Zistle Trade #18

It seems like anytime I accept a trade on Zistle, one or two more offers come right away, so here's my second trade post this week. I got the higher volume on this trade, sending just two Mike (pre-Giancarlo) Stanton cards for these 10. Looking at the names in the trade offer, I was expecting to see a bunch of Cardinals, but in 1992, only Jose Oquendo was on the team. The rest became Cardinals later in their careers, except Lance Johnson who started in St. Louis

1992 Donruss
#259 Larry Walker
#267 Lance Johnson
#269 Rick Honeycutt
#277 Delino DeShields
#280 Jose Oquendo
#295 Jeff Brantley

In the background of Jose Oquendo's card, there are clearly two more Cardinals, Andres Galaragga and Ozzie Smith

1992 Donruss
#296 Les Lancaster
#314 Mike Gallego
#325 Mark Whiten
#372 Gregg Jefferies

These are the first cards I've posted of Les Lancaster, Mike Gallego, and Rick Honeycutt, by my reckoning.

It's fun to see a group of cards like this, all with players who were Cardinals, but on lots of different teams. My style of collecting means my "team set" completion takes a bit longer, but the result is more complete, too. I've still got 31 cards on my want list from 1992 Donruss.

eBay Wins #163

Another day, another eBay penny card. Today it's a play who retired as a Cardinal, Larry Walker.

1994 Upper Deck #370 Larry Walker

For some reason, the Cardinals fan base loves when we bring in once-great players in their career twilights. Will Clark, Bobby Bonilla, Lance Berkman (though he eventually played elsewhere), and Larry Walker all received warm welcomes and huge cheers, despite production that wasn't quite at the levels they reached at their career peaks. Since it was a salary dump by Colorado, the biggest player the Cardinals gave up for Walker was Chris Narveson, who would subsequently be traded to Boston, waived, and ultimately reclaimed by St. Louis, where he made his major league debut in 2006, the year after Walker last played.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3265
Total Spent	$51.15
Per Card	1.567 cents
Change	0 cents

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 7

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, 4, 5, 6

I'm finally at the end of the box. It's been quite fun digging through all the cards from different sets.

1979 Topps #666 Rich Dauer
1980 Topps #224 Willie Montanez
1986 Donruss #240 Mike Moore
1989 Donruss All Stars #3 Paul Molitor
1991 Topps #339 Larry Walker
1993 Stadium Club #299 Larry Walker

My collection doesn't include very many cards from before the mid-80s, so those top 3 cards are definitely in the first box (I sort them chronologically). At the bottom, we have Hall of Famer Paul Molitor - his second card in the box - and 2 cards of former Cardinal Larry Walker.

1980 Topps #244 Cardinals Team Checklist

No, this isn't a giant card, I just thought I'd zoom in a bit. I'm assuming this photo was taken in Spring Training, because that stadium overhang doesn't look like anything I know in St. Louis. 1979-1980 wasn't the strongest time in Cardinals history, and in fact the best player on this card is probably Keith Hernandez, possibly after Ken Boyer.

2008 Heritage (High Numbers)
#502 Jamey Wright
#517 Brian Burres
Black Back #549 Jeremy Sower

I don't know how rare the black-back cards are, or what the print run of the high number set is, but the Jeremy Sowers card is both, so presumably rarer than a run of the mill 2008 Heritage card.

2008 Heritage (High Numbers)
#537 Toronto Blue Jays (Checklist)

Unlike the 1980 card above, this checklist isn't only for Toronto Blue Jays. If it was, there'd only be a few cards on it, or Topps would have had to mix regular and high number cards onto the checklist.

1988 Donruss Pack (x2)
1989 Topps Pack
1985 Fleer Stickers Pack
1986 Fleer Stickers Pack
1989 Baseball's Greatest Grossouts Pack

To top the prize off, it even included a few unopened packs. For now I'm going to wait to open these, though this is the 25th anniversary of 1989 Topps, and everyone loves arbitrary milestones. But no, I'll wait. That's gotta be some stale gum by now.

That's it! That's the whole box. A big Thank You again to jaybarkerfan (Jay Barker Fan? I never know the right spacing and capitalization in the blogging world) for the awesome prize.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 15

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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2006 Fleer
#86 Tyler Johnson
#91 Mark Mulder

I didn't own a single card from 2006 Fleer before these two. Now, my want list has had a net gain because I've added all Cardinals from the set.

2006 Fleer Ultra #40 Mark Mulder

I also didn't own any 2006 Fleer Ultra, but that one only added 5 Cardinals to my want list. Now, look at this card, then look at Mulder's Fleer card above. They look suspiciously similar, don't they? I'm pretty sure these were taken from the same game. How can I be so sure? I can't be 100% positive, but here is my evidence:

• Those are the Cardinals Home Sunday caps. They don't mess around and wear them on special days; they're for Home Sundays.
• Mulder had no relief appearances in 2005, narrowing my search to his starts.
• He only started 1 Sunday game at Busch Stadium in 2005, on July 3.

Mulder was actually healthy in 2005, with 32 starts. It looks like he got a few extended breaks between starts down the stretch, but that may have just been because the Cardinals had a sizable lead and won 100 games. But I suppose 32 chances is many fewer than 150-162 a photographer would have to get a shot of a position player, making something like this slightly more palatable.

2006 Upper Deck #808 Gary Bennett

Gary Bennett was a solid, dependable backup to Molina for 2 years, but he wasn't near the character Jason LaRue was.

2005 Opening Day
#32 Chris Carpenter
#65 Woody Williams (x2)
#154 Scott Rolen
#156 Edgar Renteria
#157 Larry Walker

2005 Opening Day #17 Jim Edmonds

The Cardinals seem to pick up a lot of aging stars for their final years, but they seem to work out to be productive years. When Larry Walker came to St. Louis, I enjoyed getting to see a player I had known to be a superstar for a long time, and he did quite well in his final year and a half with us. 2005 Opening Day is another new set for me, despite my fondness for the current Opening Day sets.

A Real Lineage Blaster, Extreme Value Style

I thought I was clever and "beating the system" when I built my own blaster last time, but then I found this Extreme Value Blaster at Target for $11.99. For the same price (give or take a few pennies) as 56 cards in 4 of those packs, I got 8 packs of 7, so 56 cards, plus a relic card. Foiled again by the discount store sales cycle!

2011 Lineage
#40 Stan Musial
#141 Ozzie Smith

First up are 2 Cardinals Hall of Famers.

2011 Lineage
#9 Matt Holliday
#178 Albert Pujols
#189 Jaime Garcia

And 3 present-day Cardinals (as of 2011 at least). I got Pujols and Garcia in my last grouping, but Holliday is new.

2011 Lineage - Platinum Diamond
#19 Larry Walker
#157 Wandy Rodriguez

Here are some more not-really-that-blue Platinum parallels.The blue scan makes the purple Rockies uniform clash horribly; the real card is slightly less offensive. He is still wearing a purple jersey, after all. But it's former Cardinal Larry Walker, so I'm happy.

2011 Lineage
Diamond Anniversary #184 Josh Hamilton

Sometimes I look back at gimmicks like these Diamond Anniversary parallels and think they were dumb, but in this case, I kinda really want to get all 200 of these.

2011 Lineage
Topps Rookies #TR6 Jake McGee

This guy's listed at 6'3", 190lbs. There's no way that's right unless this is a terribly awkward angle.

2011 Lineage
Topps 3D #T3D15 Evan Longoria

Another Tampa Bay Ray, this time in threeeeee-deeeeee.

2011 Lineage
Stand Ups #TS14 Joey Votto

Here's a card that will never live out its destiny, since I can't bring myself to break the perforations.

2011 Lineage
Cloth Stickers #TCS11 Jackie Robinson

And another, unless I can find an excellent, permanent place to put this sticker.

2011 Lineage
Checklist 1 of 4

Boom, finished the Checklists subset! Ok, I know, that's not really a subset. But whatever, I've got all 4 now.

2011 Lineage - 1975 Minis
#145 Adrian Gonzalez
#161 Luis Aparicio

Minis! Neither variety of Sox is the team I primarily root for, but these look good enough I just might want to grab all 200 of this parallel too.

2011 Lineage
1975 Mini Relics #75-NR Nolan Ryan

Finally, we have the money card: the mini relic. Nolan Ryan has to be one of the biggest stars in this set, at least in my mind. He's also one of the first guys I knew as a storied veteran since I started really watching baseball in 1992. I'm really happy with this card. The jersey swatch even has a little character in it, as it appears that it might be where a button was, due to the 4 holes.

Who am I kidding, the guy who wrong that last post was foolish; this relic was well worth getting the blaster.

March Radness Win, Part VII

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]
[Part IV]
[Part V]
[Part VI]

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

I've reached the end of this prize, but this post has the most cards of all. Lucky for you, they're not all scanned. You'll see what I mean at the end.

As I flipped through the 1990 Donruss from the package, I set aside anyone who was a Cardinal. This wasn't based on research, just memory, so I may have missed a few. And I actually had to look up Chris Sabo because I thought I knew he was a Cardinal, but I don't really remember it, if that makes sense. As it turns out, he played 5 games for us after the White Sox released him in 1995, but was again released during September.

1990 Donruss
#41 Andy Benes
#42 Delino Deshields
#210 Dennis Eckersley
#230 Will Clark
#242 Chris Sabo
#349 Tom Henke
#378 Jamie Moyer
#578 Larry Walker
#674  Pedro Guerrero

1990 Donruss
#695 Eric Davis
#697 Mark McGwire
Bonus MVPs #BC-12 John Smoltz
#BC12A John Smoltz (Erorr)

I've bid on this Tom Glavine/John Smoltz error card on eBay a few times, but it always seems to go a bit high because of its perceived value.

So, how many non-Cardinals were there from 1990 Donruss? Oh, about this many:

1990 Donruss, sleeved and ready to be sorted

I haven't gone through them completely yet, but it looks like if this doesn't complete my 1990 Donruss set, it brings me very close. What an awesome prize for a blog contest. Now of course, I realize if my want list consisted of refractor parallels and cards numbered to 25, instead of lots of cards widely considered junk wax, I'd probably have gotten a much lighter envelope, but I love these cards. That's the cool thing about collecting instead of investing in cards; show me a bunch of ugly 1990 Donruss card and I can get as excited as one fancy relic "from no particular event". To sum up, thanks again to madding, and go follow Cards on Cards.

Number 5 Type Collection's Cardinals Giveaway, Part 2

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

1986 Fleer Box Bottoms #C-5

I bet this set would be pretty hard to complete, even though there are only 8 cards total.

1985 Topps Collectors' Series #5 Lou Brock

Lou Brock, good guy.

2005 Fleer Tradition #293 Larry Walker

The cardinals like to pick up aging stars, but it always seems to work out OK. Will Clark, Larry Walker, and hopefully now Carlos Beltran.

2008 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Baseball Icons #BI11 Johnny Mize

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH246 Kelvin Jimenez

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH243 Joe Mather

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH164 Jason LaRue

My favorite Jason LaRue quote went something like this, regarding a Yadier Molina injury. "I ain't no doctor or nothin', but that looked like it hurt".

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH273 Chris Perez

I really wish we'd held on to this guy, he was showing great potential, and we gave him up for Mark DeRosa.

Once again, more to see tomorrow