Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XIX

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE, 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

1992 Fleer Ultra - All Stars #15 Tom Pagnozzi
1993 Studio #198 Tom Pagnozzi
1994 Pinnacle #439 Tom Pagnozzi
1995 Pinnacle #37 Tom Pagnozzi
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #193 Tom Pagnozzi
1996 Donruss #278 Tom Pagnozzi
1996 Topps #131 Tom Pagnozzi
1998 Topps #431 Tom Pagnozzi

Tom Pagnozzi was a member of the Cardinals when I started watching baseball, and never went to another team, so he was one of my favorite players as a kid.

1995 Fleer Ultra - Award Winners #10 Tom Pagnozzi
1996 Score #403 Tom Pagnozzi
1997 Topps Stadium Club #274 Tom Pagnozzi

Being a catcher also bumps him up on my favorite players list, although I just learned that in 1988 he actually started more games at first than catcher. He had to wait around awhile for Tony Pena to leave and Todd Zeile to be moved to third before he became the everyday catcher.

Zistle Trade #27

I'm not very good with keeping up a First-in-first-out system of stuff to post, because when this trade arrived in the mail I thought, here's a group of cards I can scan and file away quickly. First, because there were only 6 of them, and second, because they are all from the same 1993 Studio set, making the steps to sorting them much shorter.

1993 Studio
#47 Jose Canseco
#73 Chris Sabo
#117 Terry Pendleton
#119 Mark Whiten
#147 Lee Smith
#188 Joe Girardi

This trade knocked out about half of my remaining needs for this set, which was mostly just the Cardinals in the set. Although, upon further reviewing the set, I missed Bobby Bonilla, Will Clark, Vince Coleman, Royce Clayton, Larry Walker, Andy Van Slyke, Delino DeShields (Sr.), Willie McGee, Lance Johnson, and Tino Martinez. I must not have ever looked through it exhaustively, but added cards while searching for specific players. So, the net effect of these trade is 4 more cards on my want list. This is actually a set I really like, and I may try to finish it at some point, but for now I'll just try to get at least the rest of the Cardinals.

Zistle Trade #20

I've now successfully completed 20 trades on Zistle, and this one was with a frequent trading partner, who seems to be a Marlins collector for the most part. Every time I add some relatively common cards to my want list, he's usually got a trade for me within a few weeks. I'm certain most of these were added recently, especially the 1993 Studio cards I added when I got the Gregg Jefferies in my last trade.

1993 Studio #45 Scott Cooper
1993 Studio #62 Todd Zeile
1993 Studio #88 Ron Gant
1992 Donruss #334 Heathcliff Slocumb
1993 Bowman #111 Todd Stottlemyre
1995 Topps #635 Steve Kline / Herb Perry

I like these Studio cards, but I really started collecting Studio in 1997. I liked the design that year and bought a whole box, which was tough to do on the budget of a teenager. Those cards made me appreciate the Studio brand, so through the years I've sought out at least the Cardinals from other years, including those not pictured on the team, as I always do.

The other 3 cards also feature out-of-uniform Cardinals, including rookie cards for Heathcliff Slocumb, who played part of 1999 with the team, and Steve Kline, who played here 2001-2004, and was the league leader in appearances each season 1999-2001. Then there's my long lost cousin, Todd Stottlemyre. I always forget the exact relationship; I think technically it's 2nd cousin once removed. Now I've got to call my mom and maybe grandma tomorrow to sort this out.

Zistle Trade #19

With today's trade I've filled in 7 more Cardinals cards in my collection, even though only one is actually pictured in uniform. I think I added the Fleer cards to my want list recently, possibly when I got the last of the uniformed Cardinals I needed in another trade. I should really just put the full sets from junk wax years on my list to make things easier, and pick and choose from the more rare sets.

1990 Donruss #697 Mark McGwire
1990 Fleer
#7 Mike Gallego
#67 Ken Oberkfell
#77 Pat Borders
#84 Tom Henke
#207 Gregg Jefferies
1993 Studio #90 Gregg Jefferies

The Donruss card is the error version of Mark McGwire's All-Star card. As you may know, some of them were put out with a subtle error, where the stats on the back are for All-Star games, but the stats header says "Recent Major League Performance". Corrected versions were issued, and I have so many cards from the set, I decided I'd try to complete a full base set, with all versions of the error cards included.

Junior Junkie's Generosity, Part VI

Part I II III IV V

I hope you like Mark McGwire cards, because I've got another post full of them. Actually, I hope you don't like Mark McGwire cards, so you'll send them all to me.

1991 Topps #270 Mark McGwire
1992 Studio #226 Mark McGwire
1993 Duracell #9 Mark McGwire
1993 Donruss Triple Play #87 Mark McGwire (x3)
1993 Pinnacle #58 Mark McGwire (x2)
1993 Topps Stadium Club #595 Mark McGwire

I actually got 4 Triple Play cards, but 18 cards scan much nicer than 19. And, I figured you got the gist of it after 3 of them.

1993 Studio #141 Mark McGwire
1993 Upper Deck #566 Mark McGwire (x3)
1993 Upper Deck #493 Mark McGwire
1994 Pinnacle #300 Mark McGwire
1994 Topps Stadium Club #358 Mark McGwire
1994 Donruss Triple Play #5 Mark McGwire
1994 Upper Deck #67 Mark McGwire

Either the photos on the Pinnacle and Triple Play cards were taken at the same time, or this was one of Big Mac's daily drills. Even if it was, he's got the exact same jacket, and the sun's at about the same angle based on the shadow of his hat bill. I vote for two photos of the same practice.

All-Star Winnings, Part 3

Way back in July 2012, I won a contest at Cards On Cards. The premise was to pick the Cardinals player who would have the biggest impact on the game, determined Sabermetrically. I picked the right player, and got a pile of Cardinals for my trouble. They've been sitting in that same pile, haunting me, for quite some time, so now is the time to show them to you.
Part [ I | II ]

Today, it's wall-to-wall Ray Lankford, with a touch of Mark McGwire.

2001 Stadium Club #52 Ray Lankford

1993 Hostess #5 Ray Lankford
1993 Studio #175 Ray Lankford
1993 Topps - BlackGold #10 Ray Lankford
1993 Upper Deck Fun Pack #76 Ray Lankford
1996 Zenith #38 Ray Lankford
1998 Collector's Choice - Starquest #SQ42 Ray Lankford
1999 Stadium Club #95 Ray Lankford
1999 Upper Deck Ovation #53 Ray Lankford

Ray Lankford. Ray Lankford. Type it enough and the words lose all meaning. Ray was a starter from before the time I started watching baseball in 1992 through 2001, and early on, he was really one of the biggest stars on the team, so he's got quite a few cards in the small sets and insert sets like Hostess and BlackGold. I didn't have most of these cards, except the Hostess card, and many of them were specifically on my want list as well. Curiously, every Lankford card in this bunch pictures him with a road blue hat/helmet.

2001 Stadium Club #100 Mark McGwire
1999 Upper Deck Ovation #53 Mark McGwire

Since I sort my cards by set, here are two McGwires from two of the sets represented in the Lankford scans above. It's not often you see a running shot of Mark McGwire. Usually it's exactly how that Ovation card looks, the follow-through of the bat, implying a home run swing, or him standing at the ready on defense at first base.

Big Pile, part 3

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
Josh at Royals and Randoms had a draft-style contest called Big Pile way back in late 2011, and I misplaced the envelope until this week.

1997 PowerDeck #11 Scott Rolen

I remember when these came out in 1997, thinking they'd be really cool, then seeing a rather high price and never buying any. It probably didn't help that I was 14 with no job.

1997 Upper Deck - Star Attractions #SA10 Kenny Lofton

How could I resist a shiny, diecut card like this?

1990 Fleer #461 Barry Bonds

Junk wax but a star player. It seems like these are a little hard to find, so I went ahead and picked this card.

1996 Fleer Ultra #533 Jason Kendall

I had Jason Kendall on a lot of fantasy baseball teams in the early 2000s, which caused me to follow his career a little closer than I might have otherwise for another team's catcher.

2006 Bowman Chrome - Prospects #BC109 Leonard Davis

Oooh shiny.

1997 Bowman #401 Jason Marquis

Former Cardinal Jason Marquis.

1993 Studio #42 Mark Grace

A Cub?! No matter the team, I appreciate a player who plays the game right and has fun doing it. For example, during a pitching appearance in a blowout during his time in Arizona, he imitated Mike Fetters' idiosyncrasies.