Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXII

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

Like Homer Simpson once said...

So I intend to finish out this prize package!

1994 Pinnacle #425 Tripp Cromer
1994 Upper Deck #113 Tripp Cromer
1996 Pacific #215 Scott Cooper
1996 Score #448 Mark Petkovsek
1996 Topps Stadium Club #13 Tom Henke
1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #287 Tripp Cromer
1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #693 John Mabry
2015 Opening Day - Stadium Scenes #STA-RG Busch Stadium by Robert Grunbaum

We're getting deep into the weeds now, with some players who only played a handful of seasons or partial seasons, like Tripp Cromer. We seem to get a lot of guys with odd names, but maybe it's no more than our fair share. Tripp actually played in LA, though less than 40 games over 2 seasons, and Houston in 2000 and 3 final games in 2003 after 2 years out of the majors. Mark Petkovsek spent 5 years with the Cardinals, but bookended his 11-year career on each end with a year in Texas. Then there's Scott Cooper and Tom Henke, probably best known for playing on other teams, and John Mabry, who I have to keep reminding myself is still on the Cardinals coaching staff. He's kind of quiet.

Finally, there's the card from Opening Day's Stadium Scenes set, which features contest winning photos. I'm no artist of any sort, and especially not a photographer, but I think that's a pretty bland photo of Busch Stadium, so I don't know how it won. Maybe if I was the owner of the Millennium Hotel, which is that big round building in the center of this photo's focus, I'd be pleased. Or maybe I wouldn't be, since it closed in 2014. There's a sliver of the Arch, some opposing players (Dodgers), and a good clear view of the stadium's lesser dot-matrix style scoreboard, with a welcome message for a random group performing the national anthem that day. Maybe the photo started off better and was cropped oddly to fit on a vertical card, but the result just looks like something anyone could have taken from that seat.

That was a rather negative rant, but the card just hit me funny and it feels good to get out the poison pen now and then. Let's end with something happy.

Close enough.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part IV

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

1992 Fleer Ultra - All-Rookies #10 Donovan Osborne
1992 Studio #95 Donovan Osborne
1992 Upper Deck - Scouting Report #SR19 Donovan Osborne
1993 Fleer - Rookie Sensations #10 Donovan Osborne
1994 Fleer Ultra #269 Donovan Osborne
1994 Fleer Ultra #563 Brian Barber
1994 Fleer Ultra #265 Rich Batchelor
1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #24 Brian Barber
1996 Pinnacle #167 Brian Barber

Once again I'm always surprised how many Cardinals I'm missing from relatively common sets. These were all new to my collection, even the Donovan Osbornes that I was sure I've seen before.

1992 Upper Deck #702 Brian Jordan / Donovan Osborne / Mark Clark

Horizontal cards are always a pain when trying to put like cards together because there's no nice way to scan them together. So this one stands here alone, staring you down like these three menacing Cardinals rookies. The 1992 team wasn't really that good, though.

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 3

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

Yesterday included a giant stack of 1981 Topps. Today's stack is decidedly more modern.

2012 Topps
#72 Rex Brothers
#161 Dee Gordon
#280 Ryan Howard
#289 Casey Kotchman
#330 Matt Kemp
#367 Chris Volstad
#381 David DeJesus
#398 Buster Posey
#415 Rafael Furcal

2012 Topps
#424 Vladimir Guerrero Checklist
#428 Jordan Schafer
#438 Juan Uribe
#476 Ramon Hernandez
#288 Nick Swisher
#493 Ryan Madson
#505 Fautino De Los Santos
#513 Gaby Sanchez
#519 Gio Gonzalez

2012 Topps
#520 Ryan Adams
#525 Paul Maholm
#526 Casper Wells
#529 Luke Hughes
#570 Zach McAllister
#571 J.J. Hardy
#572 Hiroki Kuroda
#574 Kerry Wood
#593 Marco Scutaro

2012 Topps
#601 Dan Haren
#610 Cody Ross
#615 Luis Marte
#632 Joe Nathan
#634 Jose Contreras
#635 Brett Gardner
#645 Kyle Seager
#656 Carlos Santana
Gold Futures #GF-37 Jordan Walden

2012 Topps
#347 Craig Gentry
#397 Hector Noesi
#410 Jeff Locke
#460 Thomas Field
#585 Jimmy Paredes
Golden Moments #GM-9 Ryan Howard

I'd hardly call the 2 inserts junk. Though I suppose we'll have to give Jordan Walden a few more years for a final verdict on that card. After all those 2012 Topps, there were also some 2012 Topps Update cards, including Randy Choate, the old man of our extremely young pitching staff.

2012 Topps Update
#US21 Buster Posey
#US50 C.J. Wilson
#US77 Miguel Batista
#US100 Ryan Dempster

2012 Topps Update
#US101 Casey McGehee
#US107 Randy Choate
#US293 Shane Victorino

And to finish off today, here's another sampling from the cards with no set-mates in the box.

1997 Collector's Choice - All Star Connection #39 Vinny Castilla
1996 Collector's Choice #538 Quinton McCracken
1999 Skybox Premium #246 A.J. Burnett
1995 Bowman's Best #B63 Alex Ochoa

There's still so much left in the box...

All-Star Winnings, Part 10

Way back in July 2012, I won a contest at Cards On Cards. The premise was to pick the Cardinals player who would have the biggest impact on the game, determined Sabermetrically. I picked the right player, and got a pile of Cardinals for my trouble. They've been sitting in that same pile, haunting me, for quite some time, so now is the time to show them to you.
Part [ I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX ]

The flurry of Cardinals continues with my second cousin, Todd Stottlemyre.

1996 Pinnacle #357 Todd Stottlemyre
1996 Collector's Choice #688 Todd Stottlemyre

1996 Pinnacle Summit #37 Todd Stottlemyre
1997 Collector's Choice #198 Todd Stottlemyre

I'm sure card companies do this to other teams too, but when it's the Cardinals, I really notice how their home uniform seems to show up very rarely. The Cardinals have never worn a red jersey (at least in modern times), so those shots in red are from spring training or pregame warmups.

1991 Topps Archives 1953 Al Schoendienst
2005 Upper Deck Classics #20 Johnny Hopp
2005 Upper Deck Classics #80 Red Schoendienst

Speaking of Red, here are two more Red Schoendiest cards, and Johnny Hopp. Johnny won 4 World Series rings in his career, 2 with the Cardinals, and 2 with the Yankees, but if you had mentioned his name to me before I saw this card, I would have no idea who he was.

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

Big Pile, part 2

[Part 1]
Josh at Royals and Randoms had a draft-style contest called Big Pile way back in late 2011, and I misplaced the envelope until this week.

1991 Classic Game #21 Pedro Guerrero

Pedro was finishing his career in MLB when I first started paying attention to baseball in 1992, but I still remember him as being quite a power hitter.

1996 Collector's Choice #404 St. Louis Cardinals Checklist

This is what checklist cards should be, with a nice full color photo of a player on the front. Also, this is an Ozzie that would evade my searches of internet checklists, as it's listed as a Cardinals Checklist only.

2011 Heritage #304 Brett Myers

I think I might have been missing this one when I picked it, but I've since acquired another copy for my Heritage set, so this one goes in the duplicates.

2005 Turkey Red #238 David Dellucci

2005 Turkey Red #235 Scott Podsednik

2005 Turkey Red #234 Mike Lowell

2005 Turkey Red #159 J.D. Drew

2005 Turkey Red #82 Ramon Ortiz

2005 Turkey Red #31 Nick Johnson

I really like these Turkey Red cards, even though the first time I saw them was in the 2010 Update set as inserts. I'll probably put these sets on my wantlist eventually. I also had to pick the J.D. Drew card as a former Cardinal, so I figured I might as well grab the rest of the available cards from the set as well.

A Trade with Cards on Cards, part 1

See how I resisted the title "Cards on cards from Cards on Cards"?

When Cards on Cards casually mentioned in his Heritage UPC post that he had a Heritage want and trade list, I knew this would be my opportunity to get rid of some doubles and knock out some of my needs.  I also saw he needed some 2010 Topps Update Turkey Reds, so the trade started to grow.  Here's part of what he sent me.

2011 Heritage needs

2010 Topps Turkey Reds I didn't have

3 Todd Stottlemyre cards:

1997 Topps Finest

1998 Pacific

1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

2 Ozzie Smith cards:

1990 Collect-A-Books

1991 Cracker Jack (looks like 1991 Topps, but it has the Sailor Jack and Bingo logo on the back)

If you're still reading, you may notice I said this is part of what he sent me.  "Why is he splitting this trade into multiple posts?" you may ask yourself.  Mostly because I've become addicted to the Labels/Tags feature for documenting which sets appear in a post, but there's a limit of 200 characters per post.  Names like "1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice" and even "Todd Stottlemyre" take up a lot of space.  The Trade Post is most certainly not dead at Tenets of Wilson, as you'll see over the next few posts.