Pi Day 2016

As a math guy, I should really do more to celebrate Pi Day. It seems to have become more well known in recent years, but in case you don't know, today is 3/14, and Pi is the transcendental number that begins 3.14..., so today has been declared Pi Day. Rather than geek out about it from a math perspective, I've opted for a baseball slant. I haven't really posted anything about it for a few years, since 2013 when I declared it Pete Incaviglia Day, because at the time he was the only P.I. in the major leagues.

1993 Topps - ToppsGold #7 Pete Incaviglia

Just over a month after that Pi Day, we got another P.I. in the majors - Phil Irwin. I don't have any cards of his, but he played with Pittsburgh in 2013 and Texas in 2014, for a total of 8.2 innings. Phil's going to have to put in a little more work to get his name on Pi Day, so Happy Pete Incaviglia Day!

eBay Wins #214

Today I start to pay the piper for all the small eBay posts I made by splitting all my penny cards into lots by set. This isn't even all of the 87 Fleer I have to post, but there are too many Cardinals in the full stack to tag them all.

1987 Fleer
#153 Willie Hernandez
#165 Walt Terrell
#202 John Franco
#385 Joaquin Andujar
#386 Doug Bair
#387 Dusty Baker
#388 Bruce Bochte
#390 Chris Codiroli
#391 Mike Davis

As I said, there are Cardinals scattered through this post, even though the teams pictures are almost all A's and Dodgers. Joaquin Andujar is the first.

1987 Fleer
#392 Alfredo Griffin
#393 Moose Haas
#394 Donnie Hill
#395 Jay Howell
#396 Dave Kingman
#397 Carney Lansford
#398 David Leiper
#399 Bill Mooneyham
#400 Dwayne Murphy

Carney Lansford was a coach on Tony La Russa's staff in 1997 and 1998, so I sort of count him among Cardinals.

1987 Fleer
#401 Steve Ontiveros
#402 Tony Phillips
#403 Eric Plunk
#404 Jose Rijo
#405 Terry Steinbach
#406 Dave Stewart
#407 Mickey Tettleton
#408 Dave Von Ohlen
#409 Jerry Willard

Dave Von Ohlen started out with the Cardinals before moving to the A's.

1987 Fleer
#410 Curt Young
#436 Dave Anderson
#437 Greg Brock
#438 Enos Cabell
#439 Mariano Duncan
#440 Pedro Guerrero
#442 Rick Honeycutt
#443 Ken Howell
#444 Ken Landreaux

Pedro Guerrero is a Cardinal I actually remember, even though he only played 43 games in 1992, the first year I watched baseball. Rick Honeycutt had quite a long career, spanning 21 seasons with his last 2 in St. Louis.

1987 Fleer
#445 Bill Madlock
#446 Mike Marshall
#447 Len Matuszek
#448 Tom Niedenfuer
#449 Alejandro Pena
#450 Dennis Powell
#451 Jerry Reuss
#452 Bill Russell
#453 Steve Sax

Niedenfuer and Reuss are two more players to play for the Dodgers and Cardinals.

1987 Fleer
#454 Mike Scioscia
#455 Franklin Stubbs
#456 Alex Trevino
#458 Ed Vande Berg
#459 Bob Welch
#460 Reggie Williams
#491 Joe Cowley
#493 Bill Dawley
#494 Jose DeLeon

Not a Cardinal, but I enjoy cards of managers as players, like Mike Scioscia. Bill Dawley and Jose DeLeon, both White Sox here, were also Cardinals.

1987 Fleer
#501 Bob James
#504 Gene Nelson
#505 Dave Schmidt
#509 Jim Acker
#510 Doyle Alexander
#511 Paul Assenmacher
#512 Bruce Benedict
#513 Chris Chambliss
#514 Jeff Dedmon

No Cardinals players here, but Chris Chambliss was their hitting coach from 1993-95.

1987 Fleer
#515 Gene Garber
#516 Ken Griffey
#517 Terry Harper
#518 Bob Horner
#519 Glenn Hubbard
#520 Rick Mahler
#521 Omar Moreno
#522 Dale Murphy
#523 Ken Oberkfell

Finally, both Bob Horner and Ken Oberkfell played for the Cardinals.

I mostly post penny cards here, but I've purchased some lots for less than a penny each. In order to keep tabs on this (because why not), I put an appropriate number of them into a "half penny" box, so that in the end the total amount I spent is correct. So if I buy 11 cards for 10 cents, 2 go in the half cent box. Go ahead, work it out on paper, I know that sounds wrong at first. Now, I will swap cards in and out, keeping the right amount in the box, though I try to keep "junk" in the half-penny box, since more often those are the sets I wind up paying less for. In short, I count these 72 as costing me 36 cents.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3556
Total Spent	$53.67
Per Card	1.509 cents
Change	-0.021 cents

Belk Bowl Winnings

As he does each year, madding of Cards on Cards ran his confidence pool contest for the 2015 NCAA Football bowl season, with a side prop of picking the score of the Belk Bowl. I was closest on the Belk Bowl portion - even though I wasn't all that close - and received my first 2016 Topps of the year for it. I also got 2nd place in the contest overall, but that prize is too big for this post.

2016 Topps
#62 Trayce Thompson
#89 Edwin Encarnacion
#110 J.D. Martinez
#138 Francisco Liriano
#144 Jose Iglesias
#168 Nathan Eovaldi
#188 Greg Bird
#203 Aaron Hill
#210 Mike Zunino

My first reaction to 2016 Topps is that the design isn't consistent. The team logo is sometimes on the bottom left, sometimes on the bottom right, with no pattern seeming to emerge. As a very organized person, this bugs me a little.

2016 Topps
#214 Chris Colabello
#229 Jesse Hahn
#231 Chris Coghlan
#242 Matt Wisler
#243 Luke Gregerson
#256 C.J. Wilson
#260 Ryan Hanigan
#266 Jonathan Papelbon

2016 Topps
#270 Pat Neshek
#277 Elvis Andrus
#278 Evan Gattis
#281 Alex Dickerson
#286 Joe Mauer
#311 Dariel Alvarez
#317 Jose Altuve
#321 Hanley Ramirez

Pat Neshek was the only Cardinal in this pack, which seems pretty heavy on Astros, although that Orange-jerseyed Dariel Alvarez adds to the effect.

2016 Topps
#21 Mike Moustakas
#25 Brad Ziegler
#64 Corey Kluber
#155 New York Yankees
#162 RBI Leaders Josh Donaldson/Chris Davis/Jose Bautista
#170 Carlos Gomez New Order
#318 Washington Nationals

The horizontal cards have the same inconsistent logo location. One card set I tend to take for granted is the League Leaders, which have been 3 players on a horizontal card for several years now. If anyone at Topps is reading this, keep that up.

2016 Topps
Back to Back #B2B-6 Joc Pederson/Adrian Gonzalez
Berger's Best #BB-33 Don Mattingly
MLB Debut #MLBD-17 Ryan Howard
Pressed Into Service #PIS-8 Garrett Jones

Perhaps it only works with video, but that Pressed Into Service set, with position players who came in when the team was out of pitchers or just wanted to save some arms, is not complete without Mark Grace pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks, doing his best impersonation of Mike Fetters. Still, it's good to have a set dedicated to this rare and usually fun occurrence.

Thanks to madding of Cards on Cards for my first look at 2016 cards!

eBay Wins #213

Today's eBay win is a single card from Kmart's 1987 set, which is full of hall of fame players, including my card, Willie Stargell, and some current players from 1987 (some of which are also now in the hall of fame)

1987 Kmart #22 Willie Stargell

I feel like I've seen cards from this set a lot, but as it turns out, there were none in my collection yet. I couldn't resist, and I added Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Roger Maris, and Fernando Valenzuela to my want list.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3484
Total Spent	$53.31
Per Card	1.53 cents
Change	0 cents

Tis The Season 2015 Winnings

JediJeff's Tis The Season 2013 giveaway cards sat on my desk about a year before I managed to get them posted in early 2015. I did better this time, as these have only been there less than 2 months. Even though there were many different stacks of cards offered in the contest, I didn't try for any until some 2015 Allen and Ginter popped up, and I came up a winner.

2015 Allen and Ginter
#12 Nelson Cruz
#14 LaTroy Hawkins
#16 Felix Hernandez
#19 Charlie Blackmon
#23 Johnny Cueto
#28 Jayson Werth
#29 Nick Swisher
#31 Frank Caliendo
#32 James Murray

2015 Allen and Ginter
#34 Buster Olney
#36 Anthony Ranaudo
#40 J.J. Hardy
#41 Brandon Finnegan
#46 Andrew McCutchen
#50 Francisco Rodriguez
#54 Javier Baez
#60 Marcus Semien
#65 David Ortiz

2015 Allen and Ginter
#69 Christian Bethancourt
#72 Joe Panik
#74 Casey McGehee
#83 Matt Harvey
#87 Francisco Liriano
#88 Carl Crawford
#90 Darren Rovell
#96 Tim Hudson
#98 Yimi Garcia

2015 Allen and Ginter
#102 James "Clubber" Lang
#110 Victor Martinez
#115 Dustin Pedroia
#131 Josh Reddick
#135 Mark Teixeira
#137 Marlon Byrd
#146 Michael Morse
#153 Brandon Moss
#156 Brian Dozier

Did you know Clubber Lang's first name was James? I didn't, but I guess if you asked me I would assume it wasn't really Clubber. Also, is this the first fictional character in the Allen and Ginter base set? Brandon Moss is the first Cardinal to appear in this post.

2015 Allen and Ginter
#158 Kurt Suzuki
#163 Zach Lowe
#166 Carlos Gomez
#167 Julie Foudy
#171 Anthony Rendon
#174 Joe Mauer
#175 DJ LeMahieu
#180 Scott Kazmir
#184 Marcell Ozuna

2015 Allen and Ginter
#187 Miguel Cabrera
#192 Fernando Rodney
#196 Ian Kinsler
#198 Albert Pujols
#202 Travis Ishikawa
#206 Erick Aybar
#212 Chris Tillman
#221 Doug Fister
#223 Incredibeard

I've seen lots of stuff in Allen and Ginter, and that particular photo of Incredibeard might be the grossest. Also, Albert Pujols is the second Cardinal to show up.

2015 Allen and Ginter
#227 Christian Yelich
#233 Ike Davis
#239 Zach Britton
#243 Jean Segura
#248 Jose Bautista
#249 Bryce Harper
#253 Carlos Beltran
#261 Yu Darvish
#264 Matt Kemp

Carlos Beltran is the third and final Cardinal in this prize package. None of them were in uniform, though Moss did join the team in 2015 and is still here for 2016.

2015 Allen and Ginter
#268 Jimbo Fisher
#269 Jeremy Roenick
#276 Alex Rodriguez
#282 Adeiny Hechavarria
#286 Addison Reed
#287 Jon Lester
#288 Robinson Cano
#295 Joe Nathan
#303 Denard Span

2015 Allen and Ginter
#306 Stephen Drew
#310 Chris Coghlan
#312 Gerrit Cole
#317 Hunter Strickland
#320 Dallas Keuchel
#325 Aroldis Chapman
#326 Mitch Moreland
#331 Alcides Escobar
#334 Nick Tropeano

2015 Allen and Ginter
#335 Collin Cowgill
#340 Neftali Feliz
#343 Angel Pagan
#348 Aaron Sanchez
#350 Masahiro Tanaka
Ancient Armory #AA-13 Taiaha
Great Scott! #GS-3 Polio Vaccine
Great Scott! #GS-6 Deoxyribonucleic Acid
Great Scott! #GS-9 Fingerprints

Is that Incredibeard again with the Taiaha? Great Scott is an insert set that celebrates scientific breakthroughs. At first I thought maybe it was forensics-focused when I saw Fingerprints and DNA, but the Polio Vaccine clearly isn't forensic.

2015 Allen and Ginter
Menagerie of the Mind #MM-11 Zombie
Menagerie of the Mind #MM-13 Cyclops
Menagerie of the Mind #MM-14 Djinn
Starting Point #SP-33 George Springer
Starting Point #SP-68 Cliff Lee
What Once Would Be #WOULD-3 Robot Housekeepers

That zombie still isn't as gross as Incredibeard.

2015 Allen and Ginter
#105 Daniel Norris
#121 Wei-Yin Chen
#194 Zack Cozart
#259 Jonathan Schoop
#293 Philae Probe
What Once Was Believed #WAS-5 Alchemy
What Once Would Be #WOULD-6 Giant Airliners
What Once Would Be #WOULD-9 Vacuum Tube Trains

That was a quite a pile of cards, 104 in all. Thanks to JediJeff for this contest, and all his annual Tis The Season contests!

eBay Wins #212

Today I add another new set to my collection, and it's another set that was originally sold as a boxed set. 1987 Fleer Baseball's Game Winners is a 44-card set. It's available on eBay right now as low as $5 shipped

1987 Fleer Baseball's Game Winners #44 Curt Young

Curt Young has no connection to the Cardinals, so I had to dig a little deeper for an interesting fact. He played exclusively in the American League, from 1983-1991 and 1993 with Oakland, and split 1992 between Kansas City and New York. All of his career was before interleague play, so he never had to come to bat. Except, he did once, on April 17, 1987. I don't know exactly why it happened, but the A's started catcher Terry Steinbach at DH, and Mickey Tettleton started at catcher that day. For some reason - I'd assume an injury to Tettleton - in the bottom of the 5th, Tony La Russa switched Steinbach to catcher, losing the DH and making Curt Young bat 8th. He was even doing the pitchers-bat-8th thing back in 1987! Anyway, Young got through the 5th and 6th, and came to bat with one out in the top of the 7th. Impressively for his first and only plate appearance, he made contact and was putout 6-3. Young went on to pitch the 7th and to one batter in the 8th, so I guess La Russa wanted to get another inning out of him.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3483
Total Spent	$53.30
Per Card	1.53 cents
Change	0 cents

A Fairfield Football Repack

Whenever I have occasion to go to Target, I usually at least walk through the card aisle to see if anything catches my eye. This time I noticed some Teenymates in a box. There were 4 packs in the box, for the price of 2 when they were brand new, and a pack of football cards. From the window on the box I could see one series 2 (running backs) and one series 3 (wide receivers) pack. I wound up with 2 of each, and a pack of 2013 Score football.

First, let's see the cards. Despite my tiny football collection, I have some cards from this set already, thanks to a contest I won over 2 years ago. That two years surprised me at first, but I guess it is a 2013 product.

2013 Score
#46 Geno Atkins
#94 Antoine Bethea
#132 Lance Moore
#151 Matt Flynn
Airmail #246 Sam Bradford
Franchise #296 Josh Freeman
Future Franchise #305 Andy Dalton
2013 Rookies #436 Chance Warmack
Hot Rookies #16 Markus Wheaton

2013 Score
#102 Jonathan Baldwin
#186 Colin Kaepernick
#196 Marshawn Lynch

Now the real reason I bought the packs, tiny football figurines.

2013 NFL Teenymates
New Orleans, San Diego, Tennessee, Chicago

2014 NFL Teenymates
Indianapolis, Philadelphia, New York Jets, San Francisco

Why not, I'll track my puzzle progress too. First, the pieces from this pack:

2013 NFL Teenymates puzzle

2014 NFL Teenymates puzzle

And my overall puzzle progress:

All of my 2013 puzzle

All of my 2014 puzzle

I've got a few duplicate puzzle pieces, and figurines, so here's my first attempt at a nice grid to list what I've got and see what I still need. 2015 Appears to be linemen, so I'll go ahead and slot them in, even though I haven't bought any yet.

NFL Teenymates
	Figures				Puzzle Pieces
Team	QB	RB	WR	OL	1	2	3	4
STL/LA	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0
SF	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0
SEA	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
AZ	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
GB	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
CHI	0	2	0	0	0	1	2	0
MIN	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
DET	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
TB	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
ATL	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
NO	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
CAR	1	1	0	0	0	2	0	1
DAL	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	0
NYG	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
WAS	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
PHI	0	0	1	0	0	2	0	0
Team	QB	RB	WR	OL	1	2	3	4
NE	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0
NYJ	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	1
BUF	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
MIA	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
SD	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
OAK	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	1
DEN	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
KC	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
IND	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
HOU	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
JAC	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
TEN	0	2	1	0	0	0	0	0
PIT	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
CIN	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
CLE	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
BAL	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Team	QB	RB	WR	OL	1	2	3	4
Tee					0	0	0	0
nyM					0	0	0	0
ates					0	0	0	0

eBay Wins #211

Today I add cards from another new set to my collection, 1987 Donruss Opening Day. This set was apparently sold as a full factory set, hence why I hadn't yet acquired any random singles.

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#16 Glenn Davis
#19 Craig Reynolds
#48 Glenn Hubbard
#87 Reid Nichols
#110 Tony Bernazard
#144 Marvell Wynne
#149 Eric Show
#152 Von Hayes

I don't really remember if these all came in the same lot or not. The first few seem to be from assorted teams, but then...

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#170 Jerry Browne
#171 Scott Fletcher
#173 Larry Parrish
#177 Oddibe McDowell
#179 Steve Buechele
#201 Ed Hearn

we get to 5 Rangers, and 6 Royals, along with a Giants logo. Maybe the set was broken and Royals and Rangers sent to a fan of both teams, or maybe these were the leftover cards when selling off the big stars. I always wonder about things like that when I have singles that I know came in a boxed set.

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#202 Buddy Biancalana
#203 Danny Jackson
#204 Frank White
#207 Kevin Seitzer
#208 Willie Wilson
#258 San Francisco Giants Logo

Among all 20 of these cards, only Danny Jackson played for the Cardinals, for two and a half seasons, 1995 to mid 1997, when he was traded for Fernando Valenzuela among others.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3482
Total Spent	$53.29
Per Card	1.53 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

A Trade With Mr. Haverkamp

Thanks to a post I made about Turkey Red a few weeks ago, a reader by the name of Mr. Haverkamp contacted me with some more Turkey Reds from my wantlist. You've probably seen his name a few times on other blogs, as he's a pretty active trader. 

2005 Topps Turkey Red
#54 Chris Carpenter
#94 Mark Buehrle
#129 Kip Wells
#156 Jake Westbrook
#229 Dmitri Young
#309 Wade Boggs

2005 isn't the main Turkey Red set I'm focused on right now, so my wantlist is only the Cardinals and retired players, hence why I've got 5 players who played for the Cardinals, and Wade Boggs.

2010 Topps - Turkey Red
#TR13 Yovani Gallardo
#TR20 CC Sabathia
#TR29 Gordon Beckham
#TR35 Stephen Drew
#TR38 Rick Porcello
#TR55 Aaron Hill

2010 Topps' Turkey Red insert set is my big target, and I knocked 6 more off that list. I still need 76 of the 150 total cards in flagship and update, so I'm almost at 50%.

2011 Topps Lineage
1975 Mini #9 Matt Holliday

This was a nice surprise thrown in with all the Turkey Red, also off my want list. Lineage is a set I really liked but didn't seem to be a big hit, only lasting a single year. I have the entire mini parallel set on my wantlist, but I'll likely never finish it. This Matt Holliday brings me up to just 15 out of the 200 cards.

Thanks for the trade, Mr. Haverkamp!

eBay Wins #210

Today I've got 21 penny cards from 1987 Donruss, but with a slight twist. I noticed that the backs were rotated 180 degrees on some of the cards, and some quick research (that is, a Google search) led me to the knowledge that the factory set backs were rotated. I believe the first 16 cards here are from a factory set, and the last 5 are not. If that's the case, all of the 1987 Donruss cards I had before this point were from packs.

1987 Donruss - Factory Set
#61 Glenn Davis
#275 Walt Terrell
#286 Bill Doran
#296 Tom Brookens
#301 Steve Farr
#308 Dave Smith
#318 Steve Lombardozzi
#357 Ken Dayley

There's only one uniformed Cardinal in this bunch, Ken Dayley.

1987 Donruss - Factory Set
#373 Dan Petry
#420 Dave Bergman
#431 Terry Puhl
#439 Jesse Orosco
#461 Chuck Cary
#554 Denny Walling
#578 Jeff Calhoun
#605 Jim Pankovits

Jesse Orosco played for the Cardinals in 2000 when he turned 43, and still played 3 more seasons after that. Denny Walling also played for the Cardinals, 1988-1990.

1987 Donruss
#299 Franklin Stubbs
#306 Russ Morman
#308 Dave Smith
#312 Jim Winn
#334 Ron Karkovice

The factory set variation is so subtle I'm not sure I should bother to catalog them separately, yet I feel like it would be wrong to claim I have a duplicate of the Dave Smith card you see pictured twice above, because they have two different backs. These are the things that keep cards piled on my desk for weeks until I make a decision.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3462
Total Spent	$53.09
Per Card	1.534 cents
Change	-0.003 cents