I Love The Cardinals Part 44 - Todd Zeile

The 1989 Cardinals were not that bad of a team.  They won 86 games and finished third in the standings behind the Cubs and Expos.  Several players had good years.  Pedro Guerrero had more than 40 doubles and drove in 117 runs, Vince Coleman led the National League in stolen bases, Ozzie Smith won a Gold Glove, Jose DeLeon led the National League in strikeouts, and Joe Magrane won 18 games with an ERA under 3.00.  

Most of the players returned from the 1989 season for the 1990 season, minus All-Star catcher Tony Pena.  The Cardinals traded for Pena prior to the 1987 season, while he helped them reach the World Series in 1987, his offensive numbers were disappointing during his time in St. Louis.  Plus the Cardinals had the best catching prospect in all of baseball at Triple A.  

Baseball America had Todd Zeile rated as the seventh best prospect in all of baseball entering the 1990 season.  The Cardinals brought him up at the end of the 1989 season for a cup of coffee and ended up handing him the starting catchers job for 1990.  Pena ended up signing with the Red Sox as a free agent.  

Zeile was hailed as a franchise player while he was coming up through the Minor League system.   He was an All-Star at every level he played in, hit for power, and drove in runs.  Zeile seemed like the real deal.  

Zeile has a whole bunch of Minor League cards celebrating his status as an uber prospect, many are from All-Star sets.  I can only imagine if he had been a Minor Leaguer a decade later during the Bowman craze, his cards would have temporarily been worth a small fortune.  I think I got this Arkansas Travelers card as a throw-in from an Ebay seller.  

Zeile's first season as a Cardinal was disappointing, but the team was a complete disaster.  He did hit 15 home runs, a decent amount for a Cardinals player at that time, but he also played some really bad stretches of baseball.  His season averaged ended at .244, throw out a hot month in August and Zeile hit under .230 for the better part of the season.  

Meanwhile, I had a pretty good Todd Zeile collection for 1990.   

The best of the bunch, in my opinion, was his 1990 Topps card.  I know some people point to his 1989 Upper Deck, or 1990 Donruss Rated Rookie, but this was my favorite.  You knew he was going to be good with a Future Star graphic going across the bottom of the card.  

At the end of the season the team worked on transitioning him to third base to give defensive wiz Tom Pagnozzi a shot to catch full time.  Pags flies under the radar, but he was a very good defensive player.  Won a bunch of Gold Gloves.  

Zeile's 1991 season went well.  He hit less home runs, down to 11, but managed to bump up all the rest of his numbers.  He hit doubles, drove in runs, got on base, and even managed to steal 17 bases.  The team finished second to the Pirates and won 84 games.  With a young core of Zeile, Ray Lankford, Bernard Gilkey, and Geronimo Pena it appeared the Cardinals were headed in the right direction.  

He still ended up with cool baseball cards at this point, but he started slipping after his 1992 season.  This Stadium Club from 1992 is one of my early 1990s favorites of Zeile.  

I always thought of 1992 as the end of Todd Zeile in St. Louis.  He made it another two and half years, but Cardinals fans generally lost their patience with him that summer.  Zeile hit only 7 home runs and had a slugging percentage of .364.  That was lower than second baseman Luis Alicea.  He just squeezed by Ozzie Smith though. 

Another good Zeile card from the early 1990s....

The Cardinals celebrated their 100th Anniversary in 1992.  The team wore patches to commemorate the occasion, but baseball cards rarely do anything to showcase any sort of special event logos.  Especially during the early 1990s.  The t-shirt that Zeile is wearing in this picture has the 100th Anniversary logo on it.  Nice touch.  

Although, the Cardinals did put the logo on their team set that season.....

bonus nicety that the photograph for the card was taken in Wrigley.  Not my favorite team, but the Cubs stadium does make for nice baseball cards.  

The anniversary logo also appeared on a set of Pacific trading cards, which celebrated the great players in team history, that were sold at area McDonald's restaurants.  

While Zeile was in the team set, which was a stadium giveaway, he rightfully missed the cut on the all-time Cardinals set. 

Let me share the most incredible Todd Zeile card in my collection before we get to the bad part of Todd Zeile's time in St. Louis.  

Who knew that MilkBone had baseball cards inside their boxes?  I am not sure what type of dog Zeile owns, but her name is Tiffany.  The picture showing Todd swinging is at some point in the at bat past the first pitch.  He never swung at that pitch, plus his batting gloves look extra tight.  

There were a lot of negative perceptions about Zeile his last few years with the Cardinals. See the last sentence of the last paragraph.  He always took the first pitch of every at bat, every time, all the time.  Zeile was constantly down in counts 0-1.  He played with his batting gloves after the first pitch.  He looked indifferent and unemotional about everything.  I am amazed that Zeile lasted with the Cardinals until the middle of 1995.  

The final straws came in 1995 when he had a contract dispute with the team in Spring Training.  The Cardinals played poorly during the first half of the year on top of that, so when the team decided to fire Joe Torre in season, they also traded Zeile to the Cubs.  The trade turned into a war of words between Zeile and August Busch, which ultimately ended in him getting booed most of the rest of his career in St. Louis.  His wife was even heckled once to the point where she had to leave the stadium.....

and she has not been back since.  I don't remember what sort of sales job Augie Busch did in presenting Zeile as a traitor, might have to go back and check that out.  Overall, not cool.  Especially the heckling the wife part.  

Zeile had a few more baseball cards that I liked towards the end of his time with the Cardinals.  The 1994 team set, which was a stadium giveaway, had a nice appearance.....

Always thought it was odd that the Cardinals pretty much stopped using the slugger bird logo after 1992, but he always popped up on odds and ends with the team.  For whatever reason that logo is used on this set of cards.

I also really liked his 1994 Studio card with the lockers in the background.  Actual locker room in Busch Stadium.  I know it does not look very nice compared to modern lockers, but it sure beats some of the other lockers in the set.  I believe the Angels cards all have cinder blocks with a metal bar going across.  Classy.  

For my last Cardinals card of Zeile I will go with his 1995 Topps 3D card.  

Sort of like the old Kellogg's card from the 1970s and 1980s.  Kind of a neat looking card.  

After leaving the Cardinals, Zeile ended up bouncing around the league.  In all he played for 11 teams in 16 years.  Zeile had good years, bad years, and even ended up getting traded for Mike Piazza.  His career ended in 2004 while playing in his second stint with the Mets.  

For all of the different teams, and garbage he took from Cardinals fans, Zeile actually had a decent career.  It ended well, he hit a three run home run for the Mets in his final at-bat.

I had some final thoughts on Zeile that has kept this post in my drafts for a while.  I might have to come back to it at some point, but 

A Venerable Old Card Part 41

The Cardinals had a rough year in 1990.  There were several players who had nice seasons.  Willie McGee won the National League batting title and Vince Coleman stole 77 bases to lead the National League for his sixth straight season in that category.  Ozzie Smith was still a force on defense.  Pedro Guerrero, many forget he ended his career with the Cardinals, had a decent season just not a lot of power left in his bat.

Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog quit his manager's post in the middle of the year, was briefly replaced by Red Schoendienst, who eventually gave way for a permanent manager in the person of Joe Torre.  The vets lost playing time in favor of young players like Ray Lankford, Geronimo Pena, Bernard Gilkey, Felix Jose, and Todd Zeile.

Lankford turned out to be the best of that group, but Zeile was actually a much more highly regarded prospect.  Hard to believe, but Zeile was actually ranked as a Top 10 prospect entering the 1990 season by Baseball America.

Kiki Jones?

The Cardinals actually had four players on the Top 100 with Zeile, Lankford (19), John Ericks (32), and Brian Jordan (98).  By the end of the year the team ended up with Felix Jose (54) who was in the Willie McGee trade with the A's.

Zeile was a big deal with Cardinals fans when he first came up at the end of the 1989 season and there were some pretty high hopes for him after he took over the starting catchers job in 1990.  The Cardinals even let Tony Pena walk to give him the starting catcher's job.

As a baseball card loving middle schooler there living in St. Louis Zeile cards were really popular.  There are a bunch of them, but his 1990 Topps cards had to be the most popular.  I pulled my first copy out of a pack of cards from the Webster Groves Ben Franklin.....

Love the Future Stars label at the bottom of the card.  This card was not as cool as a Ken Griffey Jr. card, but was probably easily the most popular current Cardinals card at this point in time.  For a team that was really lacking star power, Zeile offered hope.  Plus, as a card collector, it's always nice when one of those really good players is on your team.  Makes opening the packs of cards a little bit more fun.  

This is my actual original Zeile card which had one glaring problem, which is why I know this is the original card.....

The faded back was a crusher at the time I pulled this card.  Sure, the back is a little off center too, but the faded ink always really pissed me off.  Luckily the angry feeling did not last too long.  That and the card is worth about $0.02.  I am pretty sure that there are five of these in my card closet.  

Ultimately Zeile became sort of a scapegoat for Cardinals fans in the mid 1990s.  He never hit for the power that was promised, he was moved from catcher to third to first, and had some pretty rough years.  Eventually he was traded to the Cubs in the middle of 1995 and then wandered the league for the better part of a decade playing for the Phillies, Orioles, Dodgers, Marlins, Rangers, Mets, Rockies, Yankees, and Expos.  

My Top 50 On Cardboard- #20 Old Guys- Part 1

If you've done your math on all of these posts I have made during my brief time blogging, that all focus on the thirty year window I have been collecting cards, then you'd know that my collection began sometime during the late summer or fall of 1983.  Cards and collecting have changed greatly over the past thirty years.  Some of the changes have been good, while others have been not so good.  I am not going to get into a specific list of items that I feel have been positive or negative this evening, instead I am going to focus solely on one item that I feel has been a positive for the industry no matter the type of collector you are.

Sometime during the mid 90s there was an obvious and significant boom the number of card manufacturers and brands on the market.  This trend as a whole had a definite negative impact on the hobby as a whole.  Look no further than the fact that only two cards companies, Topps and Upper Deck, still have the lights on in their office buildings.  Within all of those card releases from all of those different card brands came a nice new little niche: New cards for old players.  Sets such as Upper Deck Legends, Topps Archives, Donruss Classics, and others produced fabulous lines of older players from yesteryear and offered collectors a chance at relics and autographs of players who had been retired for years.

Growing up a Cardinals fan in suburban St. Louis my life as a baseball fan has been pretty nice.  I obviously grew up collecting cards, but I was also fortunate enough to live in where my father was a pretty big fan of the game too.  When I was younger we would always go to a few Cardinals games every summer and I would get to see some of my favorite Cardinals in action: Ozzie Smith, Vince Coleman, Willie McGee, John Tudor, Jack Clark, amongst others.  Along the way my father would always tell me great stories about games he attended when he was my age living in North St. Louis within walking distance of old Busch Stadium.

I heard plenty about the Cardinals players from his generation starting with Stan Musial and covering the team through the sixties with tales about Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Mike Shannon, Roger Maris, and others.  To this day, I still get the occasional story about a game my dad saw as a kid.  I have heard the Don Larsen perfect game story several times, but still love it every time I hear about how he walked home from school to get lunch and the World Series game was on the radio....

Hearing about the players that played before my time peaked my interest in collecting their cards.  As a kid I obviously could not afford most of the cool vintage cards of Musial and other great players from past generations.  Even as I got older, the vintage cards could still be out of reach at times.  Luckily, the niche card set focusing on the older generations of players helped me, and other collectors, pick up cards of older players for our modern collections.

Over the next two days I am going to show off some of the cool cards out there for collectors to pick up which feature older players.  Tonight's focus will strictly be on autographs.  Tomorrow's post will feature relic and base set cards.  Fair warning, these posts are Cardinals heavy.

Combo Autographs:

1994 Upper Deck Mickey Mantle/Ken Griffey Jr. Dual Autograph 

This is one of the most iconic cards of the past thirty years and I own it with a grain of salt.  I really just wanted to own a Mickey Mantle autograph.  Nothing more.  I ended up with a Ken Griffey Jr. autograph attached to the side of it.  While some collectors love the combo autograph, I just do not always get the connection.  I get the connection that Griffey and Mantle were somewhat similar players, but there were also some difference there too.  In my opinion, combo autographs work when the combination of players is obvious.  Throw Maddux and Glavine on a the same card and have them sign it and it's a no-brianer.  Give me Mantle and Maris.  Cool.  Mantle and Griffey.  Ehh.  I know there are plenty of people who'd love to own a Mantle/Griffey auto, so let me give you a better example of the ridiculousness that can happen when you pair modern players with older players.

2004 SP Ozzie Smith/Matt Bush Dual Autograph 

Do we actually know why Upper Deck lost their baseball card license?  I might speculate that cards like this Ozzie Smith and Matt Bush autograph combination may have contributed.  With the Griffey he was at least an established player by the time that cards was produced.  Putting a prospect with a Hall of Famer is a sure sign of future disaster.  Never a good idea.  Never.

If you want a solid combination autograph think about these two factors: same team, same era.  Here's a good example of a really good multiple signature card:

2004 Upper Deck Legends Timeless Teams Cardinals Autographs 

All the signatures on this card belong to Cardinals.  Check.  All the signatures on this card belong to members of players from the mid to late 60s Cardinals.  Check.  Add in the fact that this trio won a pair of World Series rings and three National League pennants and you've got yourself a winner of an autographed card.

Single Autographs
Obviously this is going to be my favorite category featured on this blog post.  I love collecting autographed cards and have made a point to pick up a card, or two or three, of as many Hall of Fame players as possible.  Beyond the obvious Hall of Fame targets it's also fun to find older retired players with cool autographs too.  By older, I could mean anyone from George Kell to Jose Oquendo.  Not always older.  My main criteria for finding Hall of Fame autographs on cards is simple: certified and on-card.

2004 Topps World Series Highlights Stan Musial Autograph

Most players who sign regularly can be found on-card with a slight premium on some of the cards.  Of course, there are others you can only find on stickers and other players whom you just end up with and say good enough...Tony Perez on a sticker.  Sounds good.

2003 Donruss Signature Tony Perez Autograph 

I cannot emphasize the certified part enough.  There is plenty of money involved in autographs and baseball cards.  If you are going to invest money in finding the autograph of a player like Stan Musial or Mickey Mantle why not spend the extra dollars to ensure that the card is the real deal?  Sure, that sounds a little bit snobby, but I just like to be smart with the money I spend on cards.  I'd rather have less money and know something is the real deal than a little more money and an autograph that's not worth the card it's signed on.

Not to say I am completely against on-card autographs of former players, I am not, but just be careful.  If I get the autograph myself then I am cool with the card.  If I get the card from a highly trusted source than I am cool.  Never Ebay.  Ever.  Here are two on-card autographs in my collection that were acquired in person:

2000 Fleer Impact Daryl Kile Autograph 

  This Darryl Kile autograph was a card that I got signed in-person before he died in 2002.  I got tickets to a corporate event at Busch Stadium from my summer job during college and had the chance to meet several Cardinals players and get them to sign autographs before the game.  Kile signed a ball and a card for me.  While I have seen other autographs like mine out on the secondary market, I have not bought them because I did not see Darryl Kile sign the items.  I saw him sign this card.  Not for sale or for trade.  It stays.

1991 Fleer Todd Zeile Autograph 

This Todd Zeile card was an in-person card that was signed for a trusted source of mine.  While I did not see Todd Zeile sign the card I have little reason to believe that anyone would want to forge a Todd Zeile autograph and then sell it in the card shop outside of St. Louis for a few bucks.  This Zeile card is a perfect example of a dilemma faced by team collectors.  What do you do when a player has no certified autographs?  This is a great way to add them to your collection.  In this case, my source is one of my favorite card stores outside of St. Louis.  The guy has tons of items like this that he picks up from the Cardinals Winter Warm Up or from other very reliable collectors.  He's allowed me to add at least a dozen good autographs of 80s and 90s Cardinals to my collection.

30 Year Top 50: 1991 Donruss

#22-Many of the cards featured on my countdown over the past few months have featured card sets with great autographed or relic based inserts.  My set this evening features one of the first and most innovative insert sets, which I credit with the boom of insert cards and sets, during the mid 90s running through current card releases.  Looking back at this set twenty-one years after its release, the idea of a "limited" print run insert set of 10,000 cards, or in the case of the super-short printed Nolan Ryan 7,500, is pretty laughable.  However, this was the first "premium" insert set featured in a baseball card set and was the forerunner of almost every insert set released since.

1991 Donruss John Kruk

A quick glance at the 1991 Donruss set will leave most collectors completely unimpressed.  The card design is clearly a concoction of late 80s or early 90s fame and there are few cards worth seeking out as singles in the base set.  My best plus for the base set cards is that they are fun, inexpensive wax to open.  If you have young collectors in your house these boxes sell for under $10 and can be a great way to share some of the baseball cards of yesteryear.  

1991 Donruss Moises Alou

One of my favorite things about the old Donruss cards was the backgrounds.  I am not entirely sure why, but many of the National League teams' cards were photographed in Busch Stadium II.  Check out this Moises Alou card.  You can clearly see the arches in the back which were located at the top of the stadium.  Always thought that was cool.  They did have a cool odor too.  On to the real business.

1991 Donruss Elite Series Andre Dawson

The 1991 Donruss set was the first appearance of the Donruss Elite Series, or what would late spin off into the Donruss Elite set.  The cards were short-printed at only 10,000 copies of each.  The Nolan Ryan card, as previously mentioned, had a print run of only 7,500.  The cards were extremely popular at the time of their release and have continued to be a popular set of cards to chase down today.  A quick glance at the completed item list on Ebay will show that they can sell for as little as a few dollars for a Matt Williams, to the mid 200s for a graded Ken Griffey Jr. card.  

1991 Donruss Elite Series Barry Bonds 

While this set was released over twenty years ago, I haven't added many of these cards to my collection.  The two cards on my blog tonight are the only pieces of this set that I own.  I really do like them and remember them fondly, but often don't think about seeking them out or asking about them when I am trading.  At this point, collecting the remainder of this set would probably be a job for Ebay.  I will get to work...someday.  

Like the 1991 Donruss Set?  Not in my Top 50 countdown is the....There were two directions I could go here.  I could post about one of the new spin off sets that came out of the 1991 Donruss Elite set.  For example, I always loved the 2002 set.  However, I am going with another Donruss set from the 90s.  The 1990 Donruss set.  

1990 Donruss Diamond Kings Dave Stewart

The 1990 Donruss set was simply awesome.  Even to this day, I love going back through this set and looking at the cards.  There are so many cool players from my childhood and I love the design.  When I open up one of my boxes of cards the red edges of the 1990 Donruss cards immediately stand out.  Just like the 1991 set, the 1990 set has no stand out rookie cards, or cool veteran cards that are must have for your collection.  They are just fun cards to flip through.  

1990 Donruss Todd Zeile

I think that this Todd Zeile card might have been the hot rookie card when this set was first released.  That should tell you all you need to know about the quality of cards and players in the set.