2012 Heritage Blaster #5

Let's open up another Blaster and see all the Cardinals, Inserts, and my completion status.

2012 Heritage
#8 AL Pitching Leaders
#54 2012 Rookie Stars
#95 2012 Rookie Stars
#129 Chris Perez
#144 World Series Game 3
#172 Yadier Molina
#206 Lance Lynn
#250 Jon Jay
#313 Jaime Garcia

It's too bad Adron Chambers is with the Cubs now, because that decreases the chances of him signing autographs at some random St. Louis area location. I have so many Rookie Stars cards I could have him sign. I got a few more former Cardinals with Dan Haren, Chris Perez, and Albert Pujols, but 4 that are still with the team, too.

2012 Heritage
#321 2012 Rookie Stars
#472 Alfonso Soriano
#476 Prince Fielder
Blue Parallel #76 Jon Lester
Blue Parallel #130 David Freese
Checklist #C5
Chrome Parallel #HP14 Paul Konerko
News Flashbacks #NF-PS Penn Station

More Adron! I had forgotten the Blue Parallel is not a full set, but only 30 cards, so I can't get blue versions of all the Cardinals base cards, but in addition to Freese, there is a Jon Jay, Albert Pujols, and Yadier Molina available. Unfortunately the two SPs are both duplicates, leaving me at only 12/75 complete.

2012 Heritage
Clubhouse Collection Relics #CCR-YG Yovani Gallardo
Stick-ons #31 Curtis Granderson

This box had a relic in it, that nice gray Yovani Gallardo swatch. I'm not a big relic chaser, but I've always thought Heritage has made pretty good ones. I do prefer a bat to a jersey for some reason, though.

So how is my quest going?

Base: 243/425
Base SPs: 12/75
Baseball Flashbacks: 3/10
Blue Parallel: 3/30
Checklists: 3/5
Chrome Parallels: 4/100
Clubhouse Collection Relics: 1/71
New Age Performers: 2/16
News Flashbacks 4/15
Stick-ons: 5/46
Then and Now: 1/10

2013 Topps Series 2 Jumbo Pack #8

Here's where I'd make a terrible Crazy 8s pun if I could think of one.

2013 Topps
#480 Lance Berkman
#603 Chris Perez
#631 Chris Carpenter
Chasing History #CH-63 Jordan Zimmerman
Gold Parallel #334 Derek Norris #0272/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-1 Yoenis Cespedes

This pack yielded 3 Cardinals, 2 of them who moved on, and one who is now retired. I've long lamented the Chris Perez trade that brought us Mark DeRosa (and we even threw in a player to be named later!), though his recent slide has lessened that sting a little bit.

2013 Topps
Chase It Down #CD-12 Carlos Gonzalez
Emerald Parallel #332 Cole Hamels
1972 Topps Mini #TM-77 Fred Lynn

Can we petition Boston to bring back the red batting helmets?

2013 Topps
Chasing History Autographs #CHA-BH Brock Holt

Speaking of Boston, here's a nice shiny Brock Holt autograph. It's not the flashiest name on the checklist, but I feel like I've seen his name in the sports reports a bit more this year. That could be the alleged New York/Boston bias, or maybe he's really that impressive. One thing is for certain, though: he writes his capital B funny.

Since the big insert of the pack was the regular-thickness autograph, there were the standard 42 base cards in the pack. Of those, 38 were new, pushing me even closer to completing the set. I now need just 45 new base cards in the final 2 packs.

Series 2 Completion: 285/330 (86.4%)

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...