Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part VII

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 III IV V VI

1974 Topps - Team Checklists - Cardinals
1978 Topps #143 Keith Hernandez
1978 Topps #170 Lou Brock
1979 Topps #371 Keith Hernandez
1984 Donruss #475 George Hendrick
1985 Topps #60 George Hendrick
1985 Topps Traded #15T Bill Campbell
1985 Topps Traded #30T Ivan de Jesus

I decided to post some of the oldest cards in this prize package today. Above we see clear evidence Keith Hernandez should always keep the mustache. I'm still pondering a purchase of a powder blue Hernandez jersey, the style of which you can see much more clearly on the George Hendrick cards.

1974 Topps #204 Tommy Harper/Lou Brock
1976 Topps #205 Al Hrabosky/Rich Gossage

These are some nice league leader cards, with a bit of wear around the corners of course. They're 40+ years old after all. If you're like me, you might be wondering how Al Hrabosky and Goose Gossage scored 35 "points" in 1975. Never fear, I'll do your research for you. The Sporting News gave out a "Fireman of the Year" award to each league from 1960 to 2000. The scoring appears to have changed over time, but at least through 1975, relievers got 1 point for a save and 1 for a win in relief, and the top point earner in each league was the winner.

eBay Wins #203

Today I continue to sort through my eBay wins with 12 cards from 1985. 11 of them are from Topps flagship, but 11 doesn't divide up nicely and scan well, so I added in Lou Brock at the end there, also from 1985. I can't find a lot of info about that "Collector's Series" set, except that Zistle claims it came from Woolworth's. I now have 2 cards from that set, and both are Lou Brock.

1985 Topps
#36 Fred Breining
#102 Tom Dunbar
#103 Randy Lerch
#105 Ron Kittle
#216 Jerry Don Gleaton
#283 Fran Mullins

Of the other 11 players shown, only Bill Dawley played for the Cardinals, in 1987. They made it to the World Series that year, but he had no postseason appearances.

1985 Topps
#364 Richard Dotson
#487 Frank Williams
#592 Jeff Robinson
#634 Bill Dawley
#696 John Rabb
1985 Topps Collector's Series #5 Lou Brock

I only had 37 unique cards from 1985 Topps before this pile, and none of these are duplicates (except for Brock as I mentioned). For any of you who still need someone to do the math for you, now I've got 48, just over 6% of the 792 card set.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3405
Total Spent	$52.52
Per Card	1.542 cents
Change	-0.002 cents

Zistle Trade #17

Zistle has allowed me to whittle down my want list bit by bit, while helping others do the same with my doubles. I've got a lot of overproduction-era Cardinals still missing from my collection, so every now and then someone finds me and can knock off quite a few of them. This particular trader just wanted a Joe Carter card in return, and as a Blue Jays fan, had a few Todd Stottlemyre cards for me, too.

1985 Topps #683 Whitey Herzog
1990 Fleer #243 Cris Carpenter
1990 Fleer #251 Ken Hill
1990 Fleer #252 Joe Magrane
1990 Fleer #253 Willie McGee
1990 Fleer #261 Scott Terry
1990 Fleer #263 Denny Walling
1990 Fleer #264 Todd Worrell
1990 Topps #6 Vince Coleman RB

These were the last of the 1990 Fleer Cardinals I needed, so that's one more team set off my list.

1990 Topps #591 Todd Stottlemyre
1991 Topps #348 Todd Stottlemyre
1992 Topps #607 Todd Stottlemyre

As I've mentioned before, Todd Stottlemyre and his father, Mel, are distant cousins of mine, which is why I started collecting his cards in earnest. Now since I've widened my collecting net to anyone who has suited up for the Cardinals, I've got two reasons to collect his cards, so I'm glad to have 3 more off my list. The sender wrote a note saying he figured he'd have more Stottlemyre cards I needed, which caused me to check my list and see my want list was far from containing every card of his I don't have, so I've rectified that now. Thus, the net result of this trade for me was my want list increased by several dozen cards. Hooray progress?

Donuts from Johnny's Trading Spot, Part VI

Several weeks ago, I read a post at Johnny's Trading Spot titled Instant mini collections up for grabs. "Up for Grabs" always gets my attention, so I threw my name into the mix. They were supposed to be randomly assigned, but through a lucky draw and one trade, each of the winners wound up with exactly what they originally wanted most. For me, that was cards with batting donuts.

Part I II III IV V

Last one!

1977 Topps #126 Rod Gilbreath
1979 Topps #165 Frank Taveras
1981 Fleer #545 Keith Hernandez
1981 Topps
#319 Rowland Office
#445 Ellis Valentine
#465 Bill Russell
#558 Barry Bonnell
#723 Bruce Bochte
1982 Fleer #209 Chris Speier

These cards were all "First Row" cards in my collection. I keep my cards stored in bpxes with 3 rows each, sorted by year and set. I always take notice when I acquire a card that is old enough to go in the first row. Right now that's anything 1984 or earlier, though 1984 Topps is getting close to being pushed into row 2. So, in total I've got 12 first row cards here.

1984 Donruss #285 Greg Gross
1984 Fleer #20 John Shelby
1984 Fleer #299 Tim Flannery
1985 Topps #496 Donnie Scott
1985 Topps #647 Rafael Ramirez
1986 Donruss #401 Terry Francona
1986 Fleer #270 Rich Dauer
1986 Fleer #278 Fred Lynn

Thanks again to Johnny's Trading Spot for the kickstart to my batting donut collection.

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

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 1

Sometimes when I win a contest, I set the prize aside until I have time to fully rummage through all of it. In this case I won a contest back in late September, and I think the "Small Flat Rate Box" arrived by early October. I opened it immediately, but it's been sitting on my desk, too daunting of task to sort, since then. I finally felt the need to dive into it, and give jaybarkerfan his proper thank you post.

First up, we have the subject of the contest itself, a serial numbered card. The contest was simple: guess the number, out of 199.

2012 Topps Chrome
Blue Refractors #11 Ian Kennedy #177/199

I was the 4th person to guess, went with #177, and nailed it. The logic for my guess was simply to try to pick a number far from the others, so I didn't do the classic The Price is Right jerk move of outbidding someone by a dollar.

2012 Topps Chrome
Blue Refractors #11 Ian Kennedy #177/199

1984 Topps #115 Andre Thornton
1984 Topps #129 Bill Laskey
1984 Topps #180 Manny Trillo
1984 Topps #188 Bryan Little
1984 Topps #616 Don Robinson
1985 Topps #271 Tim Foli

I got 5 1984 Topps cards, and my scanner's not that wide, so luckily I had a 1985 to even out the scan. Gotta love 30 year old cards.

1990 Donruss Best of the AL
#70 Junior Felix
#71 Craig Worthington
#73 Johnny Ray
#74 Ozzie Guillen
#75 Brook Jacoby
#76 Chet Lemon
#78 B.J. Surhoff
#97 Sandy Alomar

1990 Donruss Best of the AL
#110 Willie Randolph
#113 Tony Fernandez
#116 Luis Polonia
#117 Carney Lansford
#118 Bud Black
#119 Lou Whitaker

I have never seen this blue 1990 Donruss "Best of the AL" set. It's almost like the color parallels you see today, except I think all the images are different from the 1990 red base set. Once I finally finish my 1990 Donruss set, this set would be a nice addition. There's also an NL set, which is also blue.

1991 Score 100 Superstars
#43 Randy Milligan
#46 Brian Harper

Superstars, eh? I beg to differ. Still though, here's another set I don't think I've ever seen.

1994 Tombstone
#19 Juan Gonzalez
#29 Frank Thomas

I vote for MLB to bring back food issues. Surely Topps can allow a little leeway in its exclusive license.

1994 Finest
#53 Ricky Guitierrez
#161 Ben McDonald

1995 Finest
#184 Tim Naehring

1996 Finest
#204 Randy Myers
#210 Ben McDonald
#303 Steve Gibralter

Here's a little evolution of Topps Finest, though 1996 is only "Common" cards. One day I'll finally get the urge to peel the protective film off of these and other Finest cards I have, and immediately regret it.

That's it for today, but there's plenty left in the box...

All-Star Winnings, Part 1

Way back in July 2012, I won a contest at Cards On Cards. The premise was to pick the Cardinals player who would have the biggest impact on the game, determined Sabermetrically. I picked the right player, and got a pile of Cardinals for my trouble. They've been sitting in that same pile, haunting me, for quite some time, so now is the time to show them to you.

1983 Topps Stickers
#135-136 Jim Kaat
#189-190 Dane Iorg
#283 Lonnie Smith

I was unaware of these Topps Stickers, but now I really wish I had known about them. Look at those sweet powder blues. There are plenty of Cardinals in the set, too, because there appears to be a World Series subset.

1982 Fleer #118 Tito Landrum
1985 Topps #113 Tom Herr
1984 Fleer #327 Jeff Lahti
1984 Fleer #660 Whitey Herzog (Checklist)
1986 O-Pee-Chee #94 Tom Herr
1986 O-Pee-Chee #171 Tito Landrum

More powder blues, Tito, Whitey, and O-Pee-Chee. This image pretty much sums up why we collect.

1987 Fleer #297 Ricky Horton

Wrapping up the older cards is current Cardinal broadcaster Ricky Horton, who goes by Rick these days. He's been doing that regularly for 10 years now, but he still feels new to me. Anyone but Jack Buck, Joe Buck, Al Hrabosky, and Mike Shannon probably always will.

A Random PWE, Part I

That's Plain White Envelope for those of you not hip to the collecting lingo. This envelope of cards arrived a week or so ago, but I didn't recognize the name or return address. I thought about it for about a day and remembered that Jaybarkerfan's Junk had requested addresses and favorite teams earlier in the year, and I thought I remembered sending an e-mail over. I still had to do a little digging, but I discovered that was indeed the source of my new cards. Enough about the back story, I'm sure you want to see more Cardinals on this blog. And due to my obsession with tagging the sets and players, you get this post in 2 parts!

1984 Topps #561 Whitey Herzog

Whitey was pretty much the god of baseball in this town until La Russa won two World Series, and some folks still insist he'd have done better. I was sort of surprised to see that this is only the 3rd card of Herzog in my collection, but he did quit managing in 1990, before the explosion of sets, and before I started buying cards.

1985 Topps #447 Jeff Lahti

I always think of 1985 Topps as "Vintage" and maybe even hard to find, but I now have 8 copies of this card. It makes me wonder if all the Cardinals filtered down to my local shops when I was a kid, and I picked them up in "random" lots, or if there is some sort of worldwide glut of '85 Topps. I also kind of wonder what the odds are of someone sending me an octuplet out of just 8 random Cardinals. Maybe I can figure that out one of these days.

1986 Topps Traded #28T Tim Conroy

I must admit I've never heard of Tim Conroy, but it's always nice to get a card from a Traded set. Those seem to be a little harder to find than the flagship counterparts.

1991 Score Rookie/Traded #63T Gerald Perry

Here's another card from a traded set, which is actually my first card from this set. I do remember Gerald Perry pretty well since he played for the Cardinals until 1995. I also heard this week he'll be the Hitting Coach for the USA Baseball team in the World Baseball Classic this year. Good for him. And he'll be working under former Cardinal player and manager, Joe Torre.

Well there's the first half of the cards. Thanks again to Wes at Jaybarkerfan's Junk, and come back tomorrow for Part II.

My Favorite Childhood Player

The lastest of Fuji's blog-inspiring contest questions is Who were your childhood favorites (players)? Do you collect their cards & memorabilia? If so, what's your favorite item (of your favorite childhood player) in your collection?


As I've mentioned on my blog before, my favorite player was Mark McGwire. I can't even really pinpoint why, because I've always been a Cardinals fan. I think it might be because I got to see some A's games when they were in the playoffs in 1988-1990 and 1992. I liked collecting cards from the A's, so I also was a fan of Jose Canseco, Dennis Eckersley, and Tony La Russa. Needless to say, 1996-97 was great for me as the Cardinals hired La Russa, brought in Eckersley, and traded for McGwire in mid-1997.

As for my favorite McGwire-related Memorabilia, #1 is probably the rookie card I wrote about in this Fleamarkets post.

1989 Upper Deck #1 Ken Griffey, Jr.
1985 Topps #401 Mark McGwire

I don't have a picture handy, but one somewhat unique item is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Special Edition" that was sold outside the stadium after the game in which he hit #61. The funny thing about that is that early in the season, when he was on a tear, I tried to project in which game he'd hit #62 and got tickets to that game. He wound up hitting #61 to tie the record, so I was close. Anyway, I ran into a friend of mine whose dad works for the paper, and they were selling the commemorative copies for 50 cents. I grabbed either 2 or 4, and they're still stored away somewhere (I hope).

Finally, my most desired memorabilia right now would be an autographed ball. Prices went sky-high while he was playing here at the Cardinals Winter Warm-Up, their annual autographs-for-charity event. Every autographed ball I have was acquired in person, which feels like a bigger deal to me than buying one. Now that he's back coaching with the team, I'm hoping he'll be available at some point so I can add this much-wanted piece to my autographed ball collection, which currently includes Ozzie Smith, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Kyle McClellan, and 1 ball with a bunch of guys from 1998.

Flea Markets, and 2 contest plugs

This post is just laden with grabs for free stuff. First up is my experience with flea markets for collectibles, for Fuji's contest, and then two gratuitous links to two new contests. It seems like when it rains it pours with contests in the baseball card blogosphere.

When I was somewhere between 12 and 14, I used to go to a flea market with my mom or both mom and dad early on Sunday mornings before church, about once a month or so during nice weather. It was about 20 minutes west of us, in the rural direction. There were prime spots indoors, with maybe 30 tables or so, some prime outdoor spots near the building, and then the cheap spots up the hill and around the building. There were usually puppies and kittens for sale, "antique" furniture, which was mostly just old and beat up, and, as it was the mid-to-late 90s, lots of baseball cards.

I'm certain a few of the guys indoors were running hobby shops, as they always had boxes of the newest products. I don't think they could have sustained that with only a few hours to sell each week. Some weeks I just really liked looking at all of the autographed photos, and the rare and/or vintage cards. Occasionally I'd buy a pack of cards from them, but I usually wouldn't, buying instead from my more local hobby shop during the week.

My favorite seller to talk to was an older guy who had an outdoor spot, but had his cards in some nice glass-topped cases. In retrospect, I wonder how much UV damage some of his cards sustained week after week. I think I also visited his spot a lot because he had two cards I really wanted, sitting side by side, every week. One was a McGwire rookie, and the other was a Griffey rookie. I'd ask him the price from time to time, getting a slightly different number every time, and usually a lower number after I'd look disappointed. I never had enough cash to make an offer though.

Then, one week I bought a can of 1997 Pinnacle Inside, the cards in a can, from my hobby shop. I pulled a Diamond Edition parallel of Cal Ripken Jr., which is die-cut and a little shiny. Here's an example Jim Edmonds from CheckOutMyCards.com.

1997 Pinnacle Inside - Diamond Edition #115 Jim Edmonds

The way I remember it, it came from the Ripken can on top, but it could have been any of these 3.

1997 Pinnacle Inside - Cans #19 Mike Piazza
1997 Pinnacle Inside - Cans #22 Cal Ripken, Jr.
1997 Pinnacle Inside - Cans #23 Mark McGwire

At the time, I think this card booked for $300. According to COMC, the Randy Johnson is currently booking for $25, so I'd imagine Cal might be $30 at best now. I had a feeling that $300 was overinflated, so I got the bright idea to try to trade it.

I took it up to the flea market one Sunday, and approached the McGwire and Griffey. I asked to see the cards, much like the Wayne's World scene in which he checks out the same guitar he's been checking out every week. I showed him my Ripken, and confidently told him what it booked for. I think at the time the McGwire was about $70 and Griffey was around $100. I can't recall exactly what we settled on, but it included both cards and cash, I want to say about $80. That sounds like way more than a vendor would PAY at a flea market, but again, this was the late 90s, right in the card boom, so I guess it might have been.

1989 Upper Deck #1 Ken Griffey, Jr.
1985 Topps #401 Mark McGwire

I was ecstatic that I had turned my 3 or 4 dollar pack (can) of cards into these two cards I desired for so long. Of course, the book values, for what it's worth, have plummeted on all of those cards, but that doesn't matter to me. I haven't visited any flea markets since my return to collecting in late 2010, but I have occasionally found things at garage sales, which are kind of a suburban flea market I suppose.

Now that I'm done reliving my childhood, here's two more contests for you.
First, Number 5 Type Collection's Fourth Anniversary HOF Giveaway. Go comment with your favorite 50s-60s player to enter.
Next, a new blog I just found thanks to some more contest promoting, Drinking The Orange Kool-Aid's The "You Did WHAT With The Cup?" Contest. Let him know what you'd do with your 24 hours with the Stanley Cup if you were on the NHL champs.

2006 Topps Value Pack #2

After searching 3 Targets in the St. Louis area to only find 1 pack before, would you believe I went all the way to Kansas City for this one? No? OK, so I happened to be in the KC area last weekend, with about 4 hours to kill, and a Target near my hotel. I figured I'd give it a look since bloggers all across the country had posted about the packs. Sure enough, I found just 1 again. Since I can't resist the mystery vintage, I bought it (along with some cookies, and the cookies were delicious).

As I like to do, first I'll show you the past/current/future Cardinals:

2006 Topps #461 Placido Polanco

I think a big reason I like baseball cards is the history they provide on the back. I can look right there and see that we traded Polanco to the Phillies in 2002. As I recall it was part of the deal for Scott Rolen.

2006 Topps #452 Jake Westbrook

Here's Jake Westbrook pre-Cardinals. The stats history doesn't help me too much here, but luckily there is always baseball-reference.com to tell me he showed up at the 2010 trade deadline.

2006 Topps - Trading Places #TP-JP Juan Pierre

This is a good idea for a subset, because if I had all of them I could look at it as a retrospective of the 2005-2006 off-season activity.

1990 Topps #363 Dan Petry

Doesn't ring a bell to me.

1989 Topps #345 Charlie Hough

I have this factory set as I previously posted, so here's one more on the trade pile.

1985 Topps #82 Joe Price

I can't say I've heard of him off the top of my head, but at least 1985's just a bit before the overproduction era; my earliest "vintage" in the last pack was a 1988. All in all the Vintage weren't overwhelming, but it's still a cool little bonus in the pack.

And here's the 2006 base card listing:
344 Doug Davis
354 Grady Sizemore
363 Jermaine Dye
381 Odalis Perez
405 Miguel Tejada
418 Johnny Estrada
422 Aaron Cook
431 Julio Franco
439 Ben Broussard
452 Jake Westbrook
461 Placido Polanco
471 Runelvys Hernandez
557 Chris Burke
579 Javier Vazquez
600 Ned Yost
615 Arizona Diamondbacks
648 "Brothers Orlando" - Orlando Hernandez/Orlando Hudson
Series 2 Checklist 1 of 3