Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXII

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

Like Homer Simpson once said...

So I intend to finish out this prize package!

1994 Pinnacle #425 Tripp Cromer
1994 Upper Deck #113 Tripp Cromer
1996 Pacific #215 Scott Cooper
1996 Score #448 Mark Petkovsek
1996 Topps Stadium Club #13 Tom Henke
1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #287 Tripp Cromer
1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #693 John Mabry
2015 Opening Day - Stadium Scenes #STA-RG Busch Stadium by Robert Grunbaum

We're getting deep into the weeds now, with some players who only played a handful of seasons or partial seasons, like Tripp Cromer. We seem to get a lot of guys with odd names, but maybe it's no more than our fair share. Tripp actually played in LA, though less than 40 games over 2 seasons, and Houston in 2000 and 3 final games in 2003 after 2 years out of the majors. Mark Petkovsek spent 5 years with the Cardinals, but bookended his 11-year career on each end with a year in Texas. Then there's Scott Cooper and Tom Henke, probably best known for playing on other teams, and John Mabry, who I have to keep reminding myself is still on the Cardinals coaching staff. He's kind of quiet.

Finally, there's the card from Opening Day's Stadium Scenes set, which features contest winning photos. I'm no artist of any sort, and especially not a photographer, but I think that's a pretty bland photo of Busch Stadium, so I don't know how it won. Maybe if I was the owner of the Millennium Hotel, which is that big round building in the center of this photo's focus, I'd be pleased. Or maybe I wouldn't be, since it closed in 2014. There's a sliver of the Arch, some opposing players (Dodgers), and a good clear view of the stadium's lesser dot-matrix style scoreboard, with a welcome message for a random group performing the national anthem that day. Maybe the photo started off better and was cropped oddly to fit on a vertical card, but the result just looks like something anyone could have taken from that seat.

That was a rather negative rant, but the card just hit me funny and it feels good to get out the poison pen now and then. Let's end with something happy.

Close enough.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXVI

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 XIX XX
XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV

We're just about into Bowl Season again. Will I get these done anytime soon?

1986 Topps Traded #82T Jose Oquendo
1990 Sportflics #85 Jose Oquendo
1991 Topps Stadium Club #190 Jose Oquendo
1991 Topps Stadium Club #366 Felix Jose
1991 Topps Stadium Club #481 Jamie Moyer
1992 Donruss - Diamond Kings #DK-13 Felix Jose

St. Louis was Jamie Moyer's 3rd team, and yet he retired 21 years after he left the Cardinals.

1992 Fleer - All Stars #1 Felix Jose
1996 Donruss #87 Brian Jordan
1996 Donruss #153 Tripp Cromer
1996 Donruss #234 Jose Oquendo
1996 Donruss #282 Mike Morgan
1996 Pacific #228 Jose Oquendo

I got a nice handful of Felix Jose and Jose Oquendo cards, among others. Both of them were on the 1992 team which was the first I ever watched. Oquendo had a long coaching career with the Cardinals as well, but has opted to just be a spring training instructor for now. He's no Hall of Famer, but I think the Cardinals should retire #11 for him, for combined playing and coaching contributions to the team.