Random Ray - 1999 Topps Gallery

I was always a big fan of the Topps Gallery cards in the 1990s. 

Good looking set with nice inserts.  

Here is the front of the 1999 Topps Gallery Ray Lankford card.  

The texture on the front of the card is really neat, but unfortunately lost on the scan. It's printed on card stock, but has sort of a canvas feel to it. Definitely a unique feel to the card when you pick it up. Previous renditions of this product had a frame design around the edge of the card, which allowed for a bigger player picture, but I like the white edges with the hazy, colored border around the photo.  

The base cards all had an action picture. Here we have Lankford looking in towards home plate as he is running. It's likely a hit and run, but we will get that on the back of the card. Ray had good speed until the end of his career when his knees got a little gimpy. Even after he moved to left field and stopped stealing bases, Ray was still a good base runner.  

Definitely an old cookie cutter stadium here with the astroturf and baggie, likely covering up football seating, behind the outfield wall. Leaning Philadelphia. 

Back of the card.  

I am not big on busy card backs, but this one actually works for me.  

I like the picture at the top. Easily the highlight of the back. A little curious as to what is going on in the picture. Guessing that Ray is looking for a ball mark on the bat. Something you don't see everyday on a baseball card.

I also love the stat breakdown in the middle where you can see the player performance by month. Something different, impressed that they had on-base percentage on a baseball card pre-Moneyball.  Ray had a really good September in 1998.   

The bottom section is fine. I think I mentioned on a previous Random Ray post that the default Topps comment for the back of a Ray Lankford card was that he played football at a junior college and rushed for 1,000 yards. The Carl Nichols factoid appears frequently too, but he was a catcher, not an outfielder. Guess the editor was having an off day. I actually wish they had skipped this information and gone into more detail about the front picture under the Front Photo heading.  

Clearly, he's running on a hit and run. Who was hitting and where were the playing? Did they win? It was 1998, so McGwire probably hit a home run and they lost.  

I'm Just Happy To Be Here

Six years ago Merrill Kelly was a fringe prospect pitching for the Durham Bulls.  He played in college, so he was little older by the time he reached Triple A.  Merrill Kelly played for the Bulls during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, and was good enough to make the International League All-Star team his final year in Durham.  I liked watching Merrill Kelly for the two years he was in Durham, even if he never got a chance to play with the Rays.

I posted his team set card from 2014 a few years back.

Merrill Kelly would eventually end up in Korea, where he would pitch for the SK Wyverns.  They have baseball cards. I think this might one of the only Korean cards in my collection.

Merrill Kelly ended up back in the US this past season with the Diamondbacks.  He was mostly an average pitcher this year in Arizona, but still had some good moments during the season.   

I'm just happy that there are Merrill Kelly cards.  

Topps had the great idea to make a bunch of Merrill Kelly baseball cards.  He also signed a ton of autographs for them.  I waited awhile, but recently had the chance to buy a bunch of Merrill Kelly autographs.  All totaled, it cost right around $10 for three cards.  I also pulled one out of a pack of cards a student got my as a holiday gift.  

Here are my four Merrill Kelly autographs in countdown form:

4. Topps Chrome Update

Aren't all the Chrome autographs normally on card?  The sticker looks a little bit out of place on this card.  Get rid of the sticker, make it an on-card autograph and it might be at the top of the list.  It also looks like it was not Merrill's best day signing autographs.  Again, I really wish that this autograph was on-card, I would rate it much higher.  

3. Topps Tek 

I like Topps Tek.  It's affordable and the autographs are all on-card.  Topps has simplified the pattern aspects on these cards, so they all look the same.  I also like that Topps has a faded area around the bottom for the signer.  Always makes for a nice card.  Still, there are better cards of Merrill Kelly out there.  

2. Topps Gallery 

Topps Gallery is a sticker autograph, and I do not even care.  It's well blended, and the art on this card more than makes up for the sticker autograph.  Plus, it was a good signing day for Merrill Kelly when he was autographing these cards.  This is the lone autograph on this list that I did not buy off of Ebay.  My students at school all know that I enjoy a few baseball cards, sometimes they give me packs.  This came out of a Gallery blaster.  

1. 2019 Topps Update 1984 Topps Merrill Kelly 

I did not really do much with the 2019 Topps sets.  Any of them.  I did really enjoy these 1984 style inserts and autographs though.  It has long been   Last year, I spent time working on assembling a set of the 1983 cards, plus I found several of the autographs.  This year, I have completely skipped over most of the base set in favor of spending my time and money on the autographs.  It's the end of the year, this is likely the end of my 2019 Topps cards, so it's a nice way to end the year.  

More Lowes, But Just Brandon

There have been two players with the last name Lowe in the Rays, and Durham Bulls, lineups for the past year.  One is first baseman Nate Lowe, and the other is second baseman Brandon Lowe.  The names are not pronounced the same. 

.@RaysBaseball has Brandon Lowe and Nate Lowe.

Their explanation for how to pronounce those names made us dizzy.pic.twitter.com/6Td5VV1jwx

— Sporting News MLB (@sn_mlb) April 29, 2019

I have posted cards of both players on here, but I am a bigger fan of Brandon.  He had a great year with the Rays last year finishing third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting.  I get him finishing behind Yordan Alvarez, but I am still not sure how John Means snuck in front of him,  perhaps some sort of gesture of sympathy towards Orioles fans for having to watch their team. 

It seemed like collectors were really into Brandon Lowe for awhile, but his cards have slid back in price a little bit this year.  With all of the time I have spent on Blake Snell cards, I feel like some of the other former Durham Bulls players who are currently in the Majors have been less of a priority.

Sort of accidental, but we can get more into the positives and negatives of the Blake Snell autographs in an end of year post. 

Two new Lowe cards. 

The first one is from the bulky Gold Label set.   I think Topps has improved these cards over the past two or three years so that the frames no longer pop off the cards.  They are still really heavy and feel a little clumsy.  The design feels a little stagnant too. 

I actually picked up this card with a Snell autograph since I cannot pass up combined shipping. 

Next up. 

This card is so much better than the Blake Snell autographed card I posted yesterday.  The art work is better.  The sticker is straight.  Feel like that sort of covers it.  

This was a pretty fun five-ten minutes of my morning.  Next month, I am going to try more cards that are not Blake Snell.  

2019 Blake Snell Autograph Count: 26

Yes, there are more Snell autographs to post.  More in the mail, but I am really running out.  It would take a small miracle, or some Ebay seller dumping their inventory, to get to 30 with a month left in the year.  So, here is the latest Snell, which is out of the Wal-Mart exclusive product Topps Gallery.  

Front of the card.  

I used to love these cards back in the 1990s.  Now, that quite as much.  Still, it's not exactly their worst effort either.  I like the design of the card, the art work is pretty mediocre.  Can we put the autograph stickers on straight?  Look at the words "Topps Certified Autograph Issue" and then the bottom of the sticker.  Not so good.  

I like that there are stats on the back of the card and not just some form letter stating the obvious that I have an autographed card.  While the stats are nice, it also means that Topps tried to squeeze a bunch of other stuff onto the back of the card that makes it seem a little cluttered.  Beyond the stats, personal information, and "Gallery Notes", Topps also managed to sneak in the name of the artist and a disclaimer about the autograph signing being witnessed.  

Also a serial number, a card number, small print, and a trio of little logos at the bottom.  

That's a lot of stuff for the back of the card.  Overall, this is a decent card, nothing great.  It's solidly in the bottom half of the Snell autographs that Topps has put out this year.  

Weekend Countdown: Top 10 Albert Pujols Rookie Cards

It's hard to believe that it has been 18 years since Albert Pujols started his career with the Cardinals.  I went to the Cardinals home opener in 2001, but the team started the season on the road, so this was not his first game in the Majors.  First time I saw him, he hit a home run. 

I need to find the ticket stub. 

Nowadays, it seems like Albert is on the highlights every few weeks for passing up some Hall of Famer in an important category, or he is reaching some sort of plateau number.  I know on a day to day basis Albert is not the same player, but it's still amazing to see him pass up some of the all-time greats.  I think my favorite most recent milestone was his 3,000th hit last year against the Mariners.  

A few years back when he first signed with the Angels, I narrowed down my collection of his cards a bit.  A little bit of a knee jerk reaction to him being signed away from the Cardinals, but I have added a few cards back over the last year or two.  I would really like to spend some more time showing off my Albert cards at some point.  I started writing in this space in 2012, the year he left St. Louis, so naturally I have not written much about him.  I have thought about loop back and doing a few posts.   

Let me start out by showing off a few cards today.   

Here are this week's rules.  

• I am only using Pujols rookie cards, no other years outside of 2001

• I am only using rookie cards in my collection.  There might be Pujols rookie cards that are considered better than the ones on the list, but I do not own them.  

• The cards are in order of how I view them, which has a large sentimental factor, don't bother me about where I put his Bowman autograph.  

Go team.  

10. 2001 Donruss The Rookies - This was a mail in card that I got out of a box.  I lost the redemption coupon for awhile, but luckily I found it.  I like that he is a third baseman on this card, and not a utility player.  If you have never heard the story of Pujols making the Cardinals in 2001, it's out there somewhere.  Short version. The Cardinals signed Bobby Bonilla to be a utility player off the bench, he got injured at the end of Spring Training, and so Pujols made the team.  Third was his natural position at this point, although LaRussa did play him all over the place.  

9. 2001 Fleer Platinum - I always liked this set, which was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1981 Fleer set, but there is something unappealing about this photo.  It's like Pujols had to get a picture taken by someone, and is trying really hard to seem happy to be there.  Reminds me of school picture day.  Not as a kid, but now as an adult.  The photographers don't distinguish the teachers from the kids, "Say school lunch!!!".  No, and I'd rather go hungry.  

8. 2001 Fleer Tradition - Always liked the Fleer base sets from the late 1990s and early 2000s.  I actually think this is one of the worst designs they had, it's still above average.  This was only sold in the factory set, which I did not want to buy, so I picked this one up at a local card shop in St. Louis.  Maybe the only low end Pujols rookie that I did not pull out of a pack.  

7. 2001 Upper Deck - Pulled this out of a pack back in the day.  Love the action shot of him hitting the ball.  The looks like it's in Coors, which is where the Cardinals started out the 2001 season, got to figure it likely from one of his first games.  

6. 2001 Bowman Autograph - It has always bother me that Bowman used the same Pujols picture on tons of cards in 2001.  I think it just felt that way.  It's a Spring Training photo, but you think they could have gotten a more updated picture at some point for their later products.  Considering where Pujols was at his career entering Spring Training in 2001, not supposed to make the roster, I suppose it's nice the Cardinals gave him a decent uniform number.  He could be wearing 72 or 89.  This autograph is terrible for Pujols. 

5. 2001 Topps Traded- Really nice card.  I always liked this update set.  There are some cool parallels where they played with the card stock, chrome parallels, etc.  It's well done.  Good clean card of Pujols.  

4. 2001 Topps Gallery - I liked this brand during the 1990s and early 2000s.  Of course, it's not nearly as good anymore.  The art was a lot better back in the day.  Love this Spring Training picture.  I would love to know if the Cardinals actually have a Coke machine on their Spring Training field, or if that's some sort of artist's addition?  I also miss the birds on the bat hats.  The Cardinals do not wear them enough.  

3. 2001 Bowman's Best- Pretty random choice here, but I have always liked this set.  Yes, it's really modern.  Yes, this is a batting practice photo.  Just something about the photo with Pujols following through on a swing.  Good looking picture.  

2. 2001 Fleer Premium - This was the first Pujols card that I pulled out of a pack.  It was actually a redemption card.  Always been in my top 2, ever since 2001.

1. 2001 Bowman Heritage - Just a great looking card.  It's been my favorite since it came out.  

I Like Art Galleries

I am a really big fan of art galleries.  They are relaxing places.  They are quiet.  They are dark.  They are cold.  I usually have a favorite piece of art, or two at each of the museums that I frequent.  Sometimes, it's something that I have seen in an exhibit.  

Some of my favorites........

At the St. Louis Art Museum I like the Thomas Hart Benton painting "Cradling Wheat".  The shapes in his pictures are always interesting, lots of curved lines.  Always a lot of greens and browns.  Plus, he's a Missouri native and his paintings are plenty of other places around the state.  You can't run a history museum in Missouri if you do not have a Benton painting.  Not sure it's a law, but it feels that way.  

The Duke Nasher Art Museum has some Kehinde Wiley paintings.  When I worked in Durham, we used to take our students on field trips to this museum.  My students were convinced that this was supposed to be Big Boi from OutKast.   

Maybe.  

Could be.  

The North Carolina Art Museum is in Raleigh.  There are some nice permanent pieces there and the museum itself is nice to visit, but I really like the exhibits that go through that museum.  My favorite was a group of Monet paintings that came there about ten years ago.  Nice time....

Even if his paintings are repetitive.  Haystacks, water lilies, some rock formation in France.  It's all good.  

Baseball cards have art too.  Some of it is really good, some of it is not so good.  Picked up two new cards from Topps Gallery a week or two ago.  It has taken me a week or so to catch up on scanning new cards.  

In my opinion, this is a pretty nice art card.  

The paintings on the Gallery cards do not necessarily have to be perfect to win my praise, but the right details have to be there.  When I think of Anthony Banda, I think of sport goggles and tattoos.  The artist of the card got the style and brand of the goggles perfect and the tattoos are pretty close.  The tattoos on his glove arm are some combination of stars and maybe clouds?  There are for sure stars.  

I am not sure how many autographs of Banda I have picked up over the past year, but it is probably in double digits at this point.  I like this card without the autograph, I might have to go find a couple of the different colored versions of this one.  

Next, some art work that deserves a little bit of criticism.  Here is the card....

So, let's start off by stating something positive.  The Cardinals hat and uniform are pretty good.  Now, let's talk about Miles Mikolas.  When I think of Miles Mikolas, I think he has a lot of hair, sometimes he has facial hair, and he's a bit of a free spirit.  On this card, I think he looks like Tom Selleck in Mr. Baseball.  

I am almost sure that Miles Mikolas is a lot more of a free spirit than Tom Selleck.  Tom Selleck is well-groomed like that mustache on the Miles Mikolas card.  Wasn't Tom Selleck in the Army?  Precise hair, precise mustache.  Miles Mikolas has free flowing hair.  It would not have a definite stopping point like the picture.  I haven't brushed my hair in twenty years, I know when someone does not brush their hair.  Miles Mikolas does not brush his hair.   Let's look at how Miles Mikolas rolls.....

Miles Mikolas has a mustache?  Not after the game.  Is that a bolo tie?  Philip Rivers is jealous.  The hair is not neat and it's not brushed.  More hair not brushed.....

and finally, more fashion statement.....

Again, bolo tie, belt buckle, sunglasses, unbrushed hair.  

Free Miles.  

Gallery Of Reasonable Baseball Cards

I really cannot stand Wal-Mart.  There is one a mile or so from my house.  I spent ten minutes trying to think of one item that I regularly buy from that store.  I have got nothing.  The last time I went there it was only because it opens at 6 in the morning and I needed to pick something up for the science club I run at my school.

Sure, part of the dislike has to do with the fact that the card aisle is garbage, but it also smells like cat food.  Needless to say that when a retail only product comes out I have zero chance of finding any packs of whatever it is anywhere near my Wal-Mart.  I guess I could do that whole thing where I drive from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart all over central North Carolina, but I value my time too much to go on such a venture.

I guess I "miss out" on all of the fun.

Annual Bowman craze over some prospect?  I got an Ohtani card last year.

In the past I have ended up with plenty of cards of Bryce Harper, Steven Strasburg, or whoever else has made people scour all of their local retail stores for packs of Bowman.  I will wait a few more weeks and buy a Bowman base set for a whole lot of not much compared to what they were selling for when the set first came out.  

Remember when they had the baseball cards in the Wal-Mart brand pizza?

Big shout out to the internet for a picture of a pizza box from Wal-Mart.  I question whether the food material inside of the box can even be called a pizza.  Ultimate meat pizza?  I have my doubts.  I missed the pizza card craze and I feel like I really did not miss anything.  I can buy the two Cardinals cards in the set off of COMC for less than $3.00.....

and I have never eaten a Wal-Mart brand pizza.  It's a win-win.  

Which brings me to last year's Wal-Mart exclusive......

the Topps Gallery set.  People want a little crazy about these boxes.  Two autographs for $70 at Wally World?  I decided to wait out for singles.  The former Durham Bulls players in the set were within a comfortable price range last fall.....

so I have picked up most of those cards.  Although the Rays ended up with Christian Arroyo in the Evan Longoria trade, so there is still one out there to find.  Not sure what is up with the drawing of Kiermaier's face on this card.  A little off.  

So, on to the Cardinals.  I found a copy of the Paul DeJong and Alex Reyes autographs about two months ago, which left me with two more autographs to find.  I could have bought the Luke Weaver last fall, not too bad on price for one of his cards.....

in the Gallery set.  I went ahead and picked up this card once I found the final Cardinals card that I needed to complete the team set.  I never quite understood, of all the players, why Cardinals fans went a little overboard on Magneuris Sierra.  He is a decent prospect, mainly he's just really fast....

I suspect that some of the love for Sierra came from the fact that he is something off a 1980s Cardinals team.  He's not Vince Coleman, or Willie McGee, but he might be the closest thing the Cardinals have had the last twenty-five years.  

Since he got traded to the Marlins this offseason, he will never have the chance to duplicate those players as a Cardinal.  The good news is that most of Sierra's cards have gone from outrageous to $5. Very reasonable for a player I suspect might turn into a Billy Hamilton clone, minus a step.  I was a little excited to cross off some cards that will close out some team sets.  The Gallery card was first up on my list. 

I feel like the sticker autograph is a little more noticeable on this card than on the Weaver and Kiermaier cards.  I also feel like the art work is also better.  This is my first decent Sierra autograph too.  About a year ago, I picked up a copy of a Panini autograph....

though as an unlicensed card, it is really unattractive.  Not even close to the Gallery card.  Maybe a few more Mags cards later on this summer.  

It's Seemed Like Small Change, But...

A post on San Jose Fuji's page last month sent me scrambling through some of my boxes to look for some of those coin cards that Topps seems to put out every year.  I am not sure what year, or set, that Topps started making the coin cards, but the Currency set from the 2003 Topps Gallery product has to be one of the earliest.

After seeing the Sasaki card on Fuji's blog, I knew that I had a few of these Currency cards hanging out somewhere, and that these might be worthy of a project.  I found a big handful of the cards including....

Musial, Willie McCovey, and even a Jackie Robinson.  There are a few others that I didn't list.  I like this Vladimir Guerrero, so this is the card I went with for my post.  That Centavo is sweet.  Seemed like a good start.  I also had a few things coming in from COMC, so I picked up another two cards on the cheap.

I picked up a Kaz Sasaki card with a Yen.....

and a Rodrigo Lopez with a Centavo.  This is a Centavo of the Mexican variety.  

After looking around on COMC, the most expensive card that I found was a copy of the Musial, which I already own.  Most expensive card checked off, the whole idea of making this set into a project was seeming like a really good idea.  

and then I did something that I usually do at the beginning of setting out on a project.  Check Ebay and looking at a checklist.  I have been using COMC a lot lately, staying away from Ebay, so the search results on Ebay were a little bit disappointing.  Namely......

a $60 Babe Ruth card.  Also there is a.......

$75 Lou Gehrig card too. 

Damn Yankees.  

When the odds are sayin' you'll never win

That's when the grin should start

Pretty doubtful my wife will be grinning if I spend $135 on two Yankees cards with coins.  Welp, I have a few nice coin cards out of the whole thing, but this is not going to be a project.  

A Whole Pack of Sox

We are now three years into the White Sox career of Carlos Rodon.  I really like Carlos, so I am not going to sit here and waive the white flag on his career, or suggest that he's going to be remembered as some huge draft flop.  There are a lot of positives about him in spite of whatever his win-loss record has been with the White Sox.  

Besides, I just think back to his time pitching at NC State and enjoy every card of his that I can get my hands on.  Locally he will always be remember as a great college pitcher who helped, along with Trea Turner, get the Wolfpack to the College World Series.  

He's only been out of college a few years and he already has a bunch of items in the NC State Hall of Fame.....

Which brings me to a few new baseball cards.  I picked up one new 2017 autograph of Rodon along with two 2016 cards that I did not own before last week.  Brand new card first....

This is out of the Gallery set.  I don't think there are as nice as the late 1990s/early 2000s version of this set, but I hold those sets on a pretty lofty pedestal, so perhaps I am setting the bar too high for these cards.  I haven't picked up any packs of these cards, my local Wal-Mart is a complete disaster for baseball cards.  It was a retail exclusive to that store.  It's a nice enough looking card though, even if the autograph is a sticker, it's not immediately noticeable on this card.  

I feel like I am getting picky about these colored parallel cards as I get older.  A green White Sox card?  I feel like this card is some sort of commemoration of the St. Patty's Day Spring Training Games where the teams don green uniforms.  

I am okay with this for the moment, but I am seriously considering just buying/trading for parallel colors that actually look good.  Purple Cardinals cards?  No.  Green Rays cards?  No.  I could go on, you get the point.  

Last one.  The Topps base set autographs usually have enormous print runs, and if you can hold out ten minutes after they are released, you can usually find many of them for next to nothing.  Honestly, I actually really like the looks of these autographs out of the 2016 Topps base set.