dragged me down.  Not my favorite players, but I have still picked up cards of theirs in the past.  I even enjoyed a few of them, but not really feeling these players as good collection options at this point.  Probably my favorite card from these three.....

The Cardinals are having a rough season for the first time in five or six years.  The talent on the team has slowly been getting older and some of the talent has been leaving for other teams.  See Heyward and Lackey.  Still, I collected Cardinals cards through the 1990s and that probably was one of the worst stretches of play in the history of the franchise.  Through all of the losing I found players to collect: Ray Lankford, Brian Jordan, Fernando Tatis, and Mark McGwire.

I have been watching a few Cardinals games during the past week with the intention of finding a player to break my Cardinals collecting malaise and I think I have found a favorite new player.  At least, I am starting to really enjoy watching the Cardinals new right fielder Stephen Piscotty.  I had my doubts when he was coming up through the Minors, but the more he hits the more I believe.  I even have some cool cards of the Stanford alum from back in his prospect days.  This is probably my favorite.....

Now, if you have followed along in this space the last few years you know that I collect everything that is Ray Lankford.  Not many holes in that collection.  I am not going to go that far with Piscotty.  In fact, I will probably never go that far with another player as long as the current format of baseball card products holds for the foreseeable future.  Maybe Piscotty can be another Evan Longoria in my collection: lots of autographs and parallels, maybe even a few 1/1s, but I am not going to break the bank to collect every card....that's not even remotely possible anymore.  Here's my newest Piscotty.  Nothing fancy, but it's a start down a new path....

An Online Set? Why not.

The baseball season starts and I always have to check out the rosters for my teams to find a few projects for the season.  New players, new cards.  Old players, new cards.  All sorts of combinations of those words.  So, this post started sometime last fall when the Cardinals brought up outfielder Tommy Pham.  He's been in their system forever, just never stayed healthy.

He had a good end of the season and had a nice Postseason moment when he hit a home run against the Cubs in Game 1 of the NLDS.

and all of the Cardinals collectors lost their minds over Tommy Pham cards.  He has an autograph in the 2015 Topps set, but they are fairly expensive.  I decided to wait for the excitement over Tommy Pham to die down a little.  I went on Ebay, put a few of his cards on my watch list, and kind of ignored them for awhile.  

Prices came down a little bit on a few of his cards and I found a really cool looking Topps card of Pham that I thought looked really cool.  There was a Buy It Now and also one or two floating around in auctions.  

Pretty nice card.  I didn't know much about this card when I first started watching it, so I did a little digging and found that there was also a Stephen Piscotty card in this set.  Then I found out there were only 13 cards in the whole set.  Then I found a set for $10.  I bought them all.  They are all numbered out of 99 and are print run 99.  Pretty cool.  I guess Topps sold these sets in their online store.  Kind of cutting out the card shops there big guy....

The cards are also oversized at 5x7.  Not only are they postcard sized, but they also appear to be made out of the same material as the common postcard.  Perhaps an Office Max Brand index card.  The cards are really thin and the George Springer card has a little ding on the bottom right corner.  Here's a look at the other 12 cards...... 

A Cheap Call Up

I generally avoid shopping at the Topps Online store, but collectors can buy boxes and single cards there.  One of their "online exclusives" featured a set of 5x7 cards of players who were recently called up to the Majors.  The set is called the "Call Up Series".  The basic cards, which are serial numbered out of 99, cost collectors a mere $29.99 each through the store.  I did not buy one.  

However, I have been after the Stephen Piscotty card in the set, but I did not really feel like paying almost $30 for the card.  I watched and watched, finally one came up on Ebay that cost me just over $5.  Here's a look at the card......

The cards in the Call Up Series are based on the design of the 1952 Topps set.  The serial number on the card is in the lower left hand corner of the card.  Kind of small and hard to read.  Here's a look at the back of the card.....

Not a great back, nothing special happening on the backs of the cards.  Overall, I like the cards.  Topps already had one product this year that was based on the 1951 set, so it seems like a little repetitive to make another set off of the 1952 set.  Hmm.  

#MyCardMonday

I always try to post my weekly #MyCardMonday on Sunday evening, but sometimes I feel like I do better with the player when I wait the extra time and make my post on Monday evening.  I like the player in the post to be someone who is in the news and sometimes an extra few hours can change my mind on the player and card that I select.  Sunday evening I had a player already to go and post and then I waited.  In the middle of the day I checked Twitter and I found....

I was excited to see the news.  Piscotty has been regarded as one of the Cardinals top hitting prospects.  I was actually surprised the Cardinals have taken this long to try Piscotty out at the big league level given the fact that the team has lost Matt Adams for the rest of the season and they were without Matt Holliday for a good chunk of time.  It's been hard to wait, but I am excited to see what Piscotty will do with the Cardinals.

Since Piscotty is debuting this week in Chicago I am going with one of my favorite Piscotty cards from the first Bowman Inception set.

A Trip Into Big D's Part 2- Cardinals (Mizzou too)

In the first part of my A Trip Into Big D's I highlighted the Rays cards that I picked up at my favorite local card shop.  Besides picking up a handful of sweet Rays cards I also picked up some really nice Cardinals pieces too.  Again, the card shop owner Jimmy found all of these cards for me.  Always awesome to have an extra set of eyes looking out for cool cards.  Let's start simple:

This is a game jersey card out of this year's Gypsy Queen set.  Nice looking card of the Cardinals young first baseman.  I am not quite done with completing the Cardinals autographs and relics from this set, but I am close.  Adams was a need.  Along with the Adams card I picked up a copy of an autograph from a former Mizzou player Martin Rucker.  

Mizzou had a bunch of good tight ends starting somewhere in the mid 2000s.  Rucker was an All-American and was one of the primary offensive weapons on the 2007 team that was a Big 12 Championship game away from the BCS Championship Game.  They still beat KU.  

More good stuff.  Back to baseball.  

Topps puts out a ton of parallels.  I swear collectors could go crazy trying to put all of these things together, or at least I would.  I know people who love these.  I really slowed down on parallels a few years back when Topps went wild with camo, pink, sparkles, pies in the face, etc.  Overwhelmed.  I think I have a pink card or two, but none of them are Cardinals and they are whatever I happened to wander into out of the box or packs I opened.  This Freese is numbered out of 50.  

Yes, he's no longer a Cardinal, but Game 6 of the 2011 World Series means I collect him.  He probably does not pay for many of his own beverages around St. Louis.  

I have not done a lot with Rob Kaminsky yet, but he's 19, was a first round pick, and has some really good minor league numbers in A ball.  I've heard good things.  His cards are inexpensive.  Why not?  Two more really good Cardinals.  

Love this card with the green background and the red on the Cardinals jersey.  Not a commonly seen combination, but it works here.  Throw in a nice autograph from the Cardinals top prospect and this a beautiful card.  It's a high number for an Oscar autograph, but it's also an on card autograph.  Last, but not least.....

  

One of the other customers at Big D's pulled this card and already had a Piscotty autograph from his appearance at the Triple A All-Star game from earlier this summer.  Jimmy picked it up for me and I was happy to give this card a new home.  The Cardinals have a crowded outfield, so who knows what the team will do with Piscotty, but this card is a keeper.  Well done Topps. 

A Blogger Walks Into A Card Store....

I am prepping for school to start back up in the next two weeks which is always a little bit stressful, but I found a little bit of down town this week to stop by Big D's Card Shop in Raleigh.  I will have another post about my favorite local card shop again at some point tomorrow.  My post this evening is going to focus a bunch of cards that the owner of Big D's, Jimmy, has found and set aside for me over the past month or so.  

Three of the cards I picked up today are really nice autographs from one of my favorite former Durham Bulls Evan Longoria.  Each card is a pretty low print run and not the easiest of finds.  Let's start with a Topps Unique autograph.  

I do not recall ever seeing this card before Jimmy showed it to me and I am a pretty big Longoria fan.    I also really like the Topps Unique set.  It's numbered to just 25 copies and there has not been a copy of this card sold on Ebay recently.  In fact, there is not one of COMC, Collector Revolution, or Amazon.  Nowhere.  I had to pick up this card.  With none around and a print run of just 25, it's likely not around because the other copies of this card are in collections and they are not going anywhere.  

Next up is a nice copy of a Tribute Longoria autograph which is just serial numbered to 20.  I have seen plenty of Longoria autographs from the Tribute sets, but I have never seen this gold card.  I love the gold color, the two bat pieces, and the Longo autograph.  Next...

The highest numbered card here, but still just 99 copies and a rookie card to boot.  This is the blue edition of the Rays third baseman's rookie card.  The scan is a little blurry and scratchy because it's in a screw down holder.  This might be my favorite card out of the lot.  Yes, I know Longoria is wearing the old style Rays uniform, but I used to love these old Bowman's Best set.  This is a great card.  I might have to take it out of the screw down and rescan it.  

While I was at Big D's I also picked up a few other items.  I had two other cards that Jimmy had set aside for me at the store.  The first was a Matt Adams Jumbo Bat/Autograph card from the 2012 Topps Finest Set.  

I have a copy of this card, but it has a jersey relic instead of a bat relic.  I think I bought the jersey relic version of this card the first week the set was out and gave up on even looking for the bat relic or just did not look for it at all.  Either way, this card has found a happy home in my collection.  

Lastly, I picked up this nice in-person autograph of Cardinals prospect Stephen Piscotty.  He played here this week during the Triple A All-Star game.  The Durham Bulls had an autograph meet and greet on Tuesday, but I did not get to attend.  This Piscotty was in the shop and too hard for me to pass on.  Really cool picture and a nice autograph.  

Bonus items?  Yes.  

I picked up a card from a customer in the store.  Sent over a little bit of Paypal and landed this cool looking Longoria autograph.  You can't have too many.....

Jimmy also had a cool Jeremy Hellickson Durham Bulls program he had in the back of his shop.  Pretty sweet item.  

Trade Day At Big D's

My local card shop, Big D's Sports Cards in Raleigh, hosted their first trade day this weekend.  It had been awhile since I had attended a trade day, so I was really pumped up to see what a trade day would look like at my new favorite local card shop.  I had attended a few back in my St. Louis days, but Trade Days can be hard when everyone collects the Cardinals.  More of a Show and Tell Day, then trading.  I packed up a few boxes of autographs and relics cards, loaded them into a laundry basket, and headed out for the store. 

The atmosphere of the Big D's was great as usual.  There was a nice gathering of some of the store regulars to trade, the store owner Jimmy ordered some pizza, and the Broncos-Patriots AFC championship game was on in the store.  We had a great time trading, talking sports, and watching some football.  At the end of my time in the store I walked away with 4 Cardinals related cards for my collection.  Here are my latest four Cardinals related cards courtesy of the 1st Trade Day at Big D's Sports Cards:

2013 Bowman Hometown Stephen Piscotty

I started out picking up two smaller cards.  The first of the cards was this cool looking Bowman Hometowns Stephen Piscotty.  I had picked up a Trevor Rosenthal card like this last summer with a Missouri flag in the background.  I also have a copy of the Seth Maness card floating around which has a North Carolina flag.  I don't have a California connection, but Piscotty showed some pop and great plate discipline in two minor league stops last summer.  He's likely to end up in Double-A Springfield or Triple A Memphis to start the season.  He's a good hitter and his not far off from St. Louis, good investment. 

1993 Topps Black Gold Ozzie Smith

My other small pickup was an Ozzie Smith Black Gold card out of the 1993 Topps set.  This was the first Topps insert set featuring the gold concept which the company has used ad nauseum over the past two decades on their cards.  The 1993 insert set was put out in two 22 card series with 11 of each set belonging to National League players and the other 11 belonging to American Leaguers.   I did not have an Ozzie yet, so why not now. 

2007 UD Elements Matt Holliday Jersey/Auto

 

This card I can thank the store owner Jimmy for finding me.  He saw my post earlier in the week on these cards and had givenme the heads up on Twitter that he had the missing copy needed to finish off my run of Matt Holliday autographs from this set.  I love the purple pinstripe on the jersey swatch.  Last one for today....

2013 Topps Tribute Terry Pendleton Autograph

Pendelton won an MVP and a batting title in Atlanta, but actually started his career for the Cardinals and was their starting third baseman during their 1985 and 1987 World Series runs.  He was not much of a hitter during his time with the Cardinals, but was a good glove man at the corner.  I believe St. Louis Post Dispatch writer Bernie Miklasz once described Pendleton as a player who could "field like Brooks Robinson, but hit like Brooke Shields"  Terry Pendleton ended up have a nice overall career and has had a good run as a coach for the Braves since his retirement.