Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XVII

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE, 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 XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI

2012 Topps Archives #114 Jason Motte
2013 Topps Archives #151 Jason Motte
2013 Topps #130 Jason Motte
2013 Opening Day #202 Jason Motte
2013 Topps Blue Parallel
#96 Edward Mujica
#188 Brian Fuentes
#235 Jake Westbrook
2014 Topps #599 Jason Motte

In addition to a fine collection of Jason Motte base cards, I got a trio of 2013 blue parallels in the prize package too, including Brian Fuentes, who pitched 5 innings over 6 games with the Cardinals to end his career.

2009 Allen and Ginter #157 Jason Motte
2013 Allen and Ginter #283 Jason Motte
2013 Topps #269 St. Louis Cardinals
2013 Gypsy Queen - Mini #322 Jason Motte

Jason Motte had a great 2012, leading the NL with 42 saves, but lost all of 2013 to injury, and never quite made it back to that same level of performance. He's back on the DL in Colorado now, too, with just 20 2/3 innings pitched this year.

A Trade With Mr. Haverkamp

Thanks to a post I made about Turkey Red a few weeks ago, a reader by the name of Mr. Haverkamp contacted me with some more Turkey Reds from my wantlist. You've probably seen his name a few times on other blogs, as he's a pretty active trader. 

2005 Topps Turkey Red
#54 Chris Carpenter
#94 Mark Buehrle
#129 Kip Wells
#156 Jake Westbrook
#229 Dmitri Young
#309 Wade Boggs

2005 isn't the main Turkey Red set I'm focused on right now, so my wantlist is only the Cardinals and retired players, hence why I've got 5 players who played for the Cardinals, and Wade Boggs.

2010 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR13 Yovani Gallardo
#TR20 CC Sabathia
#TR29 Gordon Beckham
#TR35 Stephen Drew
#TR38 Rick Porcello
#TR55 Aaron Hill

2010 Topps' Turkey Red insert set is my big target, and I knocked 6 more off that list. I still need 76 of the 150 total cards in flagship and update, so I'm almost at 50%.

2011 Topps Lineage
1975 Mini #9 Matt Holliday

This was a nice surprise thrown in with all the Turkey Red, also off my want list. Lineage is a set I really liked but didn't seem to be a big hit, only lasting a single year. I have the entire mini parallel set on my wantlist, but I'll likely never finish it. This Matt Holliday brings me up to just 15 out of the 200 cards.

Thanks for the trade, Mr. Haverkamp!

2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #5

Let's open another pack, and I'll be halfway done with my Jumbo box.

2013 Topps
#205 Ryan Theriot
#235 Jake Westbrook
#266 Albert Pujols

Hmm, pack #1 also gave me all 3 of these guys. This one lacked Jason Motte and Jaime Garcia among Cardinals, though.

2013 Topps
Chasing the Dream #CD-25 Mike Moustakas
Emerald Parallel #185 Rob Scahill
1972 Topps Mini #TM-14 Chris Sale

I know it's not original, but Handlebar Moustakas has to be the best fantasy baseball team name in my league. Also, I think it's time Topps started considering their parallels when choosing photos. Purple and green together make me go cross-eyed.

2013 Topps
Gold Parallel #76 Brandon Inge #0638/2013
Chasing History #CH-4 Cal Ripken, Jr.
Chasing History Autographs #CHA-JH Joel Hanrahan

Now a Gold Parallel on Oakland's gold jerseys works nicely, even if it's not the same gold. The second card in this bunch is nothing to sneeze at either, Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr., but forgive me for jumping straight to the last one. Just before I opened this pack I said to myself "I haven't seen any autos or relics yet, I wonder if they'll all be here." Sure enough, the autographed card is. I knew Hanrahan wasn't still on the Pirates, but I was having trouble placing him, so I did a quick search. As you may know, he spent 2013 with Boston, but as you may not know, he just worked on on Thursday (April 17) for the Mets and Yankees. So, I don't think this auto is going to put anyone's kid through college, but, they can't all be superstars.

I got 43 base cards in this pack, thanks to the regular-thickness auto and other inserts. But, for some reason, almost all of them until the higher numbers were duplicates. My total unique cards went up by just 4, to 192. I'm starting to worry a bit more about completing the set with this box. At least I can say that if the collation is pretty good I still have a chance, since I have 250 more cards (200 or so base) to complete the 138 left.

Series 1 Completion: 192/330 (58.2%)

2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #1

When I started collecting in 1992, I immediately decided factory sets were the way to go. I bought or received as a gift the Topps factory set from each year, even when I started losing interest a bit, through 1999. In 2010 I started buying factory sets again, but decided for 2013 to try something different. I bought a jumbo box of Series 1, Series 2, and Update. Now, this is considerably pricier than a factory set. But, I'll get a sampling of the insert cards, and a 500-card box should give me most of each 330-card series if there's good collation. Let's see how it starts off.

2013 Topps
#54 Jaime Garcia
#130 Jason Motte
#235 Jake Westbrook

2013 Topps
#205 Ryan Theriot
#266 Albert Pujols

 First, as always, we have the current and former Cardinals base cards.

2013 Topps
Calling Cards #CC-15 Albert Pujols
Emereld Parallel #237 Brandon Lyon
Chasing The Dream #CD-17 Addison Reed
Chasing History #CH-5 Yogi Berra

Some of the more common inserts, including a nice Pujols card, where he's turned just far enough I can almost pretend he's in a Cardinals uniform.

2013 Topps
1972 Mini #TM-7 Craig Kimbrel
Cut To The Chase #CTC-14 David Price

 I like to call these two the "Awkward-to-Scan" sets, so I threw them together.

2013 Topps
Silk Collection #SC-97 Josh Johnson #22/50

And here's the prize of the pack, a Silk Collection card of Josh Johnson.

Before opening this pack, I actually already had 111 unique cards from Series 1, thanks to some cheap eBay finds and some contest winnings. Hopefully that means this box will easily complete Series 1 for me. Series 2 will be more challenging, since I currently have zero base cards. Another difficulty will come from the extra thick inserts, which can reduce the pack size by 1 to 9 cards, according to the disclaimer. This pack had 39 base cards and 7 inserts.

Series 1 Completion: 136/330 (41.2%)

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 1

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.

I've decided to go more or less in backward chronological order with these, so for this post, you get some of the 2013 Series 1 cards. Specifically, the pitchers.

2013 Topps
#50 Adam Wainwright
#54 Jaime Garcia
#96 Edward Mujica
#130 Jason Motte
#146 Kyle McClellan
#188 Brian Fuentes
#235 Jake Westbrook
#261 Trevor Rosenthal
#305 Shelby Miller

I realize you could say this about just about any MLB team, but if all of these guys had stayed healthy (and with the team in the case of McClellan and Fuentes), I think the Cardinals would be running away with the division today, not struggling to hold back or catch the Pirates and Reds.

2012 Update Hanger Pack #5

More 2012 Update!

2012 Topps Update
#US12 Jake Westbrook
#US301 Carlos Beltran

I've got a few of these Beltrans now, but the Westbrook is new.

2012 Topps Update
#US63 Gerald Laird
#US82 Ty Wigginton
#US123 Jamie Moyer/Checklist

Likewise with these former Cardinals, I had Laird and Moyer already, but Wigginton is new. As far as I know he hasn't landed with a new team yet. Maybe a deal will happen after the trading deadline.

2012 Topps Update
#US11 Rick Ankiel
Golden Moments #GM-U21 Ernie Banks
1987 Topps Minis #TM-122 Yonder Alonso

When I was attending SLU, one car in a garage near my dorm had the license plate "Mr. Cub". I always joked that it was Ernie Banks' car, and no one got it. Baseball nicknames don't really pervade pop culture too much I guess, even in a rival town.

2012 Topps Update - Walmart Blue Border
#US84 Eric Thames
#US161 Brian Dozier

I'm going to call my curse lifted, as these blue borders are on Navy teams, although the Twins could probably go either way.

2012 Topps Update
Gold Sparkle #US28 Matt Albers
Blockbusters #BB-30 Jose Bautista

Was the trade for Bautista really considered a blockbuster at the time? It definitely worked out well for him and Toronto, but I can't quite imagine big headlines when he came over.

2012 Topps Update - Gold Border
#527 Aaron Hill #1278/2012
#562 Henderson Alvarez #0583/2012
#US94 Kevin Slowey #1781/2012

And I'll finish this pack off with the Gold Borders. Kevin Slowey never actually played for Cleveland, but spend all of 2012 at AAA, and is now in Miami. And, who's that sliding into second under Aaron Hill? Why, it's Ty Wigginton again.

2006 Topps Value Pack #3

[Pack 1]
[Pack 2]

Oddly enough, on another trip to Kansas City, I found yet another 2006 Topps pack at Target in the $1.59 bin. Here's the good stuff:

2006 Topps #461 Placido Polanco

 Wait a minute, this looks familiar.

2006 Topps #452 Jake Westbrook

So does this one.

2006 Topps #449 Jason LaRue

There we go, one that wasn't in that last pack. I was starting to worry. 

2006 Topps - Mantle Homerun History #MHR2

 This is a decent looking card, but it appears all of them in the set look the same on the front except the number in the upper left.

2006 Topps - Opening Day Team vs Team #OD-BP Brewers vs Pirates

When I saw this I thought  maybe there wasn't an Opening Day set for 2006, but there is. 

If you recall, these packs had 3 Vintage cards in them, so far all from 1985-90 for me

1989 Topps #253 Jose Alvarez

I've got the 1989 set, so this will go in the trade list.

1986 Topps #266 Keith Moreland

 1986 is just old enough to not be part of the overproduction era, I think. At least, I don't have a ton of these sitting around.

1986 Topps #205 Tony Perez

There we go, a Hall-of-Famer. I'm glad to see one guy I recognize among the 80s cards. 

Here is the full base card listing:
344 Doug Davis
354 Grady Sizemore
356 Luis Matos
363 Jermaine Dye
429 Francisco Cordero
432 Brett Myers
436 Keith Foulke
449 Jason LaRue
452 Jake Westbrook
454 Bobby Jenks
461 Placido Polanco
469 Josh Willingham
569 Mike Jacobs
580 Frank Thomas
610 Cincinnati Reds
651 Jose Reyes/Kaz Matsui
Series 2 Checklist 2 of 3

I really wonder how much longer I'll keep finding single packs of the product at Target. I like what I've been getting, so I'll keep picking them up.

2006 Topps Value Pack #2

After searching 3 Targets in the St. Louis area to only find 1 pack before, would you believe I went all the way to Kansas City for this one? No? OK, so I happened to be in the KC area last weekend, with about 4 hours to kill, and a Target near my hotel. I figured I'd give it a look since bloggers all across the country had posted about the packs. Sure enough, I found just 1 again. Since I can't resist the mystery vintage, I bought it (along with some cookies, and the cookies were delicious).

As I like to do, first I'll show you the past/current/future Cardinals:

2006 Topps #461 Placido Polanco

I think a big reason I like baseball cards is the history they provide on the back. I can look right there and see that we traded Polanco to the Phillies in 2002. As I recall it was part of the deal for Scott Rolen.

2006 Topps #452 Jake Westbrook

Here's Jake Westbrook pre-Cardinals. The stats history doesn't help me too much here, but luckily there is always baseball-reference.com to tell me he showed up at the 2010 trade deadline.

2006 Topps - Trading Places #TP-JP Juan Pierre

This is a good idea for a subset, because if I had all of them I could look at it as a retrospective of the 2005-2006 off-season activity.

1990 Topps #363 Dan Petry

Doesn't ring a bell to me.

1989 Topps #345 Charlie Hough

I have this factory set as I previously posted, so here's one more on the trade pile.

1985 Topps #82 Joe Price

I can't say I've heard of him off the top of my head, but at least 1985's just a bit before the overproduction era; my earliest "vintage" in the last pack was a 1988. All in all the Vintage weren't overwhelming, but it's still a cool little bonus in the pack.

And here's the 2006 base card listing:
344 Doug Davis
354 Grady Sizemore
363 Jermaine Dye
381 Odalis Perez
405 Miguel Tejada
418 Johnny Estrada
422 Aaron Cook
431 Julio Franco
439 Ben Broussard
452 Jake Westbrook
461 Placido Polanco
471 Runelvys Hernandez
557 Chris Burke
579 Javier Vazquez
600 Ned Yost
615 Arizona Diamondbacks
648 "Brothers Orlando" - Orlando Hernandez/Orlando Hudson
Series 2 Checklist 1 of 3