A Season Starting PWE, Part II

Way back in March, Stealing Home sent out some PWEs to celebrate the start of the season. I saw a few others post theirs at the time, but I'm just now getting to mine.

Part I

This isn't one of my giant 40-part series posts, since, after all, it was just a PWE. Today I have the vertical cards, just because that's a nice way to split up the scan.

2014 Topps #157 Matt Adams
2015 Topps #261 Lance Lynn
2015 Topps #286 Trevor Rosenthal
2016 Topps #46 Jhonny Peralta
2016 Topps #106 Jordan Walden
2016 Topps Chrome #132 Stephen Piscotty
2016 Gypsy Queen #215 Matt Adams
2017 Topps #99 Michael Wacha

The danger of waiting too long to post some cards of current players is that if your team hits a swoon, they might not all be there anymore. Matt Adams went to Atlanta when Freddie Freeman got hurt, and Jhonny Peralta was just released. Jordan Walden has been a free agent since November, so he wasn't lost specifically during this season. That shiny chrome Piscotty saves the post, though.

Christmas Cards, a Few Months Late

I seem to always be trying to catch up, so here's some cards that arrived sometime in December, from ATBATT's 3rd Annual Operation PWE. There's something about an envelope of mostly different players and sets that just brings joy to opening the mail.

1991 Topps #343 Jose Oquendo
1992 Pinnacle #381 Andres Galarraga
2015 Topps #220 Shelby Miller
2015 Topps #336 Matt Carpenter
2015 Topps - Archetypes #A-11 Mark McGwire
2016 Topps Heritage #89 Trevor Rosenthal

I'm bad at staying on top of acquiring the Cardinals inserts when new sets come out. That Mark McGwire is a card I definitely should have already had, but didn't. As always, I'm surprised when I don't already have junk-era cards I receive, because it seems like I have so many cards from those years. But both the Oquendo and Galarraga fill holes in my collection.

1988 Topps UK Minis #72 Ozzie Smith
2016 Topps #254 Matt Holliday

I like these UK Minis, and I actually have a couple copies of the Ozzie card now. All the more reason to chase down the Vince Coleman and Willie McGee cards from that set. Then there's Matt Holliday, who just won't seem right in a Yankees uniform this year.

Thanks to Stealing Home for the PWE!

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXX

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 XXVIII XXIX

I'm not sure I've ever done a 30 part post before. Oh well, let's keep rolling! Today I've got Kyle Lohse, Matt Holliday, a Matt Carpenter, Trever Miller, and Mark Ellis, and a pair of team cards.

2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars #77 Matt Holliday
2011 Topps - Factory Set Diamond Anniversary #373 Trever Miller
2012 Topps - Gold Sparkle #26 Kyle Lohse
2013 Topps Archives #125 Kyle Lohse
2013 Topps Gypsy Queen #343 Kyle Lohse
2014 Topps - Blue Parallel #44 Matt Carpenter
2014 Topps - Red Hot Foil Parallel #329 Matt Holliday

I'm still a little bummed Matt Holliday won't finish his career in St. Louis, but that's sort of the nature of the game when players who are much better hitters than defenders can go to the American League and squeeze in another season or two.

2012 Topps #233 St. Louis Cardinals
2012 Topps - Gold Sparkle #233 St. Louis Cardinals
2014 Topps Update #US272 Mark Ellis
2016 Topps #254 Matt Holliday

I know Mark Ellis played for the Cardinals, but it felt like I never actually saw him play during his one season in St. Louis. He only started 46 games and played in 73 total, so that may be part of the reason. The team cards here commemorate the game that clinched a World Series appearance for the Cardinals, which they ultimately went on to win for the 11th World Championship.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part VI

College football will be here again before we know it, 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

2016 Topps
#46 Jhonny Peralta
#106 Jordan Walden
#107 Kevin Siegrist
#134 Yadier Molina
#146 Stephen Piscotty
#217 Lance Lynn
#244 Matt Carpenter
#319 Adam Wainwright

I still haven't bought any 2016 Topps cards. The other was from winning the subcontest within this same contest, picking the Belk Bowl. The only Cardinal in that prize was Pat Neshek, now with the Astros, so these were still all new to my collection.

2016 Topps
Back to Back #B2B-9 Red Schoendienst/Stan Musial
Berger's Best #BB-16 Steve Carlton
Pressed Into Service #PIS-6 Stan Musial
Perspectives #P-25 Ozzie Smith

Here we have more 2016 Topps, all inserts and all Hall of Famers. I'm glad to see Ozzie Smith has been included more and more in sets with older players. And I'm always happy to get Musial and Schoendienst cards.

Belk Bowl Winnings

As he does each year, madding of Cards on Cards ran his confidence pool contest for the 2015 NCAA Football bowl season, with a side prop of picking the score of the Belk Bowl. I was closest on the Belk Bowl portion - even though I wasn't all that close - and received my first 2016 Topps of the year for it. I also got 2nd place in the contest overall, but that prize is too big for this post.

2016 Topps
#62 Trayce Thompson
#89 Edwin Encarnacion
#110 J.D. Martinez
#138 Francisco Liriano
#144 Jose Iglesias
#168 Nathan Eovaldi
#188 Greg Bird
#203 Aaron Hill
#210 Mike Zunino

My first reaction to 2016 Topps is that the design isn't consistent. The team logo is sometimes on the bottom left, sometimes on the bottom right, with no pattern seeming to emerge. As a very organized person, this bugs me a little.

2016 Topps
#214 Chris Colabello
#229 Jesse Hahn
#231 Chris Coghlan
#242 Matt Wisler
#243 Luke Gregerson
#256 C.J. Wilson
#260 Ryan Hanigan
#266 Jonathan Papelbon

2016 Topps
#270 Pat Neshek
#277 Elvis Andrus
#278 Evan Gattis
#281 Alex Dickerson
#286 Joe Mauer
#311 Dariel Alvarez
#317 Jose Altuve
#321 Hanley Ramirez

Pat Neshek was the only Cardinal in this pack, which seems pretty heavy on Astros, although that Orange-jerseyed Dariel Alvarez adds to the effect.

2016 Topps
#21 Mike Moustakas
#25 Brad Ziegler
#64 Corey Kluber
#155 New York Yankees
#162 RBI Leaders Josh Donaldson/Chris Davis/Jose Bautista
#170 Carlos Gomez New Order
#318 Washington Nationals

The horizontal cards have the same inconsistent logo location. One card set I tend to take for granted is the League Leaders, which have been 3 players on a horizontal card for several years now. If anyone at Topps is reading this, keep that up.

2016 Topps
Back to Back #B2B-6 Joc Pederson/Adrian Gonzalez
Berger's Best #BB-33 Don Mattingly
MLB Debut #MLBD-17 Ryan Howard
Pressed Into Service #PIS-8 Garrett Jones

Perhaps it only works with video, but that Pressed Into Service set, with position players who came in when the team was out of pitchers or just wanted to save some arms, is not complete without Mark Grace pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks, doing his best impersonation of Mike Fetters. Still, it's good to have a set dedicated to this rare and usually fun occurrence.

Thanks to madding of Cards on Cards for my first look at 2016 cards!

Play at the Plate's 2016 Topps Contest

In an effort to get more comments than any post ever, Play at the Plate is offering a contest to win a Hanger box of 2016 Topps if you can guess the first card he pulls from his first 2016 pack. You can have up to 5 guesses per day, or if you're easily bought like I am, 8 guesses per day if you promote it like this.

Since I don't have any 2016 myself yet, here's one I pulled from topps.com. Nevermind that it's a series 2 card; you get the picture.

2016 Topps Albert Pujols