eBay Wins #257

There's still a whole lot of 1990 cards left, and here's the smallest stack out on my table, 60 cards from Topps Traded, cut down to just the Cardinals.

1990 Topps Traded
#15T Tom Brunansky
#39T Keith Hernandez
#90T Tony Pena
#117T Bryn Smith
#122T Bob Tewksbury
#124T John Tudor

When I arranged these by number, I figured that the set was arranged by team, but then I saw Cleveland's Keith Hernandez splitting up Boston's Tom Brunansky and Tony Pena. It's alphabetical order by last name, and I just happened to get some Cardinals all between S and T. Keith Hernandez is a player I'd really like to get an autograph from, but with him having a solid job in the Mets booth, he doesn't seem to get back to St. Louis for appearances.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	5302
Total Spent	$65.39
Per Card	1.233 cents
Change	-0.003 cents

Zistle Trade #29, Part I

Will I post all my Zistle trades before they shut down? Maybe!

1983 Fleer Main Set #3 Steve Braun
1983 Fleer Main Set #19 Mike Ramsey
1989 Bowman Main Set #435 Tony Pena
1990 Donruss #676 Cal Ripken, Jr.
1990 Fleer Main Set #276 Rich Gedman
1991 Topps Main Set #58 Mel Stottlemyre Jr.

This trade had a bunch of Cardinals, along with the Ripken All-Star card, one of the very few from 1990 Donruss I didn't have yet. I also knocked another Stottlemyre off my list, Mel, Jr., son of Mel and brother of Todd. And there were just enough players in this trade I had to split this one into two posts.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXI

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE, so I've got to get my prize from last season's Bowl Pick 'Em contest at Cards on Cards posted! My prize for a second place tie was a very generously sized box of cards, so I felt a bit overwhelmed even sorting through them. I finally sorted them out by player, and, as usual, I'll plan to post them all eventually, but I might quit halfway through, we'll see.

Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX
XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX

If I've done the math right, I'm eliminated from this year's Bowl Pick 'Em contest already, with the final nail in the coffin coming sometime during the January 2nd games. So there will be no giant pile of Cardinals for me to dig through this year. But this one's still not done. It's getting close, though.

1992 Stadium Club Skydome #115 Tom McKinnon
1991 Fleer Ultra #289 Pedro Guerrero
1990 Post #22 Pedro Guerrero
1990 Fleer League Leaders #16 Pedro Guerrero
1989 Kmart Dream Team #33 Pedro Guerrero
1989 Kmart Dream Team #30 Tony Pena
1986 Fleer Update #U-73 Greg Mathews

The majority of this post is Pedro Guerrero, probably best known for playing for the Dodgers. He came to the Cardinals during 1988, and finished his career with the team after the 1992 season. Pedro's listed as a first basemen on 3 of the cards, but as a Pinch Hitter in the Kmart Dream Team set. He played plenty of 1B in 1988, so I'm not sure why that is. He played a little bit of outfield, too, in 1988 and in his final season.

Tom McKinnon never made it above high A, which is kind of surprising for a guy included in a mainstream set in 1992. The reason is because the selections weren't based on scouting per se, but there are 100 top picks in the set, and he was drafted #28.

eBay Wins #215

Today I've got the rest of my 1987 Fleer. People like to sell these cheap.

1987 Fleer
#524 Ed Olwine
#525 David Palmer
#526 Rafael Ramirez
#527 Billy Sample
#528 Ted Simmons
#529 Zane Smith
#530 Bruce Sutter
#531 Andres Thomas
#532 Ozzie Virgil

Ted Simmons and Bruce Sutter, both Braves here, played for the Cardinals. I wondered whether they were teammates in St. Louis, but Simmons left after 1980 while Sutter arrived in 1981.

1987 Fleer
#601 Bill Almon
#602 Rafael Belliard
#603 Mike Bielecki
#605 Bobby Bonilla
#606 Sid Bream
#607 Mike Brown
#608 Pat Clements
#609 Mike Diaz
#610 Cecilio Guante

Bobby Bonilla finished his career in St. Louis, though he's still getting paid by the Mets for something like the next 107 years.

1987 Fleer
#611 Barry Jones
#612 Bob Kipper
#613 Larry McWilliams
#614 Jim Morrison
#615 Joe Orsulak
#616 Junior Ortiz
#617 Tony Pena
#618 Johnny Ray
#619 Rick Reuschel

Tony Pena and Larry McWilliams were reunited in St. Louis for the 1988 season.

1987 Fleer
#620 R.J. Reynolds
#621 Rick Rhoden
#622 Don Robinson
#623 Bob Walk
#624 Jim Winn
#632 Bob Horner
Stickers
 Boston Red Sox and LA Dodgers
LA Dodgers and Cleveland Indians (x2)

I had a Bob Horner in the previous eBay post, but this one commemorates one of the rarest feats in baseball he accomplished in 1986, hitting four home runs in a single game. The next player to do it was Mark Whiten in 1993, and the previous was Mike Schmidt in 1976. He's also one of only two players to do so in a loss for his team, at least according to the record books. The other was in 1896.

1987 Fleer
#649 Ralph Bryant / Jose Gonzalez
#653 Rob Nelson / Steve Fireovid
Stickers
Oakland A's (x2)
Oakland A's and Houston Astros (x2)

I could see these stickers being good for labeling your boxes or binders if you store your cards by team. I work by set, though, so I'll keep them intact for now. As with the last post, these came from my half-cent box, costing me 21 cents, knocking my average below 1.5 cents per card.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3598
Total Spent	$53.88
Per Card	1.497 cents
Change	-0.012 cents

Zistle Trade #16 Part II

My Zistle trading binge continues, and this time I got enough Cardinals that I had to split into two posts just to tag them all. In return, I sent off some 2011 Topps Lineage cards, several of which were triples and quadruples, because I bought several discounted packs and blasters of that set.

Part I

1983 Fleer #613 Gary Gaetti
1990 Upper Deck
#225 Ozzie Smith
#278 Milt Thompson
1992 Donruss
#116 Kent Mercker
#163 Brian Hunter
#208 Tony Pena
#424 Chris Sabo
1993 Hostess
#18 Andres Galarraga
#25 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Since I made these trades at the same time, I wound up trading for the Chris Sabo card twice. But, I'm not too upset about it. The main draw in this trade was the Hostess cards. I'm not sure how many Hostess Baseballs I ate in the summer of 1993, but I feel like it was on the order of dozens. Before these two, I had 25 unique cards from the set, and 9 duplicates. A quick blog search indicates I've received 4 in trade, and sent off a few, so that probably means I got at least 30 from eating the baseball cakes. Most importantly, I now need only 5 more to finish the set.

I found it surprising that these are the first cards I'm posting of Andres Galarraga, Brian Hunter, and Kent Mercker. I'd especially expect a card of Galarraga to have come up by now.

Another nice card in the trade is the Gary Gaetti rookie card. He first played a few games in the majors in 1981, and in an era before the modern Bowman, he didn't get a rookie card until he completed his first full season in 1982.

Zistle Trade #11 Part I

I actually completed 2 Zistle trades recently, so here's part of one in addition to the one I posted 5 days ago. This one was with a Cubs fan, so the duplicates I sent out were Sandbergs, Dawsons, Madduxes, and some others.

1990 Fleer
#242 Tom Brunansky
#244 Alex Cole
#256 Tony Pena

These 3 are a good start, but I still have 9 cards left to go to get all the 1990 Fleer Cardinals, which is comprised of a total of 24 cards. For some reason I have 8 Todd Zeiles.

1990 Score
#260 Vince Coleman
#600 Todd Zeile

1990 Score is another set with 24 Cardinals in it, and another one in which I previously had 12. So, now I still need 10 from that set.


Since I like cataloging all of the sets and Cardinals players in my posts using Blogger's labels feature, I split this trade into 2 posts. This post is really what was left when the second one was full, so the other half (roughly) will be up tomorrow.

eBay Wins #102

I bought more "filler" cards on eBay, this time from 1992 Studio. I won 5 auctions for lots of 2 cards, for a total of 10 cards. With such a small set, I was bound to find a few stars, or at least recognizable names.

1992 Studio
#73 Darren Daulton
#108 Gary Sheffield
#134 Tim Naehring
#137 Jeff Reardon
#138 Jody Reed
#140 Frank Viola
#141 Jim Abbott
#227 Mike Moore

 Were flat-tops still big in 1992? Both Sheffield and Mike Moore have one here.

1992 Studio
#98 Ozzie Smith
#135 Tony Pena

I'd consider 20% Cardinals (current or former) a good ratio for a stack of mystery cards. Of course, it's also at least 50% Red Sox by that measure. Still, the Ozzie Smith card is worth more to me than I paid for the whole pile. I declare this mystery lot a success.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2555
Total Spent	$44.21
Per Card	1.73 cents

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 17

For the 2012-2013 College Football season, I entered the College Football Pick 'Em contest hosted by madding of Cards on Cards. I've won several of his contests over the years, and he always dumps a ton of Cardinals on me when I do. Yet, I think this time he may have outdone himself. I may have to work hard to get them all posted before the 2013-14 College Football season starts August 29, and I start posting my Power Rankings again.
[ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 ]

1987 Fleer Update #U-71 Joe Magrane
1988 Donruss #170 Tony Pena
1988 Fleer #38 Steve Lake
1988 Leaf #181 Jack Clark
1988 Score #202 Todd Worrell
1989 Donruss #466 Luis Alicea
1989 Topps #1 George Bell
1990 Donruss #531 Carlos Martinez

Glorious Junk Wax! There are probably plenty of copies of most of these cards floating around, except perhaps the Donruss Doppelganger that is 1988 Leaf.

By now you've probably heard about Jack Clark's recent troubles caused by his big mouth, when he said he knew for sure that Albert Pujols has been juicing for years. Those are big allegations that require at least a little bit of evidence before you go mentioning them on the air. To give a local perspective, his co-host is notorious for being a sports shock-jock, and fired from nearly every station in town that ever employed a sports talk guy. I can't stand him, and I'm always glad to hear him go, so I don't stumble across his show when radio-surfing. Jack Clark has now retained one of the biggest names in high-priced attorneys in St. Louis, Chet Pleban. It's not clear to me whether this is to sue his (former) employer, or defend himself against the lawsuit Pujols has publicly threatened.

I knew Jack Clark has a bit of a reputation as a hothead, but I guess since St. Louis media don't usually hammer their hometown guys too hard, I never really knew his whole story. Apparently he's had trouble with Hall of Famers ranging from his Managers Frank Robinson and Lou Piniella, his teammates Ozzie Smith and Tony Gwynn, and now likely Hall of Famer Albert Pujols. As a side note, can we get Lou Piniella in the Hall of Fame as a manager please? Clark's apparently just got an attitude problem, and has for years.

I don't like negative posts, so let's end this one with Tony Pena making John Olerud feel silly.

...and then another guy named Brian Johnson.

Stay on your toes out there; it's the only way to save yourself from trick plays.