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.

2013 Allen and Ginter Set, Part II

As I mentioned in my last post of Allen and Ginter cards, I bought an almost-complete Allen and Ginter set (minus Puig), along with a separate purchase of the 50 Short Prints. Before I file it away with my "sorted" cards, here are the rest of the Cardinals from the set.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#108 Bob Gibson
#115 Stan Musial
#139 Red Schoendienst
#161 Enos Slaughter
#254 Lou Brock
#341 Ozzie Smith

6 Hall of Fame cards is a pretty good number out of a single set that mostly features current players. These players all have numbers retired by the Cardinals.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#125 Matt Holliday
#172 Jon Jay
#276 Lance Lynn
#283 Jason Motte
#340 Yadier Molina
#342 Adam Wainwright

There were also 6 Cardinals pictured in uniform in the set that are still on the team, though Motte hasn't been re-signed yet. Everyone else will be back, though.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#96 Jayson Heyward

Finally, here I have the newest Cardinal, Jason Heyward. I'll be interested to see how his 2015 goes, since it's his contract year, and what that ultimately means for his next contract, whether its with St. Louis or elsewhere. His acquisition puts 2 2014 Gold Glovers in the Cardinals' 2015 lineup, and may be the tipping point to make me decide to attend the Cardinals' Winter Warmup this year, to get an in-person autograph before he even plays his first game here.

2013 Allen and Ginter Set

You read that title right; we're throwing back allllll the way to 2013.

I bought the full set (almost) from Nachos Grande last year, and it's been sitting on my shelf as I procrastinated entering the cards into my Zistle account. I actually purchased the non-SPs only, and this was also at the beginning of Puig-mania, so a Puig-free set was offered at a substantial discount, so I decided to take a chance that Yasiel Puig would cool off a bit, along with the prices for his cards. So far that doesn't seem to be happening, though. In any case, the set I purchased was 299 of the 300 base cards. In a separate purchase, I bought all 50 of the SPs, so I'm at 349/350, needing only a Puig to finish off the set.

I decided while flipping through the cards again that I'd go ahead and post the Cardinals like I normally do, but there were a large number of them by my criteria. I tried to split them up somewhat logically, though with all of the retired players the divisions became a bit fuzzy. Today was supposed to be players who have moved on from the team.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#5 Albert Pujols
#12 Dan Haren
#20 John Smoltz
#27 Shelby Miller
#46 Colby Rasmus
#93 A.J. Pierzynski

The Shelby Miller trade caught me off guard, and I had to re-scan my cards. Also, I don't know what I was thinking putting A.J. Pierzynski in this pile, even though he is technically a free agent right now. He could still be a Cardinal next year, though he may just as easily be playing somewhere else. Also, Smoltz retired after a partial season with the Cardinals, so one could argue he should have been in the next post, with guys like Ozzie Smith.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#183 Ryan Ludwick
#189 David Freese
#208 Allen Craig
#235 Carlos Beltran
#245 Mark Buehrle
#284 Will Clark

Will Clark's another guy who finished with the Cardinals, though he clearly had the most productive years of his career elsewhere. And Mark Beuhrle has never been a Cardinal, though I still suspect he'd give them a pretty good hometown discount. I like to track his cards just because he grew up in the same town as me.

In conclusion...these are some random 2013 Allen and Ginter cards of guys I collect for reasons not limited to playing for the Cardinals?

Cubs Cardboard Contest

Cubs Cardboard has been around since January of 2013, but for some reason I didn't have it in my RSS reader until today, when I saw a contest post on another blog. The contest is for these 4 cards.

2013 Gypsy Queen - Mini Relics
#GQMR-JZ Jordan Zimmerman

2013 Allen and Ginter - Framed Mini Relics
#AGR-JHK Jeremy Hellickson

2013 Bowman Chrome
Cream of the Crop Mini
#CC-AD5 Stryker Trahan

2013 Bowman Chrome
Cream of the Crop Mini
#CC-A3 Nick Maronde

Just leave a comment daily to enter, and/or promote it on your blog.

He also asked for a mention of his 2014 Allen and Ginter break for a bonus entry. You get 2 teams from 2 boxes for $15. There are a few slots left, including the Cardinals, which I'm contemplating. Or I may get silly and try to complete the whole set this year.

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...

Junior Junkie's Birthday Gifts

Back in November, on Ken Griffey Jr.'s 44th birthday, Junior Junkie held a little giveaway. At stake were 44 cards, and the contest was simply a free-for-all. Everyone got to claim 2 cards, first come, first served. I managed to be the 6th one to see the post and claim cards, so there were 2 players I collect still on the board.

1997 Circa #148 Nomar Garciaparra
2000 Topps Chrome #468 RBI Leaders Mark McGwire/Manny Ramirez

 Just because you can't see Manny anywhere on the McGwire card, here are the backs

.

1997 Circa #148 Nomar Garciaparra
2000 Topps Chrome #468 RBI Leaders Mark McGwire/Manny Ramirez

For good measure, I even got an Allen and Ginter mini of Darryl Strawberry. He never played for the Cardinals, but for some reason lives in a suburb near me.

2013 Allen and Ginter
Mini #98 Darryl Strawberry

Thanks, Junior Junkie!