Play at the Plate Contest Winnings!

Brian from Play at the Plate generously offered up roughly half of his recent contest double win, and the randomizer chose me. He even allowed us to pick whether we wanted the vintage cards shown in the post I linked, or a full set of 2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces. Vintage was the overwhelmingly favorite pick of the many entrants, but I went with the Masterpieces set.

I didn't really want to scan all 90 cards, so here's a sampling of Cardinals from the set.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#9 Roger Maris
#50 Carlos Beltran
#60 Bruce Sutter

All 3 of these are pre-Cardinals photos. And 2 out of 3 are Cardinals World Series winners (1967 for Maris, 1982 for Sutter), since we couldn't quite pull out a win for Carlos Beltran in 2013.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#19 Ozzie Smith
#49 Albert Pujols

I love this Ozzie card. Later in his career he'd only do his flip on opening day, and maybe the last game of the year, and for that reason I specifically convinced my Dad to go to the game on those days. Back in the early 90s when they weren't that good, that was an easy ticket to get, not like now when the game sells out in minutes.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#38 Albert Pujols

As I mentioned in a previous post on 2007 Masterpieces, when I participated in a group break, there are only 90 cards in the checklist, yet Pujols got 2 cards. Babe Ruth has 3, Cal Ripken, Jr. has 4, Reggie Jackson, Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey, Jr., Chase Utley, and possibly more all have 2 each. It's a little odd, but the look of the set makes it one I really appreciate.

I also appreciate Brian at Play at the Plate for offering up some of his winnings. Thanks to him for all the great contests, and especially this one.

This Break is so 2007, Part IV

When CaptKirk42 of the aptly named CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog opened up a break of 5 boxes of 2007 baseball cards, I jumped right in to claim the Cardinals and my 2 random teams. It was slow to fill so each slot wound up with 3 random teams, which also caused me to pick up the Dodgers as well in hopes of a Nomar Garciaparra card or two. In all I got the Athletics, Braves, Cardinals, [Devil] Rays, Dodgers,  Mariners,  Royals, and Twins.
[ I | II | III ]

UD Masterpices is an odd set. There are only 90 base cards, and a slew of parallels. Despite the small set, there are 2 Albert Pujols cards, seen here.

2007 UD Masterpieces #38 Albert Pujols

2007 UD Masterpieces #49 Albert Pujols

Again, despite being only 90 cards large, the base set also features some non-baseball subjects, such as Bill Clinton and JFK. I won this one in the randomization, since there's no team associated with Mr. Kennedy.

2007 UD Masterpieces #47 John F. Kennedy

Another oddity of the set is that there are 2 green-bordered parallels, neither of which is serial numbered. Thanks to this post at I Am Joe Collector, I was able to determine that this is a Windsor Green, not a Green Linen parallel.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Windsor Green
#89 Reggie Jackson

One can differentiate the 3 blue parallels by the numbering. As this one is numbered to 75, it's a Blue Linen. All these different parallels definitely have their intended effect on me, because I now have the red Ozzie Smith parallel on my wantlist, and I'll probably put the rest of his on too.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Blue Linen
#19 Ozzie Smith #36/75

I believe the box promised 1 autograph and 3 relics, which is pretty cool if you're into that sort of thing, which I am. Glen Perkins, everybody.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Stroke of Genius
#SG-GP Glen Perkins

I also managed to have 2 of the 3 relics fall to my 8 teams, which isn't bad. As a sometimes-fan of the A's, it was nice to get Huston Street AND Tim Hudson here.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Captured on Canvas
#CC-HS Huston Street
#CC-TH Tim Hudson

While this box was a little short on Cardinals, I definitely got my money's worth with the auto and relic cards. There's just one box left to go in my trip back to 2007.

A Contest from the Daily Dimwit

Sam from The Daily Dimwit is holding a contest with 5 prizes.  4 are relics, and one is a Fausto Carmona autograph.  I expect tons of entries to this one.  Go check it out.  Comment and promote it to earn one entry each.  If you're not convinced yet, check out the cards:

2008 Upper Deck

From 2010 Topps Update, these are cool looking cards. I have Neftali Feliz in the #d/50 Gold (like this one), and Elvis Andrus and Chris Young in the regular set.

Fausto Carmona autograph on a 2008 reprint from 2011 Topps Lineage.

From 2011 Topps Series I.  He's a Cub, but I'd still like this one.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces - Captured on Canvas