Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXVIII

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 XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII

Do you ever just feel too lazy to turn a horizontal card sideways?

1998 Topps Stadium Club #48 Delino DeShields
1998 Score Rookie/Traded #RT158 Delino DeShields
2004 Playoff Honors #180 Jim Edmonds
2004 UD Diamond Pro Sigs #87 Jim Edmonds
2008 Upper Deck Goudey #193 Troy Glaus
2009 Topps Allen and Ginter #193 Khalil Greene

Since I didn't really collect from about 2000 until late 2010, a lot of the specialty sets from that time seem very obscure to me. I'd never heard of Upper Deck's "Diamond Pro Sigs", for example. It looks like the base cards have signatures printed on in foil. The only other card from the Playoff Honors set I have is an Albert Pujols, which was also in this prize package.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XVII

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

2012 Topps Archives #114 Jason Motte
2013 Topps Archives #151 Jason Motte
2013 Topps #130 Jason Motte
2013 Opening Day #202 Jason Motte
2013 Topps Blue Parallel
#96 Edward Mujica
#188 Brian Fuentes
#235 Jake Westbrook
2014 Topps #599 Jason Motte

In addition to a fine collection of Jason Motte base cards, I got a trio of 2013 blue parallels in the prize package too, including Brian Fuentes, who pitched 5 innings over 6 games with the Cardinals to end his career.

2009 Allen and Ginter #157 Jason Motte
2013 Allen and Ginter #283 Jason Motte
2013 Topps #269 St. Louis Cardinals
2013 Gypsy Queen - Mini #322 Jason Motte

Jason Motte had a great 2012, leading the NL with 42 saves, but lost all of 2013 to injury, and never quite made it back to that same level of performance. He's back on the DL in Colorado now, too, with just 20 2/3 innings pitched this year.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part I

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.

2008 Allen and Ginter #276 Oscar Wilde
2009 Allen and Ginter #311 Gavin Floyd
2010 Allen and Ginter
#14 Shane Victorino
#15 Carlos Quentin
#42 Mark DeRosa
#46 Chad Billingsley
#67 Carl Crawford
#91 Carlos Zambrano

This really has nothing to do with anything, but Oscar Wilde always brings a missed comedic opportunity to my mind. In college, my friend and I went to a video rental store, and his roommate asked him to pick up a DVD of The Importance of Being Earnest (written by Oscar Wilde) so that he could avoid doing his assigned reading. I told him we should bring him Ernest Goes to Jail, then play dumb when he inevitably blew up about it being the wrong movie. Either he didn't think it was that funny, or we didn't want to spend the extra few bucks to rent a second DVD, so we didn't wind up doing it. Learn from my mistakes: never miss a chance to make a joke.

I believe the Gavin Floyd card is a short print, though I'm unclear on the numbering of SPs over the last few years. Also, Mark DeRosa represents the only former Cardinal in this post.

2010 Allen and Ginter
#100 Matt LaPorta
#103 Niccolo Machiavelli
#128 Hans Florine
#133 Nelson Cruz
#146 Carlos Lee
#184 Jake Peavy
#186 Jose Reyes
#187 Jair Jurrjens

I always find myself drawn to the non-baseball subjects in Allen and Ginter, possibly because the players have become mundane by comparison. Only in Allen and Ginter can you pull a Niccolò Machiavelli.

2010 Allen and Ginter
#211 Johnny Strange
#226 Brian McCann
#271 King Tut
#280 Koji Uehara
#294 Buster Posey
#197 Johnny Damon

I always forget Johnny Damon played for Detroit, but this card is here to remind me. I tend to think of him as a member of the Red Sox, then the Yankees, then the A's, then Kansas City, then Tampa. Another of his teams that doesn't come to mind until I look it up is Cleveland. He's got to be one of the best players ever to play for 7 different teams.

2008 Allen and Ginter #75 Travis Hafner
2010 Allen and Ginter
#140 Brandon Allen
# The Parthenon
2010 Allen and Ginter This Day in History
#TDH16 Carlos Gonzalez
#TDH18 Felix Hernandez
#TDH25 Ryan Zimmerman

Mostly to avoid weird unbalance scans, here are the horizontal cards from 2008-2010 Ginter in the package. There was just one 2008 base card, and the rest were from 2010, including the 3 This Day In History inserts.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 8

For the 2012-2013 College Football season, I entered the College Football Pick 'Em contest hosted by madding of Cards on Cards. I've won several of his contests over the years, and he always dumps a ton of Cardinals on me when I do. Yet, I think this time he may have outdone himself. I may have to work hard to get them all posted before the 2013-14 College Football season starts August 29, and I start posting my Power Rankings again.
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 ]

We're up to part 8 and I'm still posting from 2010? At least we inch back into 2009 in this post.

2010 Topps Update
#US-259 Yadier Molina
#US-263 Randy Winn
#US-285 Jaime Garcia
#US-302 Pedro Feliz

More 2010 Update, my first set in my second phase of collecting.

2010 Topps Update #US-298 David Freese

When you're the only horizontal card of the bunch, you get your own scan. Getting one's own scan may also apply to all World Series MVPs, but I'd have to check to be sure.

2009 Allen and Ginter
National Pride #NP74 Yadier Molina

I assumed these National Pride cards were put out because of the World Baseball Classic in 2009, and it's even mentioned on the back of this card. I like these because they give me more context about players, since often you'll never hear any spoken interviews outside of your own team, except for the very biggest stars.

2009 Allen and Ginter
#70 Rick Ankiel
#99 Chris Duncan
#239 Chris Carpenter
#336 Ryan Ludwick SP

These are the first 2009 Allen and Ginter base cards in my collection. I specify "base cards" because I won a Ryan Ludwick relic in a contest awhile back. Ludwick strikes again in this bunch with a short print. And there's that Rick Ankiel beard again.

2009 Upper Deck #347 Rick Ankiel

There's the Rick Ankiel I'm used to seeing, with a soul patch and maybe a slight bit of stubble for a goatee. He was an impressive all-around athlete to be a top-drafted pitcher and return as an outfielder, and I still see plenty of Ankiel #24 shirt-jerseys, or shirseys, around town.

A Free Card from Baseball Dad

Back in November, Baseball Dad offered up a nice selection of cards for his readers for his blog's 4th anniversary. I chose one, of course, because who would pass up a free card? That's like going to a birthday party and not eating the cake.

When I got the package, there were some additional Cardinals thrown it, which I always enjoy. Let's see what I got.

1999 Team Best
#12 Greg Clark
#41 Gabe Johnson
#Kris Rayborn
#83 Steve Stemle

First up were some minor league cards. Of the 4, I think only Steve Stemle appeared the majors, and that was only for 11 games with the Royals in 2005-2006.

2013 Topps #193 Matt Carpenter

2013 Topps #207 Matt Holliday

Since so many people follow his blog, it took until after 2013 Topps was released to get my package out, which is great! I'm not planning on buying any packs of flagship this year, but I'll probably stick all the Cardinals on my want list, and this gives me a 2-card head start. So, this is my first taste of 2013 cards, and also my first-ever Matt Carpenter card.

2009 Allen & Ginter - Relics #AGR-RL Ryan Ludwick

Finally, we have the card I claimed, a Ryan Ludwick relic. This is the first A&G framed relic I've ever actually held. It's kind of weird the way the card shifts around inside the frame. As always, I'm glad to add another unique card to my collection.

Thanks, Baseball Dad!