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.

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.

April Card Show Purchases

When I got Whitey Herzog's autograph, I had some time to shop while waiting for my number to get called into line. Here's what I found that I felt was worth buying:

1987 Topps #243 Whitey Herzog
1990 Topps #590 Ozzie Smith
2013 Gypsy Queen #144 Red Schoendienst
2016 Heritage #14 Jhonny Peralta

4 base cards? Of course not, that'd be quite the waste of space for the sellers paying for table space. I bought 4 complete sets, but I decided to just post a representative card from each here. The 1987 and 1990 Topps came from a seller who said he just bought a large collection of hand-collated sets. In fact, he had so many junk era sets, he didn't have time to go through each one and verify they were complete, so he instead put them on his 2 for $5 table with a sign disclosing they may or may not be complete. He told me he trusted the guy personally, but he didn't want to upset anyone if they had missing cards. I flipped through them pretty fast, but mine did appear to be complete.

From the same seller, I also bought the 2013 Gypsy Queen base set, after looking up in Zistle and seeing not only was I nowhere close to completing it, I only owned one card from the set. I was kind of surprised by that, but that's just one of the sets that I never got around to buying in 2013. I'm really glad I have Zistle as a resource to look up my collection in cases like that; I would have guessed I already had most of the base set.

Finally, I purchased the 2016 Heritage base set (without short prints), saving myself the cost and time that go with opening retail blasters, which is how I usually buy Heritage. I think I did OK on the price of $35, based on what they're going for on eBay. I certainly saved myself $5 off the cost of the first two blasters I would have bought, and I probably would have bought a few more. I won't get any insert cards, but I rarely chase those anyway. They're just nice bonuses that come with my set building.

I've started to feel like buying full sets is the better way for me to go. I'm not making some huge change to my collecting, except I'll probably purchase full sets a little more often, and slightly fewer packs. I'll still buy packs and boxes for some sets, like the relatively cheap Opening Day, or ones where I really like the inserts.

April Card Show Autograph

I've taken a few months off from my local-ish card show, due variously to lackluster autograph guests, or personal business to attend to. Also there have been a few shows featuring players I've already got autographed balls from. This one had two of those as well, Lou Brock and Red Schoendienst.

Whitey Herzog

But there was one signer I didn't have yet, probably the most well liked manager of the last 40 years, Whitey Herzog. There was a sizable crowd there, and I didn't buy my ticket in advance, so I had a rather high line number and had to wait quite awhile, because not only is Whitey one of the most popular baseball personalities around St. Louis, he also engaged everyone in conversation, and posed for pictures with anyone who wanted one. I consider this autograph right up there with the top stars of the 1980s Cardinals like Ozzie Smith, so I'm really happy to add it to my collection.

eBay Wins #217

Once again, collating all my miscellaneous penny wins by set has led me to a large amount of cards that won't fit in one post. Enjoy the first 96 1987 Topps, and their woodgrain borders that remind me of the old paneling in my parents family room. I actually had duplicates of a few, which I noted in the captions. I didn't think I really needed to see scans of all 3 Marvell Wynne cards.

1987 Topps
#3 Dwight Evans
#11 Indians Leaders
#24 Tony Walker
#29 Jimmy Key
#37 Marvell Wynne (x3)
#38 Dennis Leonard
#51 Mel Hall
#69 Lonnie Smith
#70 Charlie Hough

Fun fact about Lonnie Smith: He was traded from the Cardinals to the Royals in 1985, and became the first player to face the team he started the season with in the World Series.

1987 Topps
#83 Mike Davis
#85 Kevin Bass
#92 Urbano Lugo (x2)
#93 Jim Leyland (x2)
#117 Jim Beattie
#127 Vance Law (x2)
#133 Jose Oquendo
#135 Mike Easler (x2)
#137 Jerry Willard

I met Jose Oquendo a few months ago. He looks younger now than he does on this card.

1987 Topps
#138 Roy Lee Jackson
#145 Charlie Kerfeld
#152 Toby Harrah
#156 Mariners Leaders
#162 Mike LaValliere
#165 Jeff Reardon (x2)
#166 Bob Boone
#170 Bo Jackson
#175 Bob Stanley

I also met Mike LaValliere. He doesn't have Jose's fountain of youth, but he's one of the funniest players I've met.

1987 Topps
#181 Cardinals Leaders
#183 Andy Hawkins
#187 Mark Huismann
#198 Lee Mazzilli
#202 Ricky Wright (x2)
#213 Randy Myers
#221 Vern Ruhle
#240 Steve Balboni (x2)
#241 Danny Heep

LaValliere and Ozzie Smith make an appearance on that Cardinals leaders card.

1987 Topps #243 Whitey Herzog
#245 Willie Upshaw
#249 Jim Pankovits (x2)
#253 Eddie Milner (x2)
#263 Stan Javier (x2)
#267 Howard Johnson
#271 Mike Brown
#274 Jeff Hearron
#278 Gary Pettis

For whatever reason, I didn't have this Whitey Herzog card until now. That's one more off the want list.

1987 Topps
#280 Jeffrey Leonard (x2)
#289 Bob Kipper
#308 Don Slaught
#309 Mike Young
#318 Jim Fregosi
#321 Mike Laga
#325 Garry Templeton
#333 Ken Phelps
#334 Ed Correa

Mike Laga is the only guy to hit the ball out of Busch Stadium II. He did it with a foul ball, though.

1987 Topps
#341 Mike Brown
#344 Joe Niekro
#347 Mickey Brantley
#350 Keith Hernandez
#362 Luis Quinones
#363 Jose Guzman
#366 Mark McGwire
#373 Jeff Dedmon
#385 Orel Hershiser

I've been seriously considering purchasing a 1980s powder blue Keith Hernandez jersey from Mitchell and Ness, because not only was he a great player, but he wore my favorite number, 37. Plus I don't see many Hernandez jerseys around town, whereas McGwires are still everywhere.

1987 Topps
#387 T.R. Bryden
#388 Geno Petralli
#401 Billy Jo Robidoux
#402 Mike Trujillo (x2)
#407 Jim Acker
#411 Darnell Coles
#438 Kelly Downs
#441 Dave Leiper
#461 Craig McMurtry

No Cardinals in this scan? Boooo.

1987 Topps
#464 Butch Wynegar
#465 Todd Worrell (x2)
#466 Kal Daniels
#467 Randy St. Claire
#468 George Bamberger
#469 Mike Diaz
#479 Bob Sebra
#480 Jim Rice
#497 Dale Mohorcic

And we wrap up with Todd Worrell's card featuring the Rookie Cup.

These were again out of my half-cent box, which I created to even out the less-than-a-penny-per-card lots I bought. So these 96 count for 48 cents in my tracker.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3697
Total Spent	$54.39
Per Card	1.471 cents
Change	-0.026 cents

Zistle Trade #17

Zistle has allowed me to whittle down my want list bit by bit, while helping others do the same with my doubles. I've got a lot of overproduction-era Cardinals still missing from my collection, so every now and then someone finds me and can knock off quite a few of them. This particular trader just wanted a Joe Carter card in return, and as a Blue Jays fan, had a few Todd Stottlemyre cards for me, too.

1985 Topps #683 Whitey Herzog
1990 Fleer #243 Cris Carpenter
1990 Fleer #251 Ken Hill
1990 Fleer #252 Joe Magrane
1990 Fleer #253 Willie McGee
1990 Fleer #261 Scott Terry
1990 Fleer #263 Denny Walling
1990 Fleer #264 Todd Worrell
1990 Topps #6 Vince Coleman RB

These were the last of the 1990 Fleer Cardinals I needed, so that's one more team set off my list.

1990 Topps #591 Todd Stottlemyre
1991 Topps #348 Todd Stottlemyre
1992 Topps #607 Todd Stottlemyre

As I've mentioned before, Todd Stottlemyre and his father, Mel, are distant cousins of mine, which is why I started collecting his cards in earnest. Now since I've widened my collecting net to anyone who has suited up for the Cardinals, I've got two reasons to collect his cards, so I'm glad to have 3 more off my list. The sender wrote a note saying he figured he'd have more Stottlemyre cards I needed, which caused me to check my list and see my want list was far from containing every card of his I don't have, so I've rectified that now. Thus, the net result of this trade for me was my want list increased by several dozen cards. Hooray progress?

Zistle Trade #11 Part II

[Part I]

Yesterday I showed some cards from a recent Zistle trade, all from the junk wax year of 1990. As you can see, the rest were from about the same era.

I'm not sure why I put the Bill Buckner card on my want list, unless his name just stood out due to the famous play he didn't quite make for the Red Sox, while I was adding some other 1989 Fleer to my want list. Ultimately I hope to complete most of the easy-to-find sets like Donruss, Fleer, and Topps from these years, so I'm glad to have it. The rest of the players were all Cardinals at one time or another. I was sort of surprised I didn't have the 1987 McGwire, but I double checked my sorted cards and sure enough, I didn't.

1987 Topps #366 Mark McGwire
1989 Fleer #278 Bill Buckner
1990 Topps #261 Whitey Herzog
1991 Donruss #155 Todd Stottlemyre
1991 Fleer #635 Ken Hill
1993 Score #241 Ozzie Canseco

When I first started watching baseball, two of my favorite players besides Cardinals were the Bash Brothers, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. Imagine my surprise in September 1992 when I found out Jose's twin brother was in the minor league system, and came up to the big leagues when rosters expanded. He actually played 9 games in a row that year, from September 2-12 with a few off days, then disappeared for the rest of the year. Then in 1993, he played 6 consecutive games, May 7-13. That was the end of his major league career, though, after 15 games in St. Louis and 9 in Oakland.

Zistle Trade #9

These cards cost me some Thomes, some Cabreras, some Ortizes, and a couple of Ichiros. But I got a few Cardinal managers, and closer to completing 2012 Update. It's win/win, like any trade should be.

1987 Topps #68 Tony La Russa
1988 Topps #344 Tony La Russa
1988 Topps #744 Whitey Herzog
2012 Topps Update #US3 Adam Kennedy
2012 Topps Update #US26 Santiago Casilla
2012 Topps Update #US27 Cesar Izturis

Several of the Update cards happened to be Cardinals too, including Adam Kennedy and Cesar Izturis.

2012 Topps Update
#US58 Manny Acosta
#US69 Brett Jackson
#US80 Jered Weaver
#US92 Chone Figgins
#US102 Brandon League
#US115 Jason Grilli
#US121 Johnny Damon
#US141 R.A. Dickey

2012 Topps Update
#US162 Yu Darvish
#US169 Steve Cishek
#US205 Travis Ishikawa
#US219 Brian Fuentes
#US235 Marc Rzepczynski
#US279 Ryan Cook
#US289 Prince Fielder
#US302 Lucas Harrell

The sportscasters here liked to call Rzepczynski "Scrabble". I don't know if that nickname predated his time here, or just reflects our relatively low Polish population.

2012 Topps Update
#US17 Joe Smith
#US170 Jerry Hairston
#US238 Shawn Camp
#US294 Sergio Santos
#US316 Ryan Theriot

Finally I got one more Cardinal middle infielder, short-timer Ryan Theriot.

If my Zistle want list is to be believed - and it usually is - I still need over 70 cards to finish the Update set. But, this knocked out about a quarter of the list.

eBay Wins #129

1987 Topps always reminds me of a wood-paneled station wagon. There's probably a deeper metaphor I could dive into about utility versus beauty, but let's just see some cards.

1987 Topps
#2 Jim Deshaies
#3 Dwight Evans
#15 Claudell Washington
#18 Dick Howser
#26 Greg Brock
#40 Dave Righetti
#68 Tony La Russa
#115 Donnie Moore
#130 Dwight Gooden

I'm always happy to add another La Russa card to my collection.

1987 Topps
#140 Bret Saberhagen
#155 Eddie Whitson
#166 Bob Boone
#174 Henry Cotto
#175 Bob Stanley
#181 Cardinals Leaders
#185 Roger McDowell
#193 Roger Craig x2

I didn't know Roger Craig played for the Cardinals until just now. He went 7-9 in 1964. I've even posted a card with him and Tony La Russa before.

1987 Topps
#194 Kirk McCaskill
#219 Cecilio Guante
#220 Joe Carter
#222 Denny Walling
#230 Don Baylor
#241 Danny Heep
#243 Whitey Herzog
#254 Bob Tewksbury
#266 Jeff Hamilton

Bob Tewksbury was probably the Cardinals ace - on a team that wasn't very good - when I started watching baseball, so I always have to remind myself that my memories of him are a bit twisted by my perspective at the time.

1987 Topps
#267 Howard Johnson
#276 Jackie Gutierrez
#283 Doug Drabek
#285 Dennis Boyd
#287 Dave Von Ohlen
#293 Bob Rodgers
#295 Len Dykstra
#316 Brian Fisher
#317 Clint Hurdle

Clint Hurdle is another manager I didn't realize played for the Cardinals.

1987 Topps
#319 Greg Swindell
#343 Hal Lanier
#374 Glenn Hoffman
#399 Curt Ford
#401 Billy Jo Robidoux
#404 Doug Sisk
#412 Eric Davis (x2)
#426 Floyd Rayford

Eric Davis played 2 of his last 3 seasons for the Cardinals, but he was definitely on the downslope of his great career. Still, he was a good, consistent veteran to have around, which is always helpful in a game so focused on bringing up 19-to-21 year old prospects as soon as possible.

Since I like to tag all former Cardinals that I post so that I can quickly access any post by player, I'll have to stop here for the 1987 Topps pile. This is still part of my massive penny card re-shuffling, so these 45 cards add another 45 cents to my eBay Bargain Tracker.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2999
Total Spent	$48.52
Per Card	1.618 cents
Change	-0.009 cents

All-Star Winnings, Part 1

Way back in July 2012, I won a contest at Cards On Cards. The premise was to pick the Cardinals player who would have the biggest impact on the game, determined Sabermetrically. I picked the right player, and got a pile of Cardinals for my trouble. They've been sitting in that same pile, haunting me, for quite some time, so now is the time to show them to you.

1983 Topps Stickers
#135-136 Jim Kaat
#189-190 Dane Iorg
#283 Lonnie Smith

I was unaware of these Topps Stickers, but now I really wish I had known about them. Look at those sweet powder blues. There are plenty of Cardinals in the set, too, because there appears to be a World Series subset.

1982 Fleer #118 Tito Landrum
1985 Topps #113 Tom Herr
1984 Fleer #327 Jeff Lahti
1984 Fleer #660 Whitey Herzog (Checklist)
1986 O-Pee-Chee #94 Tom Herr
1986 O-Pee-Chee #171 Tito Landrum

More powder blues, Tito, Whitey, and O-Pee-Chee. This image pretty much sums up why we collect.

1987 Fleer #297 Ricky Horton

Wrapping up the older cards is current Cardinal broadcaster Ricky Horton, who goes by Rick these days. He's been doing that regularly for 10 years now, but he still feels new to me. Anyone but Jack Buck, Joe Buck, Al Hrabosky, and Mike Shannon probably always will.

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.