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.

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 Allen and Ginter Set, Part II

As I mentioned in my last post of Allen and Ginter cards, I bought an almost-complete Allen and Ginter set (minus Puig), along with a separate purchase of the 50 Short Prints. Before I file it away with my "sorted" cards, here are the rest of the Cardinals from the set.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#108 Bob Gibson
#115 Stan Musial
#139 Red Schoendienst
#161 Enos Slaughter
#254 Lou Brock
#341 Ozzie Smith

6 Hall of Fame cards is a pretty good number out of a single set that mostly features current players. These players all have numbers retired by the Cardinals.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#125 Matt Holliday
#172 Jon Jay
#276 Lance Lynn
#283 Jason Motte
#340 Yadier Molina
#342 Adam Wainwright

There were also 6 Cardinals pictured in uniform in the set that are still on the team, though Motte hasn't been re-signed yet. Everyone else will be back, though.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#96 Jayson Heyward

Finally, here I have the newest Cardinal, Jason Heyward. I'll be interested to see how his 2015 goes, since it's his contract year, and what that ultimately means for his next contract, whether its with St. Louis or elsewhere. His acquisition puts 2 2014 Gold Glovers in the Cardinals' 2015 lineup, and may be the tipping point to make me decide to attend the Cardinals' Winter Warmup this year, to get an in-person autograph before he even plays his first game here.

2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #3

Here we are on Opening Day (observed) 2014, and I'm still working on 2013. I promised to finish off this jumbo box by the All Star Break...and hopefully Series 2 and Update by the playoffs. On my last pack post, I got a few comments offering a trade if I wind up with any holes in the set, which is awesome. I think they both sensed my slight panic at the lack of set progress from the pack. I'll definitely circle back around and respond with a list once I've finished the box, because I don't intend to buy any more 2013 flagship, if I could even find it.

2013 Topps
#130 Jason Motte
#188 Brian Fuentes
#190 Daniel Descalso

This is my 4th (!) copy of the Motte card. The other 3 have come from Pack 1, a contest win, and an eBay win. Also in the eBay win and contest prize were a copy of the Fuentes and Descalso card. Oh well, more Cardinals to trade.

2013 Topps
#269 St. Louis Cardinals
Chasing History - #CH-9 Mariano Rivera

I try not to buy into the Mystique of the Yankees too much, as one Mr. Curtis Schilling once said, but even hype-adjusted (did I just invent a new Sabermetric coefficient?), Mariano Rivera had a very impressive career.

2013 Topps - 1972 Mini
#TM-6 Trevor Bauer

I kind of want all these minis, but I'll never complete the set unless I go on a buying spree.

2013 Topps
Calling Cards #CC-2 Brandon Phillips
Chasing the Dream #CD-18 Chris Sale
Emerald Green #271 Jeurys Familia

And here are 3 of the most common insert sets to finish off the pack, including White Sox Opening Day starter and winner Chris Sale.

I added 22 cards this time, which is not bad since I started with 111 cards before the first pack. I'm just over halfway there, with 7 packs and 162 cards to go.

Series 1 Completion: 168/330 (50.9%)

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%)

Contest Winnings, Part III

A good friend of mine likes to say - jokingly, I think - that second place is the first loser. When Daniel of It's like having my own Card Shop, opened up a contest to help Pack War reach 100 followers, I joined in, and the Randomizer put me in 6th for 4 prizes. But, since 2 people won the top 4 prizes, he was kind enough to throw some cards to the 5th and 6th position to still have 4 people as winners. Consequently, I got some cool stuff for being the 5th loser.

Part I | II

The end of my prize package posts has the 2011-2013 cards, with players who are mostly still on the team.

2012 Topps Archives
#14 Yadier Molina
#34 Jaime Garcia
#85 Matt Holliday
#114 Jason Motte
#125 David Freese
#197 Allen Craig

Here we have half of the 2012 Archives Cardinals. I almost have to get the other 6 now. Freese is gone to the Angels, but the other 5 are still here.

2012 Topps
Red Parallel #363 Fernando Salas

2013 Topps
Red Parallel #125 Matt Holliday

I really like red parallels, especially for Cardinals cards. Completing the red parallel team sets is on my long list of collecting goals. Also, Salas was another part of the same trade that sent Freese to the Angels, but like any former Cardinal, I still collect his cards.

2013 Gypsy Queen - Mini #322 Jason Motte
2011 Allen and Ginter - Mini #303 Jaime Garcia

Finally, we have 2 minis. Like I said in the last post, I think everyone loves minis. Motte and Garcia are both coming off injuries this year, so I'm hoping they'll strengthen our already very good bullpen, Garica indirectly as a starter.

Thanks to Daniel from It's like having my own Card Shop for all the Cardinals!

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...

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 4

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 ]

2012 Allen and Ginter
#133 Carlos Beltran
#134 David Freese
#202 Jaime Garcia
#311 Bob Gibson

Even though these are 3 of the Cardinals' biggest present-day stars, the best of this bunch of Bob Gibson.

2012 Bowman
#36 Lance Berkman
#132 Jason Motte

Bowman is fairly rare on my blog, but it seems to be showing up more and more these days.

2011 Allen and Ginter - Hometown Heroes
#HH2 Colby Rasmus
#HH15 Matt Holliday
#HH67 Jon Jay
#HH93 Lance Berkman

2011 Allen and Ginter
#240 Matt Holliday
#280 Adam Wainwright

It's rare to get more inserts than base out of someone's duplicates pile. Less rare is the phenomenon where receiving cards makes my want list longer. I've got 4 of the 6 Cardinals in the Hometown Heroes set, so I practically have to add Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter now.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 3

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]

2012 Heritage
#172 Yadier Molina
#226 Skip Schumaker
#336 Jon Jay
#250 Fernando Salas
#375 Daniel Descalso

Jon Jay must not have been at camp the day they posed for Heritage. He definitely stands out in this bunch of 5, with the road cap, and no close-up mugshot.

2012 Gypsy Queen
#41 Yadier Molina
#55 Matt Holliday
#138 Chris Carpenter
#202 Jason Motte
#208 Adron Chambers
#297 Lou Brock

Say, whatever happened to Adron Chambers? He had enough MLB time to get a card in 2012, but he's back in the minors for now. I'm sure we'll see him again in September when the rosters expand.

2012 Opening Day #96 Chris Carpenter

Here's another guy I'm hoping to see in September, or I'll even take just October. The latest rehab news doesn't sound good, though, and it's appearing more and more likely he's done for the year, and done - at least as a Cardinal - for good.

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.

eBay Wins #68

The same seller who had 90 individual auctions for 2013 Topps singles reappeared on eBay a few days later with more. Last time, all the cards were under #100, and this time they were all over, so I bid away and won 47 more at a penny apiece. As much as you'd love for me to put these together like an uncut sheet and scan the whole thing, how about just the Cardinals again?

2013 Topps
#130 Jason Motte
#146 Kyle McClellan
#188 Brian Fuentes
#190 Daniel Descalso

According to rumors on the internets, there are 18 Cardinals in Series 1, including the team card. I now have 9 of them without opening a single pack, thanks to the previous auction and a blogger's giveaway.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2311
Total Spent	$41.96
Per Card	1.816 cents

A Random PWE, Part II

[Part I]

Surprises are always nice, and this one from Jaybarkerfan's Junk was no exception. Here's the other half of what he sent me.

2009 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH14 Yadier Molina

Now that I see this card, I must have all Cardinal All-Stars from 2009 Updates and Highlights. They look pretty good with that All Star Game logo.

2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History #141 Jason Motte

Jason Motte seems to be solidly in our closer role, and 2009's just before I started buying cards again, so this rookie card was a nice addition.

2009 Upper Deck Icons #5 Albert Pujols

2009 Upper Deck Icons #92 Ryan Ludwick

Again, more 2009s to add to my collection, although these two are both gone now. But both provided great memories and plenty of big hits while they were here, Albert more so than Ryan Ludwick of course.

Well that's it. There was only one stamp on the PWE, so you can only fit about 8 cards before getting a big Return to Sender, or even the dreaded Postage Due, not that I'd complain about that on free cards, but someone did that to me on an eBay purchase once. But that's a rant for another day; I just want to say thanks one more time, and of course provide a nice PageRank-boosting link to Jaybarkerfan's Junk. Also, it may not be too late to request your own PWE, so go check out his blog for details.

Number 5 Type Collection's Cardinals Giveaway, Part 4

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
[Part 3]
Matt at Number 5 Type Collection gave me way too many Cardinals in a recent contest. Here's part 4:

1983 Louisville Redbirds Riley's #5 Gene Roof

I've never heard of Gene Roof. Apparently he played a total of 48 games over 3 years with St. Louis and Montreal. I may have to track down more of this set though; it's kind of cool looking and should have some other players I'd know.

2010 Upper Deck #471 Jason Motte

2010 Upper Deck #459 Ryan Ludwick

I wished we'd kept Ludwick at the time, though I suppose a World Series win in 2011 means we did something right along the way.

On to the big guns:

2007 Topps #302 Scott Rolen Gold Glove Award

2007 Topps #39 Jim Edmonds

2008 Topps Opening Day #82 Jim Edmonds

2008 Topps Opening Day #50 Albert Pujols

2007 Fleer Ultra - Swing Kings #SK-AP Albert Pujols

And this was one of the big cards promised in the original post. Of course, Pujols was still a Cardinal at the time. I think on some level his leaving hasn't quite hit me yet, because I haven't seen him play in an Angels uniform (yes, I saw the press conference). For now, I'm still collecting his cards, and still feel that extra thrill of doing well when I pull one. Plus this card's extra shiny and part of one of the flashiest sets ever, Fleer Ultra.

One more post tomorrow.