2015 Leaf Heroes of Baseball - Base Cards

These blaster boxes starting showing up in the local Target in the spring.

An autographed Stan Musial card in every box! The problem was they wanted about $40 for this and, while I buy a lot of cards, my budget isn't unlimited. Sure I'd like a card autographed by Stan the Man, but for $40? Then, last week, I saw this.

 $12.99? I snapped it right up.

The base cards are pretty nice. The 60-card set is a collection of Hall of Famers, near Hall of Famers, a couple of current players who are future Hall of Famers and an umpire. The cards aren't fancy. Full-bleed photographs but no gloss or foil.  And certainly no team logos or team names. But it's a good selection of players and photographs and the box contained the entire set. Here are some representative base cards. Next week I'll show the Musial Milestone insert set and the Musial Milestone autographed card.

Al Kaline #1

There are a mixture of color and b/w cards. The backs repeat a cropped version of the front photo and a paragraph about the player. The problem with a set like this is trying to figure out what team the player is with in the photo. Al Kaline is easy, he spent his whole career with the Tigers.

Albert Pujols #2

Pujols, one of only 2 current players (the other is Ichiro) has played for two teams, the Cardinals and the Angels, both of which wear red. I'm going with Angels for this card because of the red piping on the pants.

Bruce Sutter #9

Sutter played for the Cubs, Cardinals and Braves. Due to the home pin stripes and the wall of ivy in the background, this has to be with the Cubs. Notice the base runner behind him with a Cards logo on his hat.

Doug Harvey #16

Nicknamed "God" by the players, what makes an umpire a Hero of Baseball? He is in the Hall of Fame so I guess that helps.

Frank Robinson #21

I would have had a hard time with this card except that I also have this card from 2011.

Ozzie Smith #39

Obviously with the Cardinals and not the Padres, with a guest appearance by Chris Sabo.

Red Schoendienst #45

Maybe my favorite card from the set.

Steve Carlton #53

There are only 2 Phillies in the set, Carlton and Jim Bunning, both clearly in Phillies unis. I would have easily traded Bunning, or even Carlton, for Mike Schmidt card in the set.

Tommy Lasorda #54

I was trying to make a case that this photo was taken in Connie Mack Stadium when Lasorda pitched for the Dodgers in 1954 and 1955. With that Ballantine beer sign, that looks a lot like Connie Mack's scoreboard. But after some digging, I learned that Ballentine also sponsored the Yankees. Yankee Stadium's scoreboard in these days looked a lot like Connie Mack's, including the big clock on top. But Connie Mack had the beer sign on the top while Yankee Stadium had it on the bottom. So I conclued that this photo is from when Lasorda pitched for the KC A's in 1956.