A Prize For My Prescience, part 6

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[Part 2]
[Part 3]
[Part 4]
[Part 5]


Ryan at The Great Orioles Autograph Project sent me a whole bunch of cards for picking the Cardinals to win the World Series, and it is of course my duty to show you the cards and link to his blog.

Here's the remainder of what was sent. Including the cards I meant to include in the other posts. Oops.

1994 Bowman's Best (- Refractor?) X91 Dmitri Young/Frank Thomas

Once again I can't tell if these Bowman's Best cards are Refractors or not. They're awfully shiny if not.

More Ozzies!

1994 Collector's Choice #334 Ozzie Smith/Team Checklist

1994 Upper Deck #360 Ozzie Smith

More McGwires!

1995 Upper Deck #35 Mark McGwire

1994 Collector's Choice #525 Mark McGwire

1994 Upper Deck #67 Mark McGwire

1994 Topps #340 Mark McGwire

1995 Topps #472 Mark McGwire

1994 Score #550 Mark McGwire

Does anyone else just find the look of this photo unnerving? He looks even less proportional than usual.

1996 Topps #145 Mark McGwire

1993 Leaf Mark McGwire

And finally, Nomars!

1995 Upper Deck #10 Nomar Garciaparra

1995 Topps #587 Nomar Garciaparra

I have this card in a factory set, but it's nice to have a loose one to look at or display.

Well, that's the last of it. Thanks to my readers who still read despite my obsessive need to tag all the cards. And of course a big thanks to Ryan for running a contest and sending such a generous prize. I was hoping for maybe a ten or a dozen cards in an envelope, so it was quite a thrill to get a big 200ct box in the mail.

A Prize For My Prescience, part 5

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
[Part 3]
[Part 4]



Ryan at The Great Orioles Autograph Project sent me a whole bunch of cards for picking the Cardinals to win the World Series, and it is of course my duty to show you the cards and link to his blog.

In no particular order, some Mark McGwires!

Did you know Mark appeared in no less than 6 cards in 1993 Upper Deck? It might have been more, but I'm sure not going to go look it up. I do have evidence of 6 though, all sent in this package.

1993 Upper Deck #566 Mark McGwire

1993 Upper Deck #493 Award Winners - Mark McGwire

1993 Upper Deck - On Deck #D18 Mark McGwire

1993 Upper Deck - Future Heroes #60 Mark McGwire

I have other cards from this Future Heroes insert set. I must say I don't really get it, as it features current stars. Maybe it should have been Future Legends or something.

1993 Upper Deck #420 Checklist/Mark McGwire

There's a nice play at the plate in the background in case you can't see it. Mark appears to have decided to hit the catcher in the face rather than slide into home.

1993 Upper Deck #49 Bash Brothers Ruben Sierra/Mark McGwire

I think we could have let the Bash Brothers thing go when Jose Canseco left.

1988 Bazooka #13 Mark McGwire

Here's another oddball set I like. At just 22 cards, I think 1988 Bazooka is going to go in my want list as well.

1988 Rite-Aid Team MVP's #23 Mark McGwire

This one will probably not go on my want list. If nothing else, because of the misplaced apostrophe in MVP's.

1995 Collector's Choice #130 Mark McGwire

1995 Collector's Choice - You Make the Play #25 Mark McGwire

1995 Collector's Choice Special Edition #45 Mark McGwire

1993 Stadium Club #478 Mark McGwire

1993 Fleer #710 Mark McGwire

The back of this card refers to Mark as the "Lone Basher" now than Jose Canseco left. Fleer must not have gotten the memo about Ruben Sierra's promotion.

1994 Fleer #268 Mark McGwire

I always though Mark had squinty eyes for a baseball player, which you can really see in this card. Maybe they just caught him after contact here, but he always looked like he was struggling to see in St. Louis.

That's it for today. I'll wrap up the end of this package in post #6.

A Prize For My Prescience, part 4

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
[Part 3]


Ryan at The Great Orioles Autograph Project sent me a whole bunch of cards for picking the Cardinals to win the World Series, and it is of course my duty to show you the cards and link to his blog.

In this edition, random cardinals Ryan threw in!

1992 McDonald's Cardinals #46 Bob Gibson

1992 McDonald's Cardinals #30 Lou Brock

1992 McDonald's Cardinals #9 Joe Medwick

1992 McDonald's Cardinals #16 Grover Alexander

1992 McDonald's Cardinals #52 Bruce Sutter 

Somewhere deep in my basement, I think I may more of these McDonald's cards, because they look really familiar. One day I hope to get time to dig in and find out.

1993 Ted Williams #90 Bob Gibson

1994 Yoo-hoo #6 Bob Gibson

I think I need this set. The yellow is even more garish in person. Plus I love Yoo-hoo, and there are only 16 cards.

1992 Studio #262 Red Schoendienst/Checklist

I don't care if it is a Checklist, I'll always take a card of Red.

1988 Donruss - HOF Diamond King Puzzle Stan Musial

I found myself wondering how hard it might be to find this completed puzzle. Surely lots of folks who didn't complete the puzzle discarded the pieces, or at least didn't keep them in very good shape. Also I don't think Stan had quite the god-like status he now holds in St. Louis in 1988. Sure, he was loved, but the way the fans react these days, you'd think he invented the game. That's not to say it's undeserved, just makes me wonder how precious collectors would have found this puzzle card 20+ years ago.

1995 Summit - Nth Degree #8 Ken Hill

OK, so Ken Hill doesn't really belong in this crowd. But the card is so shiny!

A quick contest promotion

It feels like the number of contests on card blogs has dried up lately, which is probably why I've read about this one on at least a dozen other blogs, but I'll add one just in case you haven't seen it. And to get myself a bonus entry of course.

This is the second European blogger I've added to my follow list in a month. Cards Beyond Oceans is having a contest for this nice Duke Snider card.

Holy cow that's a tiny picture.

Alright, you know what to do. Go enter, and good luck to you.

A Prize For My Prescience, part 3

[Part 1]
[Part 2]

Ryan at The Great Orioles Autograph Project sent me a whole bunch of cards for picking the Cardinals to win the World Series, and it is of course my duty to show you the cards and link to his blog.

Once again, I'll start with some set-completion needs:

2011 Topps Opening Day - Presidential First Pitches #PFP-4 Ronald Reagan

2011 Topps Opening Day - Presidential First Pitches #PFP-6 Woodrow Wilson

2011 Topps Opening Day - Spot the Error #3 Jose Bautista

Clearly, the error is a Canadian team in the American League. Though I guess it'd make even less sense in the National League.

2011 Topps Opening Day - Stadium Lights #UL-6 Chase Utley

2011 Topps Opening Day - Stadium Lights #UL-1 Joe Mauer

2011 Topps Opening Day - Stadium Lights #UL-10 Ryan Braun

2011 Topps Opening Day - Mascots #M-21 Fredbird 

He's missing a bat. This would have been a good Spot the Error card. Oh well.

Here's the full list of 2011 Opening Day Ryan sent:
1 Carlos Gonzalez
24 Andrew Cashner
27 Andrew McCutchen
40 CC Sabathia
45 Desmond Jennings
51 Ben Revere
64 Miguel Tejada
78 Garrett Jones
79 Heath Bell
81 Jay Bruce
103 Jose Bautista
104 Victor Martinez
105 Roy Oswalt
113 Wandy Rodriguez
147 Josh Hamilton
160 Carlos Lee
161 Jose Tabata
168 Tim Lincecum
173 Joakim Soria
176 Jason Heyward
181 Josh Beckett
190 Elvis Andrus

And now, more Ozzies!

1993 Score #562 Ozzie Smith

1994 Topps Stadium Club Team #301 Ozzie Smith

1994 Select #30 Ozzie Smith

1990 Kmart #4 Ozzie Smith

1988 Donruss - Bonus MVPs #BC-22 Ozzie Smith

1992 Donruss #432 Ozzie Smith

1993 Pinnacle - Cooperstown #9 Ozzie Smith

1994 Bowman #424 Ozzie Smith

1993 Upper Deck #146 Ozzie Smith

1994 Topps #320 Ozzie Smith

That's all for this installment. Believe it or not I think there's probably at least 2 posts-worth more cards to go.