Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XIII

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


Games have started and I have a whole lot more cards left unposted. I'm about ready to say uncle. At least it's only been one FBS game so far, so I've got about another week before the season is really in gear.

1982 Topps #86 Dane Iorg
1985 Fleer #226 Tom Herr
1987 Boardwalk and Baseball #25 Jack Clark
1988 Donruss #208 Tom Herr
1988 Fleer #31 Doug DeCinces
1988 Fleer - All Stars #11 Jack Clark
1990 Fleer #249 Frank DiPino
1992 Topps - ToppsGold Winner #664 Ken Hill

I'm having a harder time matching players by era, so this post spans from 82-92. I had never heard of the Boardwalk and Baseball set, but apparently it was a theme park in Florida around that time.

1986 Fleer Mini #8 Tom Herr
1986 Fleer Mini #6 Jack Clark

You can't tell by my scan, but these are indeed mini cards. The height is just slightly more than the width of a normal card, and the ratio appears to be about the same, unlike Allen and Ginter minis. These are bigger than Cracker Jack cards, but smaller than the 19xx-style minis Topps has been inserting the last few years.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part III

College football will be here again before we know it, 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

1976 SSPC
#282 Luis Melendez
#285 Mario Guerrero
#289 Jerry Mumphrey
#294 Bob Forsch
#297 Lynn McGlothen
1977 Topps #47 Lynn McGlothen
1981 Donruss
#69 Bob Forsch
#429 Silvio Martinez
1982 Topps #316 Steve Braun

Those SSPC cards really stand out when sorting through a stack of cards. With no player name, team name, or even a card company logo, they're about as plain as can be on the front.

1982 Donruss
#91 Bob Forsch
#418 Steve Braun
1984 Donruss #168 Bob Forsch
1985 Fleer #223 Bob Forsch

All of the Bob Forsch cards were explictly on my wantlist, so this group knocked that down by a few cards. Really, all of these should have been on my list, since every one of them was new to me.

eBay Wins #202

I've moved ahead two whole years since my last eBay post, from 1983 to 1985. The cheap cards I get tend to cluster around 87-91, so we're still looking at the tail of the distribution for you math geeks out there.

1985 Fleer
#200 Onix Concepcion
#453 Mike Jeffcoat

I realize that 85 and 93 aren't all that far apart, but it still makes me feel weird to see a guy on a card this old that played for the Marlins, like Mike Jeffcoat did. That's probably because the Marlins are still an expansion team in my mind, and these cards are before the time I started watching baseball, so my perception is of much time passing in that interval.

I don't know much about Onix Concepcion, except he appears to be a career backup, playing just 390 games over 7 seasons. 1985 was his biggest season, and also practically his last. He played 131 games and won a World Series ring, against the Cardinals. He only ever played one additional MLB game, for Pittsburgh in 1987.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3393
Total Spent	$52.40
Per Card	1.544 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

eBay Wins #119

Today I've got 9 more penny cards, this time from 1985.

1985 Fleer
#235 Tom Nieto
#367 Bob Bailor
#352 Bob Knepper
#446 Steve Farr
#514 Scott Fletcher
1985 Topps
#88 Bryn Smith
#164 Jorge Orta
#416 Wayne Gross
#652 Joe Nolan

My scanner's dimensions allow me to scan 3 cards wide and 3 cards high, or 4 cards wide and 2 cards high, so groups of 5 or 7 always give me trouble. Thus, your 1985 frankenset above, with 5 Fleer and 4 Topps. Aside from Tom Nieto, who is wearing the birds on the bat on his card, Bryn Smith was also a Cardinal, from 1990-1992. I started watching baseball in 1992, and didn't really learn all the players until 1993, so I have no direct memory of him. I didn't even know he left us for the Rockies along with Andres Galarraga in 1993 until I looked him up on baseball-reference, though I vividly remember being upset at Galarraga's departure.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2883
Total Spent	$47.36
Per Card	1.643 cents

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 18

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.
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1988 Jiffy Pop
#7 Vince Coleman

Here we have another classic case of the 1980s oddball, which is MLBPA licensed, but not MLB licensed. Thus, all logos are airbrushed away. I'm surprised the Cardinals team name appears, though. I would expect just a "St. Louis" for his team. I'm not sure how I'll store this, because it's just wide enough not to fit in a card sleeve. It'll still fit in a regular storage box, so maybe I'll just put in in one of those and hope for the best.

1987 Topps
#8 Terry Pendleton
#110 John Tudor
#367 Jeff Lahti (x2)
#647 Tom Lawless

We've quickly jumped back far enough that I don't remember these guys as players, except Terry Pendleton, but he looks odd in Cardinal red to me to this day. From my earliest baseball memories, he was a Brave. I actually used to have a very similar jacket to the one Jeff Lahti is wearing on his card, but that when when I was about 10, so I quickly outgrew it.

1985 Fleer
#220 Joaquin Andujar
#224 David Green
#230 Kurt Kepshire
#236 Terry Pendleton
#231 Jeff Lahti

I do have a little context about these players, because my dad and uncle loved to tell me about the Cardinals. In fact, they still do. I appreciate the first-hand accounts of players I've only seen on cardboard or in 5-second blips in highlight reels. Joaquin Andujar in particular brings my uncle's stories to mind, because he had a few completely dominant years with the Cardinals, especially the 1982 season and World Series.

1983 Topps #337 Tito Landrum

Finally, and I do mean finally, we have the oldest card of the whole prize, a 1983 Tito Landrum. Tito won the 1982 World Series with the Cardinals, was traded to the Orioles in 1983 for September and the playoffs, where he won another World Series, then was traded back to the Cardinals before the 1984 season. That's about all I know about Tito, but I do love that powder blue uniform. I understand those were seen as a bit odd or even ugly at the time, but now, they're a classic. It's funny how time does that. Time and World Series appearances, I guess. Also, this card is 30 years old, so it's officially vintage now, right?

That's it. That's the whole thing. I posted them all! A big thanks to madding for giving me a ton of Cardinals, and 18 posts worth of material. It's always fun to go back through the years and reminisce about players I remember seeing, and players I never knew we had, and even see some players before my time.