eBay Wins #186

Today's eBay lot has 2 more cards, this time from 2009 O-Pee-Chee

2009 O-Pee-Chee
#411 Delmon Young
#524 Kansas City Royals

I only had 5 cards from this set, 4 Cardinals and a Mike Lowell, so now I'm up to 7, or one more than 1%. This is another of those sets that came out while I wasn't collecting, so I'm a long way from completing it.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3322
Total Spent	$51.72
Per Card	1.557 cents
Change	0 cents

Tis The Season Winnings, Part X

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.
Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

Now for more of the teams everyone loves to hate, the Cardinals, Yankees, and Red Sox.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition #321 Julio Lugo
2010 Upper Deck
#346 Andy Pettitte
#347 Jorge Posada
#473 Kyle Lohse
#589 New York Checklist

The Yankees aren't the team I follow the most, but it's hard to escape stories about them. As an outsider, I'm really indecisive about whether Pettitte and Posada's numbers should be retired. On one hand, they were great players for the team, but it just feels like too much too soon, and it lowers the bar for number retirements. I think the Cardinals have a decent unofficial policy on this, which is that for the most part, only Hall of Fame entrants get their numbers retired.

2009 Upper Deck #562 Kevin Youkilis
#883 Adam Wainwright
2010 Upper Deck
#97 Jed Lowrie
#100 Takashi Saito
#462 Skip Schumaker
#470 Mitchell Boggs

Today, someone told me Waino was already hurt. It made me hurt. It was listed as abdominal pain, so I'm hoping it's nothing that will keep him out of baseball for long, and to a greater degree nothing serious for his overall health.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition #189 Mike Lowell
2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update
#314 Josh Beckett
#320 Jacoby Ellsbury
#420 Mariano Rivera
#473 Troy Glaus
2009 O-Pee-Chee #239 Mike Lowell

I remember when the Cardinals and Blue Jays traded third basemen, one for one. We sent Scott Rolen, and we got Troy Glaus.  I don't believe any cash changed hands, and no minor league add-ins were involved. I remember thinking "someone's going to get the clearly better end of this deal, and someone's getting the worse end". I'm pretty sure the Cardinals got the worse end. Rolen only played 1.5 seasons in Toronto before being traded to Cincinnati for another 3.5, which at least got the Blue Jays Edwin Encarnacion. Glaus played 2 years in St Louis, one good and one not so good due to injury, and was granted his free agency to play one final year in Atlanta.

Zistle Trade #5

The Baseball season may be over, but my card collecting season doesn't stop. Here I've got another small trade made through Zistle, acquired for some of my 2012 Gypsy Queen duplicates

1986 Topps Mini League Leaders #59 Jack Clark

I was surprised to find I didn't have any cards from this set, yet, but now all of the Cardinals are on my want list.

2008 Allen and Ginter #263 Yadier Molina
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #87 Scott Rolen
2009 O-Pee-Chee #493 Yadier Molina
2011 Topps Finest #100 Daniel Descalso

Offering a Molina or two is a good way to get your trade accepted by a Cardinal fan. Descalso and Rolen are good 3B pickups too, but I actually had this trade in progress the same time as the last one, and I didn't realize both traders had offered me the Future Stars Rolen. It's a nice enough card, but I don't really need 2, so it's now back on my trade list unless/until a Rolen autograph opportunity comes up and I need a duplicate to get signed.

182 Packs Giveaway, Part V

When I claimed the Cardinals - and Mark McGwire and Todd Stottlemyre - in the pack-per-day giveaway held at TribeCards, I had no idea just how many cards I'd wind up with, and how many different players. So that I can tag all of the sets and Cardinal players, I've broken this up into a series of who knows how many posts. Thanks for all the cards, David.
[ I | II | III | IV ]

2004 Topps #137 Brett Tomko

This is the first 2004 Topps card I have. That falls right about in the middle of my collecting hiatus.

2006 Topps
#339 Yadier Molina
#491 John Rodriguez
#198 Brad Thompson

I've bought a few 2006 packs from Target's bargain bin, but only have a small part of the set, so all 3 of these are also new to me. The Yadi's obviously the star of the bunch, but I can never see John Rodriguez without remembering some of our old, unhip announcers trying to get J-Rod to catch on. That was almost as good as Al Hrabosky encouraging the crowd to yell Puuuuuu for Albert Pujols, since we were already doing a similar cheer for Isaac Bruce over at the Rams games.

2009 Upper Deck SP Authentic
#4 Yadier Molina

Another Yadi! It looks like if the Cardinals want him - i.e., don't trade him - he'll be a Cardinal for life, since he's been signed through 2017 with a team option for 2018.

2011 Topps Attax
#59 Colby Rasmus
#232 Angel Stadium of Anaheim

I didn't realize this stadium carries forward the silly nomenclature of the team. At least it only mentions one city instead of two. Also, I got Cardinal Colby Rasmus.

2009 O-Pee-Chee
#463 Chris Perez
#587 Colby Rasmu

I think these might be the best looking cards of this post, I've been a fan of 2009 O-Pee-Chee ever since I got the David Freese card. I wish we still had Chris Perez, especially with Motte out for awhile, possibly all year. But I didn't like the trade at the time. I almost never like trades though, so maybe that's just me Monday-Morning-Quarterbacking. I guess I didn't like the Colby Rasmus trade either at the time, although I'm ok with it now. I'm just full of unbridled optimism for promising prospects.

The pile is shrinking...

Big Pile, part 4

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
[Part 3]
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.

2011 Topps #212 Pedro Feliz

You don't see a lot of guys wearing #77 on cards.

2007 Fleer Ultra #152 Adam Wainwright

Fun fact: Adam Wainwright is on my fantasy baseball team this year, and threw a Complete Game Shutout this week. We have both CG and SHO as categories, and 1 will usually win it for you for the week. I forgot to put him in, and left him on the bench. D'oh!

2006 Bowman #183 Mark Mulder

The Dan Haren-Mark Mulder trade was really unwise in retrospect. It made me nervous at the time, but I thought we'd get a few solid years of All-Star pitching. Of course, I'd be a heck of a GM with the benefit of hindsight in all trades.

2006 Bowman #44 Chris Carpenter

Come back, Chris!

2001 Bowman Heritage #17 Jim Edmonds

I like the Black and White look of this card, and all things Heritage, so I had to draft this Edmonds.

2009 O-Pee-Chee #579 David Freese

As he's the reigning World Series (and NLCS) MVP, I'll consider this the best card of the bunch. Hopefully he's got a lot of his career story left to write, though.

That's it for the Big Pile. A big thanks to Josh for giving away 360 or so cards to 12 lucky readers.

Number 5 Type Collection's Cardinals Giveaway, Part 5

[Part 1]
[Part 2]
[Part 3]
[Part 4]
Matt at Number 5 Type Collection gave me way too many Cardinals in a recent contest. Here's the final part, part 5:

2008 Upper Deck #656 Anthony Reyes

2008 Upper Deck #658 Adam Kennedy

If I remember correctly, Adam was a hot SS prospect when we still had Ozzie. This was my first realization that the players I loved would eventually retire or be pushed out by younger guys. I think my fantasy baseball drafting style shows I'm still coming to grips with this. Anyway, we moved him to 2B, then moved him to Anaheim for Jim Edmonds. He then won a World Series in 2002 with David Eckstein, Scott Spiezio, and Troy Glaus, then joined the Cardinals for 2007 after Eckstein and Spiezio won another ring here.

2008 Upper Deck #66 Yadier Molina

2008 Upper Deck #64 Jason Isringhausen

2008 Upper Deck First Edition #52 Jason Isringhausen

I really like parallels and...whatever you'd call sets like Topps Opening Day. Parallel Sets? So having both of these Isringhausens is a good fit for my collecting style.

2009 O-Pee-Chee - Black Mini Parallel #493 Yadier Molina

2009 O-Pee-Chee - Black Parallel #579 David Freese

Did I mention I like parallels? And in case you missed it, that Molina is a mini.

2009 O-Pee-Chee Box Bottom Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez

Does anyone have any great solution for how to store something like this? It's basically the size of two cards next to each other. I could trim it as intended, but that'd be too easy. Anyway, this is the semi-mystery card promised in the contest post, the O-Pee-Chee box bottom. I'm glad this one has the Albert card on it like the example shown. Also that'd make a sweet 3D card.

That was a pretty awesome prize. I was impressed how many were actually spare #5s from his collection. I owe a big thanks to Matt at Number 5 Type Collection. If you're not a regular reader, go give his blog a look.