All-Star Winnings, Part 4

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 ]

Today's subject is a man who managed the Cardinals too many times to count, and coached most of the time he wasn't managing, Red Schoendienst.

1972 Topps #67 Red Schoendienst
1981 Donruss #431 Red Schoendienst
1990 Topps Traded #113T Red Schoendienst
1992 Studio #262 Red Schoendienst
2006 Fleer Greats of the Game #74 Red Schoendienst
2007 SP Legendary Cuts #93 Red Schoendienst
2007 Topps - Distinguished Service #DS24 Red Schoendienst
2008 Donruss Threads #47 Red Schoendienst
2011 Topps Gypsy Queen #62 Red Schoendienst

As the cards get more recent, Red's picture seems to get younger. Of course, that's because the first few picture him past his playing prime as a manager, and the rest are throwbacks to his playing days. Upon my reentry into collecting in 2010, I was happy to see cards of guys like Red showing up, even though he's no longer manager or even a regular-season coach for the Cardinals.

As a side note, 1981 Donruss cards are paper-thin, aren't they?

March Radness Win, Part III

[Part I]
[Part II]

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.

First up in this batch of cards is the Series I 2008 Upper Deck Cardinals I needed.

2008 Upper Deck (Series I)
#61 Adam Wainwright
#62 Joel Pineiro
#63 Brad Thompson
#65 Troy Percival
#67 Albert Pujols
#68 David Eckstein
#69 Jim Edmonds
#70 Rick Ankiel

Together with the 8 cards from part II, and the 4 from a previous contest win, I have all of the Cardinals from this set, and never bought a pack.

2011 Gypsy Queen
#38 Walter Johnson
#117 Dallas Braden

That's 2 more off the wantlist, leaving me just 125 left to go for Gypsy Queen. It would seem I tend to get a little over ambitious with the wantlists sometimes, desiring a whole set after getting a few packs.

1988 Donruss Wax Pack

Ah, the mystery of an unopened pack. I'm not going to open this yet. Maybe I'll wait for the 30th anniversary in 2018. More likely, I'll break down and open it when I finally sort through my 1988 Donruss cards, because I'm a weak, weak man.

Half of a Trade from The Daily Dimwit

Oh no, Matt's not going to do yet another trade multi-post, is he?

No, don't worry.  Not this time at least. Sam over at The Daily Dimwit sent me some cards in exchange for future considerations. I haven't done enough considering yet to send stuff back, thus this is half of a trade so far.

There was a nearly full 200-count box, but you've all seen plenty of 2011 Gypsy Queen base cards, so here are the Cardinals and the SP, just for fun.

2011 Gypsy Queen #39 Johnny Mize

2011 Gypsy Queen #62 Red Schoendienst 

2011 Gypsy Queen #70 Rogers Hornsby

I also got the Cubs card of  Hornsby, but didn't realize it till after I scanned these.

2011 Gypsy Queen #75 Albert Pujols

2011 Gypsy Queen #99 Ozzie Smith

2011 Gypsy Queen #97 Stan Musial

2011 Gypsy Queen #190 Jaime Garcia

2011 Gypsy Queen #340 Miguel Olivo (SP)

Thanks, Sam!

Trade With Reader Ryan

Without realizing it at the time, I put the kibosh on Ryan's trade offer with Too Many Grandersons when I filled out his 2010 Update set. You can still see my faux pas in the comments.  Luckily, he didn't hold that against me, and contacted me too make a trade.  He wanted a bunch of my spare Heritage and 2010 Update, and saw I had some Series 1 on my want list.  To even it out, he also sent a bunch of Gypsy Queen and Lineage base cards.  I sent him an entire 300ct box, and he sent a huge envelope with 6 or 7 team bags full of cards, so I'll just cover the highlights here.

All the 2011 Heritage were base cards, so here's the only one with a playoff team

The 2011 Topps were also all base cards, so again, here's one from a playoff team.

The only Cardinal of the 2011 Lineage base cards. I really like this set. I foresee a few blaster purchases.

Two 2011 Gypsy Queen SPs, to represent the dozens of base cards.

Four 2011 Gypsy Queen Wall Climbers

Two 2011 Gypsy Queen Future Stars

2011 Gypsy Queen Sticky Fingers Pudge

Two 2011 Gypsy Queen Minis of two Cardinal greats. But wait, didn't I already have the Schoendienst Mini, and its Green Border couterpart?

The Red Schoendienst is the Red Back Mini.  At this point I feel like I should go for the whole 2011 GQ "Rainbow" of Red.

2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces

Two David Freese Rookie Cards, the hero of Game 4.  2009 Topps and 2009 Topps 206.

And now, I see that I've let my Want List and Trade List get woefully out of date.  I've got lots of unsorted cards lying around.  I'm working on getting them entered into Zistle.com, and hopefully exporting the resulting want and trade lists to a nice format.  I'm starting with any and all 2011 cards, and hopefully I'll be able to get them all in before the first 2012s come out.  Then I'll try to keep up with 2012 while working back through 2010 and beyond.

eBay Wins #3

I'll call it the Semi-premium edition, because there's a Gypsy Queen base and insert, and a flagship insert

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Rick Ankiel

6 cents for the former Cardinal.  In college I was at a game where he completely dominated as a pitcher, and later I was at his first big league game as an outfielder.  I wish we still had him.  Also, a Gypsy Queen set wouldn't be too bad if I could get all of the base for $0.06 each.

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Future Stars Phil Hughes

11 cents.  We're spending big now.  I remember the day I read he was being called up to the majors and tried to add him to my fantasy team immediately.  A team with a better waiver priority got him, though.

2011 Topps 60 Ryan Zimmerman

16 cents.  While it's still a good deal, it kind of pales against the other cards.  I think I let my pride get me here a little bit, and I was on a roll from the last two, so I kept bidding.  I have no special stories about him, in fact, he's one of the guys who kind of blends into the background for me.  I'm well aware of the name, but I bet I couldn't have named his team before today.

So, in all, 33 cents for 3 cards, shipped from 2 sellers.  I sometimes feel ambivalent about sellers paying more for shipping than I paid for the cards.  Hopefully they're making it up on the bigger cards.

Big Fun Game Delivery

Napkin Doon ran another great Big Fun Game, and yet again I was fortunate enough to get to play.  I drew the 2nd pick, and wound up with:

2010 Bowman Stephen Strasburg

A scoundrel stole it from me, however, resulting in a compensatory pick for:

A Well-loved 1958 Clemente

Then, a pirate stole my Pirate, and my 3rd pick yielded:

2011 Gypsy Queen Green Border inserts.

These are cool cards, including a Red Schoendienst to go with the mini Ryan G threw into a previous contest win.  However, one thing I simply cannot find is what these green border cards are officially called, or how rarely they were inserted.  I don't care what they're "worth" per se, I'm just genuinely curious now what to call these, as well as how rare they are.  Coincidentally, I also won some Gypsy Queen inserts in the last Big Fun Game.

Napkin also threw in this bonus:

1987 Sportflics mini team logo trivia card, #7 of 136

That's a hologram card with 2 Cardinals logos depending on the angle from which you're looking.  Ending sentences with prepositions is something up with which I will not put.

Thanks for the Big Fun Game, Mr. Doon.

Another RBI Collecting Contest

It seems like every time I make a contest post, another one crops up shortly after, meaning if I'd just waited I could combine them.  Today's contest is at RBI collecting, which, as you may recall, was where I won 2 packs of Gypsy Queen in the previous contest.  This contest works the same as the last one, where you must guess the players Ryan got autographs from in a recent homestand, with a bonus for guessing the day this time.  The prizes are 2 packs of Heritage, and some cards of your favorite team.  Go enter, and good luck to all!

Big Fun Game at Napkin Doon's

There's another Big Fun Game at The Adventures of Napkin Doon. Go follow his blog to help him get to 50, and post to enter.  Link it from your blog for another entry.  10 random entrants will get to participate it a White Elephant game with whatever it is he's managed to buy with his Brycemas money.  Last time, during the Gypsy Queen Big Fun Game, I won 2 inserts:

Good luck to everyone!

A long-overdue thanks

RBI Collecting held a contest that ended June 3 (original post), and I won!  He got 3 Oakland A's autographs when they were in town, and we had to guess the signers.  I had a tongue-in-cheek "strategy", but it actually panned out.  I figured relievers get bored pre-game, so I chose 6 of them for my 2 entries.  I even mentioned in my entry that I should have considered the rotation and which starters would have also been free those days.  As it turns out the answer was 2 relievers and 1 starter, so I won.  The prize was my choice of 2 Gypsy Queen or 2 Heritage packs, and I chose Gypsy Queen.  Let's see what I got:

Pack 1:

Ike Davis (SP)
Mark Buehrle
James Shields
Lars Anderson
David Ortiz
Barry Larkin Mini Parallel

Not bad, but not as cool as Pack 2:

Lance Berkman
Reggie Jackson
Jimmie Foxx
Rogers Hornsby Home Run Heroes
Orlando Hudson Sticky Fingers
Yadier Molina Mini

And the Yadi is a Red-back mini

And, just for fun and because I'm a cards fan, he threw in these two:

I don't know what Red Schoendienst's reputation is nationwide, but he's a legend in St. Louis.  He's managed the Cards a few times, was a bench coach for years, and still stars in the best spring training commercial I've seen.

He even lent Matt Holliday some pants!  That's kind of weird!  I'm trying to complete the Opening Day set as well, so Carpenter was a nice bonus.

Thanks again for the great contest!

Another contest, at RBI Collecting

My second contest post in 2 days.  You'd think I was being bribed with additional entries :)

RBI Collecting is running a contest for 2 packs of 2011 Topps Heritage or Gypsy Queen, or one of each for those of you I-don't-have-a-favorite-kid types.  You just have to guess which 3 A's players signed autographs for him during a recent series.

Delivery from Napkin Doon

I got my prize from Napkin Doon's Big Fun Game in the mail.  Imagine my horror as I saw that the envelope was ripped to shreds and it was inside one of USPS's "We care about your mail, honest" plastic bags.  Inside the bag, inside the shredded envelope, was a toploader that looked like it had been through hell and back, all scratched up and with ink blots on it.  I wasn't feeling too confident about my sweet Gypsy Queen inserts.

Much to my relief, the cards were in great condition.  I suspect the toploader is an old one that's been used for quite a few mailings, and the damage didn't come during this particular journey.

Thanks again, Mr. Doon!

Big Fun Game

The Adventures of Napkin Doon, was kind enough to offer a "Big Fun Game" which is basically a White Elephant game, except he provided all the prizes from a divvied up box of 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen. I was lucky enough to get a slot and the #4 pick. Very little stealing has gone on, probably because no relics or crazy high-value cards have been drawn yet, and everyone's hoping. With 2 fellow bloggers left to pick, here's the lot I currently have:

Lot #6, "The Great Ones" Inserts

I chose #6 because #5 was AL Base cards, hoping for NL base cards and a Cardinal. Jim Palmer and Mel Ott were a nice surprise though.