A Rodney Hampton Contest Win

I'm falling a little behind on posting due to several days a week of NFL projections and NCAA Football Power Rankings, so now's the time I start catching up. I won this contest back in September, by guessing how many Rodney Hampton cards were in a lot purchased at Sport Card Collectors. If you follow that link, you'll see everything I won, but here it is again anyway, because I like cataloging stuff, as well as posting my winnings to show my gratitude to the generous contest-runner.

1995 Fleer Ultra - Gold Medallion #14 Bert Emanuel
1995 Fleer Ultra - Gold Medallion #15 Jeff George
2014 Sage Hit #51 Blake Bortles
2014 Sage Hit #60 Jimmy Garoppolo
2007 Topps - Ring of Honor #RH41-PM Peyton Manning
1995 Fleer - Gridiron Leaders #10 Steve Young
2014 Sage Hit - Autographs #A58 Travis Swanson
1990-91 Topps - Team Scoring Leaders #12 Wayne Gretzky

I didn't wait until today to post this for any particular reason, but now's a great time for a Peyton Manning card. He's getting ready to play in what is probably his last Superbowl, and possibly his last professional game. On the opposite end, there are some nice pre-draft rookies, and a hockey player you may have heard of.

1995 Flair - Preview
#10 Barry Sanders
#18 Dan Marino
#28 Chris Warren
2014 Sage Hit #7 Jadeveon Clowney
1996-97 SPx #17 Doug Weight
2014 Topps Chrome - Refractors #179 Carlos Beltran

These are all the horizontal cards from the prize package, because I despise scanning whitespace. There's another pre-draft rookie in Jadeveon Clowney, and some top football players from 1995. There were only two hockey cards in the package, and both features former Blues players, this one being a holographic Doug Weight. And, that Carlos Beltran is the first 2014 Chrome card in my collection. I need to expand my horizons into Chrome more often, because I always like how they look.

Since I like to label all my posts with every card set and hometown player shown, I'm out of space for this post. I'll cover the rest in the next one, including what's inside the unopened packs.

My Favorite Sets

Fuji asks another question, via The Daily Dimwit: What are your all-time favorite products to collect in each sport?

I only really collect baseball actively, but I've come into some cards from other sports along the way, and I figure, I have enough to pick a favorite of each. Here they are from least favorite to favorite sports.

Basketball

Since there's no team in St. Louis, my interest in the NBA peaked with Michael Jordan's success with the Bulls, and quickly dwindled as that dynasty ended. Even so, I have a few basketball cards, so let's see my favorite:

1990-91 NBA Hoops #308 Phil Jackson

I mostly love this one because it's such a cheesy shot. Phil looks like someone dared to call a foul on Michael! Thus, 1990-91 NBA Hoops wins this prize.

Football

I love watching football, but never got into the cards much. I'd say my favorite product would have to be the 1993 McDonald's GameDay set. Of course, the fact that a "pack" (really an uncut sheet) of cards yielded nothing but superstars probably made it seem pretty great. For some reason the cards weren't regulation-sized though. I remember collecting points on their products, which peeled off much like the monopoly game, but the pieces would be worth 6 (TD), 3 (FG), or 1 (PAT) points. I think it took 10 points for a sheet, and I must have managed to get 30. Usually when it came to McDonald's giveaways, I'd get some bonus pieces from my Grandpa when he'd come to our house to sneak in his unhealthy lunch on Saturdays when my Grandma wasn't aware. But, I digress. Also, I remember worrying they may not let me turn in 3 FGs and a PAT, because how could you have a PAT without a TD?

1993 McDonalds GameDay Sheet A

1993 McDonalds GameDay Sheet B

1993 McDonalds GameDay Sheet C

I actually went and borrowed a Junior Seau scan from CheckOutMyCards as I was drafting this post, but then found these in my basement. I forgot I had the complete set. I never cut the sheets because I had no idea what I would keep the cards in.

Hockey

Hockey is a new collection to me, but I've won several cool cards via SportsCardInfo's contests, and some others. I steal from Fuji on this one and choose a newer version, 2010-2011 Panini Zenith, because I won this nice 5x7:

Which, as you can see, I tore into. And I found this:

An autographed rookie of the #1 draft pick, no big deal or anything.

Baseball

This is the only one that really has a well-considered answer. The others were mostly "what's the neatest thing I've got in this sport?" I decided it needed to be a set that I bothered to complete, which led me to 1997 Studio.

I don't think I actually completed the base set, but I did get all 24 of the 8x10s. These make for a pretty cool binder to flip through, and these are the only cards I keep in a binder. I bought many packs of this product, as this was right around the heaviest of my card buying. The packs were awfully awkward since they had an 8x10 in each one. Eventually I purchased the remaining 8x10s at a Flea Market and 2 local card shops. I found 3 McGwires in my binder, so I really wonder if I lucked into my favorite player from the set, or bought multiples on purpose.

So there you have it, my favorite sets in the Big 4 sports. Also, if there were an "other" category, I'd say the TMNT cartoon cards, but I couldn't find mine anywhere to scan.

Yet Another Contest Win from Sports Card Info

If you've never been to Sports Card Info, I highly suggest you add it to your daily blog reading, as Ross generously has a contest every week, and sometimes even two at once.  This is the third contest of his I've won, and oddly enough all 3 have been for hockey cards. First there was a Rip Card with a Taylor Hall autograph inside, and next a relic card of Niklas Backstrom. Let's see what came in the mail this time:

2011-12 ITG Captain C - Game Used Jersey #M-48 Ryan Getzlaf

It's another relic, from this contest. From the disclaimer on the the back I see these aren't NHL/NHLPA licensed products, which explains the lack of any Ducks logo on the card.

Thanks yet again to Ross for giving away so much great stuff!

Fantasy Hockey 2011-12

First off, Happy Easter everyone.

Secondly...I won!

I named my team after the seemingly endless string of minor league Ice[animal] teams out there, such as the IceCats, IceHogs, Ice Dogs, IceGators, IceHawks, IceBats, IceRays, and IceBears, not to mention the IceCaps, IceMen, IceFlyers, and Ice Pilots.

I'm especially proud that I beat 2 friends of mine that are huge hockey fans, who landed at 2nd and 3rd. I enjoy hockey but I don't know the ins and outs as well as I do for baseball, so this one took some work and some exploitation of some of our stranger stats (I led the league in penalty minutes!). To give you an idea how close the final really was, I went to bed about midnight St. Louis time, at which point I was up 7-6 over Lokomotiv. At that time, the LA-SJ game was still going on and had about 10 min left in regulation. One of our categories is game-winning goals, and we were tied on that one. So, if either of Lokomotiv's San Jose Sharks would have put in the only goal in that last 10 min or overtime, the score would have gone to 7-7 and he would have beaten me on the tiebreaker.

Now that hockey's over, I can pay a little more attention to my fantasy baseball league. I noticed Saturday I had left Chase Utley and Derrek Lee in my starting lineup in my keeper league, because I hadn't really looked at it since our draft.

TitleTown poll

Earlier today I saw a post at Too Many Verlanders asking how successful my hometown teams have been during my lifetime. Not me personally, but anyone reading. Anyway, here's a look at Saint Louis sports in my lifetime (since 1982)

Cardinals:

• World Series Appearances: 6 (1982, 1985, 1987, 2004, 2006, 2011)
• Championships: 3 (1982, 2006, 2011)

Blues:

• Stanley Cup Finals Appearances: 0 (if only I had been born by mid-1968, I'd have 3 here)
• Championships: 0

Rams:

• Superbowls: 2 (2000, 2002)
• Championships: 1 (2000)
• While the Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals were in St. Louis, there were no Superbowl appearances

Looking back, it almost feels surreal that there was a 3-4 year period in which the Rams were pretty good. The Cardinals took a long time off between championships but have 2 I'm old enough to remember. All in all, Saint Louis has had 8 Finals appearances and 4 Championships during my lifetime in the 4 "major" sports. Some folks might consider college football another major sport, but SLU is without a team, and the basketball team isn't quite top-tier just yet.

Now here's one quick championship story that's a little funny. In May of 2001, a friend of mine got free tickets to a minor league basketball team called the Saint Louis Swarm who played in a little suburban arena. We knew nothing of the team, but found out when we go there that Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Jr. played for the team. That was kind of neat I guess. Both of us were Michael Jordan fans, but didn't care much about basketball at that time, as Jordan was retired for the second time at the moment. We watched the game, our team was winning, so that made it a little more fun. Then near the end of the game we overheard that, apparently, we were sitting at game 3 of the best-of-3 championship series. Sure enough, they won and had a trophy presentation at the end and everything. To date it's my only championship moment witnessed live in person, and I came to it completely by accident.

Another Contest win at Sports Card Info

Many of you know Sports Card Info runs a weekly contest where you can enter by commenting on the contest post up to once per day.  I won one last July, and another just a few weeks ago.  Here's the nice Relic of Niklas Backstrom, a little blurrier than I realized:

2011-2012 ITG Canada Vs The World

Not only did he send me this card for free, but included two bonus packs:

2010 Panini Adrenalyn XL

I don't really collect football cards too seriously, so I didn't know what this product was.  Apparently you can enter the codes from the cards to play a game online.  I believe this game is expired, but if not, and if anyone wants the codes off the back, drop me an email and I'll send them.  Or, I'd be willing to trade the physical cards for some baseball stuff off my wantlist as well.

Sadly, no Rams were inside.  There was former Mizzou Tiger Justin Gage, though.

A big thanks to Ross at Sports Card Info for the contest and the bonus!

A Contest win at Sports Card Info

Ross at Sports Card Info runs a contest just about every week, where all one can enter once per day to win the card of the week.  Well on that particular contest, the winner never showed his face, so the card went back up for grabs, and I won.

I had spoken with much bravado about how of course I would tear, but when I won, I thought, "How can I tear a card?!"  I always feel iffy about the products where you have to destroy something to get at an unknown.  Pinnacle hit me with this rapid fire with the rip cards and Pinnacle Inside cans in the late 90s.  But, since I said I would tear, and I hadn't paid a thing for the Potvin except for a few moments to post every day for a week, I figured I had nothing to lose.

As you can see, I dared to tear.

At this point I was just hoping I hadn't nicked the inside card.  Nestled nicely in the middle was:

The #1 pick of the 2010 Draft.  That's not bad at all.  I suppose only time will tell how good he truly is.  Ovechkin and Crosby represent a good 2 year run for overall #1s in 2004-2005, but I'd say Erik Johnson definitely broke the streak.  Thanks for a great contest, and everyone go check out Sports Card Info if it's not already in your blog reading list.