eBay Wins #255

Let's see the rest of the 1990 Bowman cards. At least, the ones that survived 27 years of chewing gum.

1990 Bowman
#281 Wade Boggs
#293 Bobby Rose
#295 Lance Parrish
#320 Frank Thomas
#328 Doug Jones
#341 Brook Jacoby
#346 Steve Wapnick
#373 Bob Boone
#375 Danny Tartabull (x2)

My perception of time gets all wonky when I see guys like Bob Boone in junk era sets. It feels like he played forever ago, and also that 1990 wasn't 27 years ago. But, he did play through 1990 at age 42.

1990 Bowman
#382 George Brett
#383 Gerald Perry
#392 George Canale
#397 Darryl Hamilton
#420 Dan Gladden
#441 Mike Blowers
#445 Mike Moore (x2)
#453 Scott Hemond
#455 Felix Jose

Gerald Perry, Scott Hemond, and Felix Jose were all Cardinals, but George Brett is probably my favorite card of this scan.

1990 Bowman
#457 Rickey Henderson
#461 Walt Weiss
#468 Randy Johnson
#469 Erik Hanson
#477 Jay Buhner
#486 Nolan Ryan
#495 Geno Petralli
#518 Nelson Liriano
#524 Tony Fernandez

Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, and Randy Johnson make this a formidable group. And Jay Buhner always compels me to insert this video.

1990 Bowman
#526 Checklist 133-264
Art Inserts
#1 Will Clark
#2 Mark Davis (x2)
#8 Nolan Ryan
#11 Robin Yount

I'm no art critic, and I can't tell if these art inserts are good or not. Something about them just seems off. I suppose they are good enough to get me to recognize the players, so that's good enough.

With another 35 cards for 35 cents, I've knocked down my per-card average ever-so slightly again.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	5107
Total Spent	$63.44
Per Card	1.242 cents
Change	-0.002 cents

eBay Wins #245

To finish off my big cheap pile of 1989 Donruss, I have the most primitive of inserts, Donruss's MVP cards.

1989 Donruss - Bonus MVPs
#BC-2 Mike Scott
#BC-10 Andy Van Slyke
#BC-12 Kevin Gross
#BC-17 Alan Trammell
#BC-21 Wally Joyner
#BC-22 Will Clark
#BC-24 Gerald Perry
#BC-25 Alvin Davis (x3)

I had 8 unique cards, 3 of which were Cardinals. I didn't even have the Cardinal representative in this one-per-team set, Ozzie Smith, nor Andres Galarraga.

Like the other 1989 Donruss cards these came out of the half-cent box, so all ten set me back a nickel. In total I had 318 cards from the set.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4645
Total Spent	$59.85
Per Card	1.288 cents
Change	-0.002 cents

Zistle Trade #26, Part I

In my neverending quest for more Cardinals, I made another Zistle trade that knocked some out from multiple sets. I'm still a long way from even finishing base cards from common sets, partially because I want cards like Will Clark on the Giants, Todd Worrell on the Dodgers, and John Mabry with the Rockies.

1990 Fleer #54 Will Clark
1998 Score #128 Todd Worrell
2007 Topps Opening Day #214 Fredbird
2007 Upper Deck #675 John Mabry
2008 Upper Deck First Edition #53 Troy Percival
2010 Topps - Turkey Red #TR34 David Wright
2010 Topps - Turkey Red #TR57 Jimmie Foxx

I also picked up two more 2010 Turkey Reds, and I still need 62 of 100 from Series 1 and 2, and 12 of 50 from Update.

1995 Fleer - All-Stars #2 Frank Thomas / Gregg Jefferies
2008 Upper Deck First Edition #54 Albert Pujols

I ran out of space to tag all the cards in one post, so the rest are in part 2, but luckily for ease of scanning I stuck both horizontal cards in the same post. I still remember when Gregg Jefferies came to the Cardinals. I was skeptical, but he made it to the All-Star game. It seems like his career peaked around that time though, and he never really turned into a superstar. Albert Pujols was a pretty good first baseman for the Cardinals, too.

eBay Wins #226

Today's eBay lot is some brightly bordered 1988 Score.

1988 Score
#78 Will Clark
#334 Billy Jo Robidoux
#406 Ken Howell
#473 Darren Daulton
#511 Steve Ontiveros
#590 Harold Baines
#591 Bill Buckner
#593 Rick Manning

Steve Lake is shown in uniform for the Cardinals here. The other two Cardinals today are Will Clark and Les Lancaster, both of whom finished their careers in St. Louis.

1988 Score
#596 Steve Lake
#598 Ross Jones
#602 Les Lancaster
#603 Ozzie Guillen
#604 Tony Bernazard
#657 Mike Schmidt

These cards were again out of my half-penny box, so I've added 7 cents to my total eBay bargain purchases.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4050
Total Spent	$56.17
Per Card	1.387 cents
Change	-0.003 cents

Zistle Trade #14

My trading partner today wanted just one card, a 2011 Opening Day Mike Stanton base card. He's doing quite well right now, so I sold high (I think) for a collection of 1992 Donruss Cardinals.

1992 Donruss
#397 Royce Clayton
#424 Chris Sabo
#428 Will Clark
#481 Omar Olivares
#533 Geronimo Pena
#553 Rich Gedman
#570 Scott Cooper

I've still got 44 cards on my wantlist for this set, of which 43 are Cardinals and one is Deion Sanders, just because. Of course many are like these Chris Sabo and Will Clark cards, playing in other uniforms. There are a good number of them among the 188 cards of this base set I have, too. Free Agency keeps my collecting net wide enough that I'll probably never finish my want list.

eBay Wins #158

Today's eBay lot is 1993 Leaf, including one short-time Cardinal, Will Clark. He's still a Cardinal to me, but I feel like I'm trying to steal his Giants and Rangers legacy on behalf of my hometown team if I don't write in the "short-time" qualifier

1993 Leaf
#436 Cory Snyder
#247 Will Clark
#205 Juan Bell

I thought I was going to have some neat connection with all 3 cards here. Cory Snyder and Will Clark were both on the Giants in 1992, and Will Clark and Juan Bell both played for the Orioles. But, Juan started with the Orioles, from 1989-91, while Will wouldn't get to Baltimore until 1999. Going back to Cory Snyder being on the Giants in 1992, how'd we get a seemingly genuine photo of him in a Dodgers uniform? Leaf had 2 series - 3 if you count the update series. Series 1 and 2 were 220 cards each, so they must have got some updated pictures by the time this Series 2 card was issued.

These 3 cards bring me up to a mere 16 base cards owned from 1993 Leaf.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3259
Total Spent	$51.09
Per Card	1.568 cents
Change	0 cents

eBay Wins #155

Today I've got one single card from 1993 Fleer, purchased for a penny on eBay. This one was actually part of a larger lot, but I like to split them up by set.

1993 Fleer #154 Will Clark

Players who get traded to the Cardinals for a partial season in the twilight of their careers just give me one more player to collect, since I like to have any card of a player who ever played for the Cardinals. With Will Clark being a 6-time all star, he has many cards to chase down through the years, especially the junk wax years. But, I think the only one I have picturing him as a Cardinal is from the Tis the Season box, which I posted just a few days ago. That's based on a cursory Zistle search of "Cards I Have" for "Will Clark" and "Cardinals". I get a lot of Jack Clark and Mark Clark, but only one of Will. He finished his career rather strongly in St. Louis - a 1.081 OPS in 51 games according to Baseball Reference -  but still opted to retire at the end of the 2000 season.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3254
Total Spent	$51.04
Per Card	1.569 cents
Change	0 cents

Tis The Season Winnings, Part VI

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

I'm having fun going through all the different sets of the 90s and now the early 2000s, so let's continue with more Cardinals, Yankees, and Red Sox.

1998 Score #159 Reggie Jefferson
1999 UD Choice #65 Jason Varitek
2000 Fleer Tradition #325 Rod Beck
2000 Upper Deck #447 Mariano Rivera
2001 Upper Deck Hall of Famers #47 Whitey Ford
2001 Upper Deck MVP #98 Troy O'Leary
2001 Upper Deck Vintage #95 Pedro Martinez
2001 Upper Deck Vintage #99 Carl Everett
2001 Upper Deck Vintage #156 Glenallen Hill

By waiting so long to dig through these, the stack added one Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez. I like these Upper Deck Vintage cards, which are clearly based on 1963 Topps, like 2012 Heritage.

2001 Topps
#104 Will Clark
#138 Jeff Nelson
#159 Thomas Howard
#258 Jason Grimsley
#756 Boston Red Sox
2001 Upper Deck Hall of Famers #81 Bob Gibson

I only got 3 Cardinals from this bunch of cards. Two were in the stack of 2001 Topps. It's odd to see someone other than Pujols wearing #5 for the Cardinals, but Thomas Howard did it for 2 years right before he arrived. Of course I know other guys wore it too, like Ron Gant and Felix Jose, but 5 certainly became synonymous with Albert while he was here. Less jarring is Will Clark in #22, which became Mike Matheny's number next. He took it back when he became the manager, but has given it to Jason Heyward for 2015 and beyond. Finally, the last Cardinal was this excellent card commemorating Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA in 1968.

2013 Allen and Ginter Set

You read that title right; we're throwing back allllll the way to 2013.

I bought the full set (almost) from Nachos Grande last year, and it's been sitting on my shelf as I procrastinated entering the cards into my Zistle account. I actually purchased the non-SPs only, and this was also at the beginning of Puig-mania, so a Puig-free set was offered at a substantial discount, so I decided to take a chance that Yasiel Puig would cool off a bit, along with the prices for his cards. So far that doesn't seem to be happening, though. In any case, the set I purchased was 299 of the 300 base cards. In a separate purchase, I bought all 50 of the SPs, so I'm at 349/350, needing only a Puig to finish off the set.

I decided while flipping through the cards again that I'd go ahead and post the Cardinals like I normally do, but there were a large number of them by my criteria. I tried to split them up somewhat logically, though with all of the retired players the divisions became a bit fuzzy. Today was supposed to be players who have moved on from the team.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#5 Albert Pujols
#12 Dan Haren
#20 John Smoltz
#27 Shelby Miller
#46 Colby Rasmus
#93 A.J. Pierzynski

The Shelby Miller trade caught me off guard, and I had to re-scan my cards. Also, I don't know what I was thinking putting A.J. Pierzynski in this pile, even though he is technically a free agent right now. He could still be a Cardinal next year, though he may just as easily be playing somewhere else. Also, Smoltz retired after a partial season with the Cardinals, so one could argue he should have been in the next post, with guys like Ozzie Smith.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#183 Ryan Ludwick
#189 David Freese
#208 Allen Craig
#235 Carlos Beltran
#245 Mark Buehrle
#284 Will Clark

Will Clark's another guy who finished with the Cardinals, though he clearly had the most productive years of his career elsewhere. And Mark Beuhrle has never been a Cardinal, though I still suspect he'd give them a pretty good hometown discount. I like to track his cards just because he grew up in the same town as me.

In conclusion...these are some random 2013 Allen and Ginter cards of guys I collect for reasons not limited to playing for the Cardinals?

eBay Wins #137

In my eventually-ending quest to run through all my eBay penny cards, I'm up to 1989. True, I already posted some from 1990 the other day, but this pile was big and I felt lazy. Today's lot has 21 cards, and the return of Clarkmania™.

1989 Fleer
#97 Jim Rice
#169 Ron Robinson
#174 Frank Williams
#212 Dave LaPoint
#252 Jack Clark
#253 Richard Dotson
#291 Bret Saberhagen
#299 Roberto Alomar
#321 Ed Whitson

This is the first card of Dave LaPoint I've ever posted, though I did receive his 1990 Score card in a trade a few years ago. Clearly I flipped through those cards too quickly and didn't realize I missed a Cardinal. Not only was he a Cardinal, but he played for the team in 1982, and pitched in 2 games of the World Series they won over the Brewers.

1989 Fleer
# 325 Will Clark
#342 Don Robinson
#355 Glenn Davis
#366 Craig Reynolds
#510 Jerry Reuss
#526 Chad Kreuter
#542 Jay Buhner (x2)
#549 Erik Hanson

What is Jerry Reuss doing with a bat in 1989 (likely 1988 in the photo)? He never came to the plate in 1988-89 with the White Sox and Brewers. You see, kids, back in '89, the Brewers were in the AL, and there was no interleague play, so AL pitchers didn't ever bat unless they made the World Series, unless there was a weird injury/double-switch/crazy-like-a-fox-manager situation.

Also, I might be able to let one Jay Buhner card go without doing this, but I simply can't show 2 Jay Buhner cards without this video:

1989 Fleer
#655 Checklist (Twins/Tigers)
#642 Prospects: Brad Pounders/Jerald Clark
World Series #2 Rookie Start Series (Tim Belcher)

Rounding things out are 3 oddballs of the lot: A checklist, a horizontal card, and an insert. That would make for a terrible Carnac bit. Brad Pounders is one of the grayest looking prospects I've ever seen, but I looked him up, and he was born in 1963, so he was a reasonable, though slightly older than usual, age for a prospect in 1989. The World Series card is nice, but now it makes me want to chase a 25-year-old insert set to pick up the other 11 cards, which include Eckersley and McGwire.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3122
Total Spent	$49.75
Per Card	1.594 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

eBay Wins #134

Today I have a pile of 1988 Donruss, a set you're likely to encounter a lot when you buy "random" cards for a penny each.

1988 Donruss
#8 Devon White
#46 Eddie Williams
#66 Kevin Mitchell
#74 Jim Clancy
#93 Dave Righetti
#96 Bret Saberhagen
#174 Ellis Burks
#183 Jack Clark
#184 Glenn Davis

Sorted by numbers, there was just one Cardinal in the first bunch: Jack Clark, my favorite River City Rascal (that's a local minor league team he managed, not a lame nickname I gave him).

1988 Donruss
#188 Sid Bream
#202 Ken Griffey
#204 Will Clark
#211 Harold Baines
#216 Dwight Evans
#249 Paul Molitor
#254 Joe Carter
#258 Brian Downing

When typing "Ken Griffey", my hands instinctively start to type ", Jr." afterwards. That's why pencils have erasers, or keyboards have backspaces. This bunch also had 1 Cardinal (by my rules), Will Clark. It's Clarkmania™.

1988 Donruss
#305 Bob Boone
#313 Chili Davis
#340 Claudell Washington
#350 Cory Snyder
#369 Eric Davis
#388 Dave Parker
#399 Jim Rice
#407 Don Sutton

If only Chili Davis and/or Glenn Davis from the first scan had also been Cardinals, it would also be Davismania™. But only one surname can rule the day, and only Eric of these three Davises was a Cardinal.

1988 Donruss
#462 Oil Can Boyd
#463 Dan Pasqua
#471 Dan Quisenberry
#560 Ted Simmons
#626 Pat Perry
#640 David Wells
#656 George Bell
#657 Gregg Jefferies

I'm a little skeptical of this fact, but it seems to check out. This is the first card of Pat Perry, and the first card of Dan Quisenberry that I have shown on my blog. I know I have many Perry cards, and at least a few Quisenberry cards (Quisenberries?). I guess it's possible I acquired them all long ago, and none since the inception of this blog. Among these cards, Ted Simmons and Gregg Jefferies also played for St. Louis. Jefferies was one of the few bright spots for the early 90s Cardinals, making the All Star team in 1993 and 1994, along with Lee Smith and Ozzie Smith once each.

I lowered my per-card average a little bit more, and I'm getting close to cracking the 1.6 cents barrier. At that point... I'll probably just shoot for 1.5 and keep going.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3082
Total Spent	$49.35
Per Card	1.601 cents
Change	-0.007 cents

March Radness Win, Part VII

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]
[Part IV]
[Part V]
[Part VI]

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.

I've reached the end of this prize, but this post has the most cards of all. Lucky for you, they're not all scanned. You'll see what I mean at the end.

As I flipped through the 1990 Donruss from the package, I set aside anyone who was a Cardinal. This wasn't based on research, just memory, so I may have missed a few. And I actually had to look up Chris Sabo because I thought I knew he was a Cardinal, but I don't really remember it, if that makes sense. As it turns out, he played 5 games for us after the White Sox released him in 1995, but was again released during September.

1990 Donruss
#41 Andy Benes
#42 Delino Deshields
#210 Dennis Eckersley
#230 Will Clark
#242 Chris Sabo
#349 Tom Henke
#378 Jamie Moyer
#578 Larry Walker
#674  Pedro Guerrero

1990 Donruss
#695 Eric Davis
#697 Mark McGwire
Bonus MVPs #BC-12 John Smoltz
#BC12A John Smoltz (Erorr)

I've bid on this Tom Glavine/John Smoltz error card on eBay a few times, but it always seems to go a bit high because of its perceived value.

So, how many non-Cardinals were there from 1990 Donruss? Oh, about this many:

1990 Donruss, sleeved and ready to be sorted

I haven't gone through them completely yet, but it looks like if this doesn't complete my 1990 Donruss set, it brings me very close. What an awesome prize for a blog contest. Now of course, I realize if my want list consisted of refractor parallels and cards numbered to 25, instead of lots of cards widely considered junk wax, I'd probably have gotten a much lighter envelope, but I love these cards. That's the cool thing about collecting instead of investing in cards; show me a bunch of ugly 1990 Donruss card and I can get as excited as one fancy relic "from no particular event". To sum up, thanks again to madding, and go follow Cards on Cards.

eBay Wins #33

I bought this lot of 23 cards with some stars peppered in for 49 cents. They're from 1988-1991, but for just over 2 cents apiece I figured I couldn't go wrong, and I'd get a nice long blog post taking me, and maybe you, down memory lane

1988 Score #7 Wally Joyner

1988 Score #275 John Tudor

I only vaguely recall John Tudor as a Cardinal, and I think mostly I've just heard the name over and over, I don't actually remember him playing.

1988 Score #278 Jerry Browne

1988 Score #481 Kevin Mitchell

The yellow border goes nicely with the Giants, so much so I didn't even remember Score has colored borders by card number, not by team, until I went to file this one with the rest of them.

1989 Donruss - Bonus MVPs #BC-22 Will Clark

Speaking of the Giants, it's MVP and former (future?) Cardinal Will Clark.

1989 Score #193 Dwight Evans

1989 Score #221 David Cone

1989 Score #429 Tim Leary

1989 Score #534 John Costello

Another Cardinal I've never heard of. Maybe he was traded to whichever team Jim Abbott was on to give the local sportswriter an easy headline season.

1989 Topps #5 Orel Hershiser

1989 Topps #300 Darryl Strawberry

1989 Topps #390 Darryl Strawberry

1989 Topps #478 Doug Drabek

If I was going to get some 1989 Topps, these are pretty good cards to get. I always think of the guys who were aging superstars in 1992-1995ish as the greatest cards ever, corresponding with the first time I started paying attention to baseball. And of course Doug Drabek was on the last successful Pirates teams.

1990 Donruss #269 Kirby Pucket

The lone 1990 Donruss was one I already had, so this will go on my trade list. Not that anyone will trade me for a 1990 Donruss, so it'll probably languish there for awhile until I clean house.

1990 Fleer #314 Ruben Sierra

1990 Fleer #399 Orel Hershiser

I like the look of 1990 Fleer, and another Orel Hershiser isn't bad either. I'm kind of surprised to see he fell off the Hall of Fame ballot in 2007 on just his second try. He seemed like a plausible candidate to me.

1991 Donruss #433 Ryne Sandberg

1991 Donruss #490 Kirby Puckett

I like the green 1991 Donruss better than the blue for some reason, but both designs scream 90s.

1991 Upper Deck #193 Mitch Williams

1991 Upper Deck #418 Jeff Reardon

1991 Upper Deck #744 Bo Jackson

Of all the non-Cardinals out there, Bo Jackson is a player I've really considered collecting for awhile. I really like every time I get one of his cards, but I can't bring myself to add another player to my list. Although, there must not be too many of him out there for the few years he played, right? That's it, I've talked myself into it. Bo Jackson is now a player I collect.

1991 Upper Deck #768 Vince Coleman

Here's Vince Coleman trying not to get run over by a tarp.

1991 Upper Deck #769 Mitch Williams

In case I lost you along the way, notice that's the second Mitch Williams from 1991 Upper Deck. Without looking it up, I assume the cards were put out in two or more series that year, giving them time to print up a new card with Mitch on his new team. According to baseball-reference, he was traded April 7, the day before opening day for the Phillies. That seems strange, but I don't see any "crazy" stories about the trade online anywhere.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	1926
Total Spent	$37.52
Per Card	1.948 cents