They Played for the Reds?

I was thumbing through my Reds binder the other day and got inspired. I found several ideas for posts and started immediately pulling and sorting cards out for posts. The biggest thing I realized is how many people have played for the Reds that I forgot played for the Reds, like Dan Straily shown above.

That's what this post will be about.

It's also inspired by the "Short Term Stops" and "Zero Year Cards" series posted by Nick over on his Dime Boxes blog. To avoid him coming after me with a copyright claim, I'm going to lump those types of cards into one group I'll call "Unfamiliar Uniforms".

This may or may not be an ongoing series with other teams. I'm not sure yet. What this will be is several players that either I forgot played for the Reds, didn't know played for the Reds, or had a super short stint with the team.

David Wells joined the Reds from the Tigers as part of a 1995 trade deadline deal that sent C.J. Nitkowski and Mark Lewis to Detroit. He complimented an already strong Reds pitching staff and went 6-5 in 11 starts. In the playoffs, he went 1-1 beating Hideo Nomo in Game 3 of the Division Series. After the season, he was traded off to the Orioles around Christmas.

Another pitcher the Reds got via trade was Lee Smith. He arrived in Cincinnati around Memorial Day 1996 via exchange with the Angels who got Chuck McElroy in return. Smith appeared in 43 games for the Reds, going 3-4 with a 4.06 ERA. 

Speaking of closers, Jeff Reardon spent the 1993 season with the Reds sans his trademark beard thanks to a long-standing team policy of no facial hair. The 1993 club was a last place team and Reardon led the relief corps in appearances with 58 games and finished second in saves on the team with 8.

Joining Jeff Reardon on the 1993 Reds squad was longtime Phillies infielder Juan Samuel. Until I found this card in the binder, I had no idea he even played for the Reds. He and Bip Roberts split time at second base for the season, after which Samuel departed for the Tigers.

Did you know Ruben Sierra played for the Reds? Don't worry ... I'd forgotten that too. It was a brief 25-game stint at the beginning of the 1997 season. He was released in mid-May after only hitting .244 in 96 plate appearances.

The Reds must've been hurting in 2007. That or I wasn't paying much attention because I don't remember either Jeff Conine or David Ross playing for the Reds. Conine played most of the season as the primary first baseman and a few appearances in the outfield before being traded to the Phillies in August. Ross spent parts of three seasons (2006-2008) as the primary backstop for the team sharing time with other luminaries as Javier Valentin, Paul Bako, and Chad Moeller.

I'll close with this Vince Coleman card. I found this in a dime box at a flea market several years ago and my mind was blown. I had no idea Coleman was ever a Red but apparently it was for the first part of the 1996 season (what is it with the Reds and aging outfielders in the late 90s). His stats were nothing notable (.155 batting average) and was released in mid-June after only 33 games.

As I mentioned, not all encompassing and there are tons more cards I found in my Reds binder that fit this category. Maybe there will be a part 2 coming soon.

What I Collect

I'll be honest ... I haven't spent money on baseball cards since Thanksgiving last year.

Since I put my old blog, Cardboard Clubhouse, on ice last fall due to family reasons (aka new baby), baseball cards were the last thing on my mind. I did, however, purchase quite a few cards during the annual COMC Black Friday sale last fall.

Over the past few months while my collection grew dust, I could count on one hand the number of times I thought about these cards I'd ordered. Now, since I'm getting re-acquainted with everything and getting this organized again, I thought I'd start with these since that's about where I left off last year.

Along with the super shiny Hank Aaron card above, I purchased a number of other baseball cards, along with miscellaneous cards for my other collections. Seeing as I'm trying to keep this blog (and my collection) limited to just baseball, that's all that I'm planning on covering.

My collecting interests are really varied. I don't really focus on one thing in general when it comes to baseball cards as I'd get pretty bored of that pretty quick. I'm not really a team collector either. I mean, if I had to pick one team to collect, it'd be the Reds. I had a lot of fun watching Nick Senzel play center field last year and that's why I nabbed this Donruss Rated Rookie card. I can't really say that the Donruss designs this year and last year are all that enticing but I felt this was worth picking up.

Another thing that I like collecting are "unfamiliar uniform" cards as I call them. These typically fall into one of two categories ... "short-term stops" or "zero year" (trademark to Dime Box Nick) but on this blog they'll be referred to as "unfamiliar uniforms" because that's what they are. Take Steve Carlton here for example. Most everyone will think of him as a Cardinal or a Phillie but I'll bet you didn't know he pitched for the White Sox as well. The South-Siders were one of three stops of a whirlwind tour Lefty had in 1986. 

I know I mentioned that the non-baseball content will be next to nothing. I intend on sticking to that but it's cards like this from Allen & Ginter that fall into that grey area. Technically, this is a baseball card as it came from a baseball product but obviously Tiger Mask is not a baseball player. Along with baseball, pro wrestling is another big interest of mine and to see the legendary Tiger Mask featured on a card is pretty cool. On this card, it says "1st Tiger Mask" and that would be Satoru Sayama who portrayed the character until 1983 when he left New Japan Pro Wresting. Since then, several other wrestlers have portrayed the character, the most notable being the legendary Mitsuharu Misawa.

This card certainly checks off several things I like to collect ... oddball? Yes. Defunct retail? Yes. Defunct team? Yes. Hall of Famer? Yes. There's just something about these types of cards which is just fun. Maybe in the future I'll do a blog post on cards from defunct retail chains. Not sure yet but it's an idea I'm kicking around. 

Here's another card that would qualify as an "unfamiliar uniform" card. When I first got into collecting as a kid, I always thought it was weird to see former Reds players in a different uniform. That's exactly what's happening here as Hal Morris is shown in a Royals uniform. Despite being the first baseman for the Reds from 1990-1997, Morris left as a free agent and signed with the Royals for the 1998 season. He would return to the Reds the next season (1999) and stayed with the team until midway through the 2000 season when he was purchased by Detroit. I'd always found that one year in Kansas City a curiosity and now I finally have a card to document it.

Another big thing I like to collect is vintage cards. Typically if I'm at a show or browsing online, if I can find cool vintage cards for a reasonable price, I'll jump on it. This 1961 Topps card shows the Reds outfield trio of Vada Pinson, Gus Bell (grandfather of current Reds manager David Bell), and Frank Robinson. That trio, along with fellow outfielder Wally Post (shown in the 1962 Topps card), would help the "Ragamuffin Reds" get to the World Series in 1961 where they lost to the Yankees in five games.

One of the last big things I enjoy are cheap relic cards. I'll be honest, I'm not a the kind of person who would buy packs of cards and get disappointed there was no relic or anything. If I get one, great! If not, fine too. Products like Topps Tribute, Museum Collection, and all that are way out of my price range and I'm fine with that. It's not like I'm exactly their target audience anyway. That being said, if I come across cheap relic cards from those sets or just cool looking ones in general, I tend to jump on them. Take this Bruce Sutter card for example, it's a dual-jersey card of him with both the Cubs and Cardinals and it was a steal at under five bucks. 

I'm in the process of updating my want list to be posted on the blog soon after I update my lists for Pilots cards and 1984 Topps along with several other random things. 

Cards on Cards Dumps Extra Cards

Everyone's favorite Cardinals fan, Kerry at Cards on Cards, was looking to shed some excess cards recently and I was the beneficiary of a nice bubble mailer a few weeks back. The only thing he asked is that a PWE or something gets sent back his way.

The bubble mailer was quite the eclectic package. Lots of Reds and lots of other stuff. Here are some shiny Reds that will definitely find a home in my Reds binder once it's re-organized. The Johnny Cueto card is some sort of shadow box card from the revived Pinnacle line a few years back.

I've never really been much on the Turkey Red cards but I really like that Frank Robinson card. All of these will also land in my reorganized Reds binder.

And two more shiny cards. Let's look at the threesome on the "Talent Pipeline" card. Hunter Greene was out all of this year after having Tommy John surgery, last I checked Shed Long is still with the Mariners, and Nick Senzel is the Reds everyday center fielder.

Keyvius Sampson has not resurfaced in the bigs since appearing in 18 games for the Reds in during the 2016 season. He was a decent pitcher and pretty much filled a gap in the bullpen and made spot starts as needed. For 2019, he spent the season with both the Giants Rookie League and Double-A teams appearing in all of six games. Here's a fun fact though...he was the KBO league's (as in the Korean League) strikeout leader for 2018.

Here's a nice Billy Hamilton relic card. I was not expecting this but I'll take it.

Speaking of Billy Hamilton, here are some cards of his when he was with the Royals. He didn't fare too well in Kansas City this year and hit a paltry .211 over 93 games. He was picked up by the Braves on waivers in August and has made 17 appearances for them as of this writing.

I love me some shiny cards and these certainly fit the billy. I've really, really liked what I've seen from the Panini Prizm line this year.

Oddballs are always appreciated as well. I've already covered Hills in a post this past summer but this is the first I've seen of cards from the True Value line. For those not familiar, True Value is a chain of independent hardware stores throughout the US (for those in the grocery business, kind of like an IGA) that sell tools, appliances, lumber, paint, etc. The Buddy Bell card above is from their 1986 set, which was the only mainstream set that the company ever produced.

Diamond Kings cards of Hall of Famers. I think it's great that card companies create cards of Satchel Paige with the Browns as that team it nearly all but forgotten about.

A few great cards of Juan Marichal including a card of featuring both Marichal and Bartolo Colon. How can you really go wrong with that?

Some fun Willie Mays cards from 1993 Upper Deck. That checklist card is super cool.

More Hall of Famers, this time from various runs of Allen & Ginter.

And finally, a nice random batch of cards that I couldn't find any place else for in this post. 

Lots of great stuff here from Kerry. I appreciate him sending these over and I'll return fire here soon with some Cardinals cards.

And Stay Outta Woolworths

Remember the scene in O Brother, Where Are Thou where George Clooney gets kicked out of Woolworths? Well, that's what popped in my head when I was researching these cards that were simply called "1986 Baseball Champion Superstars". It turns out these cards were available at Woolworth stores (which is why the random scene from O Brother popped in my head).

Here's the catch though, there are two different Woolworth stores. There's F.W. Woolworth's, which is the original chain of "five and dime" shops in the U.S. (which just so happens to be the store George Clooney gets kicked out of) and there's Woolworths Group which was a goods and general merchandise chain the U.K.

If you look at the bottom of the back of the box, it should hopefully give you a hint as to where the cards were distributed. Look closely and you'll see these were distributed by "Topps Ireland" and printed in Northern Ireland. So, it's entirely possible that these cards were only available in the Ireland branches of Woolworths. Like the Hills cards I've shown over the past few weeks, this is a 33-card set and features some of the top players in baseball.

I can't say I was expecting bright yellow cards to greet me when I opened the box but they did. The photos have the 1962 Topps deal going on with the lower right corner peeling up to reveal the words "super star".

For the most part, I'm seeing lots of posed photos but that's fine with me. Al Oliver looks like it's a picture from either Spring Training or batting practice. Plus, it's a short-term stop and a sunset card all in one as Al Oliver spent his final season in 1985 with the Jays.

I'm liking the variety of players that are featured so far. Yes, there are stars like Gary Carter, George Brett, and Mike Schmidt but there are also players like Al Oliver and George Foster who were on the backside of their careers.

Oh, look, two Reds ... neither of them look too happy to be included. Wille McGee also looks rather sleepy.

Last batch and it features probably my favorite card of the whole set with "Stormin" Gorman Thomas preparing to swing his shillelagh while donning a Mariners uniform. I honestly didn't know Thomas was a member of the M's but according to Baseball Reference, he clobbered 43 homers over parts of three seasons with the M's.

Also, here's what the back looks like. I like the fact it actually has stats and it's just the basics like average, HR, and RBI. That's pretty much all you need for a set like this. Much like the Hills sets, I put these in order and then put them in my oddball sets binder.

Topps Big League ... Target Acquired

So Topps Big League has been all the rage recently and I decided to bite and grab some from Target during a recent excursion. I could've honestly come up with a witty title for this as well but I think most of the good ones have been claimed already.

Last year's debut issue was nice but I thought some of the pictures were a little dark, as if they were taken on an overcast day or something. That's just me though. This year though, I really like the design. It kind of combines the 1965 Topps flag design with the 1987 Topps wood background. The team logos look tremendous on the flag, although if I had one nitpick, it'd be to use a different color flag on those logos with darker backgrounds (like the Braves logo).

Of course, the allure of Big League is a "bargain priced" set but that's not to say that you won't find some gems. The photos on these cards are worthy of Stadium Club in my opinion. Also, the yellow cards come one per pack, much as they did last year.

Here's some cool horizontal cards as well. I can't get enough of Justin Verlander Astros cards.

With Big League being an in-season issue, there will be cards of players in new uniforms. This one will fall into the "short term stops" category with Jay Bruce having recently been shipped to the Phillies.

Here's another short-term stop and the main card I wanted from this set, especially when I saw that Matt Kemp was jettisoned from the Reds after only 20 games in favor of Nick Senzel. With the Reds, he hit .200/.210/.283 with only one home run and 5 RBIs.

More Reds cards. Scott Schebler was sent down to Triple-A when the Reds called up Nick Senzel and released the aforementioned Matt Kemp. Votto is slowly starting to come around and Jesse Winker has been a great as the everyday left fielder this year. 

Here's a bunch of dudes in old school style uniforms, which is one of my mini-collections. I think my favorite of these is Yonder Alonso in the mid-80s White Sox uniform.

I also got a fair amount of inserts. These are the two insert sets I really like. I didn't care much for the inserts with the caricatures. I set those into the trade box. The "Wall Climbers" set is really cool.

Since I bought a blaster, I got a bonus four-card pack of blue parallels.

Also, I managed to get one of these shiny parallels from both the blaster and the fat pack. The scanner doesn't do justice as to how cool these cards are.

All in all, I really really like this year's Big League offering. Lots of fun inserts, cool photography on the base cards, dudes in new uniforms, dudes in throwback uniforms, short-term stops, and more. I'll definitely be buying more of that.