A Shiny End to the New Year

Plus contest results and more! 

The year is winding down, and like any other year, I'm way behind in some trades and blogging about trades. The good news is that there's a whole 'nother year ahead of us, unless we all get nuked to oblivion before this time next year.

The contest-within-a-contest, the Belk Bowl prediction game is over, and wow... there were a lot of close guesses this year! Most correctly predicted that the Virginia Tech Hokies would prevail, but even crazier were some of the guesses:

• Actual Score: VT 35, ARK 24
• Need More Cardboard: VT 37, ARK 23
• cardboardhogs.com: VT 35, ARK 21
• Justin's World: VT 34, ARK 21
• Wilson: VT 34, ARK 27
• Matt Stupienski: VT 30, ARK 24
• JediJeff: VT 38, ARK 28
• Trevor P: VT 38, ARK 20

You guys were really smart this year. There can only be one winner, however... except when there is a tie. Both Need More Cardboard and cardboardhogs.com will receive the jumbo retail pack of 2017 Topps (when it's released, of course.) Shoot me your email addresses, guys! Also, I forgot my own prediction, which probably would have been hilariously bad. At least I picked the Hokies to win in the main portion of the contest.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd show off a couple of shiny Heritage Cardinals cards recently acquired. I found a hanger box of 2016 Topps Heritage High Numbers for $9 a couple of nights ago, which I'm a big fan of because they're impossible to search as far as I know. I only snagged one base card that I needed, but the requisite SP was a need and so was the shiny Aledmys Diaz card. Nice!

I also picked up this Albert Pujols from 10 years ago on Listia, which arrived in the mail yesterday. I've been picking up a lot of Pujols cards lately, mostly because there are more unique Pujols cards than humans on this planet, and the majority of them feature him with the Cardinals.

Finally, I've refused to buy in to the silliness that is the Wal-Mart Holiday set, but this still makes a nice year end capper. And I still want all the Cardinals, of course. If anyone out there has some extras, I've only managed to acquire Wainwright and Diaz with Seung-hwan Oh on the way. And then, of course, there's the matter of the parallels.

I hope you all enjoy the last moments of this (terrible) year!