The Best Cardinal Without A Card

It has been painful to watch the Cardinals the past few years.  There is the obvious fact that they have been passed by the Cubs as the rulers of the National League Central, but in my opinion there has been far more wrong with the team beyond the improvement of the Cubs on-field performance.

The team has been incredibly sloppy and deeply flawed in many different ways...

Bad defense.  

Bad baserunning.  

Bad pitching.  

Not sure there is a video clip, or picture, that could sum up the poor quality of Matheny's poor in game strategy.  It's horrible.  After spending my life watching Whitey Herzog, Joe Torre, and Tony LaRussa there is no doubt that I have been spoiled by quality managers......

but even by mediocre manager standards Matheny is still bad.  

There have been plenty of Matheny cards that have been made since he took over the Cardinals managing gig in 2012, but I have posted none of them.  He is one St. Louis player/manager I can live without in my collection.  I have posted Tate Matheny cards.......

but I am not touching Mike.  He's got some cards in my collection, but only what I need to finish the sets that I have in closet.  There are not really any "cool" Matheny cards floating around in my baseball card room.  

How did we get here?  The three managers before Matheny, there were short-term managers between Herzog and Torre and Torre and LaRussa, the Cardinals did things the right way.  The teams always did a great job of fielding....

Played good defense in the outfield....

on the infield.....

they ran the bases well....

and they had timely hitting.  Oh, and they ran the bases well after the timely hitting.  

Not to excuse Matheny, he's still a garbage manager, but the three previous managers had someone on their staff in common.  In fact, he started out with the Cardinals in the early 1940s before World War II as a player in their Minor League system, did some managing in the Minors with the Cardinals after his playing career flamed out before the Majors, and eventually settled into a role with the team as a roving instructor.  

The Cardinals organization referred to him as "The Professor"

In the late 1960s he worked with former Phillies infielder George "Sparky" Anderson as he transitioned over to managing Minor League teams for the Cardinals.  He apparently went on to be a pretty good manager.  He also ended up working with former A's utility infielder Tony LaRussa as a player during his final year with the New Orleans Pelicans, a Cardinals Minor League team at that time.  

George Kissell might be one of the most important members of the Cardinals organization that nobody knows much about outside of St. Louis.  He did work on the coaching staff of Red Schoendienst for a time in the 1970s and made it onto the bottom of a baseball card as a coach.....

Kissell did not ever get his own card though since he was only a coach.  You would think that with all of the gimmicky cards that Topps comes up with every year that we could get a card of coach that was with a team through seven World Series Championships.  How can he not get some sort of card?  That's more World Series winners than all the other Major League teams outside of the Yankees, A's, Giants, and Red Sox.  

We've had a card with George W. Bush photoshopped into the crowd and Mickey Mantle into the dugout....

we've even had a squirrel get a baseball card with Skip Schumaker's shoe.....

It's hard to believe that George Kissell is cardless.  

I was fortunate enough to spot something last week and I honestly thought that some other Cardinals collector would jump on it and push it to a place I was unwilling to go in terms of cost.  I was surprised in the end that nobody else touched it.  

An actual George Kissel card.  Not with Red Schoendienst, but all by himself.  

It's actually the photo proof card that Topps used to make the 1974 Red Schoendienst card at the top of the post.  It's not necessarily a baseball card in the traditional sense, but it's still something.  Considering their is not an actual stand alone George Kissell card this is as close as it gets for the moment.  

Maybe one day someone at one of the card companies will wake up and decide to give George Kissel a card.  Sadly, he passed away after a car accident in Tampa in 2008....

While it would be a little bit late for Kissell to enjoy his own card, I am certain that it would likely be a hit with Cardinals collectors.  I am sure that if Topps can make a card with Abe Lincoln and Ryan Dempster they can find a spot in a set for a coach like George Kissell.  

A Matheny I Actually Like....

The Cardinals are my Major League team of choice, but for the last few years they have frustrated me to no end at times.  More specifically, I cannot stand Mike Matheny.  I rarely voice this opinion in this space, but if you were to sit down and watch a Cardinals game with me, or follow me on social media my distain for the former Major League catcher would be a little bit more evident.  I could write a whole dissertation about specific reasons, but I am not going to get into that at the moment.  Here's one to think about....

Aledmys Diaz was one of the better rookies in baseball last year and one of the best offensive players on the Cardinals.  He spent a month batting eighth and played seven games batting ninth.

Which brings me to a Matheny I actually like.....

I was first introduced to Tate Matheny a few years ago while he was playing for the USA Baseball College team during the summer.  He's Mike's son and attended school at Missouri State where he was one of the better players in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Playing for USA Baseball means that he gets baseball cards.  Most of Matheny's cards are in the 2014 and 2015 products.  When these cards first came out they were a little pricey, but they have fallen back in price a little bit since Tate was drafted by the Red Sox.  Sounds a little bit backwards considering a lot of the USA Baseball College players end up being high end draft picks and pretty good prospects, however Matheny does not really fit into that category.

He was drafted in the 23rd round, but still actually appeared in the 2015 Bowman Chrome set.  The autograph is just as affordable as the USA Baseball signatures, so I picked one of those up too....

Cool airbrushing.  

Matheny is still just 22, but in a year and a half in the Minors is slashing .247/.295/.329 with 5 home runs, 4 triples, and 27 doubles.  Not likely to get promoted up the chain with those types of numbers. Still cool to pick up a pair of cards of a player I got to see play locally.  

A Night Out At USA Baseball

A lot of the games that I attend in person are Durham Bulls games, but I have decided to do a little bit better job at showing off some of the great baseball that is around central North Carolina.  We may not have a Major League team, but there are plenty of minor league and amateur baseball games around here.  Tonight I took a short 10 minute excursion up NC55 to the USA Baseball training complex to watch the College National Team battle a college team from the Chinese Taipei.  The USA Baseball Stadium is small, but a really nice complex.  

Here's a look at the field.  Not a huge crowd, but definitely some die hard baseball fans were in attendance.  There is a scout section behind home plate which was pretty full too.  The College All-Star team consists of a group of very good college players.  There are a few that I would love to add to the roster, but I am sure there is a reason that they are elsewhere.  Here's a look at this year's squad.....

The starting pitcher for tonight's game was Thomas Eshelman from Cal State Fullerton.  Eshelman was the College Freshman pitcher of the year in 2013 for the Titans and also made the Baseball America All American Team.  Eshelman is a big guy, but seems to rely a lot on control.  USA Baseball does not have a stadium radar gun, but there are so many scouts around the stadium you can just kind of listen and figure out how hard they are throwing.  Eshelman seemed to live in the low 90s.  Taipei had one big inning against the right-handed pitcher who exited the game with a 3-3 tie.  Here is Eshelman warming up in the first.....

The next pitcher into the game was more impressive than Eshelman.  In fact, it was Eshelman's teammate from Cal State Fullerton Justin Garza.  He's short (5'11) and only weighs 170 pounds, but he has an arm.  He reminds me a lot of Marcus Stroman who I saw pitch at Duke.  Garza may be short, but he has an arm.  

Garza seemed to be sitting in the mid 90s and had some sort of second pitch which he flipped up from time to time.  Hitters seemed completely off while Garza was in the game.  Several sites have him projected as a first rounder.  Seems like a legit talent.  He threw a no-hitter last year at Fullerton....

I also spent a little bit of time checking out shortstop Alex Bregman who should be another first round draft pick next year.  I would guess he'd be in the top half of the first round.  The LSU shortstop is extremely polished in the field and has a good bat for a middle infielder too.  He made a great play in the field tonight, but I did not get any pictures or video clips of him.  Another night.  Here's a clip of him hitting a home run against Houston in the NCAA regionals last year.  

Last player I will share tonight is Tate Matheny who is the son of Cardinals manager Mike Matheny.  If you know me away from this blog you are probably aware of the fact that I am slightly hard on the Cardinals manager.  I went into this game with a clear mind and paid a little extra attention to this Missouri State All American.  Matheny was playing centerfield tonight and was batting fourth in the lineup.  Here's his first at-bat which resulted in an RBI single.  

Matheny did a great job of going the other way with that ball and getting the run home from third.  I have one more video of a Matheny at-bat, but he flies out.  

Matheny also made a great play in the field during the game.  A Taipei batter hit a ball towards the right-center gap.  Matheny had a bad read on the ball and actually broke in at first.  He ran back and to his right, reached up over his shoulder, and made a leaping catch to take away a double or triple.  

Overall it was a great night to take in a game at the USA Baseball complex.  The game ended in a 5-5 tie (Ann Coulter would be irked) in extra innings.  The two teams play a few more games this week.  I might have to go back and check out Louisville pitcher Kyle Funkhouser.