Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XX

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


No Cardinals prize package would be complete without some Albert Pujols cards. This one still isn't complete with it though.

2002 Topps #719 Albert Pujols
2002 Topps Total - Total Topps #TT36 Albert Pujols
2004 Playoff Honors #177 Albert Pujols
2007 Topps #130 Albert Pujols
2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update - Star Quest Common #SQ-32 Albert Pujols
2009 Upper Deck Icons #5 Albert Pujols
2010 Topps - Factory Set Bonus #RS5 Albert Pujols

Almost all of these were new cards to my collection, except the Upper Deck Icons, of which I oddly enough already have 2, and I've also got 3 Ryan Ludwicks from that set. The Factory set insert is a good pickup since it's one I don't think I'd encounter much in the wild (the wild of card shows, that is), and if I did, I'd probably flip past it thinking it's just a base card.

2007 Bowman #175 Albert Pujols
2010 Upper Deck - Tape Measure Shots #TMS-11 Albert Pujols
2015 Topps Update - Highlight of the Year #H-89 Albert Pujols

That 2015 Update card offers me assurances that I can still get new Pujols Cardinals cards for the rest of his career and beyond.

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.

Mystery Contest Winnings

I'm going to ask for some help here, if you fancy yourself a Bowman expert. Read on...

Sport Card Collectors held a contest to pick the results of 6 different games on a Sunday in July, and I got all 6 correct. The tiebreaker was total runs scored. I went with 46, and the total was 47, earning me first prize. 2 of the prizes were pick-your-favorite-sport surprises, and I, of course, went with baseball. I had no idea what would show up in the mail.

The big prize turned out to be this Adrian Gonzalez relic from Upper Deck's last-gasp 2010 set. I appreciate a player like Adrian, who mocked the Cardinals for calling the Dodgers' celebrations "Mickey Mouse" by putting up mouse ears during a home run trot in the 2013 NLCS. That's how baseball should be, a bunch of guys having fun and giving each other trouble. Let's drop the unwritten rule stuff, and the "I'm offended" beanballs.

2010 Upper Deck
UD Game Jersey #UDGJ-GO Adrian Gonzalez

The rest of the prize was 2 retail packs of 2014 Bowman Platinum. Here's where I need help. I really like Bowman cards, until I go to enter them in my checklist and see the massive numbers of parallels. It's been this way since at least 1995, which I know for a fact because I have a 1995 Bowman card sitting on my desk, waiting for me to get the time to investigate whether or not it's a parallel. I may have to resort to buying some more from that set just to have something in my hand to judge it against.

Anyway, onto the help. If I've miscategorized any of these, please leave me a comment, and you can even call me whatever bad name you want for being unable to decipher parallels.

2014 Bowman Platinum
#49 Freddie Freeman
#100 Alex Guerrero

So far, so good. I believe these are both plain old base cards.

2014 Bowman Platinum - Prospects
#BPP61 Billy McKinney
#BPP81 Jake Barrett

Here's the first confusing part of Bowman, the prospects "base" set. But again, I think I've nailed these down. The background appears the same as the Freeman and Guerrero under the light.

2014 Bowman Platinum
Prospects Chrome Refractor #BPCP83 Trevor Story
Prospects X-Fractor #BPCP14 Mason Williams

Now, I realize trying to see a chrome coating on a scanned image is nearly an impossibility, but maybe you've scanned some of your chrome parallels and can see the similarities. The pattern on the background of the X-Fractor, at least I assume that's what it is, is easier to see. Neither of these had any serial numbering, leading me to believe these are the proper insert sets.

2014 Bowman Platinum
Top Prospects #TP-AB Archie Bradley
Cutting Edge Stars #CES-YD Yu Darvish

Almost as if these packs knew I was confused, they dropped this Top Prospects card on me. There's also a Top Prospects Die Cut Refractor set. This card is Die Cut. Logically, this is a Top Prospects Die Cut Refractor, right? Wrong. The Die Cut Refractor set is numbered to 25, and this has no numbering. Thus, it's just a Top Prospects card. At least the final Yu Darvish card was less confusing. The only other Cutting Edge Stars set (as far as I can tell) is a relic set, so this one's place in the checklist is plainly visible.

I want to reiterate to make very clear that I like Bowman cards. I get excited to open them, or get them in trades, or win them as prizes. It's when I then attempt to fulfill my desire to catalog every card I have, that I start to get a headache from the inscrutable checklist. Maybe I should just have one big Bowman box, a free for all of cards sorted by team and then shininess. Everyone loves shininess.

Thank you to Sport Card Collectors, and go check them out for more monthly/weekly contests.

Zistle Trade #8 Part B

Here's the second part of my trade from yesterday. As I said there, Blogger's label limitations have forced me to split up the relatively small number of cards into two posts. I had just barely too many characters for one post, so I didn't have to split them very carefully, so I went with vertical cards in the previous post, and horizontal in this one, mostly for ease of scanning.

1999 Topps #452 Alex Rodriguez/Nomar Garciaparra/Derek Jeter
2007 Topps Opening Day #69 Albert Pujols
2010 Upper Deck #463 Albert Pujols
2011 Allen and Ginter - Hometown Heroes #HH9 Adam Wainwright

I've been a fan of Nomar since his rookie year, and I still don't really remember why. I do know I spent many hours on a high school art project featuring him that year.

The Pujols cards are Pujols cards, and that's the only reason I need for those. I don't see much of 2007 Opening Day, but hopefully my quest for a Cardinals team set isn't in vain. I actually just purchased the full 2010 Upper Deck set from Matt's case break at Once A Cub, but Cardinal duplicates are often what I wind up trading away on Zistle to fellow Cardinal fans with different Cardinal duplicates, so this one may still serve a purpose.

Finally, there's an Adam Wainwright card from 2011 Allen and Ginter. I generally convince myself not to spend the money necessary to get much Ginter, but I like the set, so these inserts always wind up on my list. This year I'm jumping on the bandwagon, though, and at least picking up a few packs of it when it hits the shelves.

eBay Wins #111

These cards don't really go together, except I got them about the same time. Enough logistics, on with the cards. 

2000 SP Top Prospects
#62 Tony Armas, Jr

Shiny cards come out weird in scans, but that's okay. This is my first 2000 SP Top Prospects card.

2010 Upper Deck
#395 Jason Jaramillo
#214 Emilio Bonifacio

This post is devoid of MLB logos (mostly), due to these unlicensed 2010 Upper Deck cards, and the minor league card above. So that's sort of a connection, right?

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2722
Total Spent	$45.76
Per Card	1.681 cents

All-Star Winnings, Part 7

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 | III | IV | V | VI ]

Today's theme is "The Ghosts of Free-Agents Past".

2006 Upper Deck #807 Braden Looper

I distinctly remember being up in arms when I found out we traded Braden Looper for Edgar Renteria. But a look at the stats shows he pitched only 4 games for the cardinals before that point. 4 of his 10 outs were Strikeouts, but still, I don't know why I was so sure we needed him. We picked him back up just in time for the 2006 season, and he got to pitch in 7 playoff games including 3 in the World Series. Eventually he left for Milwaukee.

2010 Upper Deck #473 Kyle Lohse

2012 Topps #26 Kyle Lohse

Speaking of Milwaukee, Kyle Lohse turned his 16-3 2012 season into a 3-year, $33M deal with the Brewers for 2013-2015. So far it's not going quite as well at 2-6. At least that matches his jersey number, and 2012 card number.

2010 Topps Attax #121 Ryan Ludwick

I'd make a horrible GM. I'd never want to let any players go. It appears the Cardinals traded Ludwick at a good time, but in return we got Jake Westbrook, who is only recently off the DL again.

2009 Goodwin Champions #149 Ryan Ludwick
2009 Goudey #177 Ryan Ludwick
2009 Upper Deck Icons #92 Ryan Ludwick
2009 Upper Deck SP Authentic #47 Ryan Ludwick

These 4 Ludwick cards make me want the Topps monopoly to end. All 4 are Upper Deck products, and I think all 4 look really good.

All-Star Winnings, Part 2

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]

2010 Topps - Topps Attax Matt Holliday
2011 Bowman #122 Matt Holliday
2011 Lineage #9 Matt Holliday

First up in this batch is the player who won me these cards, Matt Holliday. If you can figure out what to do with it, the code from the 2010 Attax card is all yours. Matt changed jersey numbers for 2011, but Bowman apparently went with a 2009 shot in the 2011 product.

2011 Topps Update
#US114 Lance Lynn
#US260 Matt Holliday
#US294 Edwin Jackson

Here are 3 cards from 2011 Update, and right in the middle, Matt Holliday is celebrating that he had slightly more statistical impact than his 2 teammates at the All-Star Game. I don't think this pick is from the game, however, because Molina was on bereavement leave at the time.

1999 Topps #433 Adam Kennedy/Mickey Lopez/Jackie Rexrode
1998 Bowman #77 Adam Kennedy
2008 Topps #542 Adam Kennedy
2008 Topps #285 Tony La Russa

Here's a little sunrise-sunset on Adam Kennedy, since he started his first stint with the Cardinals in 1999 (drafted in 1997), and finished the second one in 2008. Also from 2008, Tony La Russa, who probably didn't want to pose for this shot.

2010 Topps
Peak Performance #PP-80 Ozzie Smith
Vintage Legends #VLC9 Ozzie Smith

And finally for today, here are 2 Ozzies from 2010. Cards like this make me appreciate Topps reaching back to the past for card subjects. They even got the logo era-appropriate on the Peak Performance card.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #8

Today I have my last free bonus pack.

2010 Upper Deck
Portrait #SE-35 Roy Oswalt
Season Biography #SB-177 Mark Teixeira

There were 2 inserts in this pack. The Portraits set is a little underwhelming. I'd have been more excited about it if the Cardinals had managed to sign Roy Oswalt a few years ago when he was a free agent. Also, I went 8 for 8 in getting a Season Biography card in each pack.

2010 Upper Deck
#219 Kiko Calero
#462 Skip Schumaker

This pack had 2 Cardinals, with 2 of the stranger names for players we've fielded in recent years. Kiko and Skip sounds a bit like a bad 1990s homage to 1980s buddy cop shows.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #7

There are just 2 packs left to go in my Dave and Adam's Card World bonus.

2010 Upper Deck
#474 Chris Carpenter
Supreme Green #S-100 Adam Dunn

If you don't follow the Cardinals closely, I'd imagine you don't hear the daily Chris Carpenter updates like I do. A week or so ago it sounded like he was almost ready to hit AAA for a game and then return to the rotation. Now they're slowing him down a little bit. It's still rather surprising given the expectations set by both the Cardinals and Carpenter in February that he was likely done for good.

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-91 Kenshin Kawakami

Ever since Ichiro came to MLB, and more NPB players followed, there seems to be a glut of star players with apparently short careers. In part, this is because they spent many good years in NPB, and thus we never hear of them for those years. Kawakami signed for a 3 year deal with the Braves, but the 3rd year was spent at AA, and he is now back in NPB. And Daisuke Matsuzaka, mentioned on the card as his opponent that day, is now at AAA after leaving the Red Sox as a free agent. It seems like just yesterday teams were fighting just to pay $51M for the right to negotiate with him, although it was prior to the 2007 season.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #6

2010 Upper Deck #200 Gerald Laird

Finally, a Cardinal, after a 2 pack drought. It would appear Upper Deck isn't into Topps' philosophy of putting stars on the round-numbered cards. Gerald filled in for Yadier Molina's rest days nicely in 2011, and won a ring with us.

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-132 Josh Willingham

Inserting a 200 card set at about 1 card to a pack is rather brilliant. I almost feel like this would be a good set to chase because of how many I've already pulled, and yet, I'd have to buy another 195 packs just to get 200 of them, much less 200 unique cards.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #5

On to pack #5 of my free gift from Dave and Adam's Card World.

2010 Upper Deck
#333 Johan Santana
#346 Andy Pettitte

This pack, again, had no Cardinals, so here are two New York guys to appeal to the widest possible audience. That's how this works, right?

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-116 Josh Beckett

I'm still surprised about the August 2012 trade in which so much talent and salary changed hands. I was actually somewhat away from civilization at the time, though I had my phone, on which I get tweets from some of the people I follow. Without the context available from a quick internet search, the tweets almost seemed like a joke, or a mistake, with all the big names involved. Josh is having a bit of a rough year so far, and is currently on the 15-day DL, but I have a feeling he'll even out before the end of the season. So, I'm glad the Cardinals won't run into him this weekend in LA.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #4

After this one, I'm halfway through my bonus packs.

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-118 Ichiro/Barack Obama

I have a feeling this card's caption took a bit of liberty. Are there any politics of baseball worth the president's time? Or even Ichiro's time?

2010 Upper Deck
#106 Jonathan Papelbon
#188 Todd Helton

The pack had no Cardinals, current or former, so here are two guys you've probably heard of. Todd Helton has, however, spent many years on my fantasy teams, despite those not being keeper leagues. He seems to always be either underrated by my opponents or overrated by me.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #3

I've ripped open another bonus pack from my free bonus stack of packs from Dave and Adam's Card World.

2010 Upper Deck
#460 Colby Rasmus
Season Biography #SB-99 Lance Berkman

Another Berkman! Last time it was the base card. I already had two of the Rasmus cards, from a prize and a trade.

2010 Upper Deck Celebrity Predictors
#CP-11 Anna Kournikova
#CP-12 Enrique Iglesias

Upper Deck took this whole unlicensed thing to the next level, and drew some caricatures of celebrity couples, along with not-so-vague descriptions on the back. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between baseball card collectors and celebrity-romance obsessors, but for the record, the predictor didn't really get resolved, as they've neither broke up nor gotten married, to this day.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #2

I'm back with another pack from the 8 bonus packs Dave and Adam's Card World sent along with my order.

2010 Upper Deck #565 St. Louis, Missouri (Busch Stadium)

I've been here a time or two. And just below the right edge of the Upper Deck logo, is an engraved brick with my in-laws names on it. You'll just have to trust me that it's really there.

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-158 Michael Cuddyer
Portraits #SE-10 Jon Lester

Why are the Portraits card numbers prefixed with SE? Special Edition? Sepia, since there's also a black version? With this rogue unlicensed set, the world may never know.

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #1

I recently made a purchase from Dave and Adam's Card World, and spent enough for a free bonus. I chose 8 packs of 2010 Upper Deck Series 1.

2010 Upper Deck
#93 J.D. Drew
#229 Lance Berkman
Supreme Green #S-87 Shane Victorino
Season Biography #SB-59 Freddy Sanchez

The first pack had 2 Cardinals in it, though in different uniforms. Lance Berkman was such a good clubhouse presence, I can forgive the former division-rival Houston Astros uniform.

March Radness Win, Part I

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

2010 Upper Deck
#460 Colby Rasmus
#465 Julio Lugo
#467 Adam Wainwright
#468 Brad Thompson
#473 Kyle Lohse
#474 Chris Carpenter
#475 Ryan Franklin

I just traded for Colby and Thompson in my last trade, which was in the mail the same time as this prize, but the rest put me 5 cards closer to completing the 2010 UD team set.

Coincidentally, part 2 of that trade also included some 2011 Opening Day, also seen here. There wasn't much overlap. Not that I'd complain about the overlap; I've found the best way to complete a set is usually to swap duplicates of that same set with someone else, so those would likely make a trade easier. Here's Yadi and some inserts.

2011 Topps Opening Day

#46 Yadier Molina
Presidential First Pitches #PFP-5 Richard Nixon
Stadium Lights #UL-5 Miguel Cabrera
Toppstown #TTOD-5 Jon Lester
Toppstown #TTOD-14 Brian Matusz

And all the base cards:
38 Mike Stanton
44 Omar Infante
46 Yadier Molina
68 Jeremy Jeffress
71 Jon Niese
101 Brian Wilson
138 Chris Young
144 Brett Gardner
150 Matt Cain
156 Ryan Zimmerman
164 Grady Sizemore
170 Logan Morrison
179 Prince Fielder
194 Delmon Young

There's a whole lot more to this trade package, but like I've said before, I just can't not tag a Cardinal or a set.

A Fantastic Trade, Part I

Again with the pun title?

It's always good to find a new trading partner, and I recently got an email from Fantastic Catch with an offer of a bunch of cards from my wantlists, and I was able to send him some stuff for his player PCs and set needs. Of course as a fellow Cardinal fan, he sent so many he triggered my obsessive need to use up my all of my available tag space, so here's part 1 what I got in my 2-piece box:

2010 Upper Deck #460 Colby Rasmus

2010 Upper Deck #464 Joe Thurston

2010 Upper Deck #466 Yadier Molina

2010 Upper Deck #468 Brad Thompson

2010 Upper Deck #469 Denys Reyes

2010 Upper Deck - Season Biography #SB-79 

I've now got 7 of the 17 Cardinals from 2010 Upper Deck. I like this set because it manages to get some interesting photography despite no MLB logos allowed.

2011 Heritage - News Flashbacks #NF-9

2011 Heritage - Baseball Flashbacks #BF-10

I also got 2 more Heritage inserts toward my set, and 3 base cards:
137 Babe and Mgr. Huggins
217 Don Mattingly
256 Ruben Tejada

1999 Upper Deck - Textbook Excellence #T21 Mark McGwire

And a nice Mark McGwire insert to finish off this half. More tomorrow!

Contest at Another New Blog

Here's an interesting twist on the follow-for-an-entry contest. The contest itself is at It's like having my own Card Shop, but to enter, you'll need to follow his pal's new blog, Hello, Victory! Second prize is a 16 2012 Gypsy Queen minis of various subsets, and first prize includes 2 relics and 1 autograph from 2010 Upper Deck, including this one:

2010 Upper Deck - Game Jersey #UDGJ-AG Armando Galarraga

So, go follow Hello, Victory!, then comment at It's like having my own Card Shop.

Good Luck!

2010 Upper Deck Value Pack

When taking another look through Target's $1.59 pack box, where I found my last 3 2006 Topps packs, I found a 2010 Upper Deck. Since I won some 2010 UD not once but twice from Number 5 Type Collection, I decided I'd go ahead and pick up the pack. Here's what I found.

2010 Upper Deck #282 Jeff Weaver

I mostly remember Weaver for kicking a batted ball while pitching in the World Series, because the following Sunday I pulled almost the same move (on accident) while pitching in slow pitch softball.

2010 Upper Deck - Season Biography #SB-96 Tim Lincecum

2010 Upper Deck - Supreme Green #S-11 Mark Buehrle

Buehrle grew up in the St. Louis area, and long talked about finishing up with the Cardinals, but that seems unlikely after he signed his contract with Miami this year. My dad actually worked with his uncle for awhile, and so I'd get to hear about his progress through the minors, even in the days before obsessive team bloggers and 3 or 4 ESPNs to cover every detail.

And here are all the base cards contained in the pack.
34 Matt Garza
97 Jed Lowrie
126 Carlos Quentin
144 Laynce Nix
146 Joey Votto
167 Kerry Wood
232 Wesley Wright
282 Jeff Weaver
358 Rajai Davis
393 Ramon Vazquez
408 Tony Gwynn (Jr.)
410 Edgar Gonzalez
454 Felix Hernandez
479 Gabe Gross
537 Ross Detwiler
594 San Francisco Checklist

18 cards for $1.59 wasn't bad, even if almost every pitcher is shot like Weaver above, to obscure the logos. Although, I'm surprised Upper Deck got away with as much as they did being unlicensed in 2010, like the SOX and SF logos on Buehrle's and Lincecum's hats.