A Season Starting PWE, Part II

Way back in March, Stealing Home sent out some PWEs to celebrate the start of the season. I saw a few others post theirs at the time, but I'm just now getting to mine.

Part I

This isn't one of my giant 40-part series posts, since, after all, it was just a PWE. Today I have the vertical cards, just because that's a nice way to split up the scan.

2014 Topps #157 Matt Adams
2015 Topps #261 Lance Lynn
2015 Topps #286 Trevor Rosenthal
2016 Topps #46 Jhonny Peralta
2016 Topps #106 Jordan Walden
2016 Topps Chrome #132 Stephen Piscotty
2016 Gypsy Queen #215 Matt Adams
2017 Topps #99 Michael Wacha

The danger of waiting too long to post some cards of current players is that if your team hits a swoon, they might not all be there anymore. Matt Adams went to Atlanta when Freddie Freeman got hurt, and Jhonny Peralta was just released. Jordan Walden has been a free agent since November, so he wasn't lost specifically during this season. That shiny chrome Piscotty saves the post, though.

A Season Starting PWE, Part I

Way back in March, Stealing Home sent out some PWEs to celebrate the start of the season. I saw a few others post theirs at the time, but I'm just now getting to mine.

As usual, I like to tag every Cardinal player and card set, and I just barely ran out of space, so even this PWE is getting split into 2 posts. So, today, let's see the horizontal cards.

2015 Topps #60 Michael Wacha
2016 Stadium Club #37 Yadier Molina
2017 Topps #234 Luke Weaver

I really need to get more of that Stadium Club set. I like it, even if it does look a lot like some mid 90s Fleer sets. The cards flanking that one are an interesting pair, as there's currently talk of demoting Wacha and/or bringing up Weaver to try to save this season.

More Contest Thanks

This time I'm showing some cards I won from All Cardinals All the Time, a blog that obviously caters to my interests. The contest to celebrate 2 years was a simple game guessing the serial number of one of two Alex Reyes cards, and I won with lucky #13.

2014 Bowman Draft - Top Prospects #TP-62 Kris Bryant
2014 Bowman - Chrome Prospects #BCP47 Alex Reyes - Autographed
2015 Topps Tier One - Dual Swatch Relics #DSR-VG Vladimir Guerrero

The first part of the prize were these Bryant and Vlad cards. The autographed Reyes was a nice throw-in, if you can call an autograph of a team's #1 prospect a throw-in. We'll have to wait another year to see if he lives up to his hype, since he just completed Tommy John surgery after feeling some arm problems in the first days of spring training.


The rest of the prize was a Jumbo pack of 2017 Topps. Since I'm not terribly proactive when it comes to baseball cards, these are my first 2017s.

2017 Topps
#99 Michael Wacha
#302 David Freese
First Pitch #FP-21 Jon Lovitz
Gold Parallel #159 Justin Verlander #1690/2017
MLB Awards #MOY-2 Dave Roberts
Silver Slugger #SS-11 Mike Trout
Topps Salute #S-47 Trevor Story
Rediscover Topps Promo Mark McGwire

With 6 inserts and 30 base cards, one in-uniform and one former Cardinal seems like a pretty fair rate. Even though it pictures him in a Cubs jersey, I really like the Jon Lovitz first pitch card.
At first I thought that McGwire card was one of the 1987 style inserts, then I thought it was just kind of a throwaway advertising card after seeing the back, but upon looking at the checklist, it appears this is an actual insert set called Rediscover Topps.

Pull Tab Awareness Week Win Part 2

Here's the rest of my win for Pull Tab Awareness Week, 2016.
Part 1

2014 Panini Donruss #339 Michael Wacha
2014 Bowman Platinum - Prospects #BPP78 Stephen Piscotty
2015 Topps #522 Sam Tuivailala
2015 Topps Allen & Ginter #47 Lance Lynn
2016 Baseball Card Breakdown - Jose Canseco (91 Donruss)
2016 Baseball Card Breakdown - Aledmys Diaz (75 Hostess)

The 2014 Donruss and Bowman Platinum cards are from sets I never bought, so those are great additions to my collection, but I think my favorite card in this bunch is the Jose Canseco. I remember watching Homer at the Bat as a kid. It actually first aired just a bit before I started watching baseball, so maybe my fond memories are all from reruns. Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire were my favorite non-Cardinals at that time, so I was happy to see Jose in the episode, along with Ozzie Smith. These aren't officially licensed cards, but customs made by defgav himself. The back mimics the 1991 Donruss set as well, but makes clear these are from the 2016 Baseball Card Breakdown set. The Aledmys Diaz card is also a custom, styled after the Hostess cards from 1975. It's so well done I actually didn't realize it was a custom and tried to find it in Zistle by its card number, before noticing it also carried the Baseball Card Breakdown name.

A belated thanks to Baseball Card Breakdown for the contest, and the excellent customs.

July Card Show Purchases

In addition to my autographs, I did make one purchase at the card show; a full set of 2015 Gypsy Queen, without the SPs.  I have so many sets I haven't quite completed, that this one felt like a good idea when I saw it. I might still buy a few packs for a smattering of insert, and put the extra base cards in my trade list.

I decided to pull out all the Cardinals and players I collect to show, and as it turns out there were 24 of them, so I split them into two posts so I can tag them all. I tried a few different ways to sort them into two equal groups of 12, and couldn't quite get there, so I just sorted them numerically. Here's the second half first.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#141 Nomar Garciaparra
#184 Michael Wacha
#197 Matt Adams
#228 Jhonny Peralta
#238 Carlos Beltran
#263 Mark Buehrle

I went with the second half of the cards first because today is Nomar's Birthday. He's 42 today, and I'm glad to see him showing up in current products. In addition to the 4 Cardinals, there's also my hometown compatriot Mark Buehrle.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#265 Jason Heyward
#271 Lance Lynn
#273 Allen Craig
#274 Dan Haren
#284 Trevor Rosenthal
#299 Kolten Wong

Some local sportswriters have talked about the possibility of Dan Haren making his way back to the team by the trade deadline, although I don't know how likely that really is. All told from this half I got 7 uniformed and 3 former Cardinals.

Turkey For Me, Turkey For You II: Electric Boogaloo

There are no turkeys today, but these came in the package with the Turkey Red cards, so I'm completely justified in ripping off the greatest sequel subtitle of all time.

Part I

1994 Stadium Club #63 Brian Jordan
1997 Donruss #67 Ray Lankford
2001 SP Authentic #53 Rick Ankiel

I still sometimes think I must have dreamed the game where Ankiel threw 5 wild pitches - and another that would have been called, but the catcher saved it - in an inning, but then I go look it up on YouTube, and sure enough, it happened. Then he came back and hit home runs for a while. What an odd career path for a modern player.

1996 Topps #431 Jaime Bluma, David Coggin, Steve Montgomery, Brandon Reed
2013 Topps Chrome - Refractor #119 Michael Wacha

That's a nice shiny Wacha Refractor. It looks so nice I was ready to go buy some 2013 Chrome, until I realized it wasn't a base card. Still, I may do so, just for the few refractors I'll get.

Steve Montgomery raises an interesting question for my collection, and my blog. He was drafted by the Cardinals, thus his image above wearing the STL cap. However, he stayed in the minor leagues until he was traded to Oakland for Dennis Eckersley. So, do I officially collect his cards? That would mean I would tag him in my blog posts. And if I do, do I also consider Coco Crisp a Cardinal? Since he's actually wearing the hat on this card, I think he gets a tag, as would any future card of his I get. By extension of that logic, Coco Crisp will also, from now on.

Tenet of Wilson #3: Once a Cardinal, always a Cardinal, for collecting purposes.

2013 Topps Update Jumbo Pack #9

Does anyone actually read blog posts that are posted on a Saturday night? I guess maybe for some folks reading the blog roll is the modern equivalent of reading of the Sunday paper, so maybe some of your are reading this over your morning coffee.

2013 Topps Update
#US55 Pete Kozma
#US152 Randy Choate
#US168 Michael Wacha
#US213 Matt Adams
Emerald Parallel #US118 Joe Blanton
Gold Parallel #US61 Rafael Soriano #0185/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-46 Hyun-Jin Ryu
Postseason Heroes #PH-9 Mariano Rivera

Not all of them were new, but I had 4 Cardinal base cards in this pack, and they're all in Cardinal uniforms, and they're all still Cardinals to this day (barring some sort of cleared-waivers trade between writing up and posting this pack). I also had 2 Mariano Rivera base cards to go with this Postseason Heroes insert.

2013 Topps Update
Chasing History #CH-127 Prince Fielder
1971 Topps Mini #TM-21 Ian Kinsler

The final two inserts in this pack, I grouped together because I had 8 vertical regular-sized cards, and these. Only after I scanned them did it hit me that I've got 2 guys just about as connected as two non-teammates can be, since they were traded for each other last November.

Well this is slightly concerning. Every base card in this pack was a duplicate. That leaves 45 more to go still, with just 1 pack left, and I haven't seen a pack with 45 base cards in it yet. It's possible I mis-clicked somewhere along the way and messed up my checklist, but if not, it's not looking good for completing the set.

Update Series Completion: 285/330 (86.4%)

2013 Topps Update Jumbo Pack #3

I'm up to my third pack of Update, and again, 4 Cardinals showed up. For some reason Matt Adams has 2 cards in this set.

2013 Topps Update
#US152 Randy Choate
#US168 Michael Wacha
#US213 Matt Adams
#US205 Prince George of Cambridge SP
Emerald Parallel #US165 A.J. Pierzynski
Making Their Mark #MM-38 Yasiel Puig
Gold Parallel #US159 Donald Lutz #/2013
Postseason Heroes #PH-16 Nolan Ryan
1971 Topps Mini #TM-34 Yu Darvish

Based on a very small N, it looks like the SP Variations are more common in Update than Series 1 and 2, much like they were in previous years. I've already got 2 in my first 3 packs, and maybe more...it's sometimes hard to notice the subtle ones. In my entire Series 1 and 2 boxes, I got 1 SP each. It's weird to think this baby could be King of England in my lifetime.

Among the rest of the inserts, there's A.J. Pierzynski, who I was sort of hoping the Cardinals would pick up when he was designated for assignment right around the time of Yadier Molina's injury. So far that doesn't look like it's going to happen. There's also a nice Nolan Ryan there, from an insert set I haven't seen yet.

2013 Topps Update
#US189 Kyle Lohse
Chasing History #CH-112 Johnny Podres

To close out this pack, here's Kyle Lohse in one of my favorite current throwback uniforms. I feel ok liking this uniform because it's from an era before the Brewers were division rivals. For the same reason, I much prefer Houston's current uniforms to anything from their NL Central Division days.

There were another 43 base cards in this pack, and all 43 were new. If this keeps up (it won't), i'll have the full set at pack 8. Unfortunately, my Wilson Betemit card has a significantly bent corner, so if I don't wind up with a duplicate, I'll probably seek out another copy before I call my set complete. For now, though, I'll count him in the numbers for simplicity's sake.

Update Series Completion: 130/330 (39.4.%)