Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXVIII

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

Do you ever just feel too lazy to turn a horizontal card sideways?

1998 Topps Stadium Club #48 Delino DeShields
1998 Score Rookie/Traded #RT158 Delino DeShields
2004 Playoff Honors #180 Jim Edmonds
2004 UD Diamond Pro Sigs #87 Jim Edmonds
2008 Upper Deck Goudey #193 Troy Glaus
2009 Topps Allen and Ginter #193 Khalil Greene

Since I didn't really collect from about 2000 until late 2010, a lot of the specialty sets from that time seem very obscure to me. I'd never heard of Upper Deck's "Diamond Pro Sigs", for example. It looks like the base cards have signatures printed on in foil. The only other card from the Playoff Honors set I have is an Albert Pujols, which was also in this prize package.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part X

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.
Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

Now for more of the teams everyone loves to hate, the Cardinals, Yankees, and Red Sox.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition #321 Julio Lugo
2010 Upper Deck
#346 Andy Pettitte
#347 Jorge Posada
#473 Kyle Lohse
#589 New York Checklist

The Yankees aren't the team I follow the most, but it's hard to escape stories about them. As an outsider, I'm really indecisive about whether Pettitte and Posada's numbers should be retired. On one hand, they were great players for the team, but it just feels like too much too soon, and it lowers the bar for number retirements. I think the Cardinals have a decent unofficial policy on this, which is that for the most part, only Hall of Fame entrants get their numbers retired.

2009 Upper Deck #562 Kevin Youkilis
#883 Adam Wainwright
2010 Upper Deck
#97 Jed Lowrie
#100 Takashi Saito
#462 Skip Schumaker
#470 Mitchell Boggs

Today, someone told me Waino was already hurt. It made me hurt. It was listed as abdominal pain, so I'm hoping it's nothing that will keep him out of baseball for long, and to a greater degree nothing serious for his overall health.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition #189 Mike Lowell
2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update
#314 Josh Beckett
#320 Jacoby Ellsbury
#420 Mariano Rivera
#473 Troy Glaus
2009 O-Pee-Chee #239 Mike Lowell

I remember when the Cardinals and Blue Jays traded third basemen, one for one. We sent Scott Rolen, and we got Troy Glaus.  I don't believe any cash changed hands, and no minor league add-ins were involved. I remember thinking "someone's going to get the clearly better end of this deal, and someone's getting the worse end". I'm pretty sure the Cardinals got the worse end. Rolen only played 1.5 seasons in Toronto before being traded to Cincinnati for another 3.5, which at least got the Blue Jays Edwin Encarnacion. Glaus played 2 years in St Louis, one good and one not so good due to injury, and was granted his free agency to play one final year in Atlanta.

Superbowl Winnings, Part 1

Remember that awful, lopsided game back in February? It won a contest for me at Collector's Crack, properly know as Almost the Easiest Superbowl Contest on the Web IV. Going into the game, I knew I had a decent chance of winning since I had chosen Seattle to win and Denver as their opponent, which no one else did. However, even if it had come to the 2nd and 3rd tiebreaker, I'd have done alright. I forecasted 50 total points in the game - which wound up 43-8 if you don't remember - missing the total by just 1. Or, as I prefer to think of it, I predicted everything except the fact that Denver would go for 2 on their TD when down by 30. I also went with 4 turnovers as the final tiebreaker, and hit that dead on.

It sounds a little like I'm bragging, so to be completely clear, I did use my projections to pick the the teams, but the points and turnovers were pretty much just guesses, and I got lucky. Better lucky than good, some say.

Let's see the prizes!

1998 Finest - Refractors
#127 John Mabry

Look at that shimmering Refractor, still protected - and blurred - by Topps Finest protective coating. I've said it before, one day I'm going on a peeling rampage, and freeing most of my Topps Finest cards for the first time.

2004 Donruss Classics
National Trading Card Day
#DP-1 Albert Pujols

Here's the second card in a row I thought was a base card at first, but turned out to be a parallel. The Donruss Classics set included a parallel with the National Trading Card Day logo.

2011 Topps Chrome
#32 Yadier Molina
#141 Lance Berkman
#150 Albert Pujols

Shiny shiny Chrome. I'm surprised I didn't have any Cardinals from the set yet. I'll be adding the others to my want list now.

2008 Allen & Ginter - Mini A&G Backs
#44 Adam Wainwright
#88 Troy Glaus
2010 Allen & Ginter - Mini Black Border
#51 Matt Holliday

And I'll close it with some Allen and Ginter minis. That's a lot of white space on the horizontal Adam Wainwright card. He's in a very vertical pose for a horizontal card, so I kind of wonder why Topps did that. Also, both of the 2008s are Allen and Ginter backs.


I'd keep going, but I like to tag my posts with all the sets and Cardinal players pictured, and I'm at the limit. There's more good stuff left for tomorrow, though.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 10

For the 2012-2013 College Football season, I entered the College Football Pick 'Em contest hosted by madding of Cards on Cards. I've won several of his contests over the years, and he always dumps a ton of Cardinals on me when I do. Yet, I think this time he may have outdone himself. I may have to work hard to get them all posted before the 2013-14 College Football season starts August 29, and I start posting my Power Rankings again.
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 ]

2008 Goudey
#171 Albert Pujols
#173 Lou Brock
#174 Chris Duncan
#175 Vince Coleman
#193 Troy Glaus

In his rush and/or zealous generosity (or is that generous zeal), madding sent me 2 of each of these cards. That's an easy mistake to make though, and I didn't even realize it the first time I looked through them, because there were simply so many cards. Eventually I sorted them out by set and lo and behold, my 10 Goudey cards only had 5 unique. So, I've got one each of these to keep, and one to trade.

2008 Upper Deck #70 Rick Ankiel

I'm starting to build up quite an Ankiel collection now. I wasn't collecting during either of his heydays with the Cardinals, so I never pulled one of his cards in a current pack.

2009 Upper Deck SP Authentic
#78 Matt Holliday

SP Authentic is a set that makes me want Upper Deck back in the game. It's got a very clean look that appeals to me.

2009 Upper Deck X #97 Colby Rasmus

And on the flip side, we have Upper Deck X. It's a little too busy for my taste, but I always love getting a new Cardinal card.

182 Packs Giveaway, Part IV

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.
[ I | II | III ]

2006 Opening Day #19 Scott Rolen

I'm sure I've noted this before, but I was at Rolen's first home game for the Cardinals, sitting in a friend's rich uncle's close seats. As he ran from his stretches in right field back to the dugout, someone in my section yelled out "Welcome to St. Louis, Scott!" and everyone around me cheered. A little schmaltzy, but it got a smile out of him.

2009 Upper Deck Icons #85 Rick Ankiel

I was at Ankiel's first game as an Outfielder too. I wasn't nearly as close that time, I had tickets we bought through my wife's cheap company. Luckily they were in foul ground on the third base side, so we had a clear view of RF that night. Also, now I have 3 of the 4 Cardinals in this small set.

2008 Goudey #193 Troy Glaus

Glaus was obviously supposed to be pictured as a Blue Jay in 2008 Goudey, because he's surrounded by Blue Jays in the checklist, and the Cardinals are a few cards back.

2012 Gypsy Queen
#197 David Freese
Hallmark Heroes #HH-SM Stan Musial
#237 Bob Gibson

Ah Gypsy Queen, one of my weaknesses, because I'm a bargain shopper, and they're 50 cents a card in retail packs. Yet, I feel the need to collect it. I've actually got 2 of the Musials now, after pulling the same card from a discounted blaster.

2012 Opening Day #60 Adam Wainwright

2012 Opening Day #206 David Freese

We've see these two guys together before too. More Cardinals for my trade list.

2012 Topps #559 Brandon Dickson

I can't get enough of this guy either. I was hoping he'd be our next young fireballer, but he has left for the Orix Buffaloes in Japan.

March Radness Win, Part II

[Part I]

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.

2008 Upper Deck (Series 2)
#651 Chris Carpenter
#652 Mark Mulder
#653 Juan Encarnacion
#654 Skip Schumaker
#655 Troy Glaus
#657 Cesar Izturis
#659 Chris Duncan
#660 Matt Clement

2007 Topps #207 Mark Mulder

Another Mulder to go with his 2008 UD above.

2011 Topps - Kimball Champions
#KC-15 David Price
#KC-36 Hanley Ramirez

For awhile I had the idea I'd collect the Kimball Champions set. It may happen, but man is it ever going slow. I still need about 75 of the 100 from Series 1 and 2, and some of the Topps Updates ones as well. My guess is it'll finish sometime in 2027.

2011 Goodwin Champions #55 Bill Walton

This wasn't on a wantlist, and isn't even a baseball player, so I was unsure if this was thrown in accidentally. Then I realized, the fact that it's not a baseball player is probably the key. The Contest was for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, after all, so it's only fitting to have a basketball player in the mix.