I Won Something

It all would've been sweeter if the Red Sox didn't win the World Series.

Just to show you how backlogged I am, I'm going to talk about something that happened in October. As in, you know, last season. I decided to challenge Night Owl Cards to a little minibet over who would win the Cardinals/Dodgers playoff series, something that I also did (and lost) back in 2009. While the two teams previously met in the divisional round, this time the pennant was at stake and I made the unfortunate suggestion to tie the prize to the player who won the NLCS MVP. The unlikely winner ended up being Michael Wacha, whose cards by then were threatening to reach Puig-like levels.

I didn't want to break anyone's bank on what amounts to a friendly little wager and suggested that any suitable replacement auto would do, and I think I made out pretty well with this blue Joe Kelly auto. (Night Owl gave me an IOU for a future Wacha card, but it's really not necessary. Really!) I already had a copy of the white (regular?) Kelly auto from this set, so it was nice to get this blue version. Kelly has pitched well enough as a starter and reliever to figure into the Cardinals future plans no matter how crowded the rotation gets, and he also offers "secret weapon" status as one of the team's faster baserunners. (He just needs to learn how to get on base now.)

More Cards cards were to be had, including this Chris Carpenter mini insert from the short-lived Topps Lineage set.

When I first started collecting cards, I remember the little shop up the street had a bunch of these old Topps scratch-off cards. I don't know why I never dove in and bought some of these. My theory is that I was too young to be able to resist playing the game and scratching them off.

I recently put in a request for a few of the Ginter minis Night Owl had on offer awhile back. The older the set, the harder it's been for me to get ahold of any of the inserts and parallels, but I suppose that's to be expected. I think Donald Tusk looks like he might be related to Rainn Wilson.

Finally, I have been dilligently (not really) working on collecting the 2013 Ginter set, and this package put me a bit closer to that goal. I'm never quite sure which card(s) to feature from a blob of base cards from a set everyone has already exhausted, so this time I just went with Young Reggie.