Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXVIII

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 XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII

I'm averaging fewer and fewer cards per post as I'm getting down to a lot of cards that represent the only card of a given player AND a given set. At least I had a handful of Chris Duncans and 2006 Fleer cards.

2005 Topps Opening Day #47 Jason Marquis
2005 Topps Update #UH269 Stu Pomeranz
2006 Fleer #85 Jason Isringhausen
2006 Fleer #86 Tyler Johnson
2006 Fleer #89 Chris Duncan (x2)
2006 Fleer #321 Aaron Miles
2006 Topps 52 #233 Chris Duncan
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #89 Chris Duncan

Stu Pomeranz never actually played for the Cardinals, and only pitched 6 innings over 3 total games in 2012, which appears to be his last professional baseball. I totally forgot Aaron Miles went to the Cubs for a year and came back. He was a handy blowout pitcher, taking the mound 5 different times for 5 total innings, and only allowing 2 runs total.

Zistle Trade #5

The Baseball season may be over, but my card collecting season doesn't stop. Here I've got another small trade made through Zistle, acquired for some of my 2012 Gypsy Queen duplicates

1986 Topps Mini League Leaders #59 Jack Clark

I was surprised to find I didn't have any cards from this set, yet, but now all of the Cardinals are on my want list.

2008 Allen and Ginter #263 Yadier Molina
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #87 Scott Rolen
2009 O-Pee-Chee #493 Yadier Molina
2011 Topps Finest #100 Daniel Descalso

Offering a Molina or two is a good way to get your trade accepted by a Cardinal fan. Descalso and Rolen are good 3B pickups too, but I actually had this trade in progress the same time as the last one, and I didn't realize both traders had offered me the Future Stars Rolen. It's a nice enough card, but I don't really need 2, so it's now back on my trade list unless/until a Rolen autograph opportunity comes up and I need a duplicate to get signed.

Zistle Trade #4

There are no small trades, only small traders, or something like that. However, I manged to snag these 5 cards for just a Bryce Harper base card in a PWE. This trade came in when Zistle.com first announced their free trial of their enhanced features, which seem to allow for easier matching of want and trade lists, and my trading partner found me.

1993 Upper Deck #428 Dmitri Young
1997 Collector's Choice #471 Matt Morris
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #87 Scott Rolen

The cards above were nice, and on my want list, but the two below are of players I really collect.

1990 Leaf # Ozzie Smith
1997 Fleer #193 Mark McGwire

Even though these are two base cards of fairly common sets, I didn't have them yet. The McGwire is especially surprising to me given how much wax I was buying in 1997, and how much McGwire stuff I bought from my LCS in 1998-99.

A Trade Post is in Order, Part II

[Part I]

Thanks to my obsessive need to scan and post every insert card I receive, I got an email from The Angels, In Order about the Tyler Chatwood in this contest win post.

Here's the next part of my trade.

2008 Upper Deck Documentary
#854 Chris Duncan

 The back of this card talks about Braden Looper, and doesn't even mention Chris Duncan. This is an odd, 4000+ card set.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition
#50 Adam Wainwright
#51 Joel Pineiro
#57 Rick Ankiel

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars
#88 Chris Carpenter
#89 Chris Duncan

 I've mentioned before I'm not sure why this is called Future Stars with Carpenter well-established by 2007. And Chris Duncan? He's been in local sports radio for a few years now.

2011 Opening Day - Mascots
#M-8 Dinger

Now we're on to the wantlist stuff. In 2011 I bought a lot of Opening Day since it's cheap, and I've decided to collect the set and the inserts. Here's the Rockies' slightly-too-cute mascot.

2011 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations
#SC-5 Ubaldo Jiminez
#SC-11 Jimmy Rollins
#SC-17 Prince Fielder
#SC-9 Nick Markakis

Seeing these cards together gets me antsy for the end-of-season pennant races and the playoffs. When these celebrations seem to happen more often due to the heightened sense of urgency to win.

There's just one more chunk of this trade to go.

Spring Training Giveaway, part 1

I won another contest at Number 5 Type Collection. After ranking the 5 teams I wanted from what he had to offer, I tied another reader and so wound up with half the Tigers and Red Sox. Here's part 1 of what he sent me (because of my previously mentioned obsession with tagging the sets).

1993 Stadium Club #5 Tony Phillips

2000 Topps #60 Pedro Martinez

2001 Topps Chrome - Before There Was Topps #BT5 Ty Cobb

2004 Upper Deck #107 A.J. Hinch

2005 Topps Total #395 Jeremy Bonderman

2005 Topps Update #UH33 Placido Polanco

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #14 Curt Schilling

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #11 David Ortiz

2008 Allen and Ginter - Mini Black Border #204 Julio Lugo

2008 Allen and Ginter - Mini #338 Placido Polanco

2008 Allen and Ginter - Mini A&G Back #333 Coco Crisp

2008 Upper Deck #494 Joel Zumaya

Number 5 Type Collection's Cardinals Giveaway, Part 3

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
Matt at Number 5 Type Collection gave me way too many Cardinals in a recent contest.  Here's part 3:

Let's start off with some former prospects now traded away.

2007 Tristar Prospects Plus #81 Joe Mather

2007 Tristar Prospects Plus #80 Colby Rasmus

 It's a little weird to see a modern Cardinal wearing Yadier Molina's #4, but this is from the minors (AA) of course.  It does make me wonder if any of the minor league players are allowed to wear the MLB Cardinals' retired numbers

1988 Fleer - 1987 World Series #5 Throw Smoke! (Todd Worrell and Tony Pena)

 These guys are a little before my time, though I vaguely recall Tony's crazy catching stance when my dad watched games and I wasn't too interested. By the time I was really paying attention in '92, Todd Worrell had been reduced to setup man for the powerful Lee Smith.

1993 Hostess #5 Ray Lankford

I actually laughed out loud when I saw this card. It brought memories flooding back to me about seeking out and eating way too many Hostess Baseballs in 1993. What can I say, I was 10. I think I even tried to convince my dad to try them, hoping he'd replace any other sugary snack he might have with a baseball, and I'd get another box with more cards sooner. I went and grabbed my pile of hostess cards and noticed something interesting. I guess I got into the game late, because they're all numbered 17 or higher of 32, which would seem to be evidence they issued the cards in two series.

2005 Topps Total #206 (STL5) Chris Carpenter

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #88 Chris Carpenter

1990 Fleer All-Stars #5 Joe Magrane

I have a few Joe Magrane autographs, as he hung around St. Louis a few years after he retired, making the occasional appearance. He played with the Cardinals until mid 1993, so I can recall about a year and a half of his career here.

1999 Topps - Lords of the Diamond #LD5 Mark McGwire

2000 Topps - 20th Century's Best #232 Mark McGwire

Mark McGwire was a favorite player of mine long before he came to the Cardinals, so I got even more into baseball when he was traded here. Sadly he was apparently using some illegal substances during his amazing Home Run binges. I'm glad to see he's back with the Cardinals as a hitting coach, hopefully he can rebuild his legacy that was tainted by his bad choices. He's apparently a pretty smart guy when it comes to hitting, though, and the players really seem to get a lot from him. We'll need that experience and confidence with a brand new manager this year.

More to see tomorrow...