Showing posts with label Rene Arocha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rene Arocha. Show all posts

2016-07-28

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part I

College football will be here again before we know it, 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.

2013 Topps Update - Blue Parallel #US4 Matt Adams
2015 Gypsy Queen - Mini #197 Matt Adams
It's hard to believe this is Matt Adams's 5th season in the majors. He still seems like one of the new kids on the team.


1993 Pinnacle #599 Rene Arocha
1993 Topps Stadium Club #712 Rene Arocha
1994 Fleer - Rookie Sensations #1 Rene Arocha
1995 Fleer Ultra #221 Rene Arocha
I was too young to really be aware of it at the time, but Rene Arocha was apparently the first player to defect from the Cuban national team. There was a great article about it in the New York Times a few months ago, you can read here.

1996 Donruss #92 David Bell
1996 Leaf #70 David Bell
Both of these cards are from the same year, yet Donruss claims David Bell wore #25, while Leaf clearly shows 27. He first wore 25 when he came over from Cleveland near the trading deadline, and switched to 27 later that same year, about 2 full seasons before Mark McGwire arrived. Yet, now that he's the Cardinals hitting coach, he's wearing 25 again, because Jhonny Peralta has 27.


2015 Gypsy Queen #27 John Lackey
2015 Topps Opening Day #29 John Lackey
I started out just grabbing guys from the beginning of the alphabet (I'm always sorting), but to cram as many cards as possible in while still tagging each set, I'm doing my best to stick players together who both have cards in common sets, like John Lackey and Matt Adams, who both had a 2015 Gypsy Queen in the package.


2012-08-21

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.