eBay Wins #229

Today I have the rest of the 1988 Topps that I started in my last eBay post, with plenty more Cardinals.

1988 Topps
#534 John Wathan
#536 John Morris
#544 Jim Traber
#546 John Candelaria
#549 Albert Hall/Dale Murphy/Ken Griffey/Gerald Perry
#557 Craig Reynolds (x2)
#600 Mike Schmidt
#613 Bobby Thigpen
#616 Jay Aldrich

John Morris is obviously a Cardinal, but so is Gerald Perry, in that Braves Leaders card I sort of forgot was horizontal until I started writing this post. Whoops. Just turn your head a little, it's good for your neck after hours at the computer.

1988 Topps
#617 Oddibe McDowell
#618 Cecil Fielder
#619 Mike Dunne
#621 Gene Nelson (x8)
#629 Kelly Downs
#632 Steve Shields
#642 Bob Dernier
#643 Rocky Childress
#658 Tim Conroy

I know Cecil Fielder played for the Blue Jays, but it still hits me oddly every time I see it. He's supposed to be a Tiger. Every player "belongs" on their 1992 or 1993 team in my mind, because that's when I started watching baseball. And yes, Gene Nelson was another multicard player from that A's lot I bought. That Bob Dernier card is a prime example of why I need to get through all these eBay cards and put them in my collection. I traded for it pretty recently, even though I've had these cards sitting in my "to post" box for who knows how long.

1988 Topps
#662 Jim Rice
#667 Luis Quinones
#697 Steve Lombardozzi
#700 George Brett
#702 Mike Gallego (x2)
#718 Mike Felder
#720 Tim Raines
#724 Danny Tartabull
#729 George Bell/Fred McGriff

Mike Gallego was one of Tony La Russa's favorites he eventually brought over to the Cardinals. He didn't put up fantastic numbers, but I remember him being a solid bench player.

1988 Topps
#740 Rick Sutcliffe
#752 Mark Grant
#754 Mike LaCoss
#761 Tony Armas
#768 Dickie Noles
#769 Cecil Cooper
#779 Tom Glavine
#784 Joe Sambito
#785 Alvin Davis

Rick Sutcliffe was probably best known as a Cub, but he finished his career in St. Louis, making 14 starts in 1994.

1988 Topps
#791 Ted Simmons

I could claim I left Ted here alone since he was a Cardinal, but really it was just poor planning on my part. When I get a giant stack to scan, sometimes I lose track, and don't count how many cards are left until too close to the end to even it out nicely with some scans of 8 instead of 9. I believe there were 10 left when I realized my blunder.

Once again these were from the half-cent box, knocking my per-card average down by almost one hundredth of a penny, which sounds like a ridiculous thing to track when you say it like that!

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4173
Total Spent	$56.79
Per Card	1.361 cents
Change	-0.009 cents

182 Packs Giveaway, Part II

When I claimed the Cardinals - and Mark McGwire and Todd Stottlemyre - in the pack-per-day giveaway held at TribeCards, I had no idea just how many cards I'd wind up with, and how many different players. So that I can tag all of the sets and Cardinal players, I've broken this up into a series of who knows how many posts. Thanks for all the cards, David.
[Part I]

1994 Fleer Ultra
#565 Bernard Gilkey
#570 Allen Watson

1994 Fleer Ultra
#564 Clint Davis
#566 Ray Lankford
#569 Rick Sutcliffe

Fleer Ultra is one of the sets for which I'd like to complete the full run (1991-2007), someday, but man, is 1994 the ugliest of the bunch or what?

1997 New Pinnacle #103 Royce Clayton

Horizontal cards just mess up all my scanning plans.

1997 New Pinnacle
#67 Ray Lankford
#77 Andy Benes
#177 Dmitri Young
#188 Mark McGwire

Here's a good bunch from New Pinnacle, which is a weird name for a set when there was also a 1997 Pinnacle. Claiming Mark McGwire specifically also paid off here, since he's pictured on the A's. Card companies don't do many real subsets anymore, which made it take me awhile to track down that the "Aura" card was really just a base card.

2005 Topps #124 Mike Matheny

To finish off these sets, here's a nice action shot of current Cardinals manager Mike Matheny. It's hard to believe he'd be managing the team just 7 years later.