Belk Bowl Winnings

As he does each year, madding of Cards on Cards ran his confidence pool contest for the 2015 NCAA Football bowl season, with a side prop of picking the score of the Belk Bowl. I was closest on the Belk Bowl portion - even though I wasn't all that close - and received my first 2016 Topps of the year for it. I also got 2nd place in the contest overall, but that prize is too big for this post.

2016 Topps
#62 Trayce Thompson
#89 Edwin Encarnacion
#110 J.D. Martinez
#138 Francisco Liriano
#144 Jose Iglesias
#168 Nathan Eovaldi
#188 Greg Bird
#203 Aaron Hill
#210 Mike Zunino

My first reaction to 2016 Topps is that the design isn't consistent. The team logo is sometimes on the bottom left, sometimes on the bottom right, with no pattern seeming to emerge. As a very organized person, this bugs me a little.

2016 Topps
#214 Chris Colabello
#229 Jesse Hahn
#231 Chris Coghlan
#242 Matt Wisler
#243 Luke Gregerson
#256 C.J. Wilson
#260 Ryan Hanigan
#266 Jonathan Papelbon

2016 Topps
#270 Pat Neshek
#277 Elvis Andrus
#278 Evan Gattis
#281 Alex Dickerson
#286 Joe Mauer
#311 Dariel Alvarez
#317 Jose Altuve
#321 Hanley Ramirez

Pat Neshek was the only Cardinal in this pack, which seems pretty heavy on Astros, although that Orange-jerseyed Dariel Alvarez adds to the effect.

2016 Topps
#21 Mike Moustakas
#25 Brad Ziegler
#64 Corey Kluber
#155 New York Yankees
#162 RBI Leaders Josh Donaldson/Chris Davis/Jose Bautista
#170 Carlos Gomez New Order
#318 Washington Nationals

The horizontal cards have the same inconsistent logo location. One card set I tend to take for granted is the League Leaders, which have been 3 players on a horizontal card for several years now. If anyone at Topps is reading this, keep that up.

2016 Topps
Back to Back #B2B-6 Joc Pederson/Adrian Gonzalez
Berger's Best #BB-33 Don Mattingly
MLB Debut #MLBD-17 Ryan Howard
Pressed Into Service #PIS-8 Garrett Jones

Perhaps it only works with video, but that Pressed Into Service set, with position players who came in when the team was out of pitchers or just wanted to save some arms, is not complete without Mark Grace pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks, doing his best impersonation of Mike Fetters. Still, it's good to have a set dedicated to this rare and usually fun occurrence.

Thanks to madding of Cards on Cards for my first look at 2016 cards!

2013 Topps Update Jumbo Pack #1

I decided to go ahead and start going through my 2013 Update jumbo box. At the rate I've been going, it'll take 40 days or so to finish it, and it'll nearly be time to start posting my football projections and power rankings.

2013 Topps Update
#US306 Pat Neshek
#US250b Yasiel Puig SP
Emerald Parallel #US310 Boone Logan
Franchise Forerunners #FF-3 Manny Machado/Cal Ripken, Jr.
Gold Parallel #US152 Randy Choate #0496/2013
Making Their Mark #MM-32 Matt Harvey

The first pack started off nicely, with a base card of All-Star Pat Neshek, and a Gold Parallel of Randy Choate. There's also a SP of Puig. I seem to remember SPs being more common in Update than Series 1 and 2 in the past, so we'll see if more show up. I've already equaled each of those boxes, which yielded 1 SP Variation each.

2013 Topps Update
#US175 Carlos Martinez
1971 Topps Mini #TM-43 Frank Thomas
Chasing History #CH-129 Clayton Kershaw

Carlos Martinez is another good get from this box, and I hope he's one of the duplicates. I don't really have a good reason to want a second copy, but I do. Kershaw's no slouch either, and Frank Thomas was one of my favorite non-Cardinals in the 90s.

There were 43 base cards in this pack, up from the Series 1 and 2 norm of 42, probably due to the lack of Million Dollar Giveaway cards in each pack. There were, of course, no duplicates in the first pack, so much like a player with 2 home runs on opening day, I'm well ahead of the pace.

Update Series Completion: 43/330 (13.0%)