Zistle Trade #28

While we're all mourning the seemingly inevitable loss of Zistle, I've still got some trades to post from it. This was a pretty small addition for me, but it only cost me 1 card in return.

1982 Donruss #404 Ken Oberkfell
1982 Topps #452 Lee Smith RC
1984 Topps #310 Willie Mcgee
1994 Score - Gold Rush #149 Todd Stottlemyre
1995 Fleer - All-Stars #2 Frank Thomas / Gregg Jefferies

I don't have a whole lot from the early 80s, so two Cardinals, and eventual Cardinal Lee Smith were good to knock off my want list. I've got plenty of 90s cards, but a sparse amount of insert cards, which is where the Stottlemyre and Jefferies come in. The front side of Jefferies shows his 1B counterpart in the American League, Frank Thomas.

Zistle Trade #17

Zistle has allowed me to whittle down my want list bit by bit, while helping others do the same with my doubles. I've got a lot of overproduction-era Cardinals still missing from my collection, so every now and then someone finds me and can knock off quite a few of them. This particular trader just wanted a Joe Carter card in return, and as a Blue Jays fan, had a few Todd Stottlemyre cards for me, too.

1985 Topps #683 Whitey Herzog
1990 Fleer #243 Cris Carpenter
1990 Fleer #251 Ken Hill
1990 Fleer #252 Joe Magrane
1990 Fleer #253 Willie McGee
1990 Fleer #261 Scott Terry
1990 Fleer #263 Denny Walling
1990 Fleer #264 Todd Worrell
1990 Topps #6 Vince Coleman RB

These were the last of the 1990 Fleer Cardinals I needed, so that's one more team set off my list.

1990 Topps #591 Todd Stottlemyre
1991 Topps #348 Todd Stottlemyre
1992 Topps #607 Todd Stottlemyre

As I've mentioned before, Todd Stottlemyre and his father, Mel, are distant cousins of mine, which is why I started collecting his cards in earnest. Now since I've widened my collecting net to anyone who has suited up for the Cardinals, I've got two reasons to collect his cards, so I'm glad to have 3 more off my list. The sender wrote a note saying he figured he'd have more Stottlemyre cards I needed, which caused me to check my list and see my want list was far from containing every card of his I don't have, so I've rectified that now. Thus, the net result of this trade for me was my want list increased by several dozen cards. Hooray progress?

All-Star Winnings, Part 9

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 | VII | VIII ]

1991 Panini Canadian Top 15 #1 Willie McGee
1991 Stadium Club - Charter Member #20 Willie McGee
2005 Topps Rookie Cup #50 Willie McGee

Not only were these 3 Willie McGee cards I didn't have, but they're from 3 sets I had no cards from either. I have some 1991 Stadium Club, but nothing from the Charter Member set. That card commemorates one of the odder moments in baseball history, as Willie was traded away in late August to Oakland - in the AL - but still had enough at bats to qualify for, and win, the NL batting title.

1986 Topps #740 Ozzie Smith
1989 Donruss All-Stars #37 Ozzie Smith
1989 Upper Deck #265 Ozzie Smith
1990 Score #285 Ozzie Smith
1990 Kmart #4 Ozzie Smith
1991 Fleer Ultra #296 Ozzie Smith
1991 Stadium Club #154 Ozzie Smith
1992 Post #8 Ozzie Smith

What more can I say about Ozzie Smith I haven't said since starting this blog? As the long-reigning franchise player when I started watching the team, he was obviously one of my early favorites. I'm rather glad he played in an era of such baseball card variety, aka the overproduction era to some. It means I'll probably never get every card of his, and I'll always be adding new ones to my collection, and discovering new oddball or unlicensed sets, like the Kmart and logo-less Post card above.

182 Packs Giveaway, Part VIII

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 | V | VI | VII ]

This is the last of the giveaway. But, I saved the most interesting for last, 1986 Donruss All-Stars. These cards are giant, about 1.5x as large as regular cards in each dimension. Much like Nachos Grande, I didn't even know about these cards before this break.

1986 Donruss All-Stars
#46 Donnie Moore
#36 Willie McGee

1986 Donruss All-Stars
#2 Tommy Herr
#8 Ozzie Smith
#23 Jack Clark

The cardinals had a good year in the All-Star balloting, which caused me to get 4 giant cards. Ozzie looks like he might be ready to go swing left-handed without an earflap on his helmet. As a kid, I distinctly remember my Dad telling me Ozzie would have been one of the only guys on the team old enough to be grandfathered into not wearing a flap.

1986 Donruss All-Stars Pop-ups
#2 Tommy Herr
#8 Ozzie Smith

I love the look of these cards, but I could never bring myself to perforate and actually stand them up. I'm such a tortured soul. It would appear from the 18-card checklist that only the starting lineups got pop-ups, so again I'm quite luckily to get 2 Cardinals.

1986 Donruss All-Stars
Puzzle Pieces 61, 62, and 62

Finally, it's not glamorous, but not everyone can be, right? Part of the Hank Aaron puzzle, which I think may have only been in this product. Since I have 3 of 63 pieces, I'd happily send this along to anyone trying to complete the puzzle.

Well that's it for the 182 Packs Giveaway. It took a whole lot of sorting, scanning, and cropping, but I got them all up here. And of course, I want to say thanks to David at TribeCards once more.

Baseball Cards from Bo, Part III

[Part I]
[Part II]


Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life contacted me about a trade, and he even did all the work picking cards from both my wantlist and tradelist to set up the swap. Here's the rest of my haul.

1989 Fleer
#5 Jose Canseco
#245 Todd Stottlemyre
#457 Willie McGee
#462 Steve Peters
#463 Ozzie Smith

Jose Canseco was one of my favorites as a kid, so I still collect his cards when the opportunity comes up. I now only need 1 card, Curt Flood, to complete the 1989 Fleer Cardinals. And Todd Stottlemyre, as I've stated many times, is a distant cousin. I got a few more of him in this deal too.

1988 Donruss #658 Todd Stottlemyre

1989 Donruss #620 Todd Stottlemyre

1989 Score #453 Todd Stottlemyre

1989 Topps #722 Todd Stottlemyre

1989 Upper Deck #362 Todd Stottlemyre

1993 Topps #23 Todd Stottlemyre

1993 Topps - Gold
#7 Pete Incaviglia
#29 Dwayne Henry
#43 Ruben Amaro
#77 Junior Felix
#89 Eric Anthony
#103 Jody Reed

I learned a valuable lesson with these Topps Golds. Keep your wantlist up to date! Apparently I started adding 1993 Topps Gold to my wantlist, but got bored after 103 and just stopped. Who knows how many more I might have gotten in this trade or others if that had been corrected.

All in all, I got a lot of neat stuff in this trade. A big thanks to Bo, and as I always implore you when I make a trade, go follow Baseball Cards Come to Life.

March Radness Win, Part V

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]
[Part IV]

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.

How much more can there be? In this post, I'll show a good mix of late 1980s Cardinals.

1987 Topps
#7 Todd Worrell
#440 Willie McGee

It's weird for me to see Todd Worrell as the closer, since he was the setup man by the time I started paying attention. And doesn't the 1987 set just scream wood paneled station wagon?

1988 Topps #380 Joe Magrane

The younger people in town learned the Cardinals used to have a pitcher named Joe Magrane earlier this year, when his daughter was briefly on American Idol.

1989 Topps
#259 Larry McWilliams
#578 John Morris
#640 Willie McGee

Two guys I've honestly never heard of, and St. Louis's favorite standing ovation target, Willie McGee.

1990 Score #68 Jose Oquendo

The Secret Weapon! He's played every position for us, including Manager (fill in), 3B Coach, and I think even 1B Coach (fill in again).

1990 Bowman
#183 Joe Magrane
#185 Todd Worrell
#186 Jose DeLeon
#194 Willie McGee
#200 Jose Oquendo

Some nice 1990 Bowman here, with a lot of repeated players from above, and Jose DeLeon.

1990 Donruss
#516 John Morris
#536 Jose DeLeon

Finally, here's two more 1990 Donruss for my longest project ever, completing this set. I think it's been about 18 years since I bought a bunch of these and started trying for the set.