Happy New Year! And a Contest Update

And a Merry Christmas to you all as well.

We are deep in the thick of the college bowl pick 'em contest now, with 29 of the 35 games already in the books. As of today's results, The Prowling Cat has taken a slim lead. However, LetsGoPitt4 has the most Possible Points right now, which is usually the strongest indicator of who is really in the driver's seat. And Cardboard Hogs had the closest Belk Bowl score prediction and has won the very special Belk prize.

For those of you who didn't just come here to hear me talk, I did get a rare baseball card-related present for Christmas this year. There was a repack box in my stocking this time, one of those little boxes with 3 packs and a memorabilia card. Last time I tangled with one of these, I ended up with a very shiny Marlon Byrd card. And as you have probably guessed, this time around I got something I can actually add to my collection. While Mark Mulder's 2005 Upper Deck ESPN SportsCenter Swatches card has nothing to do with the Cardinals aside from the logo slapped on to it, it's good enough to find a home here. Mulder, incidentally, is trying to make a comeback after being out of the game for something like 6 years. The Angels are going to take a flier on him on one of those low risk, high incentive contracts that pitchers tend to get when their arms can't stay attached to their bodies. I wish him well!

The first pack I found was a 2007 Upper Deck Future Stars pack, which contained no inserts or any noteworthy base cards. The less said, the better. Ditto for the 2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update, though I was nice and decided to show the now former Cardinal Carlos Beltran's one-per-pack Starquest insert.

The final pack was, thank goodness, not a Pete Rose Leaf Special. It ended up being a Target exclusive 2012 Topps Series 1 pack, and it even included one of the Target parallels.

I don't get many Matt Kemp cards, so this was a nice surprise. It'll be interesting to see if Kemp regains his form.

This is simply a Matt Moore base rookie card. I probably have a few of these.

Finally, here's a Giancarlo (Mike) Stanton Gold Futures insert. I didn't see many of these. I'm guessing this wasn't one of the insert concepts that was carried over from series to series.