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.  

A 1980s Card Part 55 - 1980 Cardinals Future Stars

This 1980 Topps Cardinals Future Stars card has three pretty good baseball players.  There is a recently elected Cardinals Hall of Famer and a long time Major League reliever.  The majority of readers can look at this card, and probably pick out those two players with little trouble.  However, the third player on the card was a success in his own right, even if he did not have a long career in the Majors.  

This post is half baseball card, half where are they now.  

Here is the card.  

Tom (Tommy) Herr is the obvious star of this card as a Cardinals fan.  He played on a World Series winning team with the Cardinals in 1982, and a National League Champion with the Cardinals in 1985.  Herr never won any important awards, although he did make the National League All-Star team in 1985.  He was always a steady player on the WhiteyBall Era Cardinals teams.  This past summer, the Cardinals fans and some sort of panel (I don't know the exact formula breakdown) elected Tommy Herr to be in the team's Hall of Fame.  

While a walk-off grand slam on seat cushion night was a cool moment for the 1980s Cardinals, I am not sure it's a good argument to be in the Cardinals Hall of Fame.  

 

Next player.  

George Frazier had a much bigger impact on baseball than I remembered.  I don't want to spend too much time here, but he played for 10 years in the Majors as a relief pitcher.  I remember him on the 1980s Yankees and Cubs as sort of a middle innings guy.  However, I didn't realize he won a World Series ring against the Cardinals as a member of the Twins in 1987.  

Frazier pitched two scoreless innings against the Cardinals in that World Series.  He also had a 1.17 career ERA against the Cardinals.  Pretty solid.  Frazier went on to work as a Rockies broadcaster for 20 years.  

Which brings me to the last player on the card.  Dave O'Brien did not have much of a Major League career, but he still has a pretty cool story, and he had a big impact on amateur baseball.  As a player at Florida State, he was one of the star players that led the Seminoles to the 1975 College World Series.  

I always like players who were college greats, but maybe not great pros.

Thank you to Bob Perrone and Andrew Brady at NoleFan.Org for the picture of Danny O'Brien.  It's an incredible website and archive of Florida State sports teams.  You can check out their profile of O'Brien here.  

The Cardinals drafted O'Brien in 1976, by the end of the 1978 season he was pitching in the Majors.  His time in the Majors was short, but he ended up finding a spot with the Richmond Braves for a few seasons in the early 1980s, which prolonged his professional career.  

By 1983, he was out of professional baseball, returning to the college game with a coaching job at SIU-Carbondale.  Now, they are a D1 school in the Missouri Valley Conference, but they were a D2 school while O'Brien was there.  The Salukis made the D2 College World Series While he was there, and the program produced 9 MLB Draft Picks, including long-time Major Leaguer Steve Finley.  

He eventually moved on and worked at Michigan State starting in the early 1990s, before moving on to work at the University of Michigan.  Obviously both schools produced Major League talent while he was on staff.  I am not typing up a huge list.  

Not my card, but I always see these Michigan State cards at antique and flea market stores when I go see my in-laws in North Michigan.  Maybe someone will sell me a single Dan O'Brien card.  

Dan O'Brien is now in his mid 60s.  While he has stepped away from his work at the University of Michigan, he has spent the last year or two working in college baseball as a volunteer coach at Eastern Michigan.  While they may not be a powerhouse NCAA team, EMU has produced a few draft picks and Minor League free agents the last few years.

Sorry, no more Van Halen pictures.  

I am glad that I spent the majority of the post on Dan O'Brien. 

Friday Five: Top 5 Cardinals 2nd Baseman

5.  Julian Javier 

Javier played 12 seasons for the Cardinals from 1960 through 1971.  He spent his final season as a Red.  During his 12 years as a Cardinal Javier made two National League All-Star teams and helped the Cardinals win two World Series titles (1964 and 1967) and win another National League pennant (1968).  Julian Javier was known much more his defense than offense and also excelled during the Cardinals appearances in the World Series.  In 1967, he batted .360 in the World Series and had a big home run in game 7 of the series.  In 1968, Javier batted he batted .333 against the Tigers in a losing effort.  

4.  Tom Herr

Herr was an important cog in the 1980s Whiteyball Cardinals.  He was always a really good player on those teams, just never really the best player on any of the teams.  In my opinion, his best year was the 1985 National League Championship team when he hit .302/.379/.416 with 110 RBIs and 31 stolen bases.  Herr also was the starting second baseman on the 1982 World Series winning team and the 1987 National League Championship team.  The Cardinals traded Herr to the Twins in 1988 for Tom Brunansky.  In 10 seasons with the Cardinals he had more than 1000 hits, 400 RBIs, and 150 stolen bases. 

3.  Red Schoendienst 

Schoendiesnt was the Cardinals second baseman most of the late 1940s through the 1950s until he was traded away to the New York Giants.  After a stop off with the Braves, Red returned to the Cardinals for the 1962 and 1963 seasons before taking over the reigns of the team as the manager.  In 15 seasons with the Cardinals Schoendienst made a total of 8 All-Star game appearances and recorded over 1000 runs scored and almost 2000 hits.  He helped the Cardinals win the 1946 World Series, but his best season as a Cardinals was probably 1953 when he posted a .342/.405/.502 line with 15 home runs.  He finished fourth in MVP voting that season.  Red was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989. 

2.  Frankie Frisch 

Frisch started his career with the Giants in 1919 and was traded to the Cardinals for Rogers Hornsby after playing 8 years for New York.  The Fordham Flash ended up spending 11 years with the Cardinals helping the Gashouse Gang Cardinals win the 1934 World Series against the Athletics.  Frisch also made 3 All-Star teams and won the 1931 National League MVP Award.  Overall during his time as a Cardinal, Frisch had almost 200 stolen bases, 1500 hits, and almost 300 doubles.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1947. 

1.  Rogers Hornsby

Hornsby is one of the best second baseman of all-time and started out with the Cardinals in 1915.  He was traded to the Giants for Frisch, but ended up back in St. Louis at the end of his career.  JAWS rates him as the best second baseman of all-time and he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1942.  During his thirteen seasons as a Cardinal Hornsby posted over 2000 hits, over 1000 runs, 367 doubles, 193 home runs, 118 stolen bases, and an OPS+ of 177.