Zistle Trade #14

My trading partner today wanted just one card, a 2011 Opening Day Mike Stanton base card. He's doing quite well right now, so I sold high (I think) for a collection of 1992 Donruss Cardinals.

1992 Donruss
#397 Royce Clayton
#424 Chris Sabo
#428 Will Clark
#481 Omar Olivares
#533 Geronimo Pena
#553 Rich Gedman
#570 Scott Cooper

I've still got 44 cards on my wantlist for this set, of which 43 are Cardinals and one is Deion Sanders, just because. Of course many are like these Chris Sabo and Will Clark cards, playing in other uniforms. There are a good number of them among the 188 cards of this base set I have, too. Free Agency keeps my collecting net wide enough that I'll probably never finish my want list.

Turkey For Me, Turkey For You

Here it is, nearly Easter, and I've got Adam Sandler's Thanksgiving Song stuck in my head. No, my family doesn't have some weird holiday-swapping tradition; I traded some Turkey Red cards with a fellow fan of the set, JediJeff of 2x3 Heroes.

2010 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR2 Miguel Tejada
#TR15 Hank Greenberg
#TR19 Cal Ripken, Jr.
#TR21 Johnny Bench
#TR25 Ernie Banks
#TR31 Mel Ott
#TR51 Torii Hunter
#TR66 Nelson Cruz
#TR69 Brooks Robinson

I bought a lot of 2010 Update, but not much of Series 1 and 2, so I'm still rather far from completing the 100 cards from those series. After these are added into my collection, I believe I will still need 74 more. However, for the 50 from Update, numbered 101-150, I only need 17 more.

2010 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR73 Chad Billingsley
#TR75 B.J. Upton
#TR79 Raul Ibanez
#TR86 Billy Butler
#TR88 Eddie Mathews
#TR95 Ty Cobb
#TR135 Orlando Cepeda
#TR144 Cy Young
2009 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR6 Ian Kinsler

Jeff threw in a few extras for me, including the 2009 Turkey Red card. I was surprised to find I didn't actually have any of those yet. Maybe that'll spur me on to collect that year's set too.

1992 Fleer Ultra #570 Donovan Osbourne
1992 Triple Play #118 Jose Oquendo
1993 Pinnacle #174 Geronimo Pena
2009 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH327 Julio Lugo

Speaking of extras, here are some Cardinals Jeff was nice enough to add into the package. And, I've still got a few more of these to scan and post for next time.

March Radness Win, Part IV

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]

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.

That's right, there's still more cards to go in this series. Kerry outdid himself on this prize.

1994 Fleer Extra Bases
#356 Rene Arocha
#359 Gregg Jefferies
#362 Mike Perez
#364 Bob Tewksbury
#366 Todd Zeile

This is a cool set, but if you've ever seen them, you know these aren't minis, these are larger than usual cards. Without doing any research or measuring at all, I'd say they're 1 inch taller than a regular card, so 2.5" by 4.5". Does anybody have any good ideas for how to store these? The best idea I have off the top of my head is storing them in a 500 count box front to back instead of side to side, but I only own 5 of them now. Surely I can't get ambitious again and put another set on my wantlist when I only have 5, can I?

1991 Score #677 Donovan Osborne

My favorite Donovan Osborne memory was at a game when he came to bat with the bases loaded. I told my Dad it'd be cool if he hit a Grand Slam. My Dad laughed, and Donovan delivered. Thanks to baseball-reference.com, I just learned I witnessed his only career Home Run. That's kinda cool.

1992 Score #516 Geronimo Pena

I don't remember as much about Geronimo Pena, except he was a solid platoon second basemen for a few years.

1992 Baseball Enquirer - Unopened Pack

Here's another unopened pack. I don't know anything about this set, but it looks to be unlicensed, a gag they explain away by calling them "Mystery Interview" cards. That's obviously a certain famous gambler on the back betting his card will be worth a fortune. I haven't opened this pack yet, so maybe I'll save it for the same day I open the 1988 Donruss pack.

A Prize For My Prescience, part 2

[Part 1]

Ryan at The Great Orioles Autograph Project sent me a whole bunch of cards for picking the Cardinals to win the World Series, and it is of course my duty to show you the cards and link to his blog.

First up in this post, more set completion, with 1990 Donruss. Here are the highlights, defined by me as my favorites and any past Cardinals.

1990 Donruss - Bonus MVPs #BC-1 Bo Jackson

In 1990 I bet a fair number of people thought Bo would go on to make the MLB and NFL Halls of Fame. It's a shame what injuries did to him.

1990 Donruss Bonus MVPs #BC-16 Bobby Bonilla

The late-in-his-career Cardinal and rest-of-his-life Mets employee himself.

1990 Donruss #86 Tony Gwynn

He's a hall of famer, of course he's getting scanned.

1990 Donruss #227 Harold Reynolds

I actually didn't realize Harold Reynolds was a player until a few years ago I came across a card with a good closeup of his face and made the connection to the broadcaster, then of course looked it up on Wikipedia.

1990 Donruss #265 David Cone

Anyone else remember the fans-dressed-as-Coneheads phenomenon? I wonder if this guy would have been as big a deal if he played anywhere other that the biggest media market.

1990 Donruss #344 Chuck Finley

Another brief end-of-career Cardinal.

1990 Donruss #346 Rich Gedman

Ditto.

1990 Donruss #426 Norm Charlton

Once again, I cannot escape Norm Charlton.
Example 1
Example 2

1990 Donruss #427 Deion Sanders

I wonder how many other Hall of Famers in any sport spent significant playing time in a different sport. It can't be many, Deion was truly an amazing athlete.

1990 Donruss #466 Jeff Brantley

Jeff Brantley was always a good signer in Saint Louis during and even after his baseball career. I regret not going a little more out of my way to get an autograph when I had chances
Here's the full 1990 Donruss list I got:
10 Brian Downing (Diamond King)
12 Kelly Gruber (Diamond King)
60 Chet Lemon
64 Allan Anderson
66 Mike Greenwell
86 Tony Gwynn
92 Doug Drabek
99 Howard Johnson
113 Kelly Gruber
170 Krick McCaskill
227 Harold Reynolds
231 Jimmy Key
265 David Cone
300 Checklist 232-333
302 Mark Davis
315 Steve Balboni
339 Ted Higuera
344 Chuck Finley
346 Rich Gedman
348 Matt Williams
382 Bill Spiers
416 Gary Thurman
417 Jeff Robinson
420 Dennis Rasmussen
426 Norm Charlton
427 Deion Sanders
438 Steve Olin
466 Jeff Brantley
496 Jeff Kunkel
503 Jerry Kutzler
520 Chad Kreuter
543 Al Leiter
566 Billy Swift
650 Bo Jackson (All Star)
695 Eric Davis (All Star)
Bonus MVPs
BC-1 Bo Jackson
BC-16 Bobby Bonilla
BC-22 Steve Sax

Can I squeeze in a few more Ozzies?

1993 Upper Deck #482 Geronimo Pena, Ray Lankford, Ozzie Smith, Bernard Gilkey

 It's cool to see a team card like this with multiple players, but few enough to name them all and have the faces visible. Really takes me back to the early 90s teams. Even though we weren't very good, I have a lot of good memories from those years.

1990 Scoremasters #27 Ozzie Smith

 I like the minimalist front of this set. From what I can tell it's a standalone put out by Score and not an insert set, but if anyone knows any different please let me know.

1993 Score #522 Ozzie Smith

I've used up all the cards I've scanned so far, so look for part 3 whenever I get some more time to waste. I'm hoping for tomorrow, but who knows!