182 Packs Giveaway, Part V

When I claimed the Cardinals - and Mark McGwire and Todd Stottlemyre - in the pack-per-day giveaway held at TribeCards, I had no idea just how many cards I'd wind up with, and how many different players. So that I can tag all of the sets and Cardinal players, I've broken this up into a series of who knows how many posts. Thanks for all the cards, David.
[ I | II | III | IV ]

2004 Topps #137 Brett Tomko

This is the first 2004 Topps card I have. That falls right about in the middle of my collecting hiatus.

2006 Topps
#339 Yadier Molina
#491 John Rodriguez
#198 Brad Thompson

I've bought a few 2006 packs from Target's bargain bin, but only have a small part of the set, so all 3 of these are also new to me. The Yadi's obviously the star of the bunch, but I can never see John Rodriguez without remembering some of our old, unhip announcers trying to get J-Rod to catch on. That was almost as good as Al Hrabosky encouraging the crowd to yell Puuuuuu for Albert Pujols, since we were already doing a similar cheer for Isaac Bruce over at the Rams games.

2009 Upper Deck SP Authentic
#4 Yadier Molina

Another Yadi! It looks like if the Cardinals want him - i.e., don't trade him - he'll be a Cardinal for life, since he's been signed through 2017 with a team option for 2018.

2011 Topps Attax
#59 Colby Rasmus
#232 Angel Stadium of Anaheim

I didn't realize this stadium carries forward the silly nomenclature of the team. At least it only mentions one city instead of two. Also, I got Cardinal Colby Rasmus.

2009 O-Pee-Chee
#463 Chris Perez
#587 Colby Rasmu

I think these might be the best looking cards of this post, I've been a fan of 2009 O-Pee-Chee ever since I got the David Freese card. I wish we still had Chris Perez, especially with Motte out for awhile, possibly all year. But I didn't like the trade at the time. I almost never like trades though, so maybe that's just me Monday-Morning-Quarterbacking. I guess I didn't like the Colby Rasmus trade either at the time, although I'm ok with it now. I'm just full of unbridled optimism for promising prospects.

The pile is shrinking...

March Radness Win, Part III

[Part I]
[Part II]

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

First up in this batch of cards is the Series I 2008 Upper Deck Cardinals I needed.

2008 Upper Deck (Series I)
#61 Adam Wainwright
#62 Joel Pineiro
#63 Brad Thompson
#65 Troy Percival
#67 Albert Pujols
#68 David Eckstein
#69 Jim Edmonds
#70 Rick Ankiel

Together with the 8 cards from part II, and the 4 from a previous contest win, I have all of the Cardinals from this set, and never bought a pack.

2011 Gypsy Queen
#38 Walter Johnson
#117 Dallas Braden

That's 2 more off the wantlist, leaving me just 125 left to go for Gypsy Queen. It would seem I tend to get a little over ambitious with the wantlists sometimes, desiring a whole set after getting a few packs.

1988 Donruss Wax Pack

Ah, the mystery of an unopened pack. I'm not going to open this yet. Maybe I'll wait for the 30th anniversary in 2018. More likely, I'll break down and open it when I finally sort through my 1988 Donruss cards, because I'm a weak, weak man.

March Radness Win, Part I

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

2010 Upper Deck
#460 Colby Rasmus
#465 Julio Lugo
#467 Adam Wainwright
#468 Brad Thompson
#473 Kyle Lohse
#474 Chris Carpenter
#475 Ryan Franklin

I just traded for Colby and Thompson in my last trade, which was in the mail the same time as this prize, but the rest put me 5 cards closer to completing the 2010 UD team set.

Coincidentally, part 2 of that trade also included some 2011 Opening Day, also seen here. There wasn't much overlap. Not that I'd complain about the overlap; I've found the best way to complete a set is usually to swap duplicates of that same set with someone else, so those would likely make a trade easier. Here's Yadi and some inserts.

2011 Topps Opening Day

#46 Yadier Molina
Presidential First Pitches #PFP-5 Richard Nixon
Stadium Lights #UL-5 Miguel Cabrera
Toppstown #TTOD-5 Jon Lester
Toppstown #TTOD-14 Brian Matusz

And all the base cards:
38 Mike Stanton
44 Omar Infante
46 Yadier Molina
68 Jeremy Jeffress
71 Jon Niese
101 Brian Wilson
138 Chris Young
144 Brett Gardner
150 Matt Cain
156 Ryan Zimmerman
164 Grady Sizemore
170 Logan Morrison
179 Prince Fielder
194 Delmon Young

There's a whole lot more to this trade package, but like I've said before, I just can't not tag a Cardinal or a set.

A Fantastic Trade, Part I

Again with the pun title?

It's always good to find a new trading partner, and I recently got an email from Fantastic Catch with an offer of a bunch of cards from my wantlists, and I was able to send him some stuff for his player PCs and set needs. Of course as a fellow Cardinal fan, he sent so many he triggered my obsessive need to use up my all of my available tag space, so here's part 1 what I got in my 2-piece box:

2010 Upper Deck #460 Colby Rasmus

2010 Upper Deck #464 Joe Thurston

2010 Upper Deck #466 Yadier Molina

2010 Upper Deck #468 Brad Thompson

2010 Upper Deck #469 Denys Reyes

2010 Upper Deck - Season Biography #SB-79 

I've now got 7 of the 17 Cardinals from 2010 Upper Deck. I like this set because it manages to get some interesting photography despite no MLB logos allowed.

2011 Heritage - News Flashbacks #NF-9

2011 Heritage - Baseball Flashbacks #BF-10

I also got 2 more Heritage inserts toward my set, and 3 base cards:
137 Babe and Mgr. Huggins
217 Don Mattingly
256 Ruben Tejada

1999 Upper Deck - Textbook Excellence #T21 Mark McGwire

And a nice Mark McGwire insert to finish off this half. More tomorrow!

eBay Wins #36

I won another big bunch of cards for a penny apiece. This time it was 2005 and 2006 Bowman Draft. I actually didn't realize until I started writing this post that it was Bowman Draft and not Bowman, but no matter. I have a huge hole in my collection from 2000 to 2010, so anything in that range I can get cheaply is new to me. Since it's now 6 to 7 years later, these are mostly the leftover cards of players that didn't pan out, though not all of them.

2005 Bowman Draft #BDP21 Brad Thompson

2005 Bowman Draft #BDP31 Mark McCormick

30 of the cards were 2005, and all came from the base set. I bid on a few doubles and triples because I couldn't beat the price. Here's the listing:
21 Brad Thompson (2)
22 Jorge Cantu
28 Chris Young
31 Mark McCormick (3)
33 Beau Jones
35 Zach Ward (2)
40 Kyle Winters (2)
45 Ryan Mount
50 Eric Fowler (2)
58 Eli Iorg (2)
70 Reid Engel (3)
75 Henry Sanchez
89 Mike Costanzo
96 Jon Egan (3)
97 Drew Thompson
115 Brent Cox
118 Steven Johnson
152 Kevin Thompson (2)

2006 Bowman Draft - Future Game #FG2 Joel Guzman

I got 3 cards from the Futures Game insert set, which is fitting for this All-Star week.
FG2 Joel Guzman
FG17 Edgar Martinez (no, of course not that Edgar Martinez) 
FG40 Joaquin Arias

2006 Bowman Draft - Draft Picks #DP15 Charlie Yarbrough

I'm a little confused by the Draft Picks subset, since the set is Bowman Draft, but oh well.
DP15 Charlie Yarbrough
DP18 Tyler Robertson
DP28 Brandon Rice
DP31 Bobby Henson
DP44 Brett Logan
DP50 David Christensen
DP65 Brett Sinkbeil

2006 Bowman Draft #BDP11 Mike Rouse

And finally, just two of the 2006 cards were from the base set.

BDP11 Mike Rouse

BDP31 Kevin Thompson

In all, I got 42 cards for 42 cents, and 2 new sets I'll now feel enticed to complete.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	1992
Total Spent	$38.18
Per Card	1.917 cents