Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XI

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 VI VII VIII IX X

Let's see some Jon Jay!

2010 Topps Update #US203 Jon Jay
2010 Topps Chrome #178 Jon Jay
2011 Topps - Platinum Diamond Anniversary #295 Jon Jay
2013 Bowman #54 Jon Jay
2013 Topps Archives #7 Jon Jay
2015 Bowman #94 Jhonny Peralta
2015 Topps
#11 Jon Jay
#311 Jhonny Peralta
#527 Carlos Martinez

Jon Jay was traded to San Diego for Jedd Gyorko before this season. So far it seems to have been a decent trade. Unfortunately that means we no longer have a player to lead the team in High Sock Sundays.

2014 Topps Update
#US134 Tony Cruz
#US212 Randy Choate
#US260 Jhonny Peralta

Randy Choate became a free agent at the end of 2015, was a member of the Blue Jays organization (though never played for the MLB team) for part of March, and baseball reference now claims he's signed with the dodgers, but he doesn't seem to be on even the 40-man roster. I really thought Tony Cruz was being groomed to replace Yadier Molina when he retires - or goes to the AL to DH, but the Cardinals sent him to Kansas City, and he has since been sent to AAA. These are the first 2014 Update cards I have. That was a year I just didn't buy much current stuff at all.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part IX

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 VI VII VIII

2010 Bowman - Prospects #BP4 Tyler Henley
2010 Bowman Chrome Draft - Prospects
#BDPP22 Nick Longmire
#BDPP28 Seth Blair
2010 Bowman Draft - Prospects
#BDPP26 Tyrell Jenkins
#BDPP44 Greg Garcia
#BDPP62 Zack Cox
2011 Topps Heritage Minor League
#117 John Gast
#141 Tyrell Jenkins
#164 Carlos Martinez

I've got more Bowman today, as well as some Heritage Minor League cards. The Chrome cards appear to have confused my scanner and thrown the other cards a bit off balance. Once again, I find that despite my confusion about which set is which, I really like the look of Bowman cards. I should probably start trying to put together the Cardinals set each year.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part V

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

2014 Bowman Chrome - Prospects #BCP42 Tim Cooney
2014 Topps Archives #178 Carlos Martinez
2015 Topps Gypsy Queen #72 Carlos Martinez
2015 Topps Opening Day #147 Carlos Martinez
2015 Topps Update
#US44 Tim Cooney
#US104 Steve Cishek
#US105 Brandon Moss
#US311 Carlos Martinez
#US348 Jonathan Broxton

Tim Cooney is one of the most anticipated pitching prospects for the Cardinals in awhile, but he's been on the minor league DL all year. Luckily we've still got Carlos Martinez, and a fair shot at a wildcard spot this year.

2015 Topps Update #US13 Tommy Pham

Ah, another lone horizontal card. Tommy Pham's a huge fan favorite. I just need people to stop making "Phamtastic" puns.

July Card Show Purchases II

Here's the other half of the Cardinals and other players I collect.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#9 Bo Jackson
#25 Matt Carpenter
#27 John Lackey
#37 Mark McGwire
#44 Steve Carlton
#47 Ozzie Smith

That's a strong bottom row, with two Hall-of-Famers, and one that would have been, probably if he just handled the post-career PR a little better. Bo Jackson is one of the few players who never played for the Cardinals that I nevertheless collect, just because his story was so fascinating. I think the two-sport aspect gets me a little, too, because I considered adding Deion Sanders to my collections as well.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#48 Shelby Miller
#49 Albert Pujols
#59 Adam Wainwright
#72 Carlos Martinez
#84 John Smoltz
#99 Roger Maris

This half netted me 6 uniformed Cardinals and 5 other Cardinals, for a total of 13 uniformed and 8 other. I wanted to say "former", but both Smoltz and Maris are pictured with teams they played on before St. Louis. I wasn't expecting a full 8% of the base set to fall into my personal collection, but here we are. Certainly that's somewhat due to the Cardinals recent success, and at the expense of other teams, so I will enjoy and appreciate this while the winning lasts. 

2013 Topps Update Jumbo Pack #1

I decided to go ahead and start going through my 2013 Update jumbo box. At the rate I've been going, it'll take 40 days or so to finish it, and it'll nearly be time to start posting my football projections and power rankings.

2013 Topps Update
#US306 Pat Neshek
#US250b Yasiel Puig SP
Emerald Parallel #US310 Boone Logan
Franchise Forerunners #FF-3 Manny Machado/Cal Ripken, Jr.
Gold Parallel #US152 Randy Choate #0496/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-32 Matt Harvey

The first pack started off nicely, with a base card of All-Star Pat Neshek, and a Gold Parallel of Randy Choate. There's also a SP of Puig. I seem to remember SPs being more common in Update than Series 1 and 2 in the past, so we'll see if more show up. I've already equaled each of those boxes, which yielded 1 SP Variation each.

2013 Topps Update
#US175 Carlos Martinez
1971 Topps Mini #TM-43 Frank Thomas
Chasing History #CH-129 Clayton Kershaw

Carlos Martinez is another good get from this box, and I hope he's one of the duplicates. I don't really have a good reason to want a second copy, but I do. Kershaw's no slouch either, and Frank Thomas was one of my favorite non-Cardinals in the 90s.

There were 43 base cards in this pack, up from the Series 1 and 2 norm of 42, probably due to the lack of Million Dollar Giveaway cards in each pack. There were, of course, no duplicates in the first pack, so much like a player with 2 home runs on opening day, I'm well ahead of the pace.

Update Series Completion: 43/330 (13.0%)