Last Wednesday, news broke around the baseball world that 74-year baseball player, coach, and manager Red Schoendienst had passed away in Missouri. He was 95 years old.
A member of the baseball Hall of Fame, Schoendienst spent 74 consecutive years in a baseball uniform which has to be some kind of record. He was an extremely dedicated member of the Cardinals franchise, spending 67 of his 76 years in baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals.
I actually do collect Schoendienst and last time I checked, I had around 15-20 cards of the 10-time All-Star 2nd baseman and left fielder. However, I wanted to do more than a top 5 cards post for Red. I soon discovered that a blog bat around had been started called "red cards for Red Schoendienst" where bloggers showed off 10 red baseball cards in honor of Red Schoendienst, so that's exactly what I've decided to do.
I spent some time today searching through stacks, binders, and boxes for 10 of my favorite red cards in my collection. Surely, it would take a very long time to find my ultimate 10 favorite red cards, so I just went with 10 that I liked quite a lot and decided to go from there.
Now, here they are. 10 red cards in honor of Red Schoendienst, in no particular order.
This card may not be all-red, but the majority of it is. The card is from Topps Finest and the player is Jeff Bagwell who is wearing the old Astros uniforms from before they moved to the American League and began wearing more and more orange and less and less red.
I didn't see myself putting a Yankees card in a post dedicated to red baseball cards, but this 2000 Fleer Tradition Derek Jeter card surprised me. I'm not a big Jeter fan, and I can't stand the Yankees. However, I will say the red background works very well and looks great on this vintage-style card of the Yankees' legendary shortstop.
I knew I wanted a card of Mike Trout included in this post, but with all the options I didn't really know which one. In the end, I decided on a 2017 Panini Diamond Kings card since it not only had the red from Trout's jersey but the red brush strokes all around the edges of the card as well and even the DK logo, player, and team names as well.
This red parallel from 2016 Topps Archives of Ryan Howard is probably the final new card I'm ever going to pull of the former NL MVP. Furthermore, the card is numbered 1/50 on the back, which makes it 1 of just a handful of cards I have that are serial numbered 1 out of another number. Bonus red points for the team being the Phillies.
I knew that, as a Red Sox fan, I was going to sneak a couple Red Sox cards into this post since, after all, it is a post all about red cards. This 1982 TCMA Superstars Ted Williams card immediately stood out to me due to the prominent red border, so it was an easy choice for this post despite not being quite as red as some of the other cards.
Surprisingly, Billy Hamilton's The Future is Now, insert card is one of just 2 cards included on this list in which the player is wearing an all-red uniform in addition to whatever other red is on the card. I have to say that I'm a big fan. It's definitely one of the reddest cards on this post.
The colors in 2017 Topps Bunt are a lot more out-there than they were in 2016 Topps Bunt. That means if a card is red, it's a really, really red baseball card. Case and point; Ryan Zimmerman's card from last years' set.
2013 was Manny Machado's first All-Star appearance as a Baltimore Oriole. Given the circumstances, the franchise is under right now, and the level he's been playing at all year long, 2018 is likely going to be his last All-Star season as an Oriole.
I'm not sure if this missing player and team name card is some kind of variation from 2008 Topps Opening Day. All I know is this card stood out like no other when I was deciding which cards to include on this post, so I decided to use it despite it showing Pedro Martinez, one of my favorite players, on the Mets of all teams.
The final card is of Mookie Betts and is a red parallel, the perfect way to end. It's from the recently-released 2018 Panini Diamond Kings set and is probably one of, if not the reddest cards of the entire post.
If you have 10 red cards of your own to show off, it would be great to get this blog bat around going. After all, this is for Red.
RIP Red Schoendienst.
That Pedro card is interesting..I've never seen one of those variations. I think this BBA is starting to catch on, which is great. Nice tribute to Red, for all those years in baseball. I don't think I have any of his cards at the moment-I did have a '57 Topps in my collection years ago.
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