Zistle Trade #30

Today's Zistle trade was just a small handful of cards that filled some random needs in my collection. In return, I sent a few Reds, all from 2011.

1989 Topps #224 Tony La Russa
1991 Topps #58 Mel Stottlemyre Jr.
1991 Topps #171 Tony La Russa
2012 Topps Archives #24 Lance Berkman
2012 Topps Update #US44 Jeremy Hermida
2012 Topps Update #US68 Fernando Rodney

Tony La Russa was my favorite non-Cardinals manager as a kid, so I was thrilled when he came to St. Louis. Even when a lot of the local fans turned on him, I was a supporter. Of course, winning 2 World Series helped get him back on everyone's good side, and he left his managerial career on top.

A Repack Hit From 2010 Topps

I spoiled the end a bit in the title, but let's see a 2010 Topps Series 2 pack I pulled from my pack stash, originally from a repack box.

2010 Topps
#361 Washington Nationals
#372 Phillies Franchise History
#545 Fred Lewis
#558 Ronny Paulino
#652 Chipper Jones

I don't hate horizontal cards. I just don't like how they mess with my scanning groups. Also, even though it's been a few years, it's still weird to think that Chipper Jones is retired.

2010 Topps
#345 Chris Volstad
#355 James Russell
#386 Dan Haren
#413 J.J. Hardy
#424 David Herndon
#440 Willie Harris
#450 Omir Santos
#479 Chris Carpenter

Chris Carpenter represents the lone uniformed Cardinal from the pack, but I also got a Dan Haren, whose cards haunt me and remind me we traded him away for 55 games of Mark Mulder.

2010 Topps
#514 Rafael Soriano
#515 Mariners Franchise History
#520 Randy Wells
#523 Phil Coke
#525 David Huff
#532 Hunter Pence
#561 Ryan Zimmerman
#571 Brandon Lyon

Those Franchise History cards would look good in a binder, if they were all consistently vertical or horizontal.

2010 Topps
#592 Brian Roberts
#595 Mike Lowell
#610 Alex Gordon
#614 Kelly Johnson
#632 Daric Barton
#650 Dustin Pedroia
#654 Collin Balester
#657 Chris Young
#659 Nick Blackburn

Call me an anarchist if you want, but I really hope Alex Gordon and 6 or 7 more Royals start in the All-Star game. Frankly I hope they get all 9 fan-voted slots, and Ned Yost brings in a Royals pitcher before he replaces the first position player.

2010 Topps
Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT66 Warren Spahn
History of the World Series #HWS18 Paul Molitor
Topps Attax #JM Justin Morneau
Turkey Red #TR97 Chase Headley
Peak Performance #PP-52 Lance Berkman
Peak Performance Autos #PPA-DS Daniel Stange

I got another Cardinal with Lance Berkman, but the big hit is the last card, of Daniel Stange. Now he's certainly no superstar, but I'm always happy to add another autograph to my collection. Just because I have his card, I looked up his stats, and it appears he's now out of baseball, last playing in the 2014 Venezuelan Winter league. Still, I'm surprised to get this out of a repack, and glad to see that not every rack pack is apparently searched.

A Pack Stash Kind of Day

Every now and then I'll buy a box with some old packs, or get a bonus with an online order. Often those will just go into a big pile of "I'll open those when I feel like it". I believe this rack pack of 2010 Topps Series 2 is the former, from a box of 10 packs, though I can't really be sure once something's in the pile.

As I usually do, let's start with some base cards and move on to the inserts.

2010 Topps
#349 Felix Pie
#356 Angels Franchise History
#376 Esmil Rogers
#385 Torii Hunter
#398 Carlos Gonzalez
#405 Dustin McGowan
#416 Ruben Tejada
#431 John Raynor

Is that a cardboard cutout of Esmil Rogers standing in the bullpen? The photo makes him look very flat.

2010 Topps
#435 Nelson Cruz
#445 Miguel Olivo
#475 Johnny Damon
#491 Rafael Furcal
#501 Jake Peavy
#513 Scott Sizemore
#516 Marlon Byrd
#531 Matt Cain

The first Cardinal appears, Rafael Furcal. So far it doesn't appear anyone has picked up the 37-year-old shortstop for 2015 yet.

2010 Topps
#560 Ryan Rowland-Smith
#562 Carlos Quentin
#573 Johan Santana
#591 Fernando Rodney
#597 J.R. Towles
#615 Justin Verlander
#622 Indians Franchise History
#624 Carlos Beltran

Another Cardinal showed up, Carlos Beltran. Like Furcal, he is also 37, but he'll be playing for the Yankees this year, at least until/unless they decide to dump some salary.

2010 Topps
#655 Ryan Madson
Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT85 Eddie Murray
Copper Parallel #590 Ryan Howard #140/399
Peak Performance #PP-61 Hunter Pence
Topps Attax - Lance Berkman
Turkey Red #TR96 Magglio Ordonez

This Lance Berkman Attax code card is just a little expired, but feel free to try to use that code. It wasn't until the second time I flipped through these cards that I noticed that Ryan Howard card wasn't the #/2010 Gold Parallel, but a #/399 Copper Parallel. I might need some better lighting around my desk. I'm also a big fan of the Turkey Red insert set, and this Magglio Ordonez gives me one more card toward completing that.

2010 Topps
#400 Alex Rodriguez
#410 Oakland Athletics
#411 Jack Wilson
#642 Padres Franchise History
#656 Jon Lester
Million Card Giveaway #TMC-20 Carl Yastrzemski

For ease of scanning, here are all the horizontal cards in one shot. I'll bet A-Rod doesn't get one of Topps' "star numbers" like 400 this year, but maybe a good 2015 will earn one for him in 2016. At the end there's yet another expired code card, this time from the Million Card Giveaway, which was lots of fun in 2010. I did a decent job of trading in that promotion, turning large numbers of more common cards into vintage cards and Cardinals I collect.

2013 Topps Series 2 Jumbo Pack #8

Here's where I'd make a terrible Crazy 8s pun if I could think of one.

2013 Topps
#480 Lance Berkman
#603 Chris Perez
#631 Chris Carpenter
Chasing History #CH-63 Jordan Zimmerman
Gold Parallel #334 Derek Norris #0272/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-1 Yoenis Cespedes

This pack yielded 3 Cardinals, 2 of them who moved on, and one who is now retired. I've long lamented the Chris Perez trade that brought us Mark DeRosa (and we even threw in a player to be named later!), though his recent slide has lessened that sting a little bit.

2013 Topps
Chase It Down #CD-12 Carlos Gonzalez
Emerald Parallel #332 Cole Hamels
1972 Topps Mini #TM-77 Fred Lynn

Can we petition Boston to bring back the red batting helmets?

2013 Topps
Chasing History Autographs #CHA-BH Brock Holt

Speaking of Boston, here's a nice shiny Brock Holt autograph. It's not the flashiest name on the checklist, but I feel like I've seen his name in the sports reports a bit more this year. That could be the alleged New York/Boston bias, or maybe he's really that impressive. One thing is for certain, though: he writes his capital B funny.

Since the big insert of the pack was the regular-thickness autograph, there were the standard 42 base cards in the pack. Of those, 38 were new, pushing me even closer to completing the set. I now need just 45 new base cards in the final 2 packs.

Series 2 Completion: 285/330 (86.4%)

Superbowl Winnings, Part 1

Remember that awful, lopsided game back in February? It won a contest for me at Collector's Crack, properly know as Almost the Easiest Superbowl Contest on the Web IV. Going into the game, I knew I had a decent chance of winning since I had chosen Seattle to win and Denver as their opponent, which no one else did. However, even if it had come to the 2nd and 3rd tiebreaker, I'd have done alright. I forecasted 50 total points in the game - which wound up 43-8 if you don't remember - missing the total by just 1. Or, as I prefer to think of it, I predicted everything except the fact that Denver would go for 2 on their TD when down by 30. I also went with 4 turnovers as the final tiebreaker, and hit that dead on.

It sounds a little like I'm bragging, so to be completely clear, I did use my projections to pick the the teams, but the points and turnovers were pretty much just guesses, and I got lucky. Better lucky than good, some say.

Let's see the prizes!

1998 Finest - Refractors
#127 John Mabry

Look at that shimmering Refractor, still protected - and blurred - by Topps Finest protective coating. I've said it before, one day I'm going on a peeling rampage, and freeing most of my Topps Finest cards for the first time.

2004 Donruss Classics
National Trading Card Day
#DP-1 Albert Pujols

Here's the second card in a row I thought was a base card at first, but turned out to be a parallel. The Donruss Classics set included a parallel with the National Trading Card Day logo.

2011 Topps Chrome
#32 Yadier Molina
#141 Lance Berkman
#150 Albert Pujols

Shiny shiny Chrome. I'm surprised I didn't have any Cardinals from the set yet. I'll be adding the others to my want list now.

2008 Allen & Ginter - Mini A&G Backs
#44 Adam Wainwright
#88 Troy Glaus
2010 Allen & Ginter - Mini Black Border
#51 Matt Holliday

And I'll close it with some Allen and Ginter minis. That's a lot of white space on the horizontal Adam Wainwright card. He's in a very vertical pose for a horizontal card, so I kind of wonder why Topps did that. Also, both of the 2008s are Allen and Ginter backs.


I'd keep going, but I like to tag my posts with all the sets and Cardinal players pictured, and I'm at the limit. There's more good stuff left for tomorrow, though.

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 4

Sometimes when I win a contest, I set the prize aside until I have time to fully rummage through all of it. In this case I won a contest back in late September, and I think the "Small Flat Rate Box" arrived by early October. I opened it immediately, but it's been sitting on my desk, too daunting of task to sort, since then. I finally felt the need to dive into it, and give jaybarkerfan his proper thank you post.

Part 1, 2, 3

First up today is pile of 2010 Allen & Ginter.

2010 Allen & Ginter
#70 Joey Votto
#72 Erick Aybar
#77 Ricky Romero
#82 Justin Upton
#84 Elvis Andrus
#87 Alexei Ramirez
#90 Kevin Kouzmanoff
#182 Chris Carpenter
#183 Tommy Manzella

2010 Allen & Ginter
#185 X-Rays
#187 Jair Jurrjens
#191 Justin Morneau
#197 Johnny Damon (x2)
#198 A.J. Pierzynski
#200 Lance Berkman
#204 Russell Martin
#219 Adam Wainwright

2010 Allen & Ginter
#188 Jason Bartlett
#189 Howie Kendrick

I used to lament small sets that only had the star players, vs the 800ish-card sets of early 90s Topps. But it sure is nice to get a pile of "random junk" cards and have them all be recognizable stars.

2011 Allen & Ginter #40 John McEnroe
2013 Allen & Ginter - Martial Mastery #MM-AP Apache

There were also 2 Allen & Ginter singles from other years, but neither one featuring baseball players. I wonder if Jimmy Connors will ever make it to an A&G card.

1996 Fleer Update
#U61 Dwight Gooden
#U78 Russ Davis
#U146 Israel Alcantara
#U154 Juan Acevedo
#U161 Kevin Roberson
#U190 Aaron Holbert

I didn't recognize the guy in the Cardinals uniform, Aaron Holbert, and looking him up online, that's no surprise. Aaron Holbert played 1 game for us in 1996, then 22 games in 2005 for the Reds. The back of his card says he was set to be our SS of the future after Ozzie Smith retired, but then he got hurt in 1994 and 1995. The look on his face on the card makes me thing we might have caught the very moment of the aforementioned injury.

#16 Stand Up Double (Checklist)
#38 Tim Hudson

2007 Turkey Red
#122 Roy Oswalt
#154 Travis Buck

Finally - for today - here are some Turkey Reds from 2007, which is one of my favorite sets I missed from the years I wasn't collecting (2000-2010). That still hasn't convinced me to buy the super-expensive online exclusive versions of the last few years though. As for 2007, I now have 39 of the approximately 199 cards in the set including short prints, thanks mostly to a group break last year. Perhaps it's time to add the rest to my want list.


We're nowhere near finished with this box...

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 2

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 I]

2013 Topps
#190 Daniel Descalso
#193 Matt Carpenter
#315 Rafael Furcal
#321 Allen Craig

2013 Topps
#4 Yadier Molina
#269 St. Louis Cardinals
Emerald Green #207 Matt Holliday
Chasing History #CH-16 Lance Berkman

I feel torn when I see all the cards Topps gives to the Cardinals when they're winning. On one hand, it's nice that there are 9 pitcher cards (or maybe more) picturing players I collect among the 330 cards of Series 1, and at least 6 batters seen here, and a team card. On the other hand, I know teams like the Astros and Marlins get shortchanged, and that MLB can turn around quickly. St. Louis could be the team with almost no base cards and no inserts by 2015.

2013 Topps Heritage
#40 Carlos Beltran
#406 Jaime Garcia

These are my first two 2013 Heritage cards. Together these two have far-off stares like roommates who don't get along in a bad sitcom. Come to think of is, Carlos and Jaime would probably make for an entertaining pair in a sitcom. The grizzled old (in baseball terms) veteran rooming with the young hotshot; each one learns from the other at the end of each 30 minute episode. It'll be great!

2012 Topps Chrome #91 Allen Craig

2012 Topps Chrome #119 Jaime Garcia

Oh, Topps Chrome. Why do you look so good on the table and so bad in scans? That throwback uniform on Jaime looks great when I hold the card in my hand.

2012 Topps Archives
#85 Matt Holliday
#197 Allen Craig

I never jumped into 2012 Archives like many bloggers seemed to. When I pulled the Holliday card out of the pack I immediately became confused and disoriented. A 2007 Matt Holliday? We haven't had him that long have we? No wait, that's not the 2007 design, that's...1971? Where am I? Then I remembered Archives existed, and the copyright date on the back brought me back to my happy place. I do think there may be much confusion in coming years, with sets masquerading as earlier years tripping me up, because I won't remember exactly which years some of our role players and short-term players played for us.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #3

I've ripped open another bonus pack from my free bonus stack of packs from Dave and Adam's Card World.

2010 Upper Deck
#460 Colby Rasmus
Season Biography #SB-99 Lance Berkman

Another Berkman! Last time it was the base card. I already had two of the Rasmus cards, from a prize and a trade.

2010 Upper Deck Celebrity Predictors
#CP-11 Anna Kournikova
#CP-12 Enrique Iglesias

Upper Deck took this whole unlicensed thing to the next level, and drew some caricatures of celebrity couples, along with not-so-vague descriptions on the back. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between baseball card collectors and celebrity-romance obsessors, but for the record, the predictor didn't really get resolved, as they've neither broke up nor gotten married, to this day.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #1

I recently made a purchase from Dave and Adam's Card World, and spent enough for a free bonus. I chose 8 packs of 2010 Upper Deck Series 1.

2010 Upper Deck
#93 J.D. Drew
#229 Lance Berkman
Supreme Green #S-87 Shane Victorino
Season Biography #SB-59 Freddy Sanchez

The first pack had 2 Cardinals in it, though in different uniforms. Lance Berkman was such a good clubhouse presence, I can forgive the former division-rival Houston Astros uniform.

2012 Opening Day Rack Pack #11

11 packs at 24 cards each is 264 cards. Each one had 3 inserts, so that's 231 base cards and 33 inserts. That's enough for a full set in theory, of course I've got more than 11 duplicates, so I'll need to update my wantlist soon.

2012 Opening Day #128 Lance Berkman

I pulled yet another Berkman, which now means I've got 3 if anyone needs one.

2012 Opening Day - Opening Day Stars #ODS-4 Adrian Gonzalez

This card doesn't pop quite like the others, except for Mr. Gonzalez's knee. Nothing more exciting than a knee, am I right?

2012 Opening Day - Elite Skills #ES-5 James Shields

I've heard the old fake-to-third, throw-to-first, do-the-hokey-pokey move will be disallowed this year. My guess is that it has no discernible impact on stolen bases.

2012 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-11 Jacoby Ellsbury

It's funny how many of these cards mention the futility of the players on the back. Apparently Ellsbury was 0 for 4 on the day until this play.

Here's my final (maybe, who knows) set of base cards.
10 Jose Valverde
12 Jason Heyward
14 Buster Posey
24 Brandon Morrow
32 Anibal Sanchez
47 Nick Swisher
50 Ichiro
53 Alex Rodriguez
75 Justin Upton
79 Hanley Ramirez
89 Drew Pomeranz
106 Josh Johnson
128 Lance Berkman
136 Justin Morneau
150 Jose Bautista
158 Mark Trumbo
189 Mariano Rivera
201 Jose Reyes
214 Alex Avila
217 Ryan Zimmerman
219 Brandon Phillips

Speaking of duplicates, there were 15 between this pack and pack #9, including the Berkman above. Given that these are cut from identical sheets and packed by machine, I'm sure packs are not truly random collections of cards. My guess is that maybe stacks of 3 always come together, and I happened to land 5 of the same stacks, as the Berkman packs all 3 also contained Ichiro and Nick Swisher. That could be total bunk, though, and these packs just randomly lined up closely.

2012 Opening Day Rack Pack #9

It's time to open another pack of this product that is apparently designed for kids. But it's simple, it's cheap-ish, it's a small set, and I dig it.

2012 Opening Day #128 Lance Berkman

Here's another Berkman, which I also got in the last pack. I'm glad they pictured the ball in his glove instead of a split second earlier, otherwise his panicked face would make him look like he's going to miss the play. I'm pretty sure he's got this one.

2012 Opening Day - Mascots #M-12 Paws

I didn't know the Tigers had a mascot, nor that they reused a Tony the Tiger costume for it.

2012 Opening Day - Opening Day Edition #127 J.P. Arencibia #1280/2012

I like the solid gray look J.P.'s created with his gray catching gear. Although blue might have looked better with this card's blue border.

2012 Opening Day - Fantasy Squad #FS-17 Billy Butler

I guess there's some sort of All-Star Game every-team-gets-a-player rule for the Fantasy Squad set. Billy Butler's a good guy, but I don't think he'd be picked near the top of any fantasy drafts.

All these base cards are belong to me:
6 Bud Norris
7 Mickey Mantle
10 Jose Valverde
12 Jason Heyward
23 Troy Tulowitzki
32 Anibal Sanchez
47 Nick Swisher
50 Ichiro
74 Cameron Maybin
75 Justin Upton
79 Hanley Ramirez
89 Drew Pomeranz
106 Josh Johnson
126 Danny Valencia
128 Lance Berkman
158 Mark Trumbo
189 Mariano Rivera
201 Jose Reyes
214 Alex Avila
218 Clay Buchholz
219 Brandon Phillips

2012 Opening Day Rack Pack #8

Yet another Opening Day rack pack. How many could there be? I'll give you a hint: at least enough to try to build the 220 card base set through 1 for 1 trading.

2012 Opening Day #78 Matt Holliday

I liked these late 80s/early 90s throwbacks, so this is a great card. Plus it has both Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman.

2012 Opening Day #128 Lance Berkman

Speaking of Berkman, here's his base card. That's a World Series patch on his hat, for anyone who likes playing Name the Game.

2012 Opening Day #200 Albert Pujols

And here's another 2011 World Series winner, although airbrushed into his new duds for 2012.

2012 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-10 J.J. Putz

Funny story, I'm related to a guy named J.J., who is also kind of a putz.

2012 Opening Day - Opening Day Stars #ODS-2 Albert Pujols

Another Albert, in the same post-swing pose.

2012 Opening Day - Elite Skills #ES-3 Prince Fielder

If we had to lose Albert, I"m sure glad Prince Fielder left the NL Central division as well.

I already showed you a quarter of the 24-card pack, but here are the base cards anyway.
1 Ryan Braun
14 Buster Posey
38 Brett Myers
47 Nick Swisher
50 Ichiro
53 Alex Rodriguez
57 Adam Lind
78 Matt Holliday
100 Matt Kemp
118 Miguel Montero
128 Lance Berkman
163 Heath Bell
166 Peter Bourjos
175 Jason Bay
185 Jeff Niemann
186 Martin Prado
190 Stephen Strasburg
199 Felix Hernandez
200 Albert Pujols
204 Cory Luebke
205 Chad Billingsley