July Card Show Purchases

In addition to my autographs, I did make one purchase at the card show; a full set of 2015 Gypsy Queen, without the SPs.  I have so many sets I haven't quite completed, that this one felt like a good idea when I saw it. I might still buy a few packs for a smattering of insert, and put the extra base cards in my trade list.

I decided to pull out all the Cardinals and players I collect to show, and as it turns out there were 24 of them, so I split them into two posts so I can tag them all. I tried a few different ways to sort them into two equal groups of 12, and couldn't quite get there, so I just sorted them numerically. Here's the second half first.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#141 Nomar Garciaparra
#184 Michael Wacha
#197 Matt Adams
#228 Jhonny Peralta
#238 Carlos Beltran
#263 Mark Buehrle

I went with the second half of the cards first because today is Nomar's Birthday. He's 42 today, and I'm glad to see him showing up in current products. In addition to the 4 Cardinals, there's also my hometown compatriot Mark Buehrle.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#265 Jason Heyward
#271 Lance Lynn
#273 Allen Craig
#274 Dan Haren
#284 Trevor Rosenthal
#299 Kolten Wong

Some local sportswriters have talked about the possibility of Dan Haren making his way back to the team by the trade deadline, although I don't know how likely that really is. All told from this half I got 7 uniformed and 3 former Cardinals.

2012 Heritage Blaster #4, Almost 3 Years Later.

I bought several of these boxes from Dave and Adam's quite awhile ago, sometime after 2013 came out I'm sure. Since the last one I posted was #3 in late 2012, I guess this is #4. I'm not very good at maintaining a FIFO method of opening and posting my cards, so these were just the next most interesting ones in my box of unopened stuff. The others ones will probably be next.

2012 Topps Heritage
#22 Edwin Jackson
#172 Yadier Molina
#206 Lance Lynn
#244 Jason Motte
#265 2012 Rookie Stars
#281 Jason Marquis
#306 Star Receivers
#321 2012 Rookie Stars
#357 Allen Craig

I'm not sure why Adron Chambers showed up on multiplo different Rookie Stars cards, but I got two of them. He's on a third version I got in that third blaster. Both cards featuring Yadier Molina came in a pack together, which is nothing more than a statistical oddity, but it was with a Cardinal, so I noticed.

#390 Jason Heyward
#429 Jonny Venters
#434 Shane Victorino
Baseball Flashbacks #BF-AK Al Kaline
Blue Parallel #84 Doug Fister
New Age Performers #NAP-RC Robinson Cano
News Flashbacks #NF-UA University of Alabama
Checklist #C2
Stick-Ons #27 Ryan Howard

I got so many Cardinals they spilled into the Inserts scan, since we picked up Jason Heyward this year. That blue Doug Fister is my second copy, and those are the only two blues I have. Again, statistical anomalies are weird when they happen to you. Something about the more common insert sets in Heritage make me want to complete them all, and I'm not sure what it is. Let's see my current status:

Base: 212/425
Base SPs: 12/75
Baseball Flashbacks: 3/10
Blue Parallel: 1/30
Checklists: 3/5
Chrome Parallels: 3/100
New Age Performers: 2/16
News Flashbacks 3/15
Stick-ons: 4/46
Then and Now: 1/10

2013 Triple Play #3

Finally, I pulled a Cardinal from one of these. Although, he's already gone from the team, and has been demoted to the minors for about a month. Yes, it's Allen Craig.

2013 Panini Triple Play
#25 Dexter Fowler
#30 Justin Verlander
Blue Bordered Stickers #2 Adam Jones
Eye Blacks #9 Felix Hernandez
#45 Josh Johnson
#77 Allen Craig
Baseball 101 #6 Infield

There's really nothing dictating which Hernandez these Eye Blacks belong to, so I'm going to go with Keith Hernandez. I was doing some online searching and saw full boxes of these going very cheaply, so I just might pick one up for the fun of putting together the set, and trying for a master set of all inserts.

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?

2013 Topps Update Jumbo Pack #8

I'm coming into the home stretch in the metaphorical horse race that is this Jumbo box. Man, I should enter that terrible writing contest.

2013 Topps Update
#US22 Carlos Beltran
#US221 Allen Craig
#US282 Brock Peterson

These 3 Cardinals are now members of the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers. Brock Peterson got called up at the age of 29 in mid-2013, and played just 23 games, which I guess is enough to get a card in Update.

2013 Topps Update
Emerald Parallel #US182 Luis Valbuena
Gold Parallel #US155 J.B. Shuck #0251/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-48 Craig Kimbrel
Postseason Heroes #PH-7 Reggie Jackson

There were no particularly flashy inserts in this pack. I think my favorite of this group is the Reggie Jackson.

2013 Topps Update
Chasing History #CH-138 David Ortiz
1971 Topps Mini #TM-46 George Brett

I grew up liking the Royals moderately, since they're Missouri's other team. That changed a little when interleague play began, and they were our yearly rival. Still, I appreciate a good hall of famer card, especially a mini like this George Brett.

I had another perfect pack, 44 for 44 new cards. That hardly seemed possible at this point, except for the fact that packs are obviously not exactly random groupings of cards. My last 2 packs just need to finish off 45 base cards total. 44 is the highest base card total I've seen, I think, so I double checked to see if any were variation SPs. As far as I can tell none were, but I'll give the set a once-over after pack 10 and report the results.

Update Series Completion: 285/330 (86.4%)

2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #6

We're on the downslope now, with the first pack of the second half of the box.

2013 Topps
#24 Dan Haren
#261 Trevor Rosenthal
#321 Allen Craig
#327 Jhonny Peralta

I pulled 5 current/former/future Cardinals from this pack, including new SS Jhonny Peralta, which is why I said "future".

2013 Topps
#207 Matt Holliday
Gold Parallel #81 NL ERA Leaders #0013/2013
Chasing History #CH-34 Robin Yount
Chasing The Dream Relics #CDR-CS Chris Sale

Here's the 2nd of the 3 hits promised in the box, a Chris Sale relic. It could simply be confirmation bias speaking, but there seems to be an awful lot of Chris Sale in this box.

2013 Topps
Chasing the Dream #CD-9 Devin Mesoraco
Emerald Parallel #318 Hiroki Kuroda
1972 Topps Mini #TM-45 Cal Ripken, Jr.

Of course, the 3 Chris Sale inserts are at least of a current player. This is the second Cal Ripken, Jr. insert in as many packs. I'm not complaining, just noticing.

There were 41 base cards in this pack, and 25 were new to me. The set is starting to come together, and with 60% of the box busted, I've got over 60% of the set. I will need a little over 28 new cards per pack to finish it off.

Series 1 Completion: 217/330 (65.8%)

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!

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 7

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 ]

2010 Allen and Ginter #127 Albert Pujols

I don't recall ever seeing horizontal A&G cards, so I was wondering if this was some sort of short print. Evidently I'm just very unfamiliar with the set.

2010 Allen and Ginter
#28 Felipe Lopez
#58 Colby Rasmus
#182 Chris Carpenter
#343 Brad Penny

My scanner seems to have a little trouble with the backgrounds of 2010 Allen and Ginter. The pale blue fading into the amorphous white border causes it to totally lose its bearings. But the important parts are all there.

2010 Topps
#325 Julie Lugo
#452 Allen Craig

How about that, an Allen Craig rookie. And 51-game Cardinal Julio Lugo.

2010 Topps
Cards Your Mom Threw Out Original Backs #CMT-111 Ichiro/Albert Pujols
Legendary Lineage #LL-48 Stan Musial/Matt Holliday

Ichiro, Pujols, Musial, and Holliday on just 2 cards? I'll take that any day of the week. That Ichiro/Pujols reprint took me a while to figure out, though, since it's an original back version. The word "reprint" appears in small print on the back, though, along with a 2010 copyright date, which helped me narrow it down.

2010 Topps Update
#US-125 Adam Wainwright
#US-176 Felipe Lopez
#US-278 Brad Penny
Peak Performance #PP-109 Colby Rasmus

Brad Penny and Felipe Lopez both started 2010 with the Cardinals, yet they showed up in the Update set for some reason. Even more curious, both are in the A&G group above. I suppose the later release date allows Allen and Ginter to have more up-to-date rosters. This is the set that brought me back to collecting, when I bought a pack on a whim while killing time in Target. Consequently, both it and 2010 flagship - because it has the same look - bring me fond (recent) memories.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 2

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 I]

2013 Topps
#190 Daniel Descalso
#193 Matt Carpenter
#315 Rafael Furcal
#321 Allen Craig

2013 Topps
#4 Yadier Molina
#269 St. Louis Cardinals
Emerald Green #207 Matt Holliday
Chasing History #CH-16 Lance Berkman

I feel torn when I see all the cards Topps gives to the Cardinals when they're winning. On one hand, it's nice that there are 9 pitcher cards (or maybe more) picturing players I collect among the 330 cards of Series 1, and at least 6 batters seen here, and a team card. On the other hand, I know teams like the Astros and Marlins get shortchanged, and that MLB can turn around quickly. St. Louis could be the team with almost no base cards and no inserts by 2015.

2013 Topps Heritage
#40 Carlos Beltran
#406 Jaime Garcia

These are my first two 2013 Heritage cards. Together these two have far-off stares like roommates who don't get along in a bad sitcom. Come to think of is, Carlos and Jaime would probably make for an entertaining pair in a sitcom. The grizzled old (in baseball terms) veteran rooming with the young hotshot; each one learns from the other at the end of each 30 minute episode. It'll be great!

2012 Topps Chrome #91 Allen Craig

2012 Topps Chrome #119 Jaime Garcia

Oh, Topps Chrome. Why do you look so good on the table and so bad in scans? That throwback uniform on Jaime looks great when I hold the card in my hand.

2012 Topps Archives
#85 Matt Holliday
#197 Allen Craig

I never jumped into 2012 Archives like many bloggers seemed to. When I pulled the Holliday card out of the pack I immediately became confused and disoriented. A 2007 Matt Holliday? We haven't had him that long have we? No wait, that's not the 2007 design, that's...1971? Where am I? Then I remembered Archives existed, and the copyright date on the back brought me back to my happy place. I do think there may be much confusion in coming years, with sets masquerading as earlier years tripping me up, because I won't remember exactly which years some of our role players and short-term players played for us.

A Contest Win from Chipp 'n' Dale

Chunter over at Chipp 'n' Dale had a very simple contest a few weeks ago, and I dutifully promoted it on my blog for my bonus entry. The randomizer picked me and I snagged 2 packs of 2013 Bowman.

I haven't bought any Bowman since I resumed collecting in 2010, except as part of a group break of 2007 products. I like the look of the sets, but for some reason the combination of price and prospects makes me shy away from buying it. So really, it's a perfect prize, because I know all 20 cards will be new to me. For that reason, let's see all 20.

2013 Bowman
#4 Brett Jackson
#25 Dan Uggla
#45 Alex Rodriguez
#73 Angel Pagan
#92 David Wright
#94 Jason Heyward
#130 Tyler Cloyd
#207 Eric Hosmer

I will give Bowman credit for this, the single series and smaller base set mean most of the base cards are the bigger stars. Uggla, A-Rod, Wright, Heyward, Pagan, and Hosmer definitely qualify to me.

2013 Bowman - Prospects
#BP32 Harold Castro
#BP45 Michael Reed
#BP59 William Cuevas
#BP72 Christian Bethancourt

Next up, the prospects. I don't know any of these guys, and I'd imagine you only have a chance of knowing them if you follow the Tigers, Brewers, Red Sox, or Braves. Maybe in five years I'll look back on this post and remember a time before I knew anything about the player who would turn out to be the 2018 MVP.

2013 Bowman Chrome - Prospects
#BCP20 Darwin Rivera
#BCP54 Chris McFarland
#BCP73 Pedro Guerra
#BCP88 Dorssys Paulino

Same story with these guys, but shinier!

2013 Bowman
Gold #112 Mark Reynolds
Gold #215 Manny Machado
Silver Ice #14 Allen Craig
Blue Parallel #158 Jon Lester #366/500

Now we're back to the Major Leaguers. The Gold Parallels appear to be about 1 per pack. The Silver Ice, which scans in a very odd way, is 1:24, and the Blue Border is 1:34. I mention that not because it's that interesting, but just that I'm obsessed with numbers. I'm restraining myself from running the numbers on all the inserts and figuring out if I "beat the odds" or not with the rarity of my inserts. Anyway, parallel Cardinals are always appreciated, especially Allen Craig, the man unbelievably currently hitting nearly .500 with RISP.

Thanks to Chunter for the contest and the cards!

Christmas 2012

Do you ever get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and forget to do things? There's Christmas, then New Year's Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Valentine's Day, Washington's Birthday (aka Presidents Day), St. Patrick's, uh, probably a few national <insert carnival food> days...anyway, my point is, surely I have a good excuse for showing you my sports-related Christmas gifts in March. Ok, I don't, but here we go anyway.

First up, some Cardinals stuff.

A long-sleeve t-shirt, since I refuse to wear anything but t-shirts when I'm not dressed up, and both my wife and mom say I make them feel cold when the see me in short sleeves.

A new Cardinals cap. But not just any cap, this one is trimmed in gold to celebrate the 2011 World Series win.

Even the back has some unnecessary sparkle

Here we have a nice print of Busch Stadium, about 11" x 14". Don't tell my sister-in-law I haven't framed or hung it yet though.

Next up, the Rams:

These two items actually have an interesting story. My wife and I were doing some last minute shopping; I think it was Saturday night before Christmas, which was a Tuesday in 2012. Anyway, I saw this jersey, as well as a Billikens hooded sweatshirt, both pretty cheap. Even at Christmas time the writing was on the wall that Steven Jackson was probably leaving, but I still wanted the throwback jersey. I mentioned to my wife that I wish I had known both of those items were there and they would have been on my wish list. Apparently she managed to text her mom on the way to the next store without me noticing. As it turns out, by the time she got there the last SLU hoodie in my size was gone, so she decided to get the Rams sweatshirt you see above instead, which is awesome. So my wife and mother-in-law will have to split the credit on that one.

Last, but not least, we have a 2012 Topps Value Box, consisting of 2 packs of Heritage, 5 packs of Series 1, a Golden Giveaway code, and one of three Chrome cards of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or Ken Griffey, Jr. I'm clearly a busy man, taking 3 months to post these, so here's just the good stuff.

2012 Heritage #484 Todd Helton SP

Heritage has a hold on me, so yes, this SP counts as the good stuff.

2012 Heritage
#22 Edwin Jackson
#357 Allen Craig
#382 Joe Girardi

I'm going to miss the blue road cap - seen here on Edwin Jackson - this year, although I like the red with the road grays too.

2012 Heritage - New Age Performers #NAP-JW Jered Weaver

Every time I see Jered Weaver I think, "He was a Cardinal, right?" Wrong. That was Jeff Weaver, but it confuses me even moreso because then they both pitched for the Angels.

2012 Topps
#108 Albert Pujols
#291 David Freese

Speaking of Angels...no no, let's not get that started. Instead I'll revel in the 2011 World Series once more with these cards from games 3 and 6.

2012 Topps
#28 Placido Polanco
#154 Ty Wigginton

Here's former Cardinal Placido Polanco, and soon-to-be - at least in the regular season - Cardinal Ty Wigginton.

2012 Topps - Golden Moments #GM-29 Albert Pujols

Another Albert. I don't think I could ever stop collecting his cards.

2012 Topps - Value Box Chrome #MBC2 Willie Mays

Here's the shiny card promised on the box. It's very orange. And shiny. And the Hall of Famer on it isn't bad either.

Well, that's it for my Christmas gifts. Normally this is where I'd wish you a Happy New Year, but that ship has sailed. How about a Happy Passover, Easter, and/or April Fool's, whatever you're into? And, if the Easter Bunny brings me any cards, I'll try to get them posted before July.

2012 Gypsy Queen Extreme Value Blaster

I recently picked up a blaster of Gypsy Queen at Target for $11.99. Normally these are $19.99, a little more than I can convince myself to pay for the 48 cards inside. But, for a quarter a card, I went for it. I've decided this set isn't old enough for a pack-by-pack breakdown, so here are the inserts and Cardinals.

2012 Gypsy Queen
#201 Allen Craig
#208 Adron Chambers

 Each pack has 1 mini card, and here's how those broke down.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Mini Parallel
#21 Mat Latos
#158 Rickie Weeks
#177 Nick Markakis
#183 Heath Bell

These are stated at 1:1, but they can be replaced by rarer mini parallels.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Mini Straight Cut Back
#69 Troy Tulowitzki
#115 Kurt Suzuki

I really should have scanned the backs since that's the only difference, but these Straight Cut Backs are inserted 1:6 packs.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Mini Gypsy Queen Back
#261 John Smoltz

Again, I really should have scanned the back. This Gypsy Queen back is also inserted 1:6 packs. And I'm still referring to him as Former Cardinal John Smoltz.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Mini Black Border
#305 Matt Cain

Since the black minis are inserted 1:12 packs, and this has a high number, I figured I had something rare with this one, but apparently the minis 301-350 are not short-printed this year. Still, a cool card of a guy who just won a World Series, and really did a number on my Cardinals in the process.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Future Stars
#FS-JH Jeremy Hellickson
#FS-JU Justin Upton

Future Stars is an interesting name for a set featuring a 2-time All-Star. It's much better than the Bowman gamble on guys that may be no-names in a few years.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Hallmark Heroes
#HH-MM Mickey Mantle
#HH-SM Stan Musial

That's a pretty good pair, Mantle and Musial, especially for a Cardinal fan such as myself.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Sliding Stars
#SS-DG Dee Gordon
#SS-JW Jemile Weeks

Feet first, guys. You'll eat much less dirt that way.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Moonshots
#MS-AP Albert Pujols

Oh, Albert. That Angels uniform still doesn't look right on you.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Glove Stories
#GS-DJ Derek Jeter

This card features the ridiculous play Jeter made against the A's, in which he flipped the ball and it seemed to make a left turn mid-air to get Jeremy Giambi at the plate.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Blue Framed Parallel
#80 Ryan Braun #015/599

Finally, a nice parallel carried over from last year, the framed parallel. Last year was green, and this year's is Blue, and numbered to 599. But mostly I like how cool it looks and feels. I'd like to pick up a few Cardinals from this subset, so if you have any and would like this Braun, drop me an e-mail.