Tourney Update and Other Nonsense

As we head into the Final Four in the big college basketball tournament, I thought I'd take another look at the contest leader board. While Speigel's "Bracket of Nomo" has the most total points, it is The Lost Collector who in the driver's seat for most total possible points right now. It will most certainly come down to the wire, as there are 7 others with a solid chance of walking away with the top prize, most of whom picked Louisville. I could run the scenarios for everyone, but that would take more effort than I'm willing to put forth for college basketball, especially with my team having been eliminated in the round of 16. Unfortunately, I can with all certainty announce that reader Danny, the defending champion of the Bowl Pick 'Em contest, has clinched last place. How the mighty have fallen!

Tonight's post features cards sent to me by blog favorite GCRL. Garvey Cey Russell Lopes is, as the name would suggest, a Dodgers-centric blog, but it's well-written enough that it doesn't even matter that there's a team I don't care about at its core. (How's that for mixed praise?) GCRL sent over some Cardinals that I needed and filled a few often overlooked set needs from nearly a decade ago.

This is normally the part of the post where I complain about my scanner cutting off images for no good reason, but this Bob Forsch card is actually just centered very poorly. Fortunately, it's a far more interesting than it looks O-Pee-Chee card, with the highly lovable jagged borders. Are OPC cards actually the hipsters of the baseball card world, always just a little askew and trying to be different? Also, were the Canadian presses not afforded a proper paper cutter? So many OPC cards seem to have been cut with kindergarten style safety scissors, especially ones from the 1978 set.

I tried to read an article on Grantland about the band Perry today (no, wait, that's The Band Perry... seriously, that's their name.) I just couldn't get over the name, though. I can read almost anything written about anything resembling modern music, even if it's about something mindbendingly awful like Buckcherry, but this article didn't hold my interest. And I just can't get over that band name. Anyway, the Player Perry fits into my Cardinals collection as I was never able to afford the 1991 Fleer Ultra update set back in the day.

Turning the page to the set needs, here's one of those funky Bowman Heritage TV cards that I like. Scott Elbert is still in the Dodgers system, apparently, which is more than you can say about most of the First Year cards in this set.

Wonderful, it's another Perry! Well, this is actually a short print from the 2003 Topps Heritage set. Jason Perry played all of 4 games in the majors with the Atlanta Braves, but that was 5 years ago and he's out of the game now.

Finally, here's a peak at a base card from the plain old 2003 Topps set. I've cooled a little bit on this set as other flashier things have tugged at my interests lately. It seems to be a condition sensitive set during an era that has no real excuse for such things. It doesn't really make me feel great about a Topps base set released today would hold up under the varying temperatures of storage conditions for a decade. Basically, I just want Topps to stop making the same thin (cheap) card set with UV coating year after year. Picking up a card manufactured in the last 20 years will just never feel the same as one from the '70s, no matter how many years removed we are.