College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 13

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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2007 Topps Heritage
#24 Yadier Molina
#60 Preston Wilson
#65 Chris Narveson
#96 Kip Wells
#106 Scott Rolen
#210 Jim Edmonds
#476 Albert Pujols

More Heritage! This really is one of my favorite sets (every year) since I resumed collecting, but I haven't completed the Cardinals yet, so I'm glad these have been a big part of my prize. And even though I sorted these by number to scan, I managed to line up in the bottom row the guys once called MV3, when speculation was they would finish 1-2-3 in the MVP vote, or possibly cancel each other out.

2007 Bowman Heritage
Prospects #BHP77 Nathan Southard
Prospects #BHP84 Jarrett Hoffpauir
#154 Scott Rolen
#164 Chris Duncan

I have much less Bowman Heritage, in fact it's a total of 7 cards now, 5 of them Cardinals, spanning 2001-2007.

2007 Fleer #47 Yadier Molina

Since my collecting hiatus (~2000~2010) included Topps getting their exclusive deal, I think of companies like Fleer as ceasing production in 1999 or so. I like seeing sets that are new to me, and 2007 Fleer is one of them. Having my one card from this set be our All-Star catcher is icing on the cake.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 9

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.
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 ]

2009 Heritage
#40 Ryan Ludwick
#124 Jason Motte
#327 Kyle Lohse
#368 Aaron Miles
#501 Shane Robinson
#507 John Smoltz
#518 Blake Hawksworth
#590 Jarrett Hoffpauir
#652 Tyler Greene

There are quite a few young guys in that bunch, especially Motte and Robinson who are still with the team. The oldest guy is probably Smoltz, who pitched for us late in the year and his whole stint still seems a little surreal to remember. Also, horizontal cards can actually look pretty good when the whole set matches.

2009 Heritage #220 Tony La Russa

...nevermind. At least it's a manager card. But still, this kind of chicanery prevents a set from looking nice in a binder. Maybe if we can get Topps to go all-vertical or all-horizontal by 2015, then 2064 Heritage and beyond won't suffer from this problem. I do like the old Cardinals logo up top, though.

2009 Topps 206 #159 Rick Ankiel

This card only goes with the rest of them in that it's an old-style, current player card, and I figure, that's good enough. Now if we could just get rid of that Ankiel mystery beard...

All-Star Winnings, Part 11

Way back in July 2012, I won a contest at Cards On Cards. The premise was to pick the Cardinals player who would have the biggest impact on the game, determined Sabermetrically. I picked the right player, and got a pile of Cardinals for my trouble. They've been sitting in that same pile, haunting me, for quite some time, so now is the time to show them to you.
Part [ I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X ]

2007 Bowman Chrome - Propects #BC68 Jarrett Hoffpauir
2010 Bowman Draft - Prospects Chrome #BDPP22 Nick Longmire
2011 Bowman Chrome - Prospects #BCP40 Deryk Hooker

Trying to navigate all the sets and subsets of Bowman, especially in 2010-2011 and probably beyond, gives me a headache. Part of the confusion is that my canonical source, Zistle, decides to treat "Bowman Chrome Draft" as a product, not as Chrome inserts in Bowman Draft. The same is also done for some Chrome inserts in Bowman, which are not found in packs of Bowman Chrome. The important thing is, I'm pretty sure I've determined the actual sets for these cards, and filed them appropriately. The Hoffpauir is the Chrome version of a card I got in a group break.

2010 Bowman Draft #BDP18 Jon Jay
2010 Topps Chrome #178 Jon Jay

More Bowman and more Chrome, just not together this time. 2 Jon Jay rookie cards would be a nice prize by themselves.

2007 Tristar Prospects Plus #75 David Kopp

Finally, while we're dealing in prospect cards, here's one who hasn't made the big leagues just yet, but might. David Kopp played at AAA Memphis in 2011, but has been at Detroit's AA team the last two years.