Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXI

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

Today's post is all John Mabry, a guy who my dad always seemed to call John Mayberry. I was surprised to learn later in life that was the name of an actual player, too. But I don't think he was confusing them, he just got the name wrong.

1995 Fleer #502 John Mabry
1995 Fleer Ultra #432 John Mabry
1995 Pinnacle #151 John Mabry
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #21 John Mabry
1996 Donruss #253 John Mabry
1996 Leaf #197 John Mabry
1996 Score #293 John Mabry
1996 Topps Stadium Club #46 John Mabry

I think every one of these Mabry cards was on my wantlist, so these were probably a purposeful inclusion rather than random collection of Cardinals duplicates. It's always nice to knock a few cards off my gigantic list.

1997 Metal Universe #233 John Mabry
1997 Topps #102 John Mabry
1997 Upper Deck #163 John Mabry

This is the first 1997 Metal Universe card I've ever posted, though I do have about 20 in my collection. It was certainly flashy compared to the Topps and Upper Deck of its era, though I think that Upper Deck design has aged pretty well and would still be a viable design in the current day.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XIX

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

1992 Fleer Ultra - All Stars #15 Tom Pagnozzi
1993 Studio #198 Tom Pagnozzi
1994 Pinnacle #439 Tom Pagnozzi
1995 Pinnacle #37 Tom Pagnozzi
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #193 Tom Pagnozzi
1996 Donruss #278 Tom Pagnozzi
1996 Topps #131 Tom Pagnozzi
1998 Topps #431 Tom Pagnozzi

Tom Pagnozzi was a member of the Cardinals when I started watching baseball, and never went to another team, so he was one of my favorite players as a kid.

1995 Fleer Ultra - Award Winners #10 Tom Pagnozzi
1996 Score #403 Tom Pagnozzi
1997 Topps Stadium Club #274 Tom Pagnozzi

Being a catcher also bumps him up on my favorite players list, although I just learned that in 1988 he actually started more games at first than catcher. He had to wait around awhile for Tony Pena to leave and Todd Zeile to be moved to third before he became the everyday catcher.

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 Rodney Hampton Contest Win

I'm falling a little behind on posting due to several days a week of NFL projections and NCAA Football Power Rankings, so now's the time I start catching up. I won this contest back in September, by guessing how many Rodney Hampton cards were in a lot purchased at Sport Card Collectors. If you follow that link, you'll see everything I won, but here it is again anyway, because I like cataloging stuff, as well as posting my winnings to show my gratitude to the generous contest-runner.

1995 Fleer Ultra - Gold Medallion #14 Bert Emanuel
1995 Fleer Ultra - Gold Medallion #15 Jeff George
2014 Sage Hit #51 Blake Bortles
2014 Sage Hit #60 Jimmy Garoppolo
2007 Topps - Ring of Honor #RH41-PM Peyton Manning
1995 Fleer - Gridiron Leaders #10 Steve Young
2014 Sage Hit - Autographs #A58 Travis Swanson
1990-91 Topps - Team Scoring Leaders #12 Wayne Gretzky

I didn't wait until today to post this for any particular reason, but now's a great time for a Peyton Manning card. He's getting ready to play in what is probably his last Superbowl, and possibly his last professional game. On the opposite end, there are some nice pre-draft rookies, and a hockey player you may have heard of.

1995 Flair - Preview
#10 Barry Sanders
#18 Dan Marino
#28 Chris Warren
2014 Sage Hit #7 Jadeveon Clowney
1996-97 SPx #17 Doug Weight
2014 Topps Chrome - Refractors #179 Carlos Beltran

These are all the horizontal cards from the prize package, because I despise scanning whitespace. There's another pre-draft rookie in Jadeveon Clowney, and some top football players from 1995. There were only two hockey cards in the package, and both features former Blues players, this one being a holographic Doug Weight. And, that Carlos Beltran is the first 2014 Chrome card in my collection. I need to expand my horizons into Chrome more often, because I always like how they look.

Since I like to label all my posts with every card set and hometown player shown, I'm out of space for this post. I'll cover the rest in the next one, including what's inside the unopened packs.