Red Cardboard's Mostly Reds Cardboard Draft, Part 1

A long, long time ago, Red Cardboard held a draft, and I received my cards, looked through them, and put them in my "to post" pile. I'm going to have to implement a queue rather than a pile, I think, or else some stuff's just going to never get posted.

As a Reds fan, most of the prizes offered were Reds, but I managed to find the former/future Cardinals in disguise, along with cards from a few sets I just like. Here are the first few cards from the results.

1970 Topps Super #31 Vada Pinson
1975 Topps #623 Rookie Infielders (Phil Garner, Keith Hernandez, Bob Sheldon, Tom Veryzer)
1977 Topps #23 Dan Driessen
1993 Denny's #22 Joe Oliver
1996 Metal Universe #149 Barry Larkin
1997 Bowman - International #76 Brett Tomko
1999 Fleer Ultra - Gold Medallion #10G Brett Tomko
1999 Fleer Ultra - Gold Medallion #146G Dmitri Young
2003 Upper Deck Victory #29 Adam Dunn

I envisioned this looking a bit more like a collage and a bit less like a poorly played round of Tetris, but what can I say? That Vada Pinson really threw off everyone else. It's got some markings on it, but it's my first card from 1970 Topps Super. Since I keep the bulk of my cards in standard sized boxes, I now even more urgently need to implement some sort of plan for oversized items, much like a library does.

Two other nice vintage cards are Keith Hernandez in his pre-mustache days, and a rough looking Dan Driessen. All 3 of the oldest cards features guys who made at least a stop with the Cardinals, along with Dmitri Young and Brett Tomko. For some reason I always think Joe Oliver was a Cardinal too, but he wasn't, and I can't figure out who I must be confusing him with.

There are plenty more, but as usual, the blogger label limit tells me when I've had enough for one day.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 16

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.
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2005 Upper Deck #184 Edgar Renteria

I felt like Edgar Renteria was ageless, having already had a World Series winning hit before arriving at the Cardinals, playing here for 6 years, and then 7 more seasons elsewhere after that. Of course, he was actually quite young on arrival, and he was only 21 in that World Series win for the Marlins.

2005 Upper Deck #185 Jason Isringhausen

I think I see some Wrigley Field ivy in the background of Izzy here.

2004 Fleer Legacy
#8 Sammy Sosa
#48 Hideo Nomo
#53 Richie Sexson

These cards were a little dinged up and sort of used as packing material on the outside of each stack in the team bags. Still, those are some medium to big stars on the cards (Sorry Richie, you necessitated the "medium to" there).

2003 Topps
#469 Brett Tomko
#567 So Taguchi
#702 Jim Edmonds

I'm continually surprised that I keep finding sets I don't have cards from. 2003 Topps was one of those as well, which is even stranger, since Topps base cards from any year seem to just float around and settle in my card boxes.

2003 Upper Deck Game Face
#102 J.D. Drew
#104 Scott Rolen
#106 Tino Martinez

Game Face is a bit more of an obscure set, so it's not surprising I didn't have any of it. Rolen has a legitimate focus-on-the-pitch game face. However, it would appear someone caught J.D. Drew after fouling a ball off his shin, and Tino before a dugout tirade.

1991 Upper Deck
#636 Stolen Base Leaders (Lou Brock/Ricky Henderson)

1991?! That's right, there's a bit of a gap in the cards I received as prizes, from 1992 to 2002. Given that it took me 16 posts to get through the 11 years of 2003-2013, I figure that saves you about 16 more posts of reading. We're at the beginning of the end now. Or is the end of the beginning, since I'm going reverse chronologically?

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.
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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...