Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part I

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.

2013 Topps Update - Blue Parallel #US4 Matt Adams
2015 Gypsy Queen - Mini #197 Matt Adams

It's hard to believe this is Matt Adams's 5th season in the majors. He still seems like one of the new kids on the team.

1993 Pinnacle #599 Rene Arocha
1993 Topps Stadium Club #712 Rene Arocha
1994 Fleer - Rookie Sensations #1 Rene Arocha
1995 Fleer Ultra #221 Rene Arocha

I was too young to really be aware of it at the time, but Rene Arocha was apparently the first player to defect from the Cuban national team. There was a great article about it in the New York Times a few months ago, you can read here.

1996 Donruss #92 David Bell
1996 Leaf #70 David Bell

Both of these cards are from the same year, yet Donruss claims David Bell wore #25, while Leaf clearly shows 27. He first wore 25 when he came over from Cleveland near the trading deadline, and switched to 27 later that same year, about 2 full seasons before Mark McGwire arrived. Yet, now that he's the Cardinals hitting coach, he's wearing 25 again, because Jhonny Peralta has 27.

2015 Gypsy Queen #27 John Lackey
2015 Topps Opening Day #29 John Lackey

I started out just grabbing guys from the beginning of the alphabet (I'm always sorting), but to cram as many cards as possible in while still tagging each set, I'm doing my best to stick players together who both have cards in common sets, like John Lackey and Matt Adams, who both had a 2015 Gypsy Queen in the package.

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.