Topps Salutes Mediocrity

The Topps Archives set came out awhile ago. It has always been one of my favorite places to find autographs every year.  It's nice to see some older players sign a few cards, and there are usually a fair amount of Cardinals included.  This year it seemed that they all came from the early 1990s Cardinals.  

The early 1990s Cardinals were young, many of the players never lived up to the hype, and they were a lock to finish in the middle of the division.  Never good enough to catch the Pirates or Phillies, never bad enough to hang out in last place.  

Really mediocre teams.  

I didn't think I would see the day when Topps would include a bunch of 1990s Cardinals on a modern set, outside of Mark McGwire.  I am posting the Cardinals in order from most surprising to least surprising in terms of appearance in a modern baseball card set.  

My jaw dropped when I saw this first name on the checklist.

The Cardinals got Felix Jose from the A's for renting Willie McGee at the end of the 1990 season.  He made the National League All-Star Team in 1991, and ended up spending two decent years with the Cardinals before he was traded to the Royals for Gregg Jefferies.  I best remember Felix Jose for not sitting near anybody on the bench during games. 

I couldn't find a picture of him in the dugout with the Cardinals, but here is one from later in his career with the Yankees.  

Felix Jose ended up spending a lot of time playing in Mexico and Korea, and only appeared in roughly 700 Major League games.  I am really surprised that he popped up in a baseball card set in 2020.  Decent signature and I love that they put him on a 1992 Topps card.  Always a plus in the Archives set when you can match-up the players era with the card style.  

Next.  Not as surprising as Felix Jose.  

The Cardinals have quietly had a good run of really good defensive catchers over the last 30 years.  There was a short window in the late 1990s where that wasn't true, but the team has filled the majority of those years with Tony Pena, Mike Matheny, Yadier Molina, and Tom Pagnozzi.  It took him a few years to latch on as a starter, he was actually the backup to Tony Pena at the beginning of his career starting in 1987. 

Pagnozzi won three National League Gold Gloves during the first half of the 1990s.  

I am not saying he is a complete unknown, but I am sure that if you did not watch baseball in the 1990s, there is probably no chance that you'd know the no-hit Gold Glove catcher on a third place team.  

This was one of my favorite plays he made.  The stairs at Busch Stadium II made foul balls near the dugout an adventure.  The steps were steep and there was no railing in front of the dugout until the mid to late 1990s.  

Again, I love that the card design matches the era of the player.  

The last two are not as surprising.  Love the picture on this card.  

Worrell is a name player from the 1980s and 1990s.  He won the National League Rookie of the Year closing out games for the Cardinals in 1986.  Very good player, had some arm injuries in the middle of his career, but came back to be a good closer during the late 1990s with the Dodgers.  Not surprising that he would be included in a modern baseball card set, but he hasn't really done anything with baseball cards or autographs since retiring.  

He is worthy of being on baseball cards, more surprising that he suddenly appeared after 20 years of nothing.  

The picture.  

The bullpens in Busch II were on the field in the corners.  The Cardinals were on the first base side, visitors were on the third base side.  This picture was clearly taken in the Cardinals bullpen with the right field foul pole over Worrell's shoulder.  

Last card, least surprising 1990s Cardinals player in the set, but also not pictured as a member of the Cardinals.  

Henke only pitched for the Cardinals for one season, which was his last one in the Majors.  He is from a small town outside of Jefferson City, and wanted to be closer to home.  Henke has other modern cards, but it seems like he has been popping up a little more frequently.  

No matter how much I might complain about the current Cardinals, some of the early 1990s Cardinals teams were worse.  You always had to look hard for the good.  Henke was definitely one of them.    

Throw in a few World Series titles with the Blue Jays in the early 1990s, and Henke is easily the best player in this post.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 46 - Tom Henke

You could argue that Tom Henke's 1995 season was the best performance by a Cardinals pitcher during the entire 1990s decade.  It was Anheuser Busch's last year owning the team, and to their credit, they actually tried to improve the team.  During the offseason they brought in Ken Hill and Danny Jackson, the two pitchers finished first and second in the National League in wins in 1994, along with St. Louis native Scott Cooper to help anchor the lineup.  

Henke was at the end of his career and wanted to play one more season.  The Jefferson City, Missouri native ended signing with the Cardinals so he could be close to home.  His signing would work out well for the Cardinals.  Danny Jackson, Ken Hill, and Scott Cooper would all be disastrous signings of varying degrees.  

Before signing with the Cardinals, Henke was best known as the closer for the Blue Jays from the 1980s through the early 1990s.  He helped the Blue Jays win the 1992 World Series against the Braves.  

Henke also played for the Rangers.  Briefly at the beginning of his career before he was claimed by the Blue Jays, and after the 1992 season when he left the Blue Jays as a free agent.  He had only 15 saves in 1994, due to time spent on the disabled list, but had 40 during the 1993 season.  

First, Henke picked up an important milestone in his career while playing his final season with the Cardinals.  He became the 7th player to reach 300 saves, there are 20 something now, and finished 1995 in 5th place all-time.  

I like that Bobby Cox is sitting in the dugout smiling at him at the end of video.  Cox managed the Blue Jays when Henke first joined the team in the mid 1980s.  No doubt he saw a few of the 300 plus saves.  

Henke finished 1995 with 36 saves, a 1.82 ERA, and was awarded the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year.  Pretty hard to do on a team that finished 20 games under .500.  After achieving one of his best seasons as Major Leaguer, Henke still decided to retire at the end of 1995.  He told Post Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel, "I've always admired guys who have gone out at the top of their game.  Sometimes you have to look at what's the most important thing in life.  I'd like to see my kids grow up"  

Let's get to some cards.  All of Henke's cards as a Cardinal are either from 1995 or 1996.  I am going to go my my favorite five cards.  

I love this card.  The head shot with the stadium in the background could be it's own card design, but this is not actually a consistent theme in the 1995 Pinnacle set.  I am not taking time to flip through the entire set, but a quick glance around COMC led me to believe that this is the only card designed like this in the set.  Very nice card.  

I like this 1996 Fleer card showing Henke with the weird arm angle.  Henke was the prototypical back end reliever who is really tall, threw really hard, and tried to blow a lot of batters away with really hard fastballs.  What Henke good though was that he had elements of finesse.  He dropped down side arm and had some nasty breaking pitches including a forkball.  

There are not a lot of Tom Henke cards from sets with nice finishes.  He played for some great Blue Jays teams, but I am not sure that you can really say that there was much that was really high end from that era.  He is in the 1993 Finest set.  This 1995 Flair card is one of his nicer Cardinals cards.  I like the headshot combined with the action shot in the background.  Gives a little different picture of Henke pitching from the Fleer card above. 

Always like the cards with Busch Stadium in the background.  I also like the full picture of Henke's uniform in this picture.  I am pretty sure that Henke and Eckersley, who replaced Henke as the team's closer, were the last two Cardinals players who wore the old style stirrups and socks, and did not wear their uniform baggy.  

Same shoes too.  

Last card.  

I love this card in the 1996 Topps set.  It is up there with the Pinnacle card at the top, more symbolic.  It was Henke's last Topps card, and I would like to think that someone at Topps made this card on purpose.  Kind of fitting to have a picture of Henke going through the line at the end of a game leaving the field as his last baseball card.  

A Venerable Old Card Part 11

It has been a long week of baseball in my world.  The Durham Bulls had a rough week and the Cardinals did not fair much better.  While both teams have had a great run of success in recent years this season has not started as expected.  Honestly, I think that the Durham Bulls will turn it around at some point.  There are a few players off to a slow start who will eventually turn it around and the team will be fine.  The Cardinals are a different story......

There have not been many lean years of late as a Cardinals fan.  In fact, over the last 20 years the Cardinals have finished below .500 a grand total of three times: 2007, 1999, and 1997.  The 1997 team was easily the worst of those three teams finishing with just 73 wins.  That team still had McGwire for half of season and Ray Lankford hit 31 home runs.  The top three starting pitchers, Matt Morris and the two Benes brothers, won a total of 31 games with ERA+ all over 130.  They didn't lack talent, they just did not win.

The worst Cardinals team I remember was actually the 1995 team.  The outfielders were good with Ray Lankford, Brian Jordan, and Bernard Gilkey all putting up good splits with a good blend of power and speed.  Lankford and Jordan both hit more than 20 home runs and stole more than 20 bases.  However, the rest of the position players and pitchers were a complete disaster.  The only regular position player, outside of the outfielders, with an OPS+ above 100 was John Mabry.  He was at exactly 100.  Pitching?

The team employed six different starting pitchers.  Allen Watson lead the group with seven wins.  No, he did not get screwed out of a bunch of wins, he wasn't really that good.  In fact, Rich DeLucia lead the team in wins that season with 8.  In summation, the 1995 Cardinals had three position players and a relief pitcher.

The relief pitcher was the best part of watching the Cardinals that summer.  Well, Lankford.  Name player from the 1980s and 1990s, but I am not sure many people remember playing for the Cardinals....

"The Terminator" spent his last season playing for the Cardinals in order to be closer to his hometown of Jefferson City, Missouri.  Henke ended his final season with 36 saves, an ERA+ of 229, and 2.3 WAR.  A great last season and one of the few highlights of some of the Cardinals team sets from the 1995 and 1996 seasons.  Well, Lankford.  Anyway, if you are a Cardinals collector and looking for some sort of positive from the mid 1990s Tom Henke, don't forget Ray Lankford, is a great choice.