2010 Topps Red Hot Rookie Redemption #10 is Brett Wallace

Well, how's that for timing? Just last night I posted about this redemption and today it was announced. I swear that I didn't have any inside information. If I did, I wouldn't have purchased two additional #10 redemption cards the day before if I had known it was going to be Brett Wallace.

Don't get me wrong, I think Brett Wallace is going to to be a solid big league player. I lived in Phoenix, AZ for a couple years and saw Wallace play for Arizona State. I liked him then and I still do. He's had just over 100 at-bats with the Astros this year, hitting just .215 in that time.

The strange thing about Wallace is his path to the big leagues. He was drafted by the Cardinals 13th overall in the 2008 draft. He rose quickly through the ranks in the minors, by July 2009 he was already in AAA. This is just about the time the Cardinals decided they needed a bat for a playoff run and traded Wallace to the A's on July 24, 2009 as the key part of their package for Matt Holliday. He lasted just under five months in the A's organization before was traded to Toronto for prospect Michael Taylor. Strange enough yet? Wait, there's more. Just over one year after joining the Toronto organization, he was traded to Houston for prospect Anthony Gose. Wallace was assigned to AAA for one day and then was immediately called up to the Astros after Lance Berkman was traded to the Yankees.

Whew, back to the redemption cards. I have three #10 redemptions. Only 10% of the cards redeemed are going to be autographed. I'm hoping that at least one of my three will turn up autographed. I'm going to redeem a full set tonight so I'll report back with my results.

Update - 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates TTM Project

Date sent 5/22/09
Date received: 6/6/09

Dick Groat is my fifteenth TTM return from the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. Groat played fourteen seasons in Major League Baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants. He also played one season in the NBA for the Fort Wayne Pistons. Groat was a two sport star at Duke University, playing basketball and baseball. He went straight to the Pirates out of college, never playing in the minor leagues.

Groat was a career .286 hitter, finishing with 2,138 hits. He was a five time All-Star and won the league MVP in 1960. Groat was also part of one of the best double play combinations of all time with Bill Mazeroski.

Well, this was really the last realistic request I had out there. I'm going to consider this project completed. The others that I'm missing will have to come from in-person signings or off of eBay. It seems like I've been doing this forever but the first request went out only 41 days ago on April 27th.

The autographs I received during that span are R.C. Stevens, Roman Mejias, Roy Face, Hal Smith, Gino Cimoli, Bennie Daniels, Dick Schofield, Bob Skinner, Danny Kravitz, Dick Groat, Bob Oldis, Bob Friend, Vern Law, Bill Virdon and Joe Gibbon. I also purchased a Rocky Nelson signed '60 Topps card on eBay.

I don't know what my next TTM project will be. I'm open to ideas if anyone wants to leave one in the comments. I'm ready for a new challenge.

Brett Wallace TTM Success

Date sent: 4/11/09
Date returned: 5/26/09

I'm excited to get this request back. I haven't received too many requests back that have gone out to young prospects. I sent this one as soon as Brett Wallace was assigned to AA Springfield out of Spring Training. He just got called up to AAA in Memphis so maybe he cleared out his requests when he moved cities.

Wallace is the future for the Cardinals at third base and may get called up at some point this season. The Cardinals have started three different players at third base this season and are waiting for Troy Glaus to return to the lineup from shoulder surgery.

Wallace batted .281 with 5 home runs and 16 RBI in 32 games with AA Springfield. So far with AAA Memphis he's batting .342 with 1 home run and 4 RBI in 9 games. That's a nice start for him in AAA after getting off to a slow start in AA to start the season.

Update - 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates TTM Project

Date sent: 4/27/09
Date returned: 5/14/09

This is my ninth return out of twelve in my quest to get autographed 1960 Topps cards from all twenty surviving members of the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates team.

Gino Cimoli came over to the Pirates in 1960 from the St. Louis Cardinals. In fact, you can see he's in his Cardinals uniform on his 1960 Topps card. Gino is probably most famous for his lead-off single in the bottom of the 8th inning in game seven of the 1960 World Series. The Pirates trailed the Yankees 7-4 entering the bottom of the eight and lead 9-7 after the 8th. Cimoli's hit started the rally and he later scored on Dick Groat's single.

I just received a few more cards in the mail this week from eBay purchases so I'll be sending those out to be signed by the weekend.

2009 SPX Rookie Exchange Cards

Upper Deck announced the first two 2009 Upper Deck SPX Baseball rookie exchange cards a couple weeks ago and I've been meaning to write a post about them since. The two cards announced were Koji Uehara of the Baltimore Orioles and Colby Rasmus of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The player selection starts of well enough but that's not my problem. My problem is with the autographs. The regular Uehara comes autographed in English while the limited version, numbered to 25, comes autographed in Japanese. I like this idea. The Rasmus is a completely different story. His regular version comes autographed but the limited version comes with an inscription of "Go Redbirds #28". That's it! There's no autograph on the card.

Will collectors really pay a premium for limited version of this card without an autograph? If I were a Rasmus collector I'd actually be upset to receive the limited card. I'd much rather have the autographed version.

You can check out the pictures of the Uehara on Upper Deck's Facebook page.