Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXII

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 XXI

1996 Topps #232 Matt Morris
1997 Bowman's Best #197 Matt Morris
1998 Donruss #110 Matt Morris
1998 Score Rookie/Traded #RT56 Matt Morris
1998 Score Rookie/Traded #RT203 Ron Gant
1998 Topps #128 Matt Morris
1999 Upper Deck MVP #173 Matt Morris
2002 Topps Total - Award Winners #AW25 Matt Morris

Matt Morris came along just as the Cardinals were starting to get good for the first time in my baseball-watching life. He had several really good years, culminating in a third place finish to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling for the Cy Young award. He couldn't quite get them to split the vote and sneak in there.

1999 Topps #131 Ron Gant
1998 Upper Deck #203 Ron Gant
1998 Fleer Tradition #380 Ron Gant

Ron Gant was in my first in-person baseball game, although on the Braves at that time. In my head it feels like he was a big part of the team for a long time, but he was only here 3 years, and played 5 seasons afterwards and 9 before.

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.

A Rodney Hampton Contest Win, Part II

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.
[Part 1]

1989 Donruss #182 Kirby Puckett
1989 Donruss #193 Mike Schmidt
1998 Donruss #40 Wade Boggs
2001 Fleer Futures #2 Manny Ramirez
2002 Donruss #39 Bernie Williams
2015 Topps - Gold #404 Tanner Scheppers #0528/2015

1989 Donruss is one of those junk wax sets I seem to always have plenty of, but with many of those, I'm often missing the big stars. So the Mike Schmidt card actually fills a gap in my collection. I did have a copy of the Kirby Puckett card already. One of these years I'm going to collect a full parallel set from Topps, like the Gold set of this Tanner Scheppers card.

1995-96 Topps
#277 Michael Jordan
#278 Patrick Ewing
#283 David Robinson
1997-98 Topps
#118 Keith Van Horn
#125 Tracy McGrady

I don't have a whole lot of basketball cards, but these are right in my wheelhouse. I rooted for Michael Jordan during his heyday with Chicago. It's hard to believe his comeback was now over 20 years ago.

1992 Elvis Collection
#23
#90
#167
#207
#247
#346
#397
#437
#457

1992 Elvis Collection
#473
#480
#525
#552

1992 Elvis Collection
#34
#54
#58
#110
#172
#174
#245
#251

1992 Elvis Collection
#425
#520
#603

I got two unopened packs of this 1992 Elvis Collection set as part of my prize pack. They're all new to me, as my non-sports collection is pretty small. I was happy to see the cards didn't have the dreaded melted sticky gloss, as many older unopened packs of cards do. They're all in good shape. There's a good mix of black and white and color images, and images from concerts, movies, and Elvis's life. I'd say my favorite is #425, featuring his white studded jumpsuit from a concert.

That's it for the prize package. Thanks again to Sport Card Collectors for the contest!