Skip Schumaker can be a polarizing figure, both among the Cardinals loyalists and the baseball card fans in 2012 who have to deal with that squirrel card. He does seem to have a knack for pulling a key base hit out of thin air from time to time and he's one of just three players that were on the 40-man roster for both World Series wins.

A shiny gold card of a Gold Glover.

These last two cards will pay a nice tribute to the end of J.D. Drew's career. I always appreciate bat cards as there seems to be far fewer of them than the jersey cards. And, personally, I'd rather own a piece of a equipment used in a game than something a dude actually wore for some reason.

There's something really off about Bazooka Joe's physique here. Really off. I think there was a Bazooka Joe card for each and every team, which just spreads the weirdness all around. Okay, I'm just going to come out and say it: Bazooka Joe was a slender lady with Popeye arms and big legs.

Like the 2006 Bazooka set that I've gone on and on about, the 2003 version also had 4-in-1 sticker cards. This one features two Cardinals and a future Cardinal.

I had never heard of Mike Wodnicki before receiving this card, which is always fun. A quick Google search finds that Wodnicki was a 16th round pick in 2001 who never made it past AA.

One of the first things I did this collecting year was, in rebellion against traditional purchasing habits, I signed up for a big 2012 Topps group break. There would be no loose packs of current product for me this year... well, very few, anyway. (It's hard when the closest drug stores start to have cards.) I ended up with a bunch of Mets and Rays cards out of this deal, so I knew to send all of the Rays on over to The Troll. He repaid me in kind by searching his entire collecting and sending me every last Cardinal card. Awesome.

St. Louis is sitting comfortably in first place after just 10 games this season with a 7-3 record. Considering that quite a few of their big pieces are dealing with or likely will deal with injuries, I consider this a big plus. I am not going to read too far into it and go out and extrapolate that record after 10 games into something like a 112-50 season, especially considering that the other NL division leaders at this point are the Nats and the Dodgers. I can't see either one of those teams in the postseason. I am, however, pleased with what has happened so far and I do expect the Cards to continue to do well.

Apropos of nothing, here are some pictures of animals (and a couple of Redbirds of the past) courtesy of Jason at Hobbs' Knights.

I may not live in Madagascar where the lemurs apparently grow on (or are at least raised in) trees, but I do know that my humble city of Portland could use a few more lemurs. Or a lot of them. Like this guy.

I'm not sure that reptiles lie in the direct path of human evolution, but they're pretty great nonetheless. It would be cool to have scales, though.