Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXVIII

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 XVII XVIII XIX XX
XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII

I'm averaging fewer and fewer cards per post as I'm getting down to a lot of cards that represent the only card of a given player AND a given set. At least I had a handful of Chris Duncans and 2006 Fleer cards.

2005 Topps Opening Day #47 Jason Marquis
2005 Topps Update #UH269 Stu Pomeranz
2006 Fleer #85 Jason Isringhausen
2006 Fleer #86 Tyler Johnson
2006 Fleer #89 Chris Duncan (x2)
2006 Fleer #321 Aaron Miles
2006 Topps 52 #233 Chris Duncan
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #89 Chris Duncan

Stu Pomeranz never actually played for the Cardinals, and only pitched 6 innings over 3 total games in 2012, which appears to be his last professional baseball. I totally forgot Aaron Miles went to the Cubs for a year and came back. He was a handy blowout pitcher, taking the mound 5 different times for 5 total innings, and only allowing 2 runs total.

2012 Heritage Blaster #4, Almost 3 Years Later.

I bought several of these boxes from Dave and Adam's quite awhile ago, sometime after 2013 came out I'm sure. Since the last one I posted was #3 in late 2012, I guess this is #4. I'm not very good at maintaining a FIFO method of opening and posting my cards, so these were just the next most interesting ones in my box of unopened stuff. The others ones will probably be next.

2012 Topps Heritage
#22 Edwin Jackson
#172 Yadier Molina
#206 Lance Lynn
#244 Jason Motte
#265 2012 Rookie Stars
#281 Jason Marquis
#306 Star Receivers
#321 2012 Rookie Stars
#357 Allen Craig

I'm not sure why Adron Chambers showed up on multiplo different Rookie Stars cards, but I got two of them. He's on a third version I got in that third blaster. Both cards featuring Yadier Molina came in a pack together, which is nothing more than a statistical oddity, but it was with a Cardinal, so I noticed.

#390 Jason Heyward
#429 Jonny Venters
#434 Shane Victorino
Baseball Flashbacks #BF-AK Al Kaline
Blue Parallel #84 Doug Fister
New Age Performers #NAP-RC Robinson Cano
News Flashbacks #NF-UA University of Alabama
Checklist #C2
Stick-Ons #27 Ryan Howard

I got so many Cardinals they spilled into the Inserts scan, since we picked up Jason Heyward this year. That blue Doug Fister is my second copy, and those are the only two blues I have. Again, statistical anomalies are weird when they happen to you. Something about the more common insert sets in Heritage make me want to complete them all, and I'm not sure what it is. Let's see my current status:

Base: 212/425
Base SPs: 12/75
Baseball Flashbacks: 3/10
Blue Parallel: 1/30
Checklists: 3/5
Chrome Parallels: 3/100
New Age Performers: 2/16
News Flashbacks 3/15
Stick-ons: 4/46
Then and Now: 1/10

2013 Topps Series 2 Jumbo Pack #7

Onward to Pack 7!

2013 Topps
#378 Joe Kelly
#562 Jason Marquis
Gold Parallel #348 Jonny Gomes #0936/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-24 Manny Machado
World Baseball Classic #WBC-9 Carlos Beltran
1972 Topps Mini #TM-86 George Brett

I'm back in the red - which is a good thing in this terrible-pun case - with this pack containing 3 current and former Cardinals. The George Brett mini isn't too shabby either. And the Making Their Mark with Manny Machado makes me want to write an M-based tongue twister, but I'm no writer, as any of my readers can attest.

2013 Topps
Emerald Parallel #456 Pablo Sandoval
Cut to the Chase #CTC-27 Ralph Kiner

All but one of the Emerald Parallels in this box have been horizontal cards. There's your useless fact of the day.

This box once again had the full complement of 42 base cards, and 38 of them were new. I'm hoping my 2 Auto's and 1 Relic are contained in packs 8, 9, and 10, because I haven't seen any in this box yet.

Series 2 Completion: 247/330 (74.8%)

2013 Topps Series 2 Jumbo Pack #4

So far, I'm still resisting the urge to just open every pack at once. Here's the 4th pack of 10 in my Jumbo box.

2013 Topps
#562 Jason Marquis
Emerald Parallel #405 Hector Sanchez
Gold Parallel #473 Josh Johnson #1928/2013

I'm not a big fan of camo uniforms, but I'm glad to get another former Cardinal in Jason Marquis.

2013 Topps
Making Their Mark #MM-14 Lance Lynn
Rookie of the Year Tropy #ROY-JB Johnny Bench

I also got a current Cardinal, Lance Lynn. And this Rookie of the Year trophy card is going to cause me to have to buy a pack of extra-thick toploaders. That's a nice looking picture of Johnny Bench, though.

2013 Topps
Chasing History #CH-73 Robinson Cano
1972 Topps Mini #TM-58 James Shields

Finally here are two more of the standard inserts. I still really like those minis.

Due to the thick Johnny bench card, this pack only had 36 base cards. I also saw the first duplicates in the box, with only 18 of the 36 adding to my set. Still, I'm on pace to finish the set by pack #10, which is all I'm hoping for. All the inserts are just gravy.

Series 2 Completion: 139/330 (42.1%)

My Second 2012 Update Hanger Pack

Sometime a good pack can be determined objectively, with a big autograph, relic, rookie, or some combination of the 3. This is not one of those packs, but it is subjectively good for me.

2012 Topps Update
#US273 Yadier Molina
#US301 Carlos Beltran

2012 Topps Update #US131 Mitchell Boggs

The box had 3 current Cardinals, and if I'm going to get a duplicate, Yadi's a pretty good one to get.

2012 Topps Update
#US25 Joe Mather
#US60 Edwin Jackson
#US247 Ryan Ludwick
#US254 Jason Marquis

There were also 4 former Cardinals. In all, nearly 10% of the pack played for St. Louis at one time.

2012 Topps Update - Gold Border
#475 Chris Dickerson #1750/2012
#521 Ruben Tejada #0999/2012
#US80 Jered Weaver #1277/2012

I'm starting to like these Gold Border parallels. I fear I may be close to adding a 984-card section to my wantlist.

2012 Topps Update - Target Red Border
#US67 Jamey Carroll
#US214 Jeremy Affeldt

The red borders would grow on me too if not for orange teams like the Giants. Not that I find them repulsive, they're just not as awesome as they could be.

2012 Topps Update
Gold Sparkle #US177 Mike Napoli
Blockbusters #BB-14 Yu Darvish

Here I have 2 Rangers, although one has since changed teams, appropriately enough for an Update set post. And the Darvish deal was definitely a Blockbuster, no matter how his stats turn out.

2012 Topps Update
Golden Moments - #GM-U30 Cal Ripken, Jr.
1987 Topps Minis #TM-126 Jackie Robinson

Finally, we have 2 Hall-of-Famers. A good friend of mine since Kindergarten moved to the Baltimore area for awhile, then moved back, and so has a secondary allegiance to the Orioles. Consequently, I give him trouble relentlessly about Cal Ripken, Jr. being inferior to Ozzie Smith as a shortstop, being an old man (since he was gray rather early), and setting the MLB record for perfect attendance. It's all in good fun, of course, and I'm happy to have this card. The Robinson mini is pretty nice too, with his MLB career stats on the back. Obviously the Brooklyn Dodgers and 1987 don't exactly go together, but the retro border and retro shot just meld together nicely on this card.

Big Pile, part 3

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
Josh at Royals and Randoms had a draft-style contest called Big Pile way back in late 2011, and I misplaced the envelope until this week.

1997 PowerDeck #11 Scott Rolen

I remember when these came out in 1997, thinking they'd be really cool, then seeing a rather high price and never buying any. It probably didn't help that I was 14 with no job.

1997 Upper Deck - Star Attractions #SA10 Kenny Lofton

How could I resist a shiny, diecut card like this?

1990 Fleer #461 Barry Bonds

Junk wax but a star player. It seems like these are a little hard to find, so I went ahead and picked this card.

1996 Fleer Ultra #533 Jason Kendall

I had Jason Kendall on a lot of fantasy baseball teams in the early 2000s, which caused me to follow his career a little closer than I might have otherwise for another team's catcher.

2006 Bowman Chrome - Prospects #BC109 Leonard Davis

Oooh shiny.

1997 Bowman #401 Jason Marquis

Former Cardinal Jason Marquis.

1993 Studio #42 Mark Grace

A Cub?! No matter the team, I appreciate a player who plays the game right and has fun doing it. For example, during a pitching appearance in a blowout during his time in Arizona, he imitated Mike Fetters' idiosyncrasies.