Nice Bench Trade

Before I left for vacation on the 17th, I managed to complete a rare trade on The Bench website.  This one was only the 5th one this year, the second with member mechjo16.  Before discovering TCDB, I would do 15-20 trades a month on the site.  I still check the message board daily, but most members seem to be the newer investment type who only want the hottest prospects.  Not my cup of tea, but every now and then, I do find a like-minded collector.  I traded a stack of 2023 Bowman singles for a nice lot of recent Cardinals.

I am impressed with my first 2022 Panini Capstone cards.  Nice thick card stock with a glossy finish.  I like the baseball in the background.  

A couple of nice base cards from 2021 A&G hot box foil set.  If I had a dime for every time Topps used some form of this Musial photo.  

I love die-cut cards.  Not sure why.  They can be difficult to keep in good shape.  Just something cool about a card shaped like a crystal ball.  

A couple of shiny parallels from 2021 sets.  Edman is an optic, while Goldschmidt is a Prizm.  

The final 2 cards included a 2021 yellow parallel and a 2021 refractor.  Woodford was part of the group of 4 pitchers and 1 position player who gave up 14 runs last night.  I have no idea when the Cardinals will hit rock bottom, but it better be soon.   They are very hard to root for right now.

     

Birds and Bowman for Birds

 I traded with TCDB member LetsGoOs twice last year.  Both were great trades that involved Orioles going in his direction and Cardinals coming my way.  We changed this up a bit this time as he was looking to complete a 2023 Bowman set.  I still included a handful of Os for him, while he also include a couple of non-Cardinals for me.

Not hard to guess who the non-Cardinals cards were.  Altuve burned the Cardinals last night with a go-ahead 3-run home run in the 8th inning.  My son will still cheer for him anyway.

Goldschmidt hit a monster home run in the loss last night.  He is having a good year, just not a great one like his MVP season last year.  He has a history of heating up when the weather gets warmer.  Maybe he will turn things up in July.

Pujols made the trip to London over the weekend to watch the Cardinals split with the Cubs.  I doubt he was impressed with the outcome.  

There have been rumblings the last few weeks that a big reason the Cardinals stink this year is Molina's absence.  That may be a small part of it, but there is too much talent on the team to explain the last place showing right now.  They could really use a couple of stud pitchers like Gibson and Carlton.  Maybe if the Mets are truly sellers, Max  Scherzer could pitch for his hometown team.

Liberatore and Montgomery are 2/5 of the current rotation.  Libby has not pitched as bad as some of the others, while Monty had a horrible May and great June.  Who knows what will happen the rest of the year.  Burleson has not played much lately with the recent call up of Jordan Walker and the return of Lars Nootbaar and Dylan Carlson from injury.  Cannot blame him for much.  

    

Making a Dent in 2023 Wantlist

I sound like a broken record when I mention how many base cards I still need from 2023 team sets.  I do not have the first 2023 Donruss or 2023 Topps Series 2 base card yet.  I hope to get on the ball more next month.  There are 2 or 3 different shows I might be able to hit.  If that fails, I will go the trade route.  A recent trade with TCDB member JustinBobo77 did shrink my list by a few.

I am done with 2023 Bowman after adding these 2 Chrome cards.  One less set to worry about.

I am not as fortunate with my Heritage set.  Still 10 more cards to find, including 1 short print.  Wainwright made news the last couple of days by deleting his Twitter account after receiving some bad messages following his last start.  The will is still there, but his talent level has fallen off.  He should win 2 more games to reach 200, but I doubt he will get many more.  Maybe he can have a decent second half to finish his great career out.

My son added a nice 2023 Topps Series 1 insert of Altuve to his collection.  He is slowly getting closer to 700.  
    
  
  

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #45

 In addition to some EBAY wins, I had a few trades delivered last week while I was gone.  Because it is Tuesday, I will show off the 2 smallest ones from TCDB.  First up is a 2 pack of 2023 Bowman Cardinals from member lfgrd77.

Wish I had this package before I left.  I saw Rodriguez play twice in Davenport over the weekend.  He signed autographs after the first game.  He should be in Peoria most of the year, so I should have another chance.

Second trade came from member tgreer.  This one contained 3 cards, 1 of which is already on its way to someone else.  

I am almost finished with the blue parallels from 2013 Topps Update.  Beltran leaves me 2 short.

I need to track down the Paul Goldschmidt card to finish the 2022 Stadium Club Triumvirates Cardinals trio.  Arenado joined the Molina card in my box.  If I ever get the Goldy, I will try to remember to scan the 3 together.  

Week Worth of EBAY Lankfords

While I was gone on vacation last week, I had some EBAY wins delivered to my mailbox.  All but 1 were new Ray Lankford cards from 2023 Donruss.  These 4 cards cost me about $18 total.

The holo red would be a great looking card with a little more red on the Cardinals jersey.

The season stat line parallel is numbered to 306 to match Lankford's batting average in 1999.

The liberty parallel is on that I could do without.  It is not numbered, but does have plenty of Statue of Liberty icons around the border.

The president parallel is numbered to 46 to match the number of US presidents including the current one.  I now have 5 different Lankfords of the 24 Donruss produced this year.  There are other collectors going after the rainbow, as evidence by an auction last night for the voltage parallel numbered to 25 that went for $36.  A little rich for my blood right now.

On Fire

When the checklist for 2023 Donruss came out, I had to throw a little mini party.  For the first time since 2012 Topps Archives, Ray Lankford has a mainstream card.  The Archives was an autograph.  I say mini party because there are 24 different versions of his card counting the printing plates.  It will be impossible, but I will try to acquire as many as possible.  The first one arrived on Wednesday.

The On Fire parallels are numbered to 75.  I paid about $11 for this one on EBAY.  Maybe a little high, but I have no idea how many people will be busting Donruss.  Anything numbered under 100 may be hard to find.  I believe this is the first card showing Lankford wearing #12 instead of his usual #16.  During his final season with the Cardinals in 2004 Reggie Sanders was wearing #16.  

A Few From 2022 and 2023

My first trade envelope of June arrived on Saturday.  This one was courtesy of TCDB member cr74.  This was our second completed trade this year.  It is nice to trade with someone I know will send my cards quickly and safely.  

The ice parallels look so much better than the base Bowman Platinum cards.  Wonder how long before Topps makes a chrome version.

What Cardinal fan does not love adding Pujols cards to his/her collection?  I have not found one yet.  The purple refractor is pretty sharp, while the sepia Stadium Club features a great shot.

This is my first 2022 Stadium Club Chrome base card.  Carlson tried to recreate this shot last night but instead ended up going through the bullpen gate.  

I need so many base cards from 2023 sets right now.  Nice to cross off 3 Bowman cards.

My son's Altuve collection has been neglected for the past couple of months.  Without hitting up card shows, it can be a slow process to add his cards because I often forget to check other trader's collection for his cards when working out a trade.  

Pujols Topps Now

I am not a huge fan of the Topps Now cards.  I think it is just another money grab by Topps to take advantage of player and team collectors.  I do not know the exact number of Now cards in my collection, but it is less than 10.  I did have my eye on a particular one from the 2022 season because it was a game I attended.  I played the waiting game and found one for under $5 delivered.

This game from August 14 of last year featured 2 home runs by Pujols in a 6-3 win against the Brewers.  I wrote about that day for another  reason.  This card is a nice reminder of what a great day that was.  
  

Cardinals 4 Pack

Today's recap features a 4 pack of shiny Cardinals from TCDB member MrLahey1997.

My favorite card in the package was this 2021 Bowman Sapphire Nolan Gorman.  Gorman would be my pick for the Cardinal's All Star Game representative right now.  Strange to say that when Goldschmidt and Arenado are on the same team.

Wainwright will not get to his preseason goal of 15 wins.  At this point, he may not get 3 more to reach 200.  He either pitches bad, or pitches well when the offense does not hit.  

O'Neill has been on the DL most of the season.  If he was playing, he most likely would have been traded.  

Liberatore had 1 bad inning in last night's loss.  Unfortunately, that is all it takes these days to beat the Cardinals.

  

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #44

The first 2 for Tuesday of June is very short and sweet.  2 trades with a total of 3 cards.  First up is a lone card from member doublee919.

This trade involved an Ozzie coming my way and a single Cal Ripken headed the other way.  Hard to pass up a great photo from Stadium Club.

Second trade is a 2 pack of 2023 Bowman Cardinals from member Geoff2568.

Slight chance I may get the Winn card signed later this month.  Will keep you updated on that.  I still have a handful of prospects to chase down to complete the base set.  One less now that I can cross Baez off the list.  I had hope he would be promoted to Peoria later this year, but a .200 batting average in low A Palm Beach will most likely not get the job done.

  

In Person Indianapolis Autographs

This post is a follow-up to the one on May 24, which highlighted my son and I's trip to Indianapolis.  I had plans to post it last week, but life really got in the way.  I will not go into details, as this is a card blog.  All I will say is take a moment each day to hug the ones you love and tell them what they mean to you.  You never know when they may be gone.

The main reason for our trip was to catch an Indians game, the triple-A team of the Pirates.  This was the first team autograph night held since before Covid happened.  There are quite a few top prospects on the roster, many of which I did not have cards for.  We did not come away empty-handed though.   

 Malcom Nunez was part of the Jose Quintana trade last summer.  He was the only player with Cardinal cards, so it was nice to get him.

I did find 2 cards of Cal Mitchell in my boxes prior to the trip.  I had zero luck finding any at the card shop.

I had the Contenders Gonzales card and was able to find the 2022 Heritage Minors card at the shop.

I had 3 of the Swaggerty cards, and added the 2023 Topps from the shop.  It was nice to see him signing, as at the time he was on the DL.   I love getting the Bowman Top 100 cards signed.

Quinn Priester was one of the main guys I wanted to get, but I had none of his cards and did not find any at the card shop.  We were behind a nice gentleman with a binder full of cards who agreed to give us 2 Priester cards.  We kept this one while giving the other one back.  Always nice to meet good guys in the hobby.

The Indians lost both games of the doubleheader vs. the Iowa Cubs.  Not much offense in either game as the finals were 1-0 and 2-1.  We also came home with 2 Oneil Cruz bobbleheads, but I was too lazy to take a picture of them.  All in all, it was a fun day spent with my son making baseball memories.