Friday, April 17, 2009

Run The Bases

We surprised Isaac with the first of seven games under our modest season ticket package last Sunday, April 12. It was part of the Cardinals week long Opening Day festivities with a special slant for the younger fans. Fans 15 years old or younger received a regular sized Ryan Ludwick “Big Stick” bat and were invited to run the bases after the game. Surprisingly, they handed the bats out BEFORE the game and not afterwards. Good thing that Loshe pitched a three hitter and there were no bad calls. Can you imagine hundreds of bats being thrown onto the field after a bad call? Yikes!

The Bat. DVD included as a frame of reference for actual size… and as a symbol of what might be in 2009.

P1000229P1000232 

The view the Clydesdales have as they trot onto the field in the right field corner.

P1000203

Isaac’s little sister as she high five’s Fredbird at first base. That’s Isaac’s hand on the left.

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Scoreboard. I didn’t get a good shot of it but MLB parks are displaying the player picture and stats on the scoreboard using the Topps flagship design just like last year.

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Our seats are in the right field corner, field level, right at the fair pole: two seats in foul territory, two seats in fair territory. Here’s the reverse view of everyone’s favorite Pujols baseball card picture. This was taken in the first inning. Matsui singled on the first pitch of the game. He would be the Astro’s only base runner until the 9th inning. Absent that hit, Loshe would have had a perfect game going into the Ninth!

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Saturday, April 11, 2009

Helmar Brewing Series Three Set

Unlike the first series (I do not have the second and cannot comment on it), this series focuses exclusively on baseball subjects. Players and managers from the Negro Leagues, the Majors, and Japan, among others, are featured in the set. Sorry for the fuzzy thumbnails - they're not resizing correctly in blogger. Click on each image for the larger high resolution scan.


Thursday, April 9, 2009

Helmar Series Three

I finally had a chance to open the box of Helmar Series 3 cards last week. As in my posts about Helmar Series 1 (here and here), I’ll follow up this St. Louis centric post with one displaying the entire set.

While the first series was available in packs, Series 2 (release in 2006) and 3 (2008) were only available as complete sets with Series 2 being short printed by comparison. I’m trying to track down a Series 2 set now that I have the others. Unlike the first series, this one focuses exclusively on baseball.

The Box

Helmar S3

Contents

Helmar S3 Open

St. Louis related cards:

2008 Helmar Bottomly

2008 Helmar Gray

2008 Helmar McAleer

Nice to see the folks at Helmar have a sense of humor. They’ve included a “corrected” card for an error from the first series.

Pics of the complete third series coming soon...

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Live: New Don Hamerman Baseball Images

Two new Don Hamerman images are now available at 20x200!

I've posted about his baseball photographs before: http://ikescards.blogspot.com/2009/02/don-hamerman-found-baseballs.html and his work graces the cover of Ron Darling's new book: http://www.20x200.com/blog/2009/04/catching-up-with-don-hammerman.html

Hurry! These are limited production and go VERY quickly. It looks like 20x200 recognized Hamerman's images and extended production to 720 copies between the three sizes instead of the usual 222. Don't let that fool you though. The small sizes have sold out in a matter of hours when his other editions went live.

Rawlings



Thread 2


Images: http://www.20x200.com/

Just bought mine... and to top it all off just got free tickets to tonight's Cardinal game!

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with 20x200 aside from being a huge fan of their concept and offerings. I also cannot guarantee free MLB tickets will magically appear should you purchase either or both of these prints.

A Few Stickers

Not a big sticker guy. Isaac likes to slip them into the binder sleeves so he knows which binders are for his Cardinal cards. These are a few that haven’t made it onto a binder yet.

Sticker 3 Sticker 1 Sticker 2

Monday, April 6, 2009

1967 Topps

#108 Alex Johnson

1967 Johnson

#195 Al Jackson

1967 Jackson

#226 Julian Javier – I watched the ‘67 Series between the Cards and Red Sox on MLBTV last month. Hard to believe this slight hitting infielder hit a three run homer in game seven of the series to help win it. One of his sons or grandsons practices medicine in a local St. Louis hospital.

1967 Javier

#404 Nelson Briles

1967 Briles

Sunday, April 5, 2009

1966 Topps

#7 Tracy Stallard.

1966 Stallard

#179 Cardinal Rookiies: Dennis Aust, Bob Tolan

1966 Rookies

Friday, April 3, 2009

1965 Topps

#28 – Barney Schultz. Barney, a knuckle-baller, pitched in a then record 9 consecutive games in 1962. He pitched in four games of the Cardinals 1964 World Series victory over the Yankees.

1965 Schultz