Carded by Kerry

My card desk is finally cleaned up after scanning the cards for today's post, but it will not remain like that for long.  My son and I plan to attend a card show tomorrow, and next week I should have quite a few trades rolling in.  At least things are nice and neat for a day or two.

Today's Cardinals package is from Kerry .  I believe it was late last week when these arrived.  It looks like Kerry has been involved in some box/case breaks that have produced some duplicates.  Glad he thought of me when figuring out what to do with them.  

I will start with a couple of former Cardinals first baseman from the 2002 206 set.  Their careers are somewhat similar in that Pujols played great for the Cardinals, then not so much once he left.  Martinez was a great Yankee, but then slumped very badly as a Cardinal.

I wish Topps would stick with just 1 Allen & Ginter set instead of the 3 or 4 them seem to crank out.  I do like the hot box foil version the best.

Topps has not went overboard with the Stadium Club brand yet with Chrome being the only spin off.  I hope it stays that way.

I am surprised there is not a Gypsy Queen Chrome set.  The inserts from this year look pretty sharp.  The Oviedo cards just leaves me 2 short prints short of the team set.  

Refractors are nice regardless of what brand they are from.  Flaherty comes from the same bulldog type mold as Carpenter.  He does not show as much intensity, but he is just as tough.  Hope his Cardinals career is just as good as Carp's.  That would mean a Cy Young and 2 World Series titles are in his future.

The non Topps portion of the package featured 2 inserts from 2021 Diamond Kings.  This is my second copy of the Carlson card.  My son thinks we should save it to get autographed some time.  Not a bad idea.
  
    

3 Freebies

Just a short post today highlighting an unexpected pwe from Trading Bases member Pete P.  Pete has been busy send out quite a few of these mailings to various members.  Always nice to get something when you are not expecting anything.

Brock and Gibson will be forever thought of together by Cardinals fans.  Both were members of the great 1960s World Series teams, elected to the Hall of Fame, and passed away the same year.  I am surprised Topps has not made another Super Teams set other than the 2002 issue.  There are so many other great teams to highlight other than the 11 teams used that year.  

2 more Cardinals greats share this 2008 UD Heroes Black card, the final one I needed for my team set.  Most people know Musial's nickname was "The Man".  Besides "The Machine", Pujols was also called " El Hombre", Spanish for The Man.  Pujols returned to St. Louis this week as a member of the Dodgers and hit a home run in his first at bat.  A lot of people are hoping he will return next year if the National League adopts the DH rule.  I would not be opposed to it, but it should not be for very much money or cost Goldschmidt much playing time.  

Brewers for Cardinals

The Cardinals have been stuck behind the Brewers in the NL Central for the better part of this season.  I believe early May was the last time the Cards were ahead of them.  The Brewers have excellent pitching to go along with a decent offense.  The Cardinals have neither right now, and I do not think that is going to change the rest of the year.  They need a lot of luck to squeak into the wild card game.  Even if they make the playoffs, I do not see them going far.  As another fan base from the NL Central says, there is always next year.  

Last week I was able to trade a Brewers lot that included some cards from my Prizm box break to TCDB member ntlwhlr.  He gladly sent me some unwanted Cardinals from his collection.  

The 2005 Bowman Sterling set is made up of rookie cards and memorabilia cards.  I need 3 more memorabilia cards and 1 rookie card to finish my team set.  This one will not be finished anytime soon.

Showing a 2021 Stadium Club base card along with a 2005 Bowman Chrome Draft base card may not seem logical, but it does to me when these 2 made their 300th start together last week.  Tonight will make 301.  Yesterday Wainiwright announced he plans to play in 2022.  I cannot see it being anywhere other than St. Louis.  If they both stay healthy, they should break the all time record of 324 starts together some time next year.  

I hope DeJong has a bounce back season in 2022.  Despite not hitting over .200 so far this year, I believe the Cardinals will give him every chance to be the starting shortstop next year even though there are quite a few good free agent short stops available.  It would be fun to see Trevor Story play next to Nolen Arenado in St. Louis, but I almost guarantee the Cardinals will not spend the money needed to sign him.

This 1994 Signature Rookies card looks like something Panini would produce.  Even for a minor league card, the lack of logos is very obvious.  Young will be in St. Louis this weekend signing autographs for free on Saturday.  As tempting as it is to make the 2.5 hour drive, my son and I will instead be hitting up a card show about an hour away.  

   
 

First of Many from The Bench

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend.  Mine was full of softball and trading.  The softball is an annual slow pitch tournament that takes place every Labor Day weekend.  We finished 4th out of 10 teams.  That is about where we should place.  The good thing was it only lasted Saturday, so I had plenty of spare time on Sunday and Monday to play with cards.  

I decided to post the results of my Topps Chrome blasters on The Bench website.  I ended up making 10 different trades for all but 5 of the cards.  It will be a few days before any of the trades come in, but I did receive a nice bubble mailer from The Bench member HoosierBuddy last week that was full of my usual favorites.

My son gained 4 new Altuve cards.  I did not realize he already had the Heritage Scratch Off.  He liked the 2021 Donruss Holo Orange the best.  

Moving on to my portion of the trade, I received 3 nice Dylan Carlson inserts.  Panini did a nice job of hiding the logos on the top 2 cards.  With the Hot Rookies insert had orange flames.   That would have made the card look very sharp.

Finest Refractors are always sharp no matter what the year.  These are my first from 2021.

Finishing up the package is a 2021 Stadium Club Superstar Duos insert.  I did not scan the front Molina pic.  Goldschmidt is playing so well lately that he deserves a scan all to himself.

  

  

Topps Chrome Blaster Battle

Usually when my son and I open packs together, we take turns opening them.  One for him, one for me.  If there is an odd number of packs, whoever pulled the best card gets to open it.  We decided to change things up earlier this week when my Target order of 2 2021 Topps Chrome blasters arrive.  

I got a great deal on these.  Back in July Target ran a promotion for new Red Card members.  Sign up a card and receive $40 off a $40 purchase.  You already save 5% on all your purchases at Target and get free shipping, so by using this offer, the 2 blasters cost me $20.17 delivered.  Far better deal than the retail price of $29.99 each.  

We each picked a box to open.  I will let you decide who did better.  I do not think you will have much trouble deciding.  My pulls will be on top, my son's on bottom.

I won the Cardinal round by pulling a base and a refractor. 

The base cards were pretty even.  I did pull a nice Hayes card, but my son pulled more rookies.

My son pulled more quantity and quality inserts.  He beat the 1:4 odds for the 1986 inserts.  Hard to go wrong with 2 Trout inserts.

I pulled more refractors if you count the Molina, but once again my son pulled a nice Trout.  The Vlad Jr. is not bad either.  

I beat the 1:4 odds by pulling 3 pink refractors, but my son pull another Vlad Jr.  I would say he is firmly in the lead right now.

He pulled way ahead by pulling this autograph.  Odds are 1:71.  Not the biggest name, but there are plenty of Yankee collectors out there who should like this one.  Overall it was a fun time.  I do not mind losing the battle.

Ginter Friday

 I did not accomplish my goal of posting every day this week, but today does mark 3 out of 5.  I had issues with my internet provider for a couple of days, and posting from my phone is too difficult for me.  Maybe after the holiday I can crank things up a bit.  To end the week, I have a small pwe trade from TCDB member Lawsgt to go over.  

These are my first 2021 Ginter cards.  The design is about the same as previous year, but with a little more added color.  About what you should expect for this product.

I also received my first mini.  This one has a A&G back to it.  DeJong has not had a very good 2021 season.  He has somewhat lost his starting job to Edmundo Sosa after being an All Star in 2019.  Maybe he will play better the last few weeks and get his average over .200.

One Cardinal that has not struggled this year is Goldschmidt.  30 home runs, 100 RBIs, and a .300 batting average could still be done.  I have always like the National Baseball Card Day set.  The designs are simple, yet not as boring as some of the flagships sets.

It has been almost 1 year since Bob Gibson passed away last October.  This 2004 Playoff Prestige Achievements inserts highlights his outstanding 1968 season.  His 28 complete games that year were second in the league to Juan Marichal's 30.  Adam Wainiwright is tied for the league league this year with 3.  Times have certainly changed.

  

Trio of Trades

In an effort to catch up on a few trade posts, today I will am going over 3 recent TCDB trades.  First up is a small pwe trade with member Themissionguy.

I received 7 other cards in this trade, but they were all trade bait that I mailed off.  You really only come here to see the Cardinals anyway.  The Liberatore is a 2020 Mojo refractor, while the Torre is a 2020 A&G mini.  Liberatore should make his debut sometime next year.  Not sure it will be as a starter, but that is where his long term spot should be.

Next up are 3 cards from member Trapdoor.

All of these cards are from 2021.  The Ozzie Silver Pack is my favorite.  

The third trade is a 4 pack of Cardinals from member irish77.  

It is almost embarrassing to say I still need cards from 2003 Fleer Tradition Update.  Now I just need 1 more to complete the 18 card team set.  I did not scan the front of the Molina because it looks the same as any other 2018 Topps base card.  This one is different because it is from the NL Standouts set.  The Dylan Carlson card is from the Series 2 1965 Redux set.  I had high hopes Carlson would be NL Rookie of the Year, but unless he has a great  September I am guessing that honor will go to Trevor Rogers or Jonathan India.