Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXVII

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE IS OVER, 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 XXIX XXX
XXXI XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI

The giant prize pile is down to a large handful...

1982 Fleer #123 Ken Oberkfell
1983 Fleer #17 Ken Oberkfell
1991 Donruss #43 Ray Lankford
1991 Donruss #143 Brett Butler
1994 Topps Stadium Club Draft Picks #30 Carl Dale
1994 Topps Stadium Club Draft Picks #55 Yates Hall
1995 Topps Stadium Club #424 Ray Lankford
1999 Topps Stadium Club #21 Darren Oliver
1990 Upper Deck - Team Hologram Cardinals

I always find it interesting to see what happpened with Cardinals draft picks I've never heard of.
Carl Dale was sent to Oakland as part of the deal acquire my cousin, Todd Stottlemyre, and eventually made it to MLB with Milwaukee in 1999 after rosters expanded. Yates Hall appears to have played his entire career in the Cardinals minor league system, and only played through 1998, when he was 25, but only rose to AA.

Brett Butler, I'm pretty sure, was another "packing material" card, protecting a stack by covering the end. But it's in good enough shape to throw into my 1991 Donruss box, along with the Ray Lankford. Also, I promise that hologram is of a 1990s Cardinals logo, though it's pretty hard to tell that from the scan.

Junior Junkie's Generosity, Part VII

Part I II III IV V VI

It occurs to me I haven't been doing the kind thing and actually linking to Junior Junkie's blog, for you, or for the search engine robots to boost him up.

I've got more McGwires today, slowly but surely approaching the end of his A's years.

1994 Donruss #335 Mark McGwire
1995 Donruss #460 Mark McGwire (x2)
1995 Score #377 Mark McGwire
1995 Topps Stadium Club #289 Mark McGwire (x2)

I had neither the 1995 Donruss or Stadium Club cards of McGwire, and now I have 2. It's always good to have a backup.

1995 Pinnacle Zenith #71 Mark McGwire
1995 Upper Deck #35 Mark McGwire
1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #710 Mark McGwire
1996 Topps - Profiles #AL18 Mark McGwire
1996 Topps Finest #B162 Mark McGwire
1996 Upper Deck #151 Mark McGwire

I've seen those Oakland Oaks throwbacks on other cards before. They're a little odd on the typically green-and-gold A's.

1995 Pinnacle #196 Mark McGwire
1996 Sportflix #117 Mark McGwire

I needed both of these cards, which both show the best thing you can on a horizontal card of a slugger, the full swing extension.

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 #82

Today's selection is some decidedly common cards, of a 1989 to 1996 vintage. I hope you'll enjoy it.

1989 Donruss #279 Denny Walling
1991 Leaf #291 Jeff Russell
1995 Stadium Club #428 Melvin Nieves
1996 Topps #235 David Yocum

Denny Walling played 18 seasons in MLB, and parts of 3 for the Cardinals, yet I really don't know anything about him. I'm sure any Astros fan knows him, since many more of those 18 years were with Houston.

As for Jeff Russell, the photographer caught his arm at the exact angle that makes me say "That's why I'll never be a pitcher".

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2433
Total Spent	$43.18
Per Card	1.775 cents

eBay Wins #78

Happy All-Star Tuesday everyone. Even though "it counts", I don't really feel like I've got skin in the game, so I just sit back and enjoy the matchups, and root for my Cardinals a little too.

This lot had a fairly diverse number of sets and years for just 8 cards, and gave me one more card in my quest for every Cardinal ever.

1987 Topps #127 Vance Law
1987 Topps #245 Willie Upshaw
1991 Leaf #272 Gerald Perry
1991 Leaf #415 Greg Cadaret
1991 Leaf #429 Alvin Davis
1991 Leaf #479 Mike Flanagan
1991 Leaf #524 Tommy Greene
1995 Stadium Club #434 Ramon Martinez

This Ramon Martinez is my first 1995 Stadium Club card. Back when I was but a young collector, Stadium Club was too "premium" for me, and I tended to focus my meager buying into many packs of a few sets. After a couple of years of intentionally skipping a particular brand, it was hard to break the habit, even when I switched to buying a 1 pack of everything. I don't think I ever actually bought a Stadium Club pack, though I have acquired non-1995 cards through the years.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2411
Total Spent	$42.96
Per Card	1.782 cents