Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XII

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 VII VIII IX X XI


Today's going to be an Alan Benes kind of day. I don't even know what that means.

1995 Upper Deck Minors #161 Alan Benes
1995 Bowman's Best #55 Alan Benes
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Special Edition #11 Alan Benes
1995 Fleer - Major League Prospects #3 Alan Benes (x2)
1996 Leaf #212 Alan Benes
1996 Topps #216 Alan Benes (x2)
1997 Topps #351 Alan Benes

Alan Benes was overshadowed a bit by his brother Andy, who joined him on the Cardinals in 1996. The Cardinals also drafted their other brother Adam, but he never made it to the majors.

1997 Topps Finest #208 Alan Benes
1998 Pinnacle Inside #66 Alan Benes
1998 Donruss #53 Alan Benes (x2)

I'm surprised this is the first 1998 Pinnacle Inside card I've posted. I bought a whole lot of those cans in the late 90s. At least I thought it was a lot. A quick search tells me I now have 33 of the 150 cards in the base set.

Zistle Trade #20

I've now successfully completed 20 trades on Zistle, and this one was with a frequent trading partner, who seems to be a Marlins collector for the most part. Every time I add some relatively common cards to my want list, he's usually got a trade for me within a few weeks. I'm certain most of these were added recently, especially the 1993 Studio cards I added when I got the Gregg Jefferies in my last trade.

1993 Studio #45 Scott Cooper
1993 Studio #62 Todd Zeile
1993 Studio #88 Ron Gant
1992 Donruss #334 Heathcliff Slocumb
1993 Bowman #111 Todd Stottlemyre
1995 Topps #635 Steve Kline / Herb Perry

I like these Studio cards, but I really started collecting Studio in 1997. I liked the design that year and bought a whole box, which was tough to do on the budget of a teenager. Those cards made me appreciate the Studio brand, so through the years I've sought out at least the Cardinals from other years, including those not pictured on the team, as I always do.

The other 3 cards also feature out-of-uniform Cardinals, including rookie cards for Heathcliff Slocumb, who played part of 1999 with the team, and Steve Kline, who played here 2001-2004, and was the league leader in appearances each season 1999-2001. Then there's my long lost cousin, Todd Stottlemyre. I always forget the exact relationship; I think technically it's 2nd cousin once removed. Now I've got to call my mom and maybe grandma tomorrow to sort this out.

eBay Wins #166

Among my many eBay penny cards, I had 5 from 1995 Topps. I can't recall whether these all came in one transaction, every since my great reshuffling of my eBay wins pile.

1995 Topps
#415 Mike Magnante
#488 Scott Ruffcorn
#493 Jorge Fabregas
#603 Jeff Fassero
#634 Rod Bolton/Olmedo Saenz

The only Cardinal in these cards is Jeff Fassero, who was sort of on the team twice. He was drafted by the Cardinals in 1984, but stayed in the minors for them, as well as the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland before signing with Montreal and making it to the big leagues. He went to a few more teams before the Chicago Cubs traded him back to the Cardinals just before the nonwaiver deadline in 2002, then he actually picked up 2 wins in relief against Arizona in the NLDS.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3272
Total Spent	$51.22
Per Card	1.565 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

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...

182 Packs Giveaway, Part III

When I claimed the Cardinals - and Mark McGwire and Todd Stottlemyre - in the pack-per-day giveaway held at TribeCards, I had no idea just how many cards I'd wind up with, and how many different players. So that I can tag all of the sets and Cardinal players, I've broken this up into a series of who knows how many posts. Thanks for all the cards, David.
[Part I]
[Part II]

1991 Topps
#262 Tim Jones
#734 Bryn Smith

Here are Tim Jones and Bryn Smith sporting a look the cardinals have brought back this year, red caps on the road.

1990 Score
#235 Scott Terry
#347 John Costello
#537 Greg Mathews
#556 Ken Dayley

More road shots except for Scott Terry. These cards kind of remind me of the blue and red parallels modern Topps has.

1991 Studio
#65 Storm Davis
#106 Mark McGwire

Storm Davis arrived via the randomizer, and here's the final McGwire I received.

1991 Studio
#232 Pedro Guerrero
#237 Lee Smith
#240 Todd Zeile

Now here are 3 guys I remember well from when I first started watching baseball. I'd have traded you any other 1B, Closer, or 3B for these cards back then.

1995 Topps
#167 Bret Wagner
CyberStats #173 Todd Zeile

Bret Wagner - never heard of him. I enjoy how baseball-reference.com let's me immediately find out what happened to these unknown draft picks, though. Bret made it up to AA, then got traded to Oakland, but stayed at AA. The Todd Zeile card is a parallel set with a dumb name but an interesting concept. Topps jumped at the rare chance to simulate the rest of the 1994 Season after the strike, and put out the projected stats onto cards. Todd would have hit over 50% more doubles than he did in the real season (38 vs 25), but just under 37% more home runs (26 vs 19). I wonder why that is.

That's it for today, and there are still plenty more to go.

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.