Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXV

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

With Jaime Garcia getting traded today, I thought I'd play one of Deadspin's favorite games: Let's Remember Some Guys. Except I'll throw in some context about how they left.

2011 Topps Allen and Ginter #303 Jaime Garcia
2011 Topps Lineage #189 Jaime Garcia
2012 Topps Archives #34 Jaime Garcia
2012 Topps Chrome #119 Jaime Garcia
2013 Topps #54 Jaime Garcia
2014 Topps Allen and Ginter #84 Joe Kelly
2014 Topps Allen and Ginter #198 Pete Kozma
2014 Topps Archives #28 Joe Kelly
2015 Topps Heritage Minor League #2 Rob Kaminsky

Jaime Garcia went to the Braves after multiple injury plagued seasons here. I hope for his sake he can make it through a season. On the scale of Braves-Cardinals trades, I just need this one to go better than Jason Heyward, and if we're lucky, as good as Adam Wainwright. The return is all prospects, so we'll see what happens.

Joe Kelly was part of the deal to bring John Lackey to St. Louis. I'd say that trade was a success overall, especially since the Cardinals got his 2015 season very cheaply due to a quirk of his contract triggered by an injury earlier on.

Pete Kozma signed with the Yankees after becoming a free agent at the end of the 2015 season. He played all 4 infield positions and 130 games in 2016, but in AAA only.

Rob Kaminsky hasn't even made it to AAA yet, but was sent to Cleveland for Brandon Moss at the 2015 trade deadline. He lasted through the 2016, but is now a free agent. Moss wore my favorite jersey number, so I'll have to have a new default favorite player in 2016.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part XIII

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.
Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

It rolled all the way into March thanks to some days I was too busy to post, but I've finally reached the end of this prize package, after 13 posts. Today is the remainder of the box, and it's all 2011 Allen and Ginter.

2011 Allen and Ginter
Baseball Highlight Sketches #BHS-23 Mark Teixeira
Floating Fortresses #FF1 HMS Victory Hometown Heroes #HH22 John Danks
Hometown Heroes #HH49 Danny Valencia
Hometown Heroes #HH66 Derek Lowe
Hometown Heroes #HH75 Carl Crawford
Hometown Heroes #HH79 Derek Jeter
Hometown Heroes #HH92 Mike Napoli

My sampling here includes two guys from Florida, two from Texas, and two from Michigan. Coincidence? Probably!

2011 Allen and Ginter
Ascent of Man #AOM 13 Eutherians
Ascent of Man #AOM 19 Hominini
Ascent of Man #AOM 20 Hominina
#295 Chris Carpenter

Here we see the Ascent of man. It's missing a few steps as you can see from the numbering, but I like the smooth transitions from one card to the next, as you can see between card 19 and 20. Later in the chain we have Chris Carpenter, clearly confused and angered by the world around him. To complete the chain, there should probably be a Nuke Laloosh, Rick Vaughn, and finally Chet Steadman.



There were about 60 more base cards, but none were Cardinals, and I got tired of scanning, so I'll go out on top with that gag.

2011 Allen and Ginter Discount Blaster

This box had been sitting in my unopened pack box for far too long. I picked it up for 11.99 maybe a year or more ago, whenever Target had them in their discount section.

2011 Allen and Ginter
#2 Ty Wigginton
#10 Miguel Cabrera
#22 Michael Bourn
#28 John Lindsey
#30 Hanley Ramirez
#31 Jimmy Rollins
#41 Carlos Santana
#51 Tim Collins

The base cards started off in a promising direction for my collection, with a one-time Cardinal, Ty Wigginton. But, that would be all I would get among the base cards. Let's see the rest of them anway.

2011 Allen and Ginter
#56 Scott Kazmir
#62 Alfonzo Soriano
#87 Colby Lewis
#97 Zach Britton
#118 Rafael Soriano
#124 Chad Billingsley
#149 Lars Anderson
#166 Geovany Soto

I didn't remember that Rafael Soriano also played for the Yankees, so at first I thought they put Alfonso in some weird pitcher-looking pose. Seeing his Cubs card made me realize what was going on, though.

2011 Allen and Ginter
#173 Mariano Rivera
#183 Mike Napoli
#205 Kendry Morales
#215 Andrew McCutchen
#254 Denard Span
#276 Desmond Jennings
#322 Trevor Cahill
#335 Jason Heyward

If I've read my online checklists correctly, those last 2 are among the short printed base cards, along with the next two. They don't seem all that short printed from this box, since they compose 1/7 of the set, and over 1/7 (4/26) of the base cards I received. Maybe I'm not accounting for something else in my math there.

2011 Allen and Ginter
#320 Jon Lester
#323 Orlando Hudson
Floating Fortresses #FF15 USS Cairo
Ginter Code Card
Animals in Peril #AP22 Sea Otter

The greatest threat to the Sea Otter? That'd be Floating Fortresses. I'm kidding...maybe...I don't really know why the otter is in peril. I do know the Otters were our local minor league hockey team many years ago.

2011 Allen and Ginter
Baseball Highlight Sketches
#BHS-10 Ryan Howard
#BHS-13 San Francisco Giants
Hometown Heroes
#HH2 Colby Rasmus
#HH15 Matt Holliday
#HH23 Dustin Pedroia
#HH24 Ryan Zimmerman
#HH34 Chipper Jones
#HH47 Phil Hughes

I have a few of these Hometown Heroes cards, but luckily neither of the Cardinals I pulled, Matt Holliday and Colby Rasmus. The sketches aren't bad either, one of them featuring native St. Louisan Ryan Howard. There was talk about the Cardinals trying to sign him in lieu of Pujols back when the contract talks were going on, but I think they came out ahead overall by not getting either one.

2011 Allen and Ginter
Mini #152 Ryan Zimmerman
Mini #308 Jhonny Peralta
Mini Allen and Ginter Back #254 Denard Span
Mini Allen and Ginter Back #264 Adam Jones
Mini Black Border #348 Russell Martin
Portraits of Penultimacy #PP1 Antonio Meucci
Step Right Up #SRU3 Fire Eating
Code Card #201 Andrew Romine
Ascent of Man #AOM15 Catarrhini
Minds That Made The Future #MMF9 Elisha Otis
Checklists #4

Here we have the big draw of Allen and Ginter, the minis. I got 2 regular and 2 A&G backs, and one black border, so none of the extreme low-numbered parallels. I almost filed that Andrew Romine with the base cards, but it has the Ginter Code symbols on its corners.

2011 Allen and Ginter
Framed Relics #AGR-FH Felix Hernandez

Finally, the prize of the pack is this Felix Hernandez Relic. He'll definitely be in the running for the AL Cy Young this year, having won the ERA title, even if it was on questionable retroactive scoring decisions. I think the biggest knock against him will be that the voters for these awards like to see a guy make the postseason, and the Mariners clearly did not this year, while Max Scherzer's Tigers did.

I give this discount box a 35 stars out of 37, which doesn't really mean much of anything. A retail relic is always a nice surprise, and at 8 bucks off the original price, how can I go wrong?

Zistle Trade #8 Part B

Here's the second part of my trade from yesterday. As I said there, Blogger's label limitations have forced me to split up the relatively small number of cards into two posts. I had just barely too many characters for one post, so I didn't have to split them very carefully, so I went with vertical cards in the previous post, and horizontal in this one, mostly for ease of scanning.

1999 Topps #452 Alex Rodriguez/Nomar Garciaparra/Derek Jeter
2007 Topps Opening Day #69 Albert Pujols
2010 Upper Deck #463 Albert Pujols
2011 Allen and Ginter - Hometown Heroes #HH9 Adam Wainwright

I've been a fan of Nomar since his rookie year, and I still don't really remember why. I do know I spent many hours on a high school art project featuring him that year.

The Pujols cards are Pujols cards, and that's the only reason I need for those. I don't see much of 2007 Opening Day, but hopefully my quest for a Cardinals team set isn't in vain. I actually just purchased the full 2010 Upper Deck set from Matt's case break at Once A Cub, but Cardinal duplicates are often what I wind up trading away on Zistle to fellow Cardinal fans with different Cardinal duplicates, so this one may still serve a purpose.

Finally, there's an Adam Wainwright card from 2011 Allen and Ginter. I generally convince myself not to spend the money necessary to get much Ginter, but I like the set, so these inserts always wind up on my list. This year I'm jumping on the bandwagon, though, and at least picking up a few packs of it when it hits the shelves.

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 4

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, 3

First up today is pile of 2010 Allen & Ginter.

2010 Allen & Ginter
#70 Joey Votto
#72 Erick Aybar
#77 Ricky Romero
#82 Justin Upton
#84 Elvis Andrus
#87 Alexei Ramirez
#90 Kevin Kouzmanoff
#182 Chris Carpenter
#183 Tommy Manzella

2010 Allen & Ginter
#185 X-Rays
#187 Jair Jurrjens
#191 Justin Morneau
#197 Johnny Damon (x2)
#198 A.J. Pierzynski
#200 Lance Berkman
#204 Russell Martin
#219 Adam Wainwright

2010 Allen & Ginter
#188 Jason Bartlett
#189 Howie Kendrick

I used to lament small sets that only had the star players, vs the 800ish-card sets of early 90s Topps. But it sure is nice to get a pile of "random junk" cards and have them all be recognizable stars.

2011 Allen & Ginter #40 John McEnroe
2013 Allen & Ginter - Martial Mastery #MM-AP Apache

There were also 2 Allen & Ginter singles from other years, but neither one featuring baseball players. I wonder if Jimmy Connors will ever make it to an A&G card.

1996 Fleer Update
#U61 Dwight Gooden
#U78 Russ Davis
#U146 Israel Alcantara
#U154 Juan Acevedo
#U161 Kevin Roberson
#U190 Aaron Holbert

I didn't recognize the guy in the Cardinals uniform, Aaron Holbert, and looking him up online, that's no surprise. Aaron Holbert played 1 game for us in 1996, then 22 games in 2005 for the Reds. The back of his card says he was set to be our SS of the future after Ozzie Smith retired, but then he got hurt in 1994 and 1995. The look on his face on the card makes me thing we might have caught the very moment of the aforementioned injury.

#16 Stand Up Double (Checklist)
#38 Tim Hudson

2007 Turkey Red
#122 Roy Oswalt
#154 Travis Buck

Finally - for today - here are some Turkey Reds from 2007, which is one of my favorite sets I missed from the years I wasn't collecting (2000-2010). That still hasn't convinced me to buy the super-expensive online exclusive versions of the last few years though. As for 2007, I now have 39 of the approximately 199 cards in the set including short prints, thanks mostly to a group break last year. Perhaps it's time to add the rest to my want list.


We're nowhere near finished with this box...

Contest Winnings, Part III

A good friend of mine likes to say - jokingly, I think - that second place is the first loser. When Daniel of It's like having my own Card Shop, opened up a contest to help Pack War reach 100 followers, I joined in, and the Randomizer put me in 6th for 4 prizes. But, since 2 people won the top 4 prizes, he was kind enough to throw some cards to the 5th and 6th position to still have 4 people as winners. Consequently, I got some cool stuff for being the 5th loser.

Part I | II

The end of my prize package posts has the 2011-2013 cards, with players who are mostly still on the team.

2012 Topps Archives
#14 Yadier Molina
#34 Jaime Garcia
#85 Matt Holliday
#114 Jason Motte
#125 David Freese
#197 Allen Craig

Here we have half of the 2012 Archives Cardinals. I almost have to get the other 6 now. Freese is gone to the Angels, but the other 5 are still here.

2012 Topps
Red Parallel #363 Fernando Salas

2013 Topps
Red Parallel #125 Matt Holliday

I really like red parallels, especially for Cardinals cards. Completing the red parallel team sets is on my long list of collecting goals. Also, Salas was another part of the same trade that sent Freese to the Angels, but like any former Cardinal, I still collect his cards.

2013 Gypsy Queen - Mini #322 Jason Motte
2011 Allen and Ginter - Mini #303 Jaime Garcia

Finally, we have 2 minis. Like I said in the last post, I think everyone loves minis. Motte and Garcia are both coming off injuries this year, so I'm hoping they'll strengthen our already very good bullpen, Garica indirectly as a starter.

Thanks to Daniel from It's like having my own Card Shop for all the Cardinals!

Everyone Loves Talking About Themselves

Well, maybe not everyone. But what if I said there was a prize at stake? I'll cut to the chase, go to It's like having my own Card Shop and explain your blog name for a chance to win some Allen and Ginter and Topps 206 minis.

All this can be yours if the price is right

I see at least 2008 and 2010 Ginter in there. I'm pretty sure Peter Gammons is from 2011. And the Topps 206 cards appear to all be 2010. If nothing else, the Bram Stoker will go well with my Mary Shelley.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 4

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 ]

2012 Allen and Ginter
#133 Carlos Beltran
#134 David Freese
#202 Jaime Garcia
#311 Bob Gibson

Even though these are 3 of the Cardinals' biggest present-day stars, the best of this bunch of Bob Gibson.

2012 Bowman
#36 Lance Berkman
#132 Jason Motte

Bowman is fairly rare on my blog, but it seems to be showing up more and more these days.

2011 Allen and Ginter - Hometown Heroes
#HH2 Colby Rasmus
#HH15 Matt Holliday
#HH67 Jon Jay
#HH93 Lance Berkman

2011 Allen and Ginter
#240 Matt Holliday
#280 Adam Wainwright

It's rare to get more inserts than base out of someone's duplicates pile. Less rare is the phenomenon where receiving cards makes my want list longer. I've got 4 of the 6 Cardinals in the Hometown Heroes set, so I practically have to add Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter now.

Free Card Friday at Jaybarkerfan's Junk

The title pretty much says it all. Go leave a comment on this post for a chance to win these cards:

That's really hard to see, so here's the list straight from the post.
2011 Topps Pro Debut Evan Chambers
2012 Bowman Platinum Jeurys Familia
2011 Bowman Kurt Suzuki
2011 Topps Heritage Max Scherzer
2009 UD Spectrum Aaron Rowand
1999 Stadium Club Roger Clemens

And 3 more

2011 Bowman Chrome Brandon Belt
2011 Bowman Chrome Evan Crawford
2011 A&G Jersey Elvis Andrus


If 25 people enter, the prize gets bigger next week, so do us both a favor and go enter now.

eBay Wins #10

This is the first Allen and Ginter I actually bought.  I think I got it just because I like to have a little of everything, and also, I like minis:

2011 Allen and Ginter Mini Black #239 Brett Myers

It even came with a mini-sized toploader that I'll probably repurpose for whenever I get a SP or relic mini from some set in the future.  Also, the seller was kind enough to send along this:

2010 Topps #384 Chris Johnson

It's just a Topps flagship, but this wasn't part of the auction, and I won it at (I think) a pretty low price, so it was quite nice of the seller to throw in any bonus at all.  That's much more of a blogger-trader thing to do.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	125
Total Spent	$3.50
Per Card	2.80 cents

Help me, help you

Or at least, help Kyle at Juust a bit outside fill his group break.  I've got the Cardinals and Baseball Dad wants the Indians, but as of this writing everybody else is up for grabs.  He's offering up the following boxes for $15 per team, and only $12 for the post-1992 expansion teams - Marlins, Rockies, Diamondbacks, and (Devil) Rays.

2011 - Topps Lineage hobby and Topps Allen & Ginter hobby
2001 - Upper Deck Reserve
1991 - Stadium 1 & 2, Upper Deck jumbos (w/ silver slugger cards), and 1953 Archives
1981 - Donruss

If it fills up, this will be my first paid group break, as Cards on Cards eased me into the game with a free one awhile back.  So go claim your favorite team!