Baseball Card People Are The Best.......

I received a package of cards from Mark over at San Jose Fuji a few weeks back, it took a day off school to get them scanned with a write up. Mark has been writing on that blog for more than a decade and it is easily one of the best blogs out there. Definitely worth your time to go check out.  

Here are the cards in the package.  

First up is an oversized card of former Cardinals second baseman Tommy Herr.  

The card comes from the 1986 Donruss All-Star Pop-Ups set.  You can see the outline around Herr, which can pull out or push in, the card stand-ups with the Metrodome in the background. The 1985 MLB ALL-Star Game was hosted by the Twins and Herr was the National League starting second baseman over Ryne Sandberg.  

The back of the card features the All-Star Game logo and directions for the fold-out.  No mention of Herr getting 110 RBIs with only 8 home runs in 1985, which I find to be one of the cooler stat lines from the decade. Still, I love these cards.   

Next up, a 1981 Kellogg's card of Gary Templeton.  

The 1970s and 1980s Kellogg's sets are always so much fun. This was the only full-sized, non-mini Kellogg's set from the 1980s and prominently featured all the concrete, cookie cutter stadium from this era of baseball in all their glory, including Busch Stadium.  

The arches.

The red seats.  

The concrete overhang.  

There are non-Cardinals players with pictures inside of Busch Stadium from this era as well.  Great card of a guy who was one of the better shortstops in the National League during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  

Next up, more 1981 Cardinals cards.  

This trio of cards is from the 1981 Topps Scratch-Offs set. Great little oddball set. Love that the Cardinals players are all wearing the powder blue road unis on these cards. Great hair on display here as well. 

Next up. 

This might be my favorite card in this package.   

I do not think I have ever seen this card and I have never heard of Holsum Bread. Still, I love the looks of this round card with the red border. Definitely trending towards some type of product that appealed more to kids during Vince Coleman's time with the Cardinals, I did some digging into the background here.  

The card comes from the 1990 Holsum set, which was a small 20 card set distributed in packages of white bread. Holsum was a common bakery brand during the 1980s and 1990s. However, there is not a Holsum Bread Bakery in St. Louis, rather the Holsum products sold in that market are contracted out to a regional bakery there that sells Holsum Bread under various brand names. So, the Holsum Bread Brand in the St. Louis area........

We did not eat Bunny Bread in my house.

I missed out, but I like this card even more after playing connect the corporate bakery dots online.  

Next up.....

One cannot have Vince Coleman and not Willie McGee.  This is from the 1988 Topps UK Mini set. Good looking design and I love the photo on the front of the card. Not many 1980s Cardinals cards with photographs inside of Busch, but these sorts of ground level shots are really rare. I believe this might be from a 1987 World Series game. McGee has a patch on his front sleeve, it is blurry, but those playoff games were the only time the team wore a patch that season.

Mark also included a nice relic card of pitcher turned outfielder Rick Ankiel. Before Othani, there was Ankiel. Not quite the same player, not the same circumstances either.  

Onward........

The next three cards are from the 1995 Signature Rookies Autographs, which borrow their design from the Old Judge tobacco cards. The majority of players in this set are from the high Minors with a surprising number being former Major League Players.  

Petkovsek was a long reliever for the mid 1990s Cardinals teams. He actually won 11 games for the 1996 National League Central team that came within a game of getting to the World Series. Since Petkovsek was in the Majors at the time this card was produced, I am curious as to where they got the uniform for this picture. Prior to being on the Cardinals, Petkovsek had been pitching for the Louisville Redbirds and Tuscon Toros.  Looks like neither.  

Frascatore was another 1990s relief pitcher for the Cardinals. He had played with the Cardinals in 1995, but spent a lot of time going in between St. Louis and Louisville.  This looks like a Memphis Redbirds uniform with a random "O" airbrushed onto the hat.  

Last up, T.J. Matthews. He was a high-leverage reliever who was Eckersley's set-up man when LaRussa first started managing the Cardinals. Matthews ended up getting traded to the A's in the Mark McGwire deal. Matthews is actually wearing an Arkansas Travelers uniform on this card. The hat may be altered slightly, but that was the Cardinals Double A team at the time.  

Nice looking cards. All three have great signatures too.  Can you imagine signing 6,000 copies of a card?  

Last card from the package.  

I recently learned an interesting Sean Lowe factoid at the end of the 2022 baseball season.  

For background......Sean Lowe was selected by the Cardinals in the first round of the 1988 MLB Draft. His first baseball card was in the 1989 Bowman set. He was oft-injured and ended up spending the majority of his short career as a middle reliever for the Chicago White Sox.  

Cool factoid.  

On Jun 16, 2001 the Cardinals were playing the White Sox and leading 6-3 in the seventh inning. Shortstop Placido Polanco started the inning with a walk, which was followed by a J.D. Drew single. The White Sox brought in Sean Lowe to pitch to Pujols.  

What happened next, only happened once in the career of Albert Pujols.....

It's hard to read, but Pujols sac bunted Polanco and J.D. Drew over a base.  

Overall, this was a great package of baseball cards. I am always impressed by the generosity of the people in this hobby. Thank you, Mark, I will drop something in the mail for you one of these weekends.  

Sunday Simbas

Yesterday, I posted a gaggle of former Durham Bulls players who signed for the Topps Heritage set this year. However, I did not forget about the Cardinals. They also have several players who signed for Heritage, but after looking at the checklist, there was an easy to choice to be made here. 

I bought a Ted Simmons.  

Of all the Cardinals in the Hall of Fame, he is easily the player who is grossly under represented on baseball cards. Up until last year, I think there were more Dennis Eckersley autographs as a Cardinal than Ted Simmons. 

That's not good.

I am not sure if the lack of interest was from Simmons not wanting to sign or card companies not asking him to sign.  If he did not want to sign, I completely understand.  That's his choice.  If card companies did not ask, I would be a little disappointed.  

I like this card a little more than the one that Topps released in the 2018 Archives set pictured below.  

Both are great cards, so really I am splitting hairs by telling you that I like one card over another.  

While I am here talking about Ted Simmons, I also wanted to take a moment and share a pair of cards I found/received in the last month, but did not post. I do not do much with the Topps Now cards, but this was a card I got because of combined shipping. 

I did not realize that Topps gave players a card when they were elected to the Hall of Fame. Sweet that old Ted Simmons still has the long hair.  

Last one.  

I think that this was a stadium giveaway from the Pirates of some sort, but Ted Simmons worked for the team in several different capacities during the early 1990s after retiring from baseball. For a time, he was the general manager, but resigned due to stress related health problems.

The centering is not great both side-to-side and top-to-bottom, but I got this card in a random box of cards that a parent sent into school.  Hard to argue with free. 

Set Appreciation Post #5 - 1979 Kellogg's

I am glad to be out of the 2000s cards for this week's post.  I figured a 1970s set would be fun for this week, so I am going with the 1979 Kellogg's set.  It's a smaller set, like all of the Kellogg's sets, but there is still plenty of to talk about. 

Here are my highlights:

Design 

Two posts in a row with a Bruce Sutter card.  Totally on accident, I always scan the first card in the set for this section of my post.  It's pretty typical of the Kellogg's cards from the 1970s and 1980s. 

It's got the lenticular front with a Kellogg's logo at the top.  It's not my favorite Kellogg's set design (1970).  It's not the worst Kellogg's design (1978).  It's sort of in the middle, maybe the bottom of the middle.  A lot of the design elements on the Kellogg's cards reappear frequently, but I still love them.  There is something about the arch way thing at the top that I don't love.  I think the arch is supposed to be 3-D, but the Kellogg's script on the front of it is 2-D and crosses lines.  That's really picky. 

THE BELL CURVE OF KELLOGG'S CARDS 

I went ahead and put this set on a bell curve of Kellogg's cards.  I will do more Kellogg's sets in the future.  We can revisit the Kellogg's bell curve when I get to the other sets.  The 1970 Kellogg's Johnny Bench might need to be further to the right.  

The card backs of the Kellogg's sets are always really busy.  The small dissertation is a common element, although they feel shorter on the 1979 cards.  Still, there is some good information in the blurb.  I like how this card describes Bruce Sutter's "forkball", which he calls a "split-fingered fastball".  Those are two different pitches nowadays, but I guess not back in the late 1970s.

The Busch Stadium Cards 

You know, there are not a ton of cards that have photographs taken in Busch Stadium.  The Kellogg's cards always seem to have cookie cutter stadium backgrounds though.  We all know the best cookie cutter stadium was Busch Stadium, so it was inevitable that the two ended up together. 

Not all of the photos were taken at Busch for the 1979 Kellogg's set, plenty of Three Rivers and Veterans in there too, but there are a few cards in the set that are obviously in Busch Stadium.   

Pete Rose. 

Red seats and arches, definitely Busch Stadium.  I think the Stadium Club, which was a restaurant in left field, is over his left shoulder. 

Lee Mazzilli.  Busch Stadium. 

I only picked out two cards, but I know there are a few others.  If my life had a few less things going on, I would have spent the time to examine and scan each card taken at Busch Stadium.  I would like to think that the inclusion of Busch Stadium in this set will help it in the rankings when we get to the bottom of the post. 

The R. Jackson Cards 

I had not been around for very long in 1979, so I don't know that this is a fact, but I am guessing the average baseball fan was aware of Reggie Jackson at this time.  When I was a kid, he was an old guy on the Angels and A's. 

He also tried to kill the Queen of England in the Naked Gun movie. 

If you saw Reggie Jackson on a baseball card wearing a Yankees uniform, would you need a first or middle initial to be able to tell him apart from another baseball player?  Would you confuse him for someone, say an Angels infielder? 

Well, the good people at Kellogg's decided to make sure you did not confuse Reggie Jackson and Ron Jackson in this set.  No relation by the way.  Reggie Jackson is identified as R.M. Jackson on his card...

and Ron Jackson has R.D. Jackson on his card.  

What does the M stand for? 

Martinez.  

Now that I have a second card back in the post, I like how these have the player's favorite hobby listed along side their height and weight.  Bruce Sutter liked hunting.  Reggie Jackson likes automobiles.  I cannot find anything about Bruce Sutter hunting, but apparently Reggie Jackson fixes up old cars, and is really good at it.  

I don't know what kind of card Reggie is driving here, but the tail fins on the back are making me think something from the 1950s or 1960s. 

Best Cardinals Card 

I only had two Cardinals to choose from in the 1979 Kellogg's set.  There is a card of long-time pitcher Bob Forsch, along with catcher Ted Simmons.  I went with the Simba card.  There was not a lot of separation between the two in terms of quality, but I kind of like the background on the Simmons card. 

It's a blue blur for some reason, rather than the cookie cutter stadium mentioned earlier.  I am not sure it would make for a great set, but this card it works.  Fits in nicely with the powder blue Cardinals uniform, which you guys know I always like to see on cards. 

The back of Simmons Kellogg's card.  Check out that hobby.  

Not sure that would fly anymore with modern baseball contracts.  

Favorite Former Durham Bulls Player 

I had to flip through the stack two or three times to make sure this was the right answer.  The right answer, because there is only one former Durham Bulls player in this set.  No Joe Morgan, Greg Luzinski, Ken Singleton, or Rusty Staub.  Those are the go-to names when looking for the 1970s Durham Bulls players in stacks of cards.  

Those were good players too.  They were in all the 1970s sets.  

None of them are in here.  I was really genuinely surprised that none of them are here.  I had to go find out what happened to these players in 1978.  Craig Reynolds in this set. Craig Reynolds.  

Joe Morgan - He had the worst season of his career.  I will give you that Kellogg's.  It's still Joe Morgan though.  Everyone loves Hall of Famers, even when they have down seasons.  

Rusty Staub - Hit 24 home runs and drove in 121 runs.  Could be a bit of an omission.  Possibly.  

Greg Luzinski - Hit 35 home runs, drove in 101 runs, and made the National League All-Star team.  That home run total, 35 home runs, was better than Mike Schmidt by 14. Schmidt got a card, because he's Mike Schmidt.  I want to point you back up to Joe Morgan, but let's keep going.  

Ken Singleton - He only hit 21 home runs, drove in 81 runs, walked more than he struck out, and batted .293.  

None of that gets you into the 1978 Kellogg's set?   

The lone Durham Bulls player was a solid Major League pitcher, and 1978 was his best season in the Majors.  I am not arguing that he shouldn't be here.  Just surprised that the other players listed above were not on the checklist.  

The answer is Jon Matlack.  

He was in the top 10 for a bunch of important stats during the 1978 season including ERA and Strikeouts.  Matlack's back of the baseball card numbers sometimes did not look the best, but the Sabermetrics really have helped show how good he was at times during his career.  

Here is the back of his card. 

First, I love that his hobby is listed as "sports", and he's a professional athlete.  

Good job Kellogg's.  

According to his baseball card, he won 15 games and had an ERA just below 3.  Looks like a good enough season.  However,  go over to Baseball-Reference, and he had the second highest WAR for a pitcher in 1978, along with the second highest Adjusted ERA+ and FIP.  Basically, he was better than every pitcher in the American League in 1978 who wasn't named Ron Guidry.  

Nolan Ryan isn't even in the top 10 for some of those categories, but he did strikeout a bunch of people.    

Best Non-Cardinal/Non-Durham Bulls Card 

You watched baseball in the 1970s?  

Yes?  Then you know Vida Blue.  

No?  Then you might not know Vida Blue.  

I started watching baseball in the 1980s.  Vida Blue was an old guy who was a mediocre pitcher on the Giants.  I likely did not bother to turn his card over to see that he won a ton of games for the A's in the early 1970s.  If I did turn it over to give it a glance, Topps included facts about him throwing touchdowns in high school.  

Thanks a lot 1987 Topps.  

A Cy Young Award and three World Series rings weren't good enough to be a fact?  

Beyond appearing mediocre to the 10 year old me, Vida Blue always seemed like the happiest guy on all of his baseball cards.  He is always smiling on his cards, not just on one, but seemingly all of them.  It's one of the things I look for when I find a stack of 1970s or early 1980s cards.  

He actually was not happy on all them, but there is a high percentage where he is smiling.  

The 1979 Kellogg's is no different.  Vida Blue seems genuinely happy to be on this baseball card.  It wouldn't surprise me that he ate a bunch of Kellogg's cereal in an attempt to find this card.  

I will do more research on the number of cards where Vida Blue appears happy and report back a different day.  

How Does It Compare?  

Not sure we need a lot of discussion here.  

5. 2000 U.D. Ionix 

4. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

3. 2001 Fleer EX 

2.1979 Kellogg's 

1. 2002 Topps Super Teams 

I am putting it second.  This isn't even my favorite Kellogg's set.  I will do an 80s set next week.  Super Teams might be in trouble.  

A 1980s Card Part 16 - 1980 Topps Super Ted Simmons

Ted Simmons always had some great facial expressions on his cards.  Someone could make one of those emotion/facial expression posters for Simmons based on his baseball card photos.  Blues fans have made them for Jordan Binnington, I am sure we can get one for Ted Simmons. 

I am not sure of how the Super cards were packaged, but they are oversized cards with a blank back.  Eventually Topps made them to fit the current baseball design, but during this time period they were just a studio style picture.

I picked this card up at a little card shop in south St. Louis County about 15 years ago.  It has a gray back, most have a white back. 

The gray card backs were promotional items, but I am not sure who or where they were given out.  There is no consistent story on that anywhere.  There is also not much of a price difference when you look at these cards on Ebay.  These must have been handed out in the thousands.

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 51- 1992 Pacific Cardinals 100th Anniversary Set Part 2

I posted cards from the first half of this set last week.  The set is generally sequential, so the majority of players in last week's post were from the Cardinals 1920s through the 1950s.  For this week's post, I am moving forward to the modern portion of the set starting with the 1960s players.  Similar to the first half of the set, there are plenty of Hall of Fame players in here along with a few others who were solid long term contributors.

Also a few odd choices.  One I sort of get, the other is puzzling.   Let's go weird first.

The Cardinals won nothing during the 1970s.  One of their biggest problems was trading away young talented players.  Steve Carlton for Rick Wise.  Pretty terrible trade, but the Cardinals turned around and traded Rick Wise to the Red Sox for their young All-Star power hitting outfielder Reggie Smith. He played two and a half years in St. Louis, made the National League All-Star team twice, but he got off to a slow start in 1976 and was traded to the Dodgers for a few Dodger Dogs.

Short term player, no playoffs, and no World Series rings.  I would have gone Jack Clark here.  He helped the Cardinals win the National League twice and had one of the franchise's all-time great Postseason home runs against the Dodgers in the 1985 NLCS.  I guess we weren't far enough removed from the Jack Clark exit when this set was made.....

Dick Allen would have been another good short term player for the modern part of the set.  He was involved in the Curt Flood trade, that ultimately lead to players getting free agency rights, as the big piece coming in return for the Cardinals outfielder and McCarver.

The other short term Cardinal in the second half of the set was Lee Smith.  He makes a little more sense than Reggie Smith.

Lee Smith was traded to the Cardinals in early May of 1990.  By the time this set rolled around he had only been on the team for a year and half.  Not very long for an all-time greats type of product.   Smith had set the National League single season save record the previous season.  While I harp on the end of Lee Smith's time with the Cardinals, he was still one of the game's most dominating relief pitchers when he first joined the team.

Smith was also nearing the all-time saves record at this point in his career.  Given how he had pitched during the first year plus of his time in St. Louis, there was little reason to think he was not going to reach the mark in a Cardinals uniform.  A little more understandable than Reggie Smith, but claiming him as an all-time great Cardinal is a stretch.

A few Hall of Famers, a few players who should be in the Hall of Fame.

Gibby.  Hall of Famer.  I love the picture on this card.  You could just look at the pose and tell its Bob Gibson.  That fall of towards first base, I would recognize it anywhere.  

There are a lot of staged photographs in the set, but very few portrait style cards.  In the modern section of the set this Brock card, along with Bake McBride, are the only two cards done in this style.  Very nice looking card.  A young Lou Brock picture too.  The majority of the cards have pictures that seem like they were taken during the prime of the players career.  

Quality action shot on the Ozzie Smith card.  He looks like he is barely jumping on this card.

I do love that the Expos player is a pitcher wearing a jacket to run the bases, you don't see many pitchers do this anymore.  Felt like it was commonplace while I was growing up watching baseball.  Ozzie is also an important card in this due to the fact that he was still playing at this point.  An actual Cardinal though, not just a good player who happened to be on the team like Lee Smith.  He lost a little bit of his shine defensively, his last Gold Glove was in 1992, but he actually was a pretty good hitter later in his career.

Two almost Hall of Famers.

Most of the Cardinals players who have their numbers retired by the team are in the baseball Hall of Fame.  Boyer is the one exception.  Although, he is probably a lot closer to that honor than most people realize.  The best years of Boyer look really similar to that of players like Scott Rolen and Adrian Beltre.  He often hit somewhere between 25 and 30 home runs, drove in 90 to 100 runs, and hit in the .290s/low .300s.  Boyer was the 1964 National League MVP and hit a grand slam in the sixth game of the World Series to help the Cardinals defeat the Yankees.  

The problem with Boyer's career is the end.  He had a rather meteoric decline and bounced around between the Mets, White Sox, and Dodgers.  

Great looking card too.  Love the posed shot of him fielding a ground ball.  

Last card.  

While I can say that Boyer has an argument to be in the Hall, I also understand there is an argument against him.  Simmons has an even better argument and there is not much to refute the fact that he should be in the Hall of Fame.  Arguments like, "He was not on a good team until the end of his career" are weak sauce.  Think of the best offensive catchers, look at Simmons counting numbers, and he's right there with the group of Piaza, Bench, Fisk, and Berra.  By the way, Piazza has less World Series at bats as Simmons with the same number of rings.  

I like this card with the powder blue road uniform and Simmons hitting.  Definitely an offensive player, he had some great numbers at the dish for some 1970s Cardinals teams that were very forgettable.  

Simba

I have a pretty complete collection of autographs from great Cardinals players.  Musial, Pujols, Gibson, Brock, Enos Slaughter, I could go on.  There have been 37 players who have appeared for the Cardinals who have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  I have an autograph of all the Cardinals Hall of Famers who appeared for the team after 1950.  

Musial and Pujols are easily my favorites.  

Pujols is not yet in the Hall, but that is just a formality.  He's easily a first ballot Hall of Famer and should probably ended up on almost every ballot cast the year he eligible.  I'd say all of them, but you know there is someone who will leave him off for whatever reason.   

Stan is Stan.  No explanation really needed.  

Some of the players on the official list that the Cardinals have on their website are fairly suspect as to their connection with the team.  Picking a recent example, they have Dennis Eckersley on the list.  I agree that Dennis Eckersley belongs in the Hall, but I do not really associate him with the Cardinals.  I still have his autograph.

I do own Cardinals autographs of Eck, but if their Hall of Fame credentials were earned elsewhere then that is the card that I try to track down.  Eckersley was a Red Sox, Indian, and Athletic.  Same can be said of former Cardinals like Steve Carlton and Orlando Cepeda.  Also on the Cardinals official list, far more connection to the team than players like Eckersley.  In fact, I am not even sure that I own an autograph of Carlton in a Cardinals uniform, only the Phillies.  

At least John Smoltz is not on the list.  Yes, he was on the Cardinals for five minutes, or seven starts in 2009.    

I also try to find autographs of the Cardinals players I believe have an argument to be in the Hall of Fame.  Whether they ever make it or not is not my decision, but I also like to pick up their autographs too.  Recently Rolen and Edmonds have both appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot and failed to get in....

Rolen's career was shortened by injuries, he lost most of his power during the latter years of his career, but still deserves a lot more consideration than he's being given.  Then there is Jim Edmonds....

who is not even on the ballot anymore.  How did that even happen?  I think I have ranted about this on several different posts, so I will spare you a few minutes of your time.  

I like using the Jaffe JAWS scores on Baseball-Reference a lot to see how players compare to Hall of Famers.  Both Rolen and Edmonds are in the top 20 at their positions and have some similar numbers to the players that have been elected to Cooperstown.  

There are some older Cardinals who have similar Hall of Fame arguments as Edmonds and Rolen, the best of the group belonging to former catcher Ted Simmons.  "Simba", as he was known during his playing days, spent thirteen years playing for the Cardinals.  Mainly a player of the 1970s, he had a cup of coffee with the Cardinals in the late 1960s and was also on the team for a short time in the early 1980s.  Simmons is in the team's Hall of Fame and there is a strong argument that he belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  

His case in numbers is below.  Remember on the awards, that his career paralleled Johnny Bench.  Bench played on a winning team, Simmons did not.  Let all the Hall of Fame arguers, especially Cardinals and Reds fans, remember that Barry Larkin only won 3 Gold Gloves, still in the Hall, and he played 11 years of his career while Ozzie was active......

• Simmons appeared in 8 All-Star games 
• Won the National League Silver Slugger in 1980.  
• Received MVP votes in 7 different seasons
• His career WAR totals align with the average of the other 15 catchers already in the Hall of Fame. 
• Simmons retired as the all-time hits leader amongst players at the position
• He is second in RBIs as a catcher behind Yogi Berra
• When he retired he was in the Top 10 for home runs
• and Simmons is 6th in runs scored as a catcher 

He actually came pretty close to getting enough votes during last year's veterans committee meeting, or whatever they call that group of former players now.  

Now, it's not like I have been trying to ignore Simmons cards on my blog, but he's probably the only Cardinals player who is in the Hall, or has an argument to be in the Hall of Fame who has never really had their own post here.  He's been mentioned, had a few cards posted from time to time, but no post with Simmons as the main card.  

Until now.  Someone finally made a Ted Simmons autograph.  Well, one I like enough to own.  He did have an autograph in Panini's Golden Age set, but those cards looked terrible.  

This is a Ted Simmons card.....

This is from this year's Topps Archives set.  He actually has two certified autographs this year, the other is in a Panini product, it's not bad looking, but it is also not on a 1977 Topps designed card.  Definitely in the window of Simba's prime.  

I like the backs of the 1977 Topps cards, so you get to see that too.....

I love that there is a Walt Dropo cartoon on the back of the card.  Great baseball name and the cartoon is looks in line with something Topps would have put on the back of a baseball card in the 1970s.  Simmons actual 1977 card had a cartoon about Jimmy Reese.  

Overall, a really nice card and it checks off a big box for my Cardinals collection.