Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXIX

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

We're starting to run out of bowls, but I've still got some cards to show. I'm doing decently in this year's contest, too. I'll finish today in the lead, but not the top Max Points Possible, so I'm not quite in control of my own destiny.

All of today's cards are from a fun time in collecting and in my baseball-watching life. 1993-1995 weren't great years for the Cardinals, but for whatever reason, it's when I really started getting deep into baseball despite their struggles.

1993 Fleer - Rookie Sensations #RSA9 Mike Perez
1993 Fleer Ultra #111 Mike Perez
1993 Fleer Ultra #462 Rheal Cormier
1994 Leaf #110 Rheal Cormier
1994 Leaf #130 Mike Perez
1994 Upper Deck #357 Mike Perez

That Leaf Rheal Cormier is in rough shape. It was actually what I would consider packing material, stuck on the outside of one of the bricks of cards to protect the good stuff within. I'll still throw it into my collection, but noted with it's bad condition so I don't accidentally try to trade it off to an unhappy partner.

1994 Upper Deck #422 Rheal Cormier
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #229 Mike Perez
1995 Leaf #351 Tom Henke
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #196 Tom Henke
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #199 Mike Perez
1996 Donruss #320 Tom Henke

Tom Henke's glasses always made him look old to me. He came to the Cardinals for his final, age 37 year. He even made the All-Star game in 1995, and he wasn't the only player from the team, since Ozzie Smith also went. (I have this theory that having 2 players from a given team in the All-Star game legitimizes both of their appearances, whereas a lone player could arguably be below All-Star caliber, but the best on his team at a position the league needs for the game, and so make one despite not really "deserving" it.)

1994 Upper Deck #529 Alan Benes
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #464 Tom Pagnozzi
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #481 Rheal Cormier
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #641 Alan Benes

To finish off, I have some Alan Benes and Tom Pagnozzi cards, left out of the previous posts to feature those two, and one last Rheal Cormier, who is wearing 52 on all the cards in this post, but later switched to my favorite jersey number, 37.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part V

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.
Part I II III IV

Today I've got even more of the miscellaneous Cardinals, Red Sox, and Yankees.

1992 Leaf #152 Scott Sanderson
1992 Score #420 Kevin Morton
1992 Stadium Club #522 Scott Terry
1992 Topps #724 Kevin Morton
1993 Select #142 Kevin Maas
1994 Collector's Choice #592 Jeff Reardon
1994 Collector's Choice #550 Roger Clemens
1998 Pinnacle #54 Hideki Irabu
1996 Topps #131 Tom Pagnozzi

In somewhat of an odd coincidence, I just posted another copy of the Score Kevin Morton card last week, and now I have a second copy of it, and another Morton.

Scott Terry wore my favorite number with the Cardinals, #37, a number which has almost always belonged to a pitcher on the team since Keith Hernandez left in 1983.

1992 Topps #498 Gerald Perry
1994 Upper Deck #223 Brian Jordan
1994 Collector's Choice #296 Bob Wickman
1994 Collector's Choice #432 Melido Perez

Here we have the horizontal cards from this bunch, two Yankees pitchers, and two Cardinals. Perry's stats don't look all that impressive from his Cardinals years, but I remember him as a key bench player. And Brian Jordan was one of the most talented athletes I've ever seen play in person. He could hit, steal, and field pretty well too. I even bought a Jordan jersey t-shirt in late 1998, which naturally was right before he ended up leaving for the Braves. I still have that shirt and wear it from time to time, along with my #4 Fernando Vina I picked up at a thrift shop looong after that number was handed over to Yadier Molina.

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 5

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.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4

1999 Pacific
#100 Wil Cordero
#102 Jaime Navarro
#337 Lou Collier
#141 Dante Bichette
#159 Frank Catalanotto
#165 Seth Greisinger

1999 Pacific
#309 Ryan Christenson
#343 Abraham Nunez
#365 Ken Caminiti
#377 Rich Aurilia
#438 Jose Cruz Jr.
#446 Pat Hentgen

Back in the mid-to-late 90s, I used to buy a different pack of cards each week, which is about all I could afford. Typically it'd be whatever new release Sportscards Magazine convinced me I should get. If multiple new sets came out in a week, sometimes I'd buy two, and sometimes I'd just have to wait and get caught up. That buying started tailing off in 1999, which I can tell because while I have a few cards from many different sets in 1999, I don't have any Pacific. I'm sure these weren't a high-priced set, which is the only other reason I would have skipped them. But now, I've got a pack or more, with the 12 above and one in the next scan.

1999 Pacific #450 Woody Williams
1997 Fleer - Million Dollar Moments #31 Bob Gibson
1996 Pinnacle #305.3 Paul Molitor
1995 Topps - Cyberstats #140 Darrin Fletcher
1994 Collector's Choice #649 Terrell Wade
1993 Fleer - All-Stars #AL4 Pat Listach

I figured I'd throw the remaining horizontal cards into this scan with the Woody Williams. I've got so many of the Million Dollar Moments cards that it's frustrating that I'll never be able to complete the set. At best I can hope for the 45 commons out of the 50 that were needed to collect the grand prize. With regard to that Paul Molitor card, I like the decimal number. Maybe Topps could implement this for their silly SP variations. The reason here is that he hit .3053 for the season, and Jeff Bagwell hit .3056. Other players who hit from .300 to .308 were featured on cards 300-308, but I guess Pinnacle couldn't decide on which .305 guy to leave out.

1995 Bazooka #87 Chili Davis
1995 Stadium Club #166 Brent Gates
1996 Upper Deck #232 Alex Ochoa

Finally we have a few more random singles out of the box. I want to love the Bazooka set, but the design is almost too simplistic. Sometimes less is less. Also, this is my second Alex Ochoa card from this prize pack.

We're finally starting to empty the box...

eBay Wins #65

This lot of penny cards was a bit random, though I suppose most of them are.

1993 Bowman #27 Shawn Green

I never realized Shawn Green didn't come up with the Dodgers. I can forgive myself for not knowing him in 1993-1994, but there were 5 more years after that with the Blue Jays. Maybe the blue uniform is what got me.

1994 Collector's Choice #81 David Cone

Remember fans dressed as Coneheads, especially when David was having a great season with the Yankees? That's enough to get me to root for a guy.

1996 Collector's Choice #13 Angel Martinez

1996 Collector's Choice
#652 Joe Randa
#656 David Bell
#657 Joe Nunnally
#659 LaTroy Hawkins
#660 Jamie Brewington
#664 Todd Greene

These cards are pretty cool, picturing the players in their AFL uniforms on the front, but their MLB uniforms on the back.

2003 Bazooka - Minis
#103 Nobuaki Yoshida
#181 Mike O'Keefe

With the recent mini craze, how could I turn down these Bazooka minis?

2004 Bowman Chrome
#201 Tim Hutting
#252 Kevin Richardson
#276 Matt Lemanczyk

Finally, some shiny prospect cards, which scan very oddly. None of these guys, including the Cardinals Matt Lemanczyk, ever made the big club.

With another 14 cards for 14 cents, my average dips again to 1.849 cents per card.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2221
Total Spent	$41.06
Per Card	1.849 cents

eBay Wins #52

Today's win is another penny card no one else was paying attention to on eBay.

1995 Collector's Choice #52 Dante Bichette

Since Dante played in the AL until the Rockies started play, and my baseball world as a kid consisted of the things that happened in Cardinals games, I only remember him as a Colorado Rockies player. He always seemed to be destroying the Cardinals, although a lot of players were from 1992 to 1995 in retrospect. Still, I remember thinking of him as a future Hall-of-Famer, but that didn't quite pan out. He did get 3 votes on the 2007 ballot, which is better than many guys at the bottom of the ballots can say.

Also - and here's some kid logic for you - his last name allllmost had a naughty word in it, yet I could say it out loud with no fear of retribution, so I almost wonder if that made my friends and I talk about him more than some other guys.

With this addition, I now have 7 of the 670 cards in the 1994 Collector's Choice set, so I've cracked 1%. You've got to celebrate the little things, right?

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2066
Total Spent	$39.15
Per Card	1.895 cents

A Rookie Contest Win, Part 2

[Part 1]

In Mid-June I won a contest at all the way to backstop by going 3 for 3 in guessing the Rookie cards in his big stack. My prize: the stack, and some other cool stuff he picked out for me.

I can tell my wantlist was well-searched, because I also received 7 cards of one of my favorite players, and a distant cousin, Todd Stottlemyre.

1991 Score #39 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Donruss #263 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Fleer #342 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Pinnacle #240 Todd Stottlemyre

1992 Fleer Ultra #153 Todd Stottlemyre

1993 Fleer Ultra #293 Todd Stottlemyre

1994 Collector's Choice #269 Todd Stottlemyre 

Also from my wantlist, 1993 Topps Gold cards. And some base cards to boot.

1993 Topps #425 Joe Girardi

I've gotta show former Cardinals, no matter how brief a stint they had in St. Louis. Here are the rest of the base cards:

425 Joe Girardi
562 Bob Zupcic
598 Rico Brogna
606 J. Owens
613 Joel Adamson
622 Ben Rivera
699 Chad Curtis
732 Travis Buckley
747 Carl Willis
773 Cliff Brantley
790 George Bell

1993 Topps - Gold #483 Brian Griffiths

Not to be confused with Brian Griffin

1993 Topps - Gold #787 Mike Matthews

I'm trying to complete a set of 1992 and 1993 Topps Gold, and maybe 1994 as well. I haven't organized them all into my have and want list, but I don't have too many so there's a good chance any I get are unique for now, and a quick check of my "to enter in Zistle" box says these two bring me 2 cards closer to the 825 card set.

Once again, thanks to all the way to the backstop for the great cards.

A Card You Should Own

When Fuji posed the question, "What's a cheap (under $5), cool card you feel every collector should add to their collection?", I had to step back and think.

First, I couldn't just pick a cheap cool Cardinal card I like, not every collector likes the Cardinals.

After that, I started thinking of legendary quirky cards, such as Billy Ripken, but I bet that infamous card might go for over $5 for being an error several corrections.

Then I thought of another Ripken card that's just quirky enough to be funny, but probably still dirt cheap.

1994 Collector's Choice #240 Cal Ripken, Jr.

Those 1994 phones were laughably huge by 1998, and 1998 phones were laughably huge by 2002. Phones have crept back up in size a little since they're now tiny personal computers, but Cal looks like he's calling in an air strike on this one.

Maybe it's just my sense of humor and love of the weird, but this is a card that I think needs to be in everyone's collection. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it's got a Hall of Famer on it too.

A Prize For My Prescience, part 6

[Part 1]
[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.