Christmas 2012

Do you ever get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and forget to do things? There's Christmas, then New Year's Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Valentine's Day, Washington's Birthday (aka Presidents Day), St. Patrick's, uh, probably a few national <insert carnival food> days...anyway, my point is, surely I have a good excuse for showing you my sports-related Christmas gifts in March. Ok, I don't, but here we go anyway.

First up, some Cardinals stuff.

A long-sleeve t-shirt, since I refuse to wear anything but t-shirts when I'm not dressed up, and both my wife and mom say I make them feel cold when the see me in short sleeves.

A new Cardinals cap. But not just any cap, this one is trimmed in gold to celebrate the 2011 World Series win.

Even the back has some unnecessary sparkle

Here we have a nice print of Busch Stadium, about 11" x 14". Don't tell my sister-in-law I haven't framed or hung it yet though.

Next up, the Rams:

These two items actually have an interesting story. My wife and I were doing some last minute shopping; I think it was Saturday night before Christmas, which was a Tuesday in 2012. Anyway, I saw this jersey, as well as a Billikens hooded sweatshirt, both pretty cheap. Even at Christmas time the writing was on the wall that Steven Jackson was probably leaving, but I still wanted the throwback jersey. I mentioned to my wife that I wish I had known both of those items were there and they would have been on my wish list. Apparently she managed to text her mom on the way to the next store without me noticing. As it turns out, by the time she got there the last SLU hoodie in my size was gone, so she decided to get the Rams sweatshirt you see above instead, which is awesome. So my wife and mother-in-law will have to split the credit on that one.

Last, but not least, we have a 2012 Topps Value Box, consisting of 2 packs of Heritage, 5 packs of Series 1, a Golden Giveaway code, and one of three Chrome cards of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or Ken Griffey, Jr. I'm clearly a busy man, taking 3 months to post these, so here's just the good stuff.

2012 Heritage #484 Todd Helton SP

Heritage has a hold on me, so yes, this SP counts as the good stuff.

2012 Heritage
#22 Edwin Jackson
#357 Allen Craig
#382 Joe Girardi

I'm going to miss the blue road cap - seen here on Edwin Jackson - this year, although I like the red with the road grays too.

2012 Heritage - New Age Performers #NAP-JW Jered Weaver

Every time I see Jered Weaver I think, "He was a Cardinal, right?" Wrong. That was Jeff Weaver, but it confuses me even moreso because then they both pitched for the Angels.

2012 Topps
#108 Albert Pujols
#291 David Freese

Speaking of Angels...no no, let's not get that started. Instead I'll revel in the 2011 World Series once more with these cards from games 3 and 6.

2012 Topps
#28 Placido Polanco
#154 Ty Wigginton

Here's former Cardinal Placido Polanco, and soon-to-be - at least in the regular season - Cardinal Ty Wigginton.

2012 Topps - Golden Moments #GM-29 Albert Pujols

Another Albert. I don't think I could ever stop collecting his cards.

2012 Topps - Value Box Chrome #MBC2 Willie Mays

Here's the shiny card promised on the box. It's very orange. And shiny. And the Hall of Famer on it isn't bad either.

Well, that's it for my Christmas gifts. Normally this is where I'd wish you a Happy New Year, but that ship has sailed. How about a Happy Passover, Easter, and/or April Fool's, whatever you're into? And, if the Easter Bunny brings me any cards, I'll try to get them posted before July.

eBay Wins #65

This lot of penny cards was a bit random, though I suppose most of them are.

1993 Bowman #27 Shawn Green

I never realized Shawn Green didn't come up with the Dodgers. I can forgive myself for not knowing him in 1993-1994, but there were 5 more years after that with the Blue Jays. Maybe the blue uniform is what got me.

1994 Collector's Choice #81 David Cone

Remember fans dressed as Coneheads, especially when David was having a great season with the Yankees? That's enough to get me to root for a guy.

1996 Collector's Choice #13 Angel Martinez

1996 Collector's Choice
#652 Joe Randa
#656 David Bell
#657 Joe Nunnally
#659 LaTroy Hawkins
#660 Jamie Brewington
#664 Todd Greene

These cards are pretty cool, picturing the players in their AFL uniforms on the front, but their MLB uniforms on the back.

2003 Bazooka - Minis
#103 Nobuaki Yoshida
#181 Mike O'Keefe

With the recent mini craze, how could I turn down these Bazooka minis?

2004 Bowman Chrome
#201 Tim Hutting
#252 Kevin Richardson
#276 Matt Lemanczyk

Finally, some shiny prospect cards, which scan very oddly. None of these guys, including the Cardinals Matt Lemanczyk, ever made the big club.

With another 14 cards for 14 cents, my average dips again to 1.849 cents per card.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2221
Total Spent	$41.06
Per Card	1.849 cents

My Second Jaybarkerfan PWE

As I mentioned before, Jaybarkerfan of Jaybarkerfan's Junk has been dropping PWE bombs on anyone who gave him their address and a favorite team. I just got another one, with more great Cardinals.

2004 KC Life #29 Chris Carpenter

I'm not 100% sure, but based on the Kansas City Life Insurance Company logo on the back and the weird size, I think this is from a set given away free to kids at a Cardinals game. I have some similar sets with the same sponsor from 1993-1996 or so.

1993 Hostess #5 Ray Lankford

I love this 1993 Hostess set, so I'm happy to get this card even though I already had it. I can always find good reasons for spare Cardinals.

1990 Upper Deck #68 Vince Coleman (Team Checklist)

Checklists should always have players on them. That is all.

2011 Bowman - Prospects #BP66 Matt Carpenter

I just posted my first Matt Carpenter card, and now here's my second.

2009 Upper Deck Icons #92 Ryan Ludwick

This card showed up in the first PWE too. All the easier to trade with my fellow Cardinals fans.

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes - Charcoal #124 Ozzie Smith

Of course, any package with an Ozzie is a great one to me, even if the rest were Bip Roberts and Mario Mendoza. This card was tricky to figure out since I don't have a lot of the 2008 Baseball Heroes set. At first I thought it was a Black parallel, but those are numbered to 250. It turns out, it's a Charcoal.

Thanks to Jaybarkerfan for all the Cardinals. And go follow Jaybarkerfan's Junk; I'd do it even without the bribe.

eBay Wins #64

I won 90 auctions for individual 2013 Topps cards at a penny apiece. For some reason the seller sent me 92, so I'm going to count it as 92 for $.90 in my tracker. Now, let's see all 90!


...


Ok, how about just the Cardinals (current and former).

2013 Topps #24 Dan Haren

Come back, Dan.

2013 Topps #68 Colby Rasmus

You can stay in Canada, Colby.

2013 Topps #96 Edward Mujica

We picked up Mujica at the trading deadline, thanks to the emergence of David Freese, which allowed us to dump off a previously touted 3B prospect in Zack Cox. He was a pleasant surprise with a low ERA for the remainder of the year.

2013 Topps #54 Jaime Garcia

I'm hoping Jaime can come back strong this year...

2013 Topps #50 Adam Wainwright

...because once again, Adam Wainwright is going to be our ace. Chris Carpenter's continued injury moves everyone up a spot in the rotation, and Waino has been tabbed for Opening Day.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2207
Total Spent	$40.92
Per Card	1.854 cents

A Free Card from Baseball Dad

Back in November, Baseball Dad offered up a nice selection of cards for his readers for his blog's 4th anniversary. I chose one, of course, because who would pass up a free card? That's like going to a birthday party and not eating the cake.

When I got the package, there were some additional Cardinals thrown it, which I always enjoy. Let's see what I got.

1999 Team Best
#12 Greg Clark
#41 Gabe Johnson
#Kris Rayborn
#83 Steve Stemle

First up were some minor league cards. Of the 4, I think only Steve Stemle appeared the majors, and that was only for 11 games with the Royals in 2005-2006.

2013 Topps #193 Matt Carpenter

2013 Topps #207 Matt Holliday

Since so many people follow his blog, it took until after 2013 Topps was released to get my package out, which is great! I'm not planning on buying any packs of flagship this year, but I'll probably stick all the Cardinals on my want list, and this gives me a 2-card head start. So, this is my first taste of 2013 cards, and also my first-ever Matt Carpenter card.

2009 Allen & Ginter - Relics #AGR-RL Ryan Ludwick

Finally, we have the card I claimed, a Ryan Ludwick relic. This is the first A&G framed relic I've ever actually held. It's kind of weird the way the card shifts around inside the frame. As always, I'm glad to add another unique card to my collection.

Thanks, Baseball Dad!

Pi Day 2013

Last year, I brought you Felix Pie - all 2 cards of his I owned at the time. And yes, I know the pronunciation is not the same as pi, but I'm a simple man, seeking out cheap laughs. This year, I hereby declare.

Pete Incaviglia Day

That's right, Pete Incaviglia. Did you know that - at least according to baseball reference's player listings - he's the only MLB player in history with the initials P.I.? I bet you didn't, nor did you care...nor do you care now. But here's ol' Pete anyway.

1990 Donruss #48 Pete Incaviglia

1991 Donruss #464 Pete Incaviglia

1992 Upper Deck #271 Pete Incaviglia

1993 Topps - ToppsGold #7 Pete Incaviglia

1994 Fleer Ultra #246 Pete Incaviglia

It was easy to choose the scans to use, because these are the only 5 Incaviglia cards I have, though I have multiple copies of the 1991 Donruss.

But wait, there's more.

1997 Topps #550 Pete Incaviglia

I don't own this card, but it won me a few other cards in the 2011 Prime 9 redemption set, when I picked it out based on a small cropped piece.

Now, everyone go enjoy some pie.

eBay Wins #63

I've been hunting for penny cards again, and this time I came up with 6 1989 Donruss commons.

1989 Donruss
#296 Walt Terrell
#302 Mike Brumley
#308 Ron Robinson
#314 John Shelby
#320 John Farrell
#325 Kevin Bass

I wasn't sure I could even get out a full sentence about these 6 cards. None of them were ever Cardinals, and everyone's in pretty standard late-80s uniforms, except maybe Mike Brumley up there in a brown Padres (presumably batting practice) jersey. Then I noticed that, by simply lining up these 6 non-consecutively numbered cards in order, the left-to-right gradient colors matched up perfectly. If I hadn't already sleeved and filed these away, I would have re-scanned in one long strip, because the Robinson and Shelby would even match up.

I wonder what the odds are of that happening.

When I start wondering about numbers, I can't help myself; I have to try to calculate the answer. To make it straighforward, assume 6 random different cards, and put them in a fixed order. There are 660 cards in 1989 Donruss, and 5 color patterns - Red-Yellow, Yellow-Green, Green-Blue, Blue-Purple, Purple-Red. Assume that exactly 1/5 of cards - or 132 - have each pattern. The color of the first card won't matter. The next card has a 132/659 chance of matching the border. It would be 132 in 660, or 1 in 5, but the first card has been removed from the pool. Assuming that works, the next card has a 132/658 chance of aligning, the fourth card's is 132/657, the fifth's is 132/656, and the sixth should match the first card, so there are 131 of 655 remaining cards that can finish it off.

By my count, that's just a 0.03% chance of this lineup happening. That's enough to make me want to go play the state lottery tonight.

Of course, these cards aren't randomized, they're sorted by number, and Donruss doesn't seem to follow a pattern of colors, so I'd have to enter all of the cards into a table by color and check each possible collection of 6 cards for the gradient match to get the true odds for this set. I'll stick that on my to-do list, somewhere after re-staining my deck, but before solving the world's energy crisis.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2115
Total Spent	$40.02
Per Card	1.892 cents

Zistle Trade #2

I got this trade proposal within a day or two of my last Zistle trade. They seemed to come out of nowhere, although I had added a lot of cards to both my have list and want list in the preceding weeks. I didn't recognize the name, so I don't think this person is a blogger, but if you are, and you sent me these cards, please let me know.

1990 Fleer #151 Andy Benes

The pride of Evansville, Indiana, Andy Benes. He was born there and went to college there, something I learned when browsing college brochures back in high school. I wonder if they know he's on a SLU Billboard in town.

1992 Score #223 Ray Lankford

1993 Upper Deck #461 Ray Lankford

Ray Lankford should have been even more of a fan favorite than he was. After all, he refused to sign with the Cubs the first time he was drafted, and signed with us the following year. And we love giving the Cubs a hard time.

1992 Fleer #592 Ozzie Smith

1992 Score #590 Ozzie Smith

1994 Pacific #604 Ozzie Smith

I'm surprised there were 3 Ozzie commons I didn't have, but here they are. Pacific is a little more believable, but surely I would have had an opportunity to pick up the Fleer and Score cards sometime in the past.

1996 Topps #211 Nomar Garciaparra

1998 Score Rookie and Traded #RT35 Nomar Garciaparra

And we finish with one of my favorite non-Cardinals, Nomar Garciaparra.

This wasn't a big trade, neither in number of cards nor total "book value", but it fell right in the wheelhouse of my collecting habits. Those are the most satisfying trades. Now I just need to finish entering all of my collection in Zistle, and of course, add more cards to my want list.

eBay Wins #62

Have you ever seen a shiny object and just had to have it? I went way over my usual eBay budget on this card, and paid a whole 41 cents. But it's Chrome, and it's die-cut.

1999 Topps Chrome
Lords of the Diamond #LD6 Jeff Bagwell

I already had a Mark McGwire card from the Topps flagship version of this insert set, so I really wanted to see the Chrome version. As you can see from the photo in that link, the McGwire looks almost like a refractor, whereas this one is not nearly as rainbow-colored when held up to the light. It definitely has the classic Chrome embossed look, though.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2109
Total Spent	$39.96
Per Card	1.895 cents

Gold from the Quarry

I've been adding more cards to Zistle, per my 2013 collecting goals, and it has started to pay off. A few weeks ago, I received a trade proposal from hiflew at Cards from the Quarry, which helps yet another goal of completing more trades. Not only that, but it was my favorite kind of trade proposal - one where my trading partner told me exactly what he wants. I seem to have a little trouble putting the package together when someone generously sends me things off my wantlist with only a team or list of teams they'd like in return. I've actually got 2 of those I'm still finishing up. But we can critique my punctuality another day. Right now, it's time for some 20-year-old Gold.

1993 Topps - Gold
#1 Robin Yount
#15 Marquis Grissom
#26 Skeeter Barnes
#51 Mo Vaughn
#58 Jose Melendez
#80 Cecil Fielder
#82 David Segui
#84 Kurt Stillwell
#156 Sammy Sosa

Since I started collecting with 1992 Topps, I've felt like the 1992 and 1993 Gold cards were two of my favorite sets. And these weren't just 9 commons that filled out my set, but 6 of the guys I knew very well as players, including 1 Hall of Famer in Robin Yount.

This brings my total to just 35 of the 825 card set. Why did 1993 have to be such a big set?! We know the answer to that of course, the Marlins and Rockies came into being. I have a feeling this will take me awhile.

eBay Wins #61

This was another penny card pickup, but purchased all by itself unlike most others.

2002 Topps #154 John Flaherty

I don't know much about John Flaherty, except he was a Yankee backup for a few years. But this falls in the 10 year gap where I didn't collect, and more importantly, didn't buy the Topps base as a factory set, so anytime I can grab a 2000-2009 card cheaply, I do.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2108
Total Spent	$39.55
Per Card	1.876 cents

2012 Opening Day Rack Pack #12

I'm a weak man, so when I saw one final Opening Day pack hanging at Target this weekend, I went ahead and bought it. Another reason was that I still had 70+ holes to fill in the set. This pack did an alright job of filling those in.

First up, the obligatory Cardinals:

2012 Opening Day #60 Adam Wainwright

2012 Opening Day #64 Dan Haren

This post starts off suspiciously like Pack #5, but that's about it for the similarities.

2012 Opening Day - Elite Skills #ES-6 Andrew McCutchen

2012 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-13 David Wright

2012 Opening Day - Opening Day Stars #ODS-1 Ryan Braun

I think I like this set because it's condensed down to the stars, especially the inserts. I kind of disliked that in the past, because when there were 26 teams and 792 cards, you'd get over 30 from your team on average, meaning most of the major league roster would show up. Of course, as I get older and my collection grows, I shudder to think how much more space it would take up if I was chasing big sets instead.

And the last base I'll buy...for now:
36 Dexter Fowler
42 Mark Reynolds
48 Adrian Beltre
60 Adam Wainwright
61 C.J. Wilson
62 Ervin Santana
64 Dan Haren
69 Tim Lincecum
90 Derek Jeter
97 David Price
103 Mike Leake
121 Mark Teixera
124 Grady Sizemore
127 J.P. Arencibia
131 Scott Baker
152 Neil Walker
180 Ted Lilly
182 Seth Smith
184 Michael Bourn
198 Carl Crawford
(220) Carlos Lee

The Lee is unnumbered, hence the (220). Like I said, this pack did a decent job of filling up some holes in the set. And, some hard-fought trades with my nephew filled a few more.