eBay Wins #211

Today I add cards from another new set to my collection, 1987 Donruss Opening Day. This set was apparently sold as a full factory set, hence why I hadn't yet acquired any random singles.

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#16 Glenn Davis
#19 Craig Reynolds
#48 Glenn Hubbard
#87 Reid Nichols
#110 Tony Bernazard
#144 Marvell Wynne
#149 Eric Show
#152 Von Hayes

I don't really remember if these all came in the same lot or not. The first few seem to be from assorted teams, but then...

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#170 Jerry Browne
#171 Scott Fletcher
#173 Larry Parrish
#177 Oddibe McDowell
#179 Steve Buechele
#201 Ed Hearn

we get to 5 Rangers, and 6 Royals, along with a Giants logo. Maybe the set was broken and Royals and Rangers sent to a fan of both teams, or maybe these were the leftover cards when selling off the big stars. I always wonder about things like that when I have singles that I know came in a boxed set.

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#202 Buddy Biancalana
#203 Danny Jackson
#204 Frank White
#207 Kevin Seitzer
#208 Willie Wilson
#258 San Francisco Giants Logo

Among all 20 of these cards, only Danny Jackson played for the Cardinals, for two and a half seasons, 1995 to mid 1997, when he was traded for Fernando Valenzuela among others.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3482
Total Spent	$53.29
Per Card	1.53 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

A Trade With Mr. Haverkamp

Thanks to a post I made about Turkey Red a few weeks ago, a reader by the name of Mr. Haverkamp contacted me with some more Turkey Reds from my wantlist. You've probably seen his name a few times on other blogs, as he's a pretty active trader. 

2005 Topps Turkey Red
#54 Chris Carpenter
#94 Mark Buehrle
#129 Kip Wells
#156 Jake Westbrook
#229 Dmitri Young
#309 Wade Boggs

2005 isn't the main Turkey Red set I'm focused on right now, so my wantlist is only the Cardinals and retired players, hence why I've got 5 players who played for the Cardinals, and Wade Boggs.

2010 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR13 Yovani Gallardo
#TR20 CC Sabathia
#TR29 Gordon Beckham
#TR35 Stephen Drew
#TR38 Rick Porcello
#TR55 Aaron Hill

2010 Topps' Turkey Red insert set is my big target, and I knocked 6 more off that list. I still need 76 of the 150 total cards in flagship and update, so I'm almost at 50%.

2011 Topps Lineage
1975 Mini #9 Matt Holliday

This was a nice surprise thrown in with all the Turkey Red, also off my want list. Lineage is a set I really liked but didn't seem to be a big hit, only lasting a single year. I have the entire mini parallel set on my wantlist, but I'll likely never finish it. This Matt Holliday brings me up to just 15 out of the 200 cards.

Thanks for the trade, Mr. Haverkamp!

eBay Wins #210

Today I've got 21 penny cards from 1987 Donruss, but with a slight twist. I noticed that the backs were rotated 180 degrees on some of the cards, and some quick research (that is, a Google search) led me to the knowledge that the factory set backs were rotated. I believe the first 16 cards here are from a factory set, and the last 5 are not. If that's the case, all of the 1987 Donruss cards I had before this point were from packs.

1987 Donruss - Factory Set
#61 Glenn Davis
#275 Walt Terrell
#286 Bill Doran
#296 Tom Brookens
#301 Steve Farr
#308 Dave Smith
#318 Steve Lombardozzi
#357 Ken Dayley

There's only one uniformed Cardinal in this bunch, Ken Dayley.

1987 Donruss - Factory Set
#373 Dan Petry
#420 Dave Bergman
#431 Terry Puhl
#439 Jesse Orosco
#461 Chuck Cary
#554 Denny Walling
#578 Jeff Calhoun
#605 Jim Pankovits

Jesse Orosco played for the Cardinals in 2000 when he turned 43, and still played 3 more seasons after that. Denny Walling also played for the Cardinals, 1988-1990.

1987 Donruss
#299 Franklin Stubbs
#306 Russ Morman
#308 Dave Smith
#312 Jim Winn
#334 Ron Karkovice

The factory set variation is so subtle I'm not sure I should bother to catalog them separately, yet I feel like it would be wrong to claim I have a duplicate of the Dave Smith card you see pictured twice above, because they have two different backs. These are the things that keep cards piled on my desk for weeks until I make a decision.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3462
Total Spent	$53.09
Per Card	1.534 cents
Change	-0.003 cents

Discounted 2015 Gypsy Queen Hanger Box #2

I enjoyed my first hanger box enough to go back for another, but that was the last one on the shelf, so I probably won't have any more after this one.

2015 Gypsy Queen
#57 Jason Vargas
#70 Adam LaRoche
#85 Jon Singleton
#88 Justin Upton
#109 David Cone
#120 Joe DiMaggio
#129 Drew Smyly
#133 Ernie Banks

2015 Gypsy Queen
#146 Matt Cain
#153 Wade Boggs
#160 Hyun-jin Ryu
#173 Jayson Werth
#246 Brian McCann
#284 Trevor Rosenthal
#287 Brian Dozier
#292 Aaron Sanchez

Only one of the base cards was a Cardinal, Trevor Rosenthal, but they're all duplicates anyway since I purchased the non-SP base set.

2015 Gypsy Queen
#321 Dave Parker(SP)
Glove Stories #GS-11 Norichika Aoki

I got an SP in this one, Dave Parker. I'll probably have to buy a full set of all 50 if I want to complete it, though.

2015 Gypsy Queen
Walk-Off Winners #GWO-24 Neil Walker
Mini #110 Justin Verlander
Mini #297 Homer Bailey
Mini Silver #51 Anthony Rendon #041/199

I got another numbered mini in this box, the Silver which is #/199, slightly less rare than the red I got last time, numbered to 50.

2015 Gypsy Queen - Framed Paper White
#70 Adam LaRoche
#95 Corey Kluber
#202 Juan Lagares

I got 3 new Framed Paper parallels, so I've only got 94 more to go now. Also, the hanger pack advertised that it contained 24 cards. If I counted correctly, I got a bonus card in this box, for a total of 25.

eBay Wins #209

Today's eBay card is a part of a set not previously in my collection, a minor league all star set. There were quite a few well-known major leaguers in this 25-card set, including Mark McGwire, Tom Glavine, Glenallen Hill, Terry Steinbach, and Billy Ripken.

1986 Southern League All Stars
#18 Todd Burns

Todd Burns played for the Cardinals in 1993, though I don't recall him at all. He made 24 appearances, all in relief, and went 0-4.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3441
Total Spent	$52.88
Per Card	1.537 cents
Change	0 cents

A Wade Boggs Contest

There's a cool TTM return post at Baseball Card Breakdown which you should go read yourself, but the long and short of it is, Wade Boggs is an awesome signer, and signed a few great custom cards, including this one from the classic Simpsons episode Homer at the Bat.

Wade Boggs Custom
by defgav

He signed multiples of each custom, so some of the duplicates are being generously offered up in a contest. You can go leave a comment on that post for a chance to win one. And of course, you can promote it like this, for an entry in the second-chance drawing. Go check it out!

eBay Wins #208

Today's eBay lot is 23 cards from 1986 Topps. They're not as miscut as they look; I used a different scanner than usual, and it doesn't like to go quite to the edges like my normal one. These cards were a penny each.

1986 Topps
#57 Bill Doran
#96 Blue Jays Leaders
#149 Brett Butler
#161 Lee Tunnell
#216 A's Leaders
#219 Dennis Lamp
#244 Craig Lefferts
#312 Tom Filer
#338 Jorge Bell

Lee Tunnell is the only Cardinal in this group. Lee actually didn't play in 1986, and came to the Cardinals for 1987. I've only shown him on my blog one other time, and it was the same card.

1986 Topps
#364 Reid Nichols
#367 Aurelio Lopez
#388 Dickie Noles
#393 Chris Pittaro
#396 Red Sox Leaders
#488 Lou Thornton
#525 Marvell Wynne
#548 Mike Young

Aurelio Lopez played for the Cardinals in 1978 before moving on to Detroit, but his was not a name I could remember hearing before.

1986 Topps
#628 Kirk McCaskill
#647 Mel Hall
#668 Cecilio Guante
#718 Jorge Bell
#768 Vern Ruhle
#784 Alan Bannister

My second Jorge Bell card of this lot is his All Star card. I always think these are inserts when I first see them, but back in 1986 they were part of the base set.

6 of these are duplicates, so I added 17 cards to my 1986 Topps set. It's quite the inefficient way to build a set, as I'm only up to 146 unique cards.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3440
Total Spent	$52.87
Per Card	1.537 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

A Discounted 2015 Gypsy Queen Hanger Box

I found some hanger boxes of 2015 Gypsy Queen, a denomination I didn't know existed for that set, in the 40% bin at Walmart. Ozzie Smith's big smiling face and non-flapped helmet grabbed my attention, and I decided to spend $5.98 for the 24-card box. Here's what was inside.

2015 Gypsy Queen
#24 Joey Votto
#74 Julio Teheran
#103 Taijuan Walker
#131 Zack Wheeler
#193 CC Sabathia
#154 Ryan Howard
#162 Jonathan Lucroy
#163 Willie McCovey

2015 Gypsy Queen
#176 Yasiel Puig
#189 Daniel Norris
#238 Carlos Beltran
#248 Jose Quinana
#259 Mike Foltynewicz
#271 Lance Lynn
#281 Wade Davis
#290 Jay Bruce

I purchased a base set back in July, so these will all go in my duplicates list, hence why I only considered the box on clearance. But now, we get to the new stuff to my collection. I was hoping for a Short Print, but had no such luck.

2015 Gypsy Queen
Mini #122 Ken Griffey, Jr.
Mini #251 Ervin Santana
Mini Red #46 Adrian Beltre #19/50

Part of the reason I really like Gypsy Queen is the casual inclusion of hall of fame players. That Ken Griffey Jr. card is just a regular mini, so just as common to pull as a Steve Cishek.

2015 Gypsy Queen
Walk-Off Winners #GWO-9
Pillars of the Community #PC-RC Robinson Cano

If I had known this Ozzie Smith card existed, I'd have been chasing it since it came out. This is probably the most-played moment in Cardinal highlight reels, when he hit a homerun - already a rare and unexpected event for Ozzie - to win game 5 of the 1985 NLCS. The card doesn't mention it, but that was when Jack Buck's famous call of "Go Crazy, Folks" was made. I heard a story that may have been apocryphal, that he was slightly worried right after he said that, that there might be celebratory rioting in the streets and he'd be run out of town.

2015 Gypsy Queen - Framed Paper White
#7 Yordana Ventura
#43 Josh Hamilton
#79 Andre Dawson

As always, nice-looking parallels are my weakness, and now I want all the Framed Paper white cards. Just 97 more to go!

eBay Wins #207

Today's eBay penny card from one of the rarer sets in my collection, 1986 O-Pee-Chee. I now have just 3 unique cards from 1986 O-Pee-Chee, and the other two are Cardinals. This was one of the years that O-Pee-Chee looked just like Topps, with just a subtle logo swap. That subtlety is the reason I have this card, as it was actually included in a lot full of 1986 Topps cards. Perhaps the seller knew, or perhaps the seller didn't even care.

1986 O-Pee-Chee #304 Howard Johnson

I mostly remember Howard Johnson playing for the Mets, and my dad making dad jokes, before "dad jokes" was an expression, about how he owned the Howard Johnson hotel in our town. He told me lots of things like that as a kid, and I believed every one of them, for awhile at least. I should probably write up the ones I can remember one of these days.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3417
Total Spent	$52.64
Per Card	1.541 cents
Change	0 cents

Superbowl 50 Projections Recap

My numbers never quite gave Denver enough credit this year, but they managed to win it all in spite of my pessimism on their behalf

Like last year, I decided to show you everyone's championship chances in a stacked graph. You can see some teams disappear pretty quickly, as early as week 7. It's a bit easier to follow the better teams, who stayed alive into the playoffs or late in the season, like the Jets in neon green.

Denver's worst position was at the end of week 15, when they had just lost to Pittsburgh, falling to 10-4 and just a 2.34% chance of winning the Superbowl. Carolina's odds got better almost every week except after their regular season loss in week 16, all the way up to a 71.2% chance of winning going into the Superbowl.


First to 10% chance of Superbowl Win: Arizona (Week 3, Sunday)
First to 20% chance of Superbowl Win: New England (Week 9, Sunday)
First to 25% chance of Superbowl Win: Arizona (Week 16, Sunday)

First to 30% chance of Superbowl Win: Carolina (Divisional Sunday)

First to 80% chance of Playoffs: Arizona (Week 3, Sunday)
First to 90% chance of Playoffs: Green Bay (Week 4, Final)
First to 99% chance of Playoffs: New England (Week 8, Thursday)
First to 99.9% chance of Playoffs: Cincinnati (Week 9, Thursday)
First to 99.99% chance of Playoffs: Carolina (Week 11, Sunday)
First to 99.999% chance of Playoffs: New England (Week 11, Final)

First to 99.9999% chance of Playoffs: Carolina (Week 12, Thursday)
First to clinch Playoffs: Carolina (Week 13, Sunday)
First to clinch a First Round Bye: Carolina (Week 14, Sunday)

First to clinch homefield advantage throughout the playoffs: Carolina, Denver (Week 17, Final)

First team eliminated from winning a division: Miami (Week 11, Final)
First team eliminated from the playoffs: Cleveland (Week 13, Sunday)

[Week 1]
[Week 2, Thursday]
[Week 2, Sunday]
[Week 2, Final]
[Week 3, Thursday]
[Week 3, Sunday]
[Week 3, Final]
[Week 4, Thursday]
[Week 4, Sunday]
[Week 4, Final]
[Week 5, Thursday]
[Week 5, Sunday]
[Week 5, Final]
[Week 6, Thursday]
[Week 6, Sunday]
[Week 6, Final]
[Week 7, Thursday]
[Week 7, Sunday]
[Week 7, Final]
[Week 8, Thursday]
[Week 8, Sunday]
[Week 8, Final]
[Week 9, Thursday]
[Week 9, Sunday]
[Week 9, Final]
[Week 10, Thursday]
[Week 10, Sunday]
[Week 10, Final]
[Week 11, Thursday]
[Week 11, Sunday]
[Week 11, Final]
[Week 12, Thursday]
[Week 12, Sunday]
[Week 12, Final]
[Week 13, Thursday]
[Week 13, Sunday]
[Week 13, Final]
[Week 14, Thursday]
[Week 14, Sunday]
[Week 14, Final]
[Week 15, Thursday]
[Week 15, Saturday]
[Week 15, Sunday]
[Week 15, Final]
[Week 16, Thursday]
[Week 16, Saturday]
[Week 16, Sunday]
[Week 16, Final]
[Week 17, Final]
[Wildcard Saturday]
[Wildcard Sunday]
[Divisional Saturday]
[Divisional Sunday]
[Championship Sunday]

eBay Wins #206

Today's eBay lot is 1986 Fleer, and I've got a whole page worth this time. Two are Yankees, and 7 are Dodgers.

1986 Fleer
#116 Dave Righetti
#117 Andre Robertson
#124 Bob Bailor
#128 Carlos Diaz
#137 Mike Marshall
#138 Len Matuszek
#139 Tom Niedenfuer
#141 Jerry Reuss
#146 Bob Welch

Jerry Reuss started out with the Cardinals in 1969, and Tom Niedenfuer finished with them in 1990. In the middle, they met in LA. Dave Righetti wasn't a Cardinal, but he did appear in the original RBI Baseball for NES, which always boosts my desire for a player's card just a bit.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3416
Total Spent	$52.63
Per Card	1.541 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

A PWE of Kindness from 2 by 3 Heroes, Part 2

JediJeff of 2 by 3 Heroes is a fellow 2010 Topps Turkey Red collector, and we traded some awhile back. When he picked up a handful for his wantlist and got some duplicates, he kindly forwarded a few to me, along with some other Cardinals.

Here's the rest of the PWE, the other Cardinals.

1996 Score #430 Scott Cooper
2008 Upper Deck X #91 Albert Pujols
2009 Topps 206 #254 Johnny Mize
2009 Upper Deck #355 Ryan Ludwick
2009 Upper Deck Icons #5 Albert Pujols
2014 Panini Prizm #183 Kolten Wong
2008 Topps - 50th Anniversary All Rookie Team #AR41 Albert Pujols

Collecting cards has taken on a different feel since I started getting in-person autographs often. Of the 4 modern-era players here, I've met 2 of them in person, Scott Cooper and Kolten Wong, and had them autograph baseballs. One of these days I hope to meet Albert Pujols in person. I think the irrational anger at him for taking more money to go to the Angels has probably quieted down enough he could now do a signing in town.

Thanks to JediJeff for the Turkey Reds and Cardinals!

A PWE of Kindness from 2 by 3 Heroes

JediJeff of 2 by 3 Heroes is a fellow 2010 Topps Turkey Red collector, and we traded some awhile back. When he picked up a handful for his wantlist and got some duplicates, he kindly forwarded a few to me, along with some other Cardinals.

2010 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR76 Chris Coghlan
#TR77 Luis Aparicio
#TR99 Ryan Ludwick
2010 Topps Update - Turkey Red
#TR116 Jonathan Broxton
#TR120 Curtis Granderson
#TR122 Ben Sheets
#TR133 Lou Brock

Like I've said before, there's just something about these cards I really like. They look like framed gallery portraits. Also, the longer I wait to finish it, the more of them are Cardinals, like Jonathan Broxton, who joined the team this past year. I still need 70 of the 100 from the flagship set, but only 12 of the 50 that came in Update.

This was only about half the package, but since I like to tag every Cardinal and set, and blogger limits me, I'll have to leave those for another post.

eBay Wins #205

Today I've got a single 1986 Donruss card I got on eBay for a penny. You know the drill by now.

1986 Donruss #348 Carlos Diaz

I don't know anything about Carlos Diaz, but I like to use baseball-reference.com to see what kind of insights I can infer from a player's stats. For starters, his last season was 1986, and he was never a Cardinal, hence why I never heard of him. The stat that jumps out at me is that over 179 appearances, he never started, but he finished the game 77 times. Of those, only 4 were saves. That tells me he was likely a middle-reliever, as much as there was such a thing in the early 80s, and "got some work in" or was sent out to eat up some innings at the end of the game when his team was losing. Of course, I could be wrong and the stats may belie his real role. If that's the case and you're a Dodgers or Mets fan who remembers him from especially 1983-85, let me know why he finished nearly 60 games in those years with just 3 saves.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3407
Total Spent	$52.54
Per Card	1.542 cents
Change	0 cents

Play at the Plate's 2016 Topps Contest

In an effort to get more comments than any post ever, Play at the Plate is offering a contest to win a Hanger box of 2016 Topps if you can guess the first card he pulls from his first 2016 pack. You can have up to 5 guesses per day, or if you're easily bought like I am, 8 guesses per day if you promote it like this.

Since I don't have any 2016 myself yet, here's one I pulled from topps.com. Nevermind that it's a series 2 card; you get the picture.

2016 Topps Albert Pujols