Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXIX

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 XXVIII

We're starting to run out of bowls, but I've still got some cards to show. I'm doing decently in this year's contest, too. I'll finish today in the lead, but not the top Max Points Possible, so I'm not quite in control of my own destiny.

All of today's cards are from a fun time in collecting and in my baseball-watching life. 1993-1995 weren't great years for the Cardinals, but for whatever reason, it's when I really started getting deep into baseball despite their struggles.

1993 Fleer - Rookie Sensations #RSA9 Mike Perez
1993 Fleer Ultra #111 Mike Perez
1993 Fleer Ultra #462 Rheal Cormier
1994 Leaf #110 Rheal Cormier
1994 Leaf #130 Mike Perez
1994 Upper Deck #357 Mike Perez

That Leaf Rheal Cormier is in rough shape. It was actually what I would consider packing material, stuck on the outside of one of the bricks of cards to protect the good stuff within. I'll still throw it into my collection, but noted with it's bad condition so I don't accidentally try to trade it off to an unhappy partner.

1994 Upper Deck #422 Rheal Cormier
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #229 Mike Perez
1995 Leaf #351 Tom Henke
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #196 Tom Henke
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #199 Mike Perez
1996 Donruss #320 Tom Henke

Tom Henke's glasses always made him look old to me. He came to the Cardinals for his final, age 37 year. He even made the All-Star game in 1995, and he wasn't the only player from the team, since Ozzie Smith also went. (I have this theory that having 2 players from a given team in the All-Star game legitimizes both of their appearances, whereas a lone player could arguably be below All-Star caliber, but the best on his team at a position the league needs for the game, and so make one despite not really "deserving" it.)

1994 Upper Deck #529 Alan Benes
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #464 Tom Pagnozzi
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #481 Rheal Cormier
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #641 Alan Benes

To finish off, I have some Alan Benes and Tom Pagnozzi cards, left out of the previous posts to feature those two, and one last Rheal Cormier, who is wearing 52 on all the cards in this post, but later switched to my favorite jersey number, 37.

March Radness Win, Part IV

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]

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.

That's right, there's still more cards to go in this series. Kerry outdid himself on this prize.

1994 Fleer Extra Bases
#356 Rene Arocha
#359 Gregg Jefferies
#362 Mike Perez
#364 Bob Tewksbury
#366 Todd Zeile

This is a cool set, but if you've ever seen them, you know these aren't minis, these are larger than usual cards. Without doing any research or measuring at all, I'd say they're 1 inch taller than a regular card, so 2.5" by 4.5". Does anybody have any good ideas for how to store these? The best idea I have off the top of my head is storing them in a 500 count box front to back instead of side to side, but I only own 5 of them now. Surely I can't get ambitious again and put another set on my wantlist when I only have 5, can I?

1991 Score #677 Donovan Osborne

My favorite Donovan Osborne memory was at a game when he came to bat with the bases loaded. I told my Dad it'd be cool if he hit a Grand Slam. My Dad laughed, and Donovan delivered. Thanks to baseball-reference.com, I just learned I witnessed his only career Home Run. That's kinda cool.

1992 Score #516 Geronimo Pena

I don't remember as much about Geronimo Pena, except he was a solid platoon second basemen for a few years.

1992 Baseball Enquirer - Unopened Pack

Here's another unopened pack. I don't know anything about this set, but it looks to be unlicensed, a gag they explain away by calling them "Mystery Interview" cards. That's obviously a certain famous gambler on the back betting his card will be worth a fortune. I haven't opened this pack yet, so maybe I'll save it for the same day I open the 1988 Donruss pack.