News broke last night that Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst passed away at the age of 95. Red was involved in professional baseball for 74 years as a player, coach, manager, and executive.
He played most of his career with the St. Louis Cardinals and stood in for Stan Musial in Leftfield while Musial served in the military.
He would play several positions before settling in at second base where he went on to collect 2,449 hits en route to a Hall of Fame induction in 1989 by the Veterans Committee.
As a manager he would collect 1,049 wins good for a .522 winning percentage.
He was a 10 time All Star, 5 time World Series champ, and would later have his number 2 retired by the Cardinals.
I thought it would be fun to have a blog bataround where we show off our 10 favorite red (related) cards in our collection. One for each of his All Star appearances.
Here's my 10 favorite red cards
This 2010 Bowman Chrome numbered to 5 copies starts the list off at number 10. The pin striped Pirates home uniform makes a rare appearance as Cutch only had a half season opportunity to wear that uniform in his career.
In case you missed it yesterday, I have the 1/1 logoman patch from this Futures Games jersey. This 2008 Bowman Chrome red is also numbered to 5 much like the 2010 I showed above. I love the fascimile signature.
It's a 1/1 triple patch of 3 of my recent favorite Pirates and it only comes in at #8? As much as I love the Jolly Roger sleeve patch for Cole and the 2014 Postseason patch for Harrison, it is just a very basic design of Triple Threads with three boring photos of the Pirates stars.
This was a huge score for me when I acquired it in 2017. It is a 2009 Topps Chrome rookie card numbered 22/25. Yup it is numbered to his jersey number. How cool is that?
Topps Bunt is one of those fun products that brings back the joys of collecting and set building I had as a kid. Insert cards like this Infinite parallel would have made the much younger version of me flip out back in the day. Who am I kidding? I still flip out at getting great insert cards of my favorite player.
Early dreadlock Cutch cards with low print runs are some of my favorite cards. This one stands out for it's tobacco influenced card design and the photo of Cutch. Dude had swag for days.
One of the most expensive cards in my collection, this red xfractor autograph can often sell for four figures.....when they pop up that is. Limited to only 25 copies, these are pretty much all snagged up.
I am going to classify these Topps Tek red orbital diffractor numbered to 5 copies as 3a and 3b. The multiple different patterns that Tek produces make chasing cards like this down a fun neverending quest. Maybe one day one of the other patterns will surface, but for now these are the only two I have seen.
Arguably the best looking McCutchen rookie card to have, this 2009 Topps Red Hot Rookie redemption reminds us that Cutch used to lay down bunts for base hits when he first appeared in the league and that he was one of the fastest guys in the league too.
The grade is a bit disappointing, but the fact my brother got me this 1/1 right around Christmas means more than the grade. It is Cutch's first ever card in a Pirates uniform and an incredibly tough pull at 1:1,374 packs. The set contained 350 cards so guaranteeing pulling this card would be roughly half a million packs you would need to open.
Now let's see yours. It could be the color red, the Reds, Red Sox, red birds (Cardinals) or actual Red Schoendienst cards. Show off your top 10 reds.
R.I.P. Red
Some nice cards! Cool idea, I'll have to join in.
ReplyDeleteI've never participated in one of the Bat Around's before, but I think I'll give this one a try sometime in the next couple of days.
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