2024 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 1

My first Blake Snell autograph of the new year is one of the older Blake Snell autographs that was missing from my collection. I am closing in on my 100th Blake Snell autograph, so most of my early efforts for 2024 are going to be filling in the holes from previous years. Today's card comes from the 2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary set.  

Here is the front of the card: 

The 65th Anniversary set is different from the Topps Archives set. These cards were sold at Wal Mart. My main interest in them was the Bull Durham inserts, but they also featured a ton of autographs. Most of the players signing for the 65th Anniversary set were veteran or retired players, but Topps also included a handful of rookie autographs. Snell was one of those rookie autographs.  

The front of the card has the 1989 Topps design, a nice photograph of Snell pitching, and his signature going across lower half of the card.  

It's a fine looking card. The back is where this card gets messy.  

The back of the card uses the 1975 Topps back, along with all of the other autographs in the 2016 65th Anniversary Set. It just seems weird to make a set with random card designs for an autograph set using a random, non-matching card back. 

Why not use a 1989 Topps card back with the card front or a 1975 card design for both the front and back?

Still happy to own the card, which is a rookie autograph, and it brings me closer to 100 Blake Snell autographs. 

Pujols Post - 2023 Topps Archives 1989 Doubleheader

Pack fresh from the local Target.  

The 1989 Topps set might be completely worthless and one of the junkiest junk wax products of all-time, but I do love it's design. It has long been one of my favorite Topps sets from my childhood. I was excited the other day when I checked out a few packs of Archives and landed a Pujols insert on a 1989 Topps designed card.  

Here is the front.....

I love this photograph Topps used of Pujols standing in Busch Stadium II. All the important elements of the Cardinals former home stadium are present in the photograph. The arches at the top of the stadium, which set it apart from other concrete bowls from the 1960s and 1970s, an advertisement for an Anheuser-Busch product, and the giant outfield scoreboard that was installed in the late 1990s. Obviously, I don't count the giant scoreboard on all Busch II baseball cards, but it's a must on anything from the final years of the stadium. 

You can see the leg of the Arch in the arch just below Pujols' right ear. While the Arch is easy to see from the current rendition of Busch Stadium, it was hard to see at Busch II with the upper deck extending all the way around the stadium.  

Well done, Topps.

Back of the card.......

It's Paul Goldschmidt.  

He's at Spring Training and there is some website on the side of the card where you can view some legal disclaimers about the 2023 Topps Archives product.  

I want to see all 20 years of Albert Pujols statistics, nothing against Paul Goldschmidt.  

Friday Five: Top Five Archives Autographs

Topps Archives base set is horrible. 

What is the point of releasing a Topps Heritage set every year, which borrows the design of a previous Topps set, when Archives does the same thing? 

Maybe the question should be why is Topps releasing Archives every year? 

Both products have some positives. I like the Heritage base set better than the Archives, but I like the autograph checklist of Archives much better. With the release of a new Topps Archives set this week, I thought I would take a look back at my five favorite Topps Archives autographs. The autographs after all are the only reason to purchase this annual Topps release.  

This was actually a challenging list to create. I could easily go Top 20 here and still make a good list. Narrowing the list down to my five favorites took some work.  

T5. 2020 Topps Archives Felix Jose 

Felix Jose is a symbolic choice here. I could have picked Joe McEwing or Edgar Renteria or George Hendrick, but I thought Felix was perfect for this post. I try to collect as many certified autographs of Cardinals players as possible and I never thought Felix Jose would be on that list. If you are not familiar with Felix, he came up in the late 1980s with the Oakland Athletics, but was traded to the Cardinals for Willie McGee. That's a tough act to follow in St. Louis and all Felix did was hit .305 with 40 doubles during his first season with the Cardinals. He was eventually traded to the Royals for Gregg Jefferies, but getting this card made me take a few minutes to look back at his career numbers on Baseball Reference and appreciate the time he spent with the Cardinals. Every once in awhile Topps gets something right, Felix Jose signing cards 25 years after he retired is incredible.  

T5. 2020 Topps Archives Tom Pagnozzi 

This is another symbolic choice. I could have gone with a low-key very good player from your favorite team too. Here is a trivia question. Between 1991 and 2020 how many of the National League Gold Gloves at catcher were won by Cardinals players? The answer is 15 or half of the Gold Gloves at one position. Molina won 9, Mike Matheny won 3, and this guy Tom Pagnozzi won the other 3.  Who remembers stuff like that? Topps Archives. Tom Pagnozzi also was the Game 7 starting catcher in the 1987 World Series and also caused Uber prospect Todd Zeile (sounds funny now) to move to third base.  He's not a Hall of Famer or anything, but still a really good player and I am happy to own his autograph.  

 

4. 2001 Topps Archives Mickey Lolich Autograph 

I started collecting the current Durham Bulls players the year that I moved to North Carolina. They have had plenty of top prospects on their roster over the past two decades and there has always been an abundance of modern autographs that has made them easy to collect. I did not start collecting the old former Bulls players until I started blogging about my cards, roughly a decade ago. The autographs are a little harder to find, but I was really happy to land this 2001 Topps Archives Lolich card. I loved the 2001 Archives set, which has a little different format than the current rendition of the set and a much better autograph checklist. However, those autographs are also largely off the secondary market at this point save for a few really common cards that were signed in huge numbers. Lolich is not one of those, making this my tough to find autograph on this list. Lolich also has a better Hall of Fame argument than most realize.  

3. 2012 Topps Archives Jose Oquendo 

Nicknamed "The Secret Weapon" you never knew where Jose Oquendo was going to play for the Cardinals when you watched one of their games in the late 1980s. He eventually settled into being the second baseman next to Ozzie Smith, but for several years he played all over the infield and outfield. Topps did something incredible with Oquendo's 2012 autograph by creating 9 different variations of the card, one for each position on the field. These cards were a project a few years back, but I lost track of it and stopped trying to track them down. Topps can be creative when they try. It's all about the effort.  

2. 2016 Topps Archives Robert Wuhl Autograph 

Topps has done several pop culture insert sets over the past decade within their Archives product. The 2016 Bull Durham movie cards were obviously my favorite. I never shelled out the money for a Tim Robbins or Kevin Costner autograph, but Robert Wuhl was in my price range. The long-time actor plays the Bulls pitching coach Larry Hockett in the movie and has some of my favorite lines in the movie, including his pep talk to the team while they are on the mound airing out all the drama that is occurring in their lives.  

Candlesticks always make a nice gift, let's get two.  

In fact, I have two copies of the card.  

1. 2013 Topps Archives Ray Lankford Autograph 

Ray Lankford last played for the Cardinals in 2004. During that entire season, the only card made of him was in MLB Showdown. No Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck, or Donruss cards at all.  Nobody made a card of him in 2005 either. It took almost another decade to get a brand new Ray Lankford card, which appeared in the 2013 Topps Archives autograph set. No base card. I was still really excited to see this card and pick up a copy for the collection.  

The Retail Card Aisles of Northern Michigan - Part 2

On the previous post, I shared a few of the cards that I picked up while visiting my in-laws in northern Michigan. The card aisles of the two large box stores in town, Meijer and Wal-Mart, both had more packs of cards than I have seen living outside of Raleigh during the past year and a half to two years.  

A quick refresher. 

 

The Meijer card aisle is on the left, Wally World on the right.  

For this post, I am just breaking the cards into brand rather than by location purchased.

First up is another pack of the Panini Chronicles cards. Again, I am still confused as to whether or not these cards all come from a single set or they are different sets packaged together. I don't care enough about Panini to research the answer and I fear it's a rip off of the 1998 Donruss Collections product.  

If you don't know that one, the card manufacturer Pinnacle re-released all of their Donruss and Leaf products at the end of that year, but they put some foil finish on the cards. In my opinion......

I have three highlights from this pack of cards. 

On the left is Akil Baddoo. I saw him with the Tigers this summer and enjoyed his style of play. I am looking forward to picking up some more of his cards this year. More Akil later in the post. 

In the middle is Clayton Kershaw. This is the same style card as AJ Puk and Gregory Polanco cards from the previous post. Again, the card has a nice finish on the surface and the thick card stock is always a plus. The Pete Alonso is another acetate card, but it's different from the three in the previous post. Are the acetate cards supposed to have variations like the Topps Tek cards?  I love acetate baseball cards, but the line pattern on this one is boring.  

Next up is a few cards from Topps Archives. I have really become torn on this product in recent years. Topps has gone completely overboard with reusing former designs in current products. At some point they are going to completely ruin the Topps Heritage product. However, for the moment I still really enjoy the autographs and a few of the inserts in this product. Topps does come up with some nice cards here.  

Topps did a really good job of picking out photos for the 1970s players. Not a Nolan Ryan fan, but good job putting him in an Angels uniform. Dick Allen and Mike Schmidt have great 1970s hair. The uniforms in the picture are an added bonus. The red version of the White Sox uniforms is underrated. I felt like the 1970s players had the best looking cards in this year's set.  

Next up is a pair of Movie Poster inserts. These are really neat.  

Most of the cards are team themed, like the A's card on the left. However, I do really like the Black Aces poster card.  The black and white photo with the red background really pops. The term "Black Aces" was coined by long-time Indians and Twins pitcher, Mudcat Grant. There are players who fit Grant's description left off of the card. One of those players was Grant himself.  Give credit where credit is due.  This would be a better card if Grant had been included.

Just my two cents.  

I did not land many Cardinals cards in my packs of Archives. My only two options were Lou Brock and Paul DeJong. I am sorry, but Paul DeJong is a no at the moment.  

Lou is an easy choice.  

My favorite Durham Bulls card....

I am going with this Evan Longoria insert, but let's talk about this card for a minute. This is card is the direction that Topps should take the Archives set.  This is a modernized version of a 1989 Topps Big card. They were a kid-friendly oddball set released that ran for several years. 

This is the original design.  

Topps always uses past oddball designs for insert sets in Archives. They should just make them the base set design for the entire product. Small change, but it would help to preserve the former flagship brand designs for future Topps Heritage sets. Again, just my opinion.  

Onto the last group of cards. These are out of the Update Series. I got two of these box toppers.  

I like the Satchel Paige card.  Big Papi.  Meh.  

I also ended up with two more Akil Baddoo rookie cards. Did I mention I hate when Topps overuses former designs?  I am going to ignore that for the 1986 Topps card on the left. That is a good looking baseball card.  

I also picked up a pair of Luis Patino rookie cards. He has been my go-to Durham Bulls player of sorts during the past year. However, the card on the right is a little ridiculous.  

Topps made Rookie Debut cards for a handful of players in the 2021 Update set. Read the small print there and you can see that Luis Patino actually made his Major League Debut in August of 2020. He was traded to the Rays in December of 2020, started the year in the Minors, and was called up by the Rays. I get the card on the left since Patino was both traded and called up to the Majors in the past year. I do not understand why he is getting a Debut card from a previous season.  

Favorite Cardinals cards.  

Ignore the previous comments about Topps reusing old designs here too.  The Molina has a Chrome finish, Arenado and Carlson are the regular card stock. I love the 1992 Topps cards. 

Favorite former Durham Bulls players in this set....

I am going with Blake Snell and Jake Cronenworth.  Easy choice.  

That's it for the card aisle. 

These Guys Are Actually Good?

I started collecting baseball cards in the early 1980s when I was in early elementary school. Some of my initial impressions of players from those cards lingered for a long time in my world.  At some point in late high school or early college, I realized that a lot of the "washed up, old guys" from those early 1980s sets were actually good players during the 1970s.  There were even a few lingering from the 1960s.  

As a baseball card collector, I have ended up circling back to collect cards of a few of these players.  This past week, I managed to snag two autographs from the 2021 Topps Archives set of players who appeared in 1983 card sets.  That was my first year opening packs and these two players seemed way past their prime. The six-year old version of me did not fully appreciate their skills for very likely superficial reasons.  

First up, Cardinals back-up catcher Gene Tenace.  

He was the Cardinals back-up catcher during the early 1980s.  Gene Tenace was a .230 hitter and managed a grand total of 12 home runs in the 2 seasons he played for the Cardinals.  Not exactly someone to be excited about pulling from a pack of cards.  I kind of ignored those 1970s seasons while he was playing for the A's.  

Some years later, I learned about the Gene Tenace from the 1970s.  He regularly hit 20 home runs a year?  Gene Tenace won the 1972 World Series MVP by hitting 4 home runs in a 7 game series against the Reds?  You're sure that wasn't Reggie Jackson?  

It turns out that before he was an old guy and the back-up catcher for the Cardinals, Gene Tenace was a good player.  It's true.  All of it.  There are other things that I really appreciate about his career beyond winning a World Series MVP and being a back-up catcher on the Cardinals. 

+Gene Tenace regularly walked more than he struck out.  

+Gene Tenace 1060 career hits and 984 career walks. 

+Baseball Reference has him rated as the 13th best catcher of all-time ahead of Roy Campanella, Buster Posey, and Yadier Molina. 

+Amongst modern catchers, Tenace has the second highest OPS (on-base percentage and slugging percentage) amongst modern catchers.  He's ahead of Johnny Bench, but behind Mike Piazza.  

He was a really good player.  Here is my latest Gene Tenace card.  

I am still waiting for Topps to make a card of him as a back-up catcher for the Cardinals.  

Next player.  

Those polyester White Sox softball uniforms were not kind to Greg Luzinski. "The Bull" was still a good player with the White Sox, but he was definitely a player ignored while I was collecting in the 1980s.  I think Luzinski was my first run-in with a professional athlete who did not look the part.  I first started to appreciate Greg Luzinski when I moved to North Carolina roughly 15 years ago and started reading up on the Durham Bulls.  

He was a member of the 1969 Raleigh-Durham Phillies, which was a renamed version of the Durham Bulls.  It was a really dumb idea to rename the team briefly, but it was not as bad as the team splitting half of its games between Durham and Raleigh.  Despite a lot of bad off-the-field decisions by the Phillies, the team absolutely bludgeoned the rest of the Carolina League.  It's arguable one of the better teams in the history of the franchise.  

The team led the league in almost every team offensive category and almost every team pitching category.  Many of the players on the team also were league leaders in individual categories. Luzinksi was an 18 year-old fresh out of high school and hit 31 home runs and drove in 92 runs.  

I have posted a bunch of Luzinski cards here over the years.  Been a fan for awhile.  

Love the 1960 Topps design on this card and Luzinski has a great signature.  

Overall, I am happy to add these two cards to my collection and I am glad that I learned a little bit more about these two players who were "old and washed up" when I first started collecting cards.  

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.  

This Card Is Terrible.

Long before getting stuck at home, I had found another copy of a 2012 Topps Archives Jose Oquendo autograph.  For those not familiar with the player, or the cards, here is a little background.

Oquendo played for the Cardinals during the 1980s and 1990s.  Whitey Herzog, the Cardinals manager nicknamed him "The Secret Weapon".  He played almost every game, but you just did not always know where he was going to play.  Players got double switched out of games, and you could almost bet that part of the substitution would be Oquendo playing somewhere else.  

Topps decided as a part of their 2012 Archives set to include Jose in their autograph set.  They also added a little wrinkle, by making 9 different versions of the card, one for each position.  I have a bunch of the cards, but not all of the cards.  They are all on a 1988 Topps style card.  

One already in the collection......

The late 1980s were the prime years for Jose Oquendo, so I really like that they used this 1988 style card for the autograph set.  

My newest card from the set arrived a few weeks back, and has been sitting on desk.  I took a little time to catch up on life yesterday, which included a little time cleaning.  I took the card out of the envelope, scanned it, and filed it away in its box.  Scanning and filing is kind of non-thinking activity at times, my brain flies on automatic.  

At some point, I came back and looked at the scan.  This card is terrible.  

Why is Jose Oquendo all blurry?  

Why is the catcher in the background blurred out?  

Why did I not notice this before I bought the card?  

So, I did a little digging.  Maybe there is a reason why the card is made this way.  

It's obviously a game at Busch Stadium.  Oquendo has a patch on his sleeve.  The Cardinals wore sleeves patches three times during Oquendo's career:

• The 1992 season, which was the team's 100th Anniversary.

• In 1990, in memory of long-time owner Gussie Busch

•  During the 1987 World Series against the Twins.  

The blue catchers gear pointed me towards the 1987 World Series.  

Google search "Jose Oquendo" and "1987 World Series" and what turns up?  

Clearly the same play.  I just don't get the reason behind blurring out the Twins catcher and using a grainy photo of Jose Oquendo.  Is Tim Launder not allowed on baseball cards anymore?  

This is the center fielder variation of the Jose Oquendo cards.  Isn't there a photo somewhere of Oquendo playing the outfield?  

This photograph is easily one of the worst I have seen on a baseball card, and I just do not understand why the card has to look this way.  

I Forgot

Willy Adames spent two years playing for the Durham Bulls.  I collected quite a few of his cards during that time, and continued to track down a few once he got called up to the Rays last season.  I think my favorite was his Topps Living Set card. 

I have a few Minor League cards of him too, also a few autographs. 

The beginning of the year was not kind to Willy, and with plenty of other former Durham Bulls players on the Rays I set my sights elsewhere.  Well, I mainly collected Blake Snell cards, but there were a few other Rays players who made an appearance in this space during this baseball season too. 

Willy did not. 

Then the second half of the season happened.  Willy improved his OPS by more than 100 points, played Gold Glove caliber defense, and helped the Rays get into the playoffs.  He even hit a pair of home runs in the ALDS against the Astros. 

So, maybe it is time to find a few new cards of this former Durham Bull.  His cards have gotten a lot less expensive, so I was actually able to pick up two of his cards rather than the one that I had originally set out to find.  

First up.  

This is from Topps Heritage High Numbers.  The autograph looks a little smudged, but there are other copies of this card with a similar appearance.  Perhaps this was not Willy's best effort on signing cards.  The card cost a few dollars, so I am not overly worried about the the slight smudge.  Just happy to own an Adames autograph from this set.  Always one of the best every year.  

Next.  

This is from this year's Archives set, the autograph is on card, and the design in borrowed from the 1994 Topps set.  When I saw this card, I was reminded that the original 1994 set had different shortstop prospect that was on my rooting interest.......

No autographs from Tripp "Homer" Cromer, but I hope that Willy Adames turns out a little bit better in the long run.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 52 - Lee Smith

This is a 100% nice post about Lee Smith.  I can be hard on the former Cardinals closer, but most of it revolves around people arguing about whether or not he should be in the Hall of Fame.  There were definitely some rough moments in St. Louis with Lee closing games, but the first few years he played for the Cardinals were some of the best in his career.

Two of his biggest highlights as a Cardinal included saving his 300th game, a large number at the time, and setting the National League single season save mark.

In roughly four seasons with the Cardinals he made three National League All-Star teams and saved 160 games.  When his time with the team ended in 1993, Smith was the Cardinals all-time saves leader.  Smith still ranks second in Cardinals history behind Jason Isringhausen.

Smith is the all-time saves leader for the Chicago Cubs.  Not really all that surprising.  He spent the first eight years of his career closing out games for the Cubs before he was traded to the Red Sox, who would eventually trade him to the Cardinals.  After his time with the Cardinals, he bounced around between the Yankees, Orioles, Angels, Reds, and Expos.

On to the cards.  From the beginning.

The Cardinals traded for Lee Smith in May of 1990.  Most of the major card releases that year were a single series, which meant that he appeared in the base set as a Red Sox, but Smith did manage to appear in several of the update and traded sets.  His Topps Traded card is a really simple card, probably just snapped a picture of him standing on the field before a game.  The simplicity works for me.  The card shows off Smith's imposing size and, if you ever went to a game in the former Busch Stadium, you would probably recognize that Smith is likely standing in the bullpen for this picture.

Plenty of cards of Smith pitching in a game, cards of one of the all-time saves leaders hanging out in the bullpen?

Next card.

An action shot of Lee Smith from the 1991 Topps set.  As a kid, Topps cards were always portrait style cards, no landscape.  The 1991 Topps set was the first year that I collected where the Topps set had landscape cards.  There were many different Cardinals cards in the 1991 set, but the Lee Smith card was the only landscape.  

Smith also had a landscape style card in the 1992 Topps set.  I went with the Topps Gold version for something a little different.  You can again see the imposing size of Lee Smith in this card.  I like the clouds in the background behind him.  The photography in this set was really good, this is a great example of it on a Cardinals card.  

I love the 1992 Studio set.  The Lee Smith card always felt a little out of place though.  Lee Smith is just sort of taking up the entire bottom of the card, it is the only card that looks like this in the entire set.  His eyes also follow you no matter how you look at the card.  

Two more.  

From the 1993 Topps set.  Smith and Eckersley were the gold standard in relief pitching at the time this card was made.  Completely opposite styles though.  Eckersley was a control pitcher, Smith was a power pitcher.  Eckersley would end up on the Cardinals a few years later.    

Last card.  

Over the last twenty years Lee Smith has been a generous signer in different baseball card products.  While many of his autographs are rightfully in a Cubs uniform, there are a few where he appears as a Cardinal.  My favorite is his appearance in the 2002 Topps Archives Reserve set.  The card is just a Chrome version of his 1991 Topps card, but the autographed version is easily his best certified Cardinals signature in my opinion.  It's a little pricier than some of the more recent cards he has signed, but many of those are in Panini products.

I Really Hate Shopping

I really hate shopping.  Luckily, my house is in a place where I can walk ten minutes and buy most of the things that I need in life.  Driving is two minutes to most of these places depending on a traffic light.  There are two grocery stores, the post office, Walgreens, a Verizon store, a bunch of different restaurants, Lowe's (hardware store for you NC people), Target, an emergency room, etc, etc.  You get the point.

Usually, my wife does the big shopping trips in our household and I stay home and hang out with the kids.  However, the small shopping trips are all mine.  A week back I was dispatched to Lowe's to purchase playground sand.  The sand in our sandbox had been soiled by a cat.

There are actually many cats in my neighborhood.  We have a person in our neighborhood who feeds stray cats.  They come for miles.

At one point this summer she even tried to crowd source a vet bill for a stray who had been bitten by a snake. 

I bought the playground sand, but ended up being dispatched to Target for a few art supplies for a school project my son was working on.  Lowes and Target are right next to each other.  Didn't even have to move my car.  Now, I am not usually a retail card person, but sometimes I dabble.  I dabbled with three hanger packs of Topps Archives.  

The aisle was dominated by a bunch of Panini stuff.  I would have actually preferred seeing some Heritage High Numbers cards.  

The base cards out of Archives are the usual stuff out of that product.  Three different past card designs with both current and former players.  The best base card that I found was A's pitcher Daniel Mengden.  

I saw him pitch for the USA Baseball college team while he was at Texas A&M.  That mustache is incredible.  I know there are other cards of Mengden and his mustache, just like this one with the posed shot.  Pretty sweet.  Heard there is one in Heritage High Numbers too.  

So, what else did I get?  You know it has to be pretty good since I never blog about retail cards.  

Somehow I also managed to land two autographs in three hanger packs.  I consider anything beyond basic inserts and base cards out of retail packs to be something pretty special.  Maybe I am wrong and the odds are better now.  Still happy.  

First autograph.....

belongs to 60s and 70s Red Sox infielder Rico Petrocelli.  His career was not very long, but some of his prime years were excellent.  Hit for power, had a decent average, drove in runs, and was also an excellent defender.  

Second autograph......

to long time Braves and Mets infielder Felix Millan.  I was actually a little bummed to see that this card was a redemption, but then there are actually live copies on Ebay.  It's a Mets card on a 1977 design.

Very nice looking card.  I have not even tried to send in a redemption card in a few years, but this one might be one that I take on, especially if there are live copies of the card already available online. 

I really hate shopping, but every once in awhile nice things happen while I am at the store.