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.

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.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XL

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE IS OVER, 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 XXIX XXX
XXXI XXXII XXXIII XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII XXXVIII XXXIX

40's a good round number to end on. Not that I had a choice. I made it all the way through!

2004 Topps #203 Bo Hart
2009 Topps - Ring of Honor #RH12 David Eckstein
2013 Panini Hometown Heroes #8 David Eckstein
2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks #45 Mike O'Neill
2013 Topps Opening Day - Mascots #M-4 Fredbird
2013 Topps Pro Debut #128 Stephen Piscotty
2013 Topps Pro Debut #161 Mike O'Neill
2014 Topps Opening Day - Mascots #M-6 Fredbird

This aren't necessarily my favorite 8 cards in the prize package, but they're a good representation of what it had. Some guys I've bafflingly never posted before (Bo Hart), some sets I never had cards from (Panini Hometown Heroes, Panini Prism Perennial Draft Picks, and Topps Pro Debut), some draft picks that never quite made it (Mike O'Neill, who is now playing independent ball), some that did (Stephen Piscotty), and some fun cards (Fredbird).

I must say thanks once more to Cards on Cards for the Bowl Pick 'Em Contest each year. In case you've lost track, this came from 2015-2016's contest, not the 2016-2017 one in which I totally took a freefall in the last 5-6 games. I've got a whole bunch of other cards that have been piling up to post while I pushed myself to get through these, so I'll be happy to start knocking those out soon.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part VI

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.

Part I II III IV V

2016 Topps
#46 Jhonny Peralta
#106 Jordan Walden
#107 Kevin Siegrist
#134 Yadier Molina
#146 Stephen Piscotty
#217 Lance Lynn
#244 Matt Carpenter
#319 Adam Wainwright

I still haven't bought any 2016 Topps cards. The other was from winning the subcontest within this same contest, picking the Belk Bowl. The only Cardinal in that prize was Pat Neshek, now with the Astros, so these were still all new to my collection.

2016 Topps
Back to Back #B2B-9 Red Schoendienst/Stan Musial
Berger's Best #BB-16 Steve Carlton
Pressed Into Service #PIS-6 Stan Musial
Perspectives #P-25 Ozzie Smith

Here we have more 2016 Topps, all inserts and all Hall of Famers. I'm glad to see Ozzie Smith has been included more and more in sets with older players. And I'm always happy to get Musial and Schoendienst cards.

Labor Day Autographs

Thanks to a last second cancellation, a friend of mine had a spare ticket to the Cardinals game versus the Cubs on Labor Day. It was supposed to be a hot day, but the weather turned a bit overcast and we were shaded in our 2nd-row-from-the-top seats for most of the game. But even with the nice weather, the game went bad quickly, with the Cardinals surrendering 8 runs in the first three innings. I did get to see every Cardinals position player get into the game, and a great 5-4-3 double play, from our backup catcher (Tony Cruz) playing third, to our backup 1B/3B (Mark Reynolds) playing second (for the 5th time ever!), to our trade deadline pickup (Brandon Moss) at first.

But the day got better for me, as I traveled to a local mall to an autograph signing featuring Stephen Piscotty and Greg Garcia that evening.

Stephen Piscotty 55
35 Greg Garcia

Piscotty's been heralded as the second coming of Albert Pujols for the last year, so the group there to see him was quite large. There's lots of excitement in St. Louis for him and his future. Garcia didn't have nearly as many people there for his autograph, and in fact since I was near the end of the line with a ticket for each, after about 15 minutes they actually came and got me and bumped me up to the front of the shared line so Greg could get finished.

This brings my autographed ball count up to 16. Soon I'm going to have start organizing them a little better than just stacking them on my shelf.