Opening Day!

 

1984 Topps - Glossy All-Stars #12 Whitey Herzog

I've always enjoyed one quirk of these All-Star cards, particularly for the managers. This card is from the 1984 set, features the 1983 All-Star game, which the Manager earned by being in the 1982 World series. But it's April, forget the All-Star break, forget the World Series, it's Opening Day.

So how does Whitey Herzog handle Opening Day? Let's see some stats

Year	Team	Result
1990	STL	Win
1989	STL	Loss
1988	STL	Loss
1987	STL	Win
1986	STL	Win
1985	STL	Loss
1984	STL	Win
1983	STL	Loss
1982	STL	Win
1981	STL	Loss
1979	KCR	Win
1978	KCR	Loss
1977	KCR	Win
1976	KCR	Loss
1973	TEX	Loss
Total	STL	5-5
Total	KCR	2-2
Total	TEX	0-1
Overall		7-8

7-8? That's no fun. So let's get creative. Whitey took over midseason as manager 3 times. 1980 for the Cardinals, and 1975 for the Royals, as you might expect from the years listed above. He also managed 4 games for the Angels between managers in 1974. So let's add in Whitey's personal opening days.

Date	Team	Result
1980-06-09	STL	Win
1975-07-25	KCR	Win
1974-06-26	TEX	Loss
Overall		2-1

Note: I'm not totally sure June 26 was his first game of 1974, but it seems to line up with the records of the previous manager, and starts a 2 for 4 stretch, which would be his final record that year.

We're up to 9-9, that's at least a .500 record. Can we get even more creative? How about 1981, which had a strike mid-year and the season was divided into halves. Everyone got a fresh start, a 0-0 record, and new shot at the playoffs, regardless of your previous record. Sounds like an opening day scenario to me. How'd he do in 1981's second opening day, in August?

Date	Team	Result
1981-08-10	STL	Win

There we go! A 10-9 "Opening Day" record, achieved completely legitimately with no funny business.

Opening Days
STL	5-5
KCR	2-1
TEX	0-1
Opening Days	7-8
First Days
STL	1-0
KCR	1-0
CAL	0-1
First Days	2-1
2nd Half
STL	1-0
Total	10-9

Just for fun, here's a video from one of my favorite Whitey Herzog stories. He was interested in becoming commissioner but was passed over for Bart Giamatti, previously president of Yale. Marv joked that if he didn't get it, there'd be an opening at Yale, and Whitey did not appreciate the joke. Seems a bit petty, but it's on the milder side of what we've seen from athletes and managers getting annoyed by reporters.

Zistle Trade #28

While we're all mourning the seemingly inevitable loss of Zistle, I've still got some trades to post from it. This was a pretty small addition for me, but it only cost me 1 card in return.

1982 Donruss #404 Ken Oberkfell
1982 Topps #452 Lee Smith RC
1984 Topps #310 Willie Mcgee
1994 Score - Gold Rush #149 Todd Stottlemyre
1995 Fleer - All-Stars #2 Frank Thomas / Gregg Jefferies

I don't have a whole lot from the early 80s, so two Cardinals, and eventual Cardinal Lee Smith were good to knock off my want list. I've got plenty of 90s cards, but a sparse amount of insert cards, which is where the Stottlemyre and Jefferies come in. The front side of Jefferies shows his 1B counterpart in the American League, Frank Thomas.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part X

College football will be here again before we know it, so I've got to get my prize from last season's Bowl Pick 'Em contest at Cards on Cards posted! My prize for a second place tie was a very generously sized box of cards, so I felt a bit overwhelmed even sorting through them. I finally sorted them out by player, and, as usual, I'll plan to post them all eventually, but I might quit halfway through, we'll see.

Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

1986 Fleer Update
#U-29 Tim Conroy
#U-50 Mike Heath
#U-65 Mike LaValliere
#U-85 Rick Ownbey
#U-89 Pat Perry

I sorted out my cards by player, but lots of the stacks were only one card deep. That was the case for each of these cards from 1986 Fleer Update. This makes up 5/6 of the Cardinals from this set, so there's one more card on my want list now. These are also the only cards from the set I have so far.

1982 O-Pee-Chee #348 Darrell Porter
1984 Topps
#389 Ozzie Smith
#561 Whitey Herzog
Glossy All-Stars #12 Whitey Herzog
1987 Topps - Glossy All-Stars #1 Whitey Herzog
2013 Panini Cooperstown - Colgan's Chip Disks # Whitey Herzog

I figured that Whitey Herzog disk was from some obscure food issue from the 80s that I'd never track down, but it turned out to be a well-made insert from 2013 that mimics the 80s style well. The two All-Star cards made me realize there's a 2-year lag from a World Series appearance for a manager to appearing in an all-star set. For example, the Cardinals made the World Series in 1982 and 1985, thus Whitey Herzog managed the All-Star teams in 1983 and 1986, and so these cards are in the 1984 and 1987 sets. It's no huge insight, but I just like to keep those sorts of things in mind. I already have his 1989 card in my want list.

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 1

Sometimes when I win a contest, I set the prize aside until I have time to fully rummage through all of it. In this case I won a contest back in late September, and I think the "Small Flat Rate Box" arrived by early October. I opened it immediately, but it's been sitting on my desk, too daunting of task to sort, since then. I finally felt the need to dive into it, and give jaybarkerfan his proper thank you post.

First up, we have the subject of the contest itself, a serial numbered card. The contest was simple: guess the number, out of 199.

2012 Topps Chrome
Blue Refractors #11 Ian Kennedy #177/199

I was the 4th person to guess, went with #177, and nailed it. The logic for my guess was simply to try to pick a number far from the others, so I didn't do the classic The Price is Right jerk move of outbidding someone by a dollar.

2012 Topps Chrome
Blue Refractors #11 Ian Kennedy #177/199

1984 Topps #115 Andre Thornton
1984 Topps #129 Bill Laskey
1984 Topps #180 Manny Trillo
1984 Topps #188 Bryan Little
1984 Topps #616 Don Robinson
1985 Topps #271 Tim Foli

I got 5 1984 Topps cards, and my scanner's not that wide, so luckily I had a 1985 to even out the scan. Gotta love 30 year old cards.

1990 Donruss Best of the AL
#70 Junior Felix
#71 Craig Worthington
#73 Johnny Ray
#74 Ozzie Guillen
#75 Brook Jacoby
#76 Chet Lemon
#78 B.J. Surhoff
#97 Sandy Alomar

1990 Donruss Best of the AL
#110 Willie Randolph
#113 Tony Fernandez
#116 Luis Polonia
#117 Carney Lansford
#118 Bud Black
#119 Lou Whitaker

I have never seen this blue 1990 Donruss "Best of the AL" set. It's almost like the color parallels you see today, except I think all the images are different from the 1990 red base set. Once I finally finish my 1990 Donruss set, this set would be a nice addition. There's also an NL set, which is also blue.

1991 Score 100 Superstars
#43 Randy Milligan
#46 Brian Harper

Superstars, eh? I beg to differ. Still though, here's another set I don't think I've ever seen.

1994 Tombstone
#19 Juan Gonzalez
#29 Frank Thomas

I vote for MLB to bring back food issues. Surely Topps can allow a little leeway in its exclusive license.

1994 Finest
#53 Ricky Guitierrez
#161 Ben McDonald

1995 Finest
#184 Tim Naehring

1996 Finest
#204 Randy Myers
#210 Ben McDonald
#303 Steve Gibralter

Here's a little evolution of Topps Finest, though 1996 is only "Common" cards. One day I'll finally get the urge to peel the protective film off of these and other Finest cards I have, and immediately regret it.

That's it for today, but there's plenty left in the box...

A Random PWE, Part I

That's Plain White Envelope for those of you not hip to the collecting lingo. This envelope of cards arrived a week or so ago, but I didn't recognize the name or return address. I thought about it for about a day and remembered that Jaybarkerfan's Junk had requested addresses and favorite teams earlier in the year, and I thought I remembered sending an e-mail over. I still had to do a little digging, but I discovered that was indeed the source of my new cards. Enough about the back story, I'm sure you want to see more Cardinals on this blog. And due to my obsession with tagging the sets and players, you get this post in 2 parts!

1984 Topps #561 Whitey Herzog

Whitey was pretty much the god of baseball in this town until La Russa won two World Series, and some folks still insist he'd have done better. I was sort of surprised to see that this is only the 3rd card of Herzog in my collection, but he did quit managing in 1990, before the explosion of sets, and before I started buying cards.

1985 Topps #447 Jeff Lahti

I always think of 1985 Topps as "Vintage" and maybe even hard to find, but I now have 8 copies of this card. It makes me wonder if all the Cardinals filtered down to my local shops when I was a kid, and I picked them up in "random" lots, or if there is some sort of worldwide glut of '85 Topps. I also kind of wonder what the odds are of someone sending me an octuplet out of just 8 random Cardinals. Maybe I can figure that out one of these days.

1986 Topps Traded #28T Tim Conroy

I must admit I've never heard of Tim Conroy, but it's always nice to get a card from a Traded set. Those seem to be a little harder to find than the flagship counterparts.

1991 Score Rookie/Traded #63T Gerald Perry

Here's another card from a traded set, which is actually my first card from this set. I do remember Gerald Perry pretty well since he played for the Cardinals until 1995. I also heard this week he'll be the Hitting Coach for the USA Baseball team in the World Baseball Classic this year. Good for him. And he'll be working under former Cardinal player and manager, Joe Torre.

Well there's the first half of the cards. Thanks again to Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk, and come back tomorrow for Part II.

Diamond Giveaway Winnings, Part II

[Part I]
I only paid for 25 cards to be delivered, and showed you the "rest" in the last post. Now here are the best, completely subjectively and based on my own opinion.

1954 Topps #118 Carl Scheib
1958 Topps #287 Sam Jones
1967 Topps #279 Frank Linzy
1979 Topps #181 Mike Garman
1980 Topps #554 Art Howe
1984 Topps #690 Jack Clark

So what do these 6 guys have in common to put them in the "best" category? They all played for the Cardinals, even if it was brief for some. The '54 Scheib up there really hosed up my perfect grid for scanning, and doesn't fit in any sleeves I have. Such is what we'll put up with for a nearly 60 year old card. And with Art Howe we've got a well known manager, a featured character of Moneyball, a former Cardinal, and the Tequila Sunrise Astros jersey, all in one card. He also looks a little like John Cleese. Finally, I can always use another Jack Clark card.

2011 Topps - Diamond Die Cuts #DDC-48

Oh yeah, I can't forget card #25. These Diamond Die-Cuts really don't scan nearly as nicely as they look in person. If one was made of one of your favorite players, I highly suggest tracking one down.

That's it for the Diamond Giveaway for me. I've pulled a few Golden Giveaway cards this year, but haven't redeemed them yet. I think I'll wait and see how obsessively I buy 2012 Update and then evaluate if I want to trade them off or try for more fabulous prizes.

Diamond Giveaway Winnings, Part I

Here's a nice orderly view of 18 of the cards I won in the 2011 Topps Diamond Giveaway, ordered from oldest to newest. There's no overarching theme to these, except that they are the leftovers after picking 7 for my next post.

1958 Topps #222 Bud Daley
1958 Topps #422 Norm Zauchin
1964 Topps #323 John Buzhardt
1972 Topps #57 Bob Oliver
1973 Topps #129 Terry Forster
1975 Topps #644 Bill Fahey
1976 Topps #221 Jim Todd
1976 Topps #576 Maximino Leon
1976 Topps #647 Ramon Hernandez

These were mostly guys I haven't even heard of, despite being a baseball history nerd. But, cards older than me are always cool to get. Also, these are apparently the first 1976 Topps cards in my collection.

1978 Topps #280 Buddy Bell
1978 Topps #590 Bobby Murcer
1979 Topps #139 Luis Pujols
1979 Topps #683 Dan Meyer
1981 Topps #229 Rollie Fingers
1983 Topps #305 Larry Bowa
1983 Topps #533 Luis Salazar
1984 Topps #434 Harold Baines
1984 Topps #454 Joe Beckwith

This group definitely had more guys I know. I learned of Buddy Bell originally because the announcers would incessantly talk about the 3 generations of the Bell family in baseball when David Bell was on the Cardinals. Rollie Fingers is well known of course, and his signature facial hair is featured on this card. The Larry Bowa may be headed TTM to try to get a signature for a big Cubs-fan friend of mine, who idolized Bowa as a kid. Harold Baines, of course, played for many years, and in multiple stints with the White Sox and Orioles. I'll bet he's one of the few guys to have his number retired by a team, then play for them again 12 years later.