Canadian Football and a Big Contest Update

 

Who will win the annual college football contest? Plus, cards! 

 

We're getting really close to kickoff in the final college football game of the longest season of our lifetimes. Who is going to take this one? More importantly: who is going to win the big Cards on Cards contest? It looks like the top prize is down to two competitors, based on their total points accumulated and the maximum amount of points still left on the table: Ginko-5 and EternalSigh (Elliptical Man). I won't be watching the game because I don't really want to watch either team win, but I will tune in later to check out the final standings.

On an unrelated note: cards! Actually, I received cards and a really nice signed 8x10 photo back in late November from Sportscards From The Dollar Store. This package sneaked in right before the big Canada Post strike that threw mail deliveries between Canada and USA in all sorts of upheaval during the busiest time of the year.

The signed photo is of Oregon Ducks QB Vernon Adams Jr., who is shown with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, meaning that this must have been taken during the 2017 season. I really don't have a lot of stuff like this, so it was a really nice addition to my collection. 

Of course, this package wasn't all Canadian American pro footballers (not to be confused with Canadian-American pro footballers, as Adams is from California.) Brian Westbrook is not Canadian and was not a CFL player, of course, but he does wear green! This is one of my first looks at the Topps Composite set, their apparent answer to Panini Chronicles.

I've actually been spending all day watching pro basketball and ignoring the real world. Here's a pro basketball player that I collect. Chris Duarte hasn't yet seen a ton of action with the Bulls, his third team in four seasons.

Speaking of not seeing much action, Jusuf Nurkic might be on his way out of the league after being removed from the starting lineup in Phoenix, a steep fall for someone who was essentially moved in exchange for Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara. (Of course, there were other factors and players involved, but this was mostly what Phoenix got out of it, give or take a Grayson Allen and a couple of guys who aren't there anymore.) While people have been trying to run Ayton out of town since as soon as he arrived, Camara looks like a keeper to say the least.

Here's another Duarte card. I like that this is from the hobby release of Select. Too many times, people have traded me the retail versions of these cards when I already have them. (Those ones are blue.)

Payton Pritchard, one of the greatest high school players to ever come out of the state of Oregon, has taken on a much more consistent role for the defending champion Celtics. Boston is never going to be my favorite team, but seeing Pritchard do well there is a good enough reason for me to not to change the channel when they're on.

Josh Huff is another Duck who also became an Eagle.

I swear that I have about 100 different versions of this card with its unnecessarily closely cropped photo, and yet I didn't have this gold one apparently! I've made some good progress in collecting the various gold Cardinals parallels that Topps has put out in the last 24 years in their flagship sets.

I might not be the biggest hockey fan, but I definitely know who Keith Tkachuk is! This is a really fun looking jersey card from Pacific of all companies. Tkachuk spent the bulk of the last decade of his career with the St. Louis Blues and now has two sons in the league.

Thanks again to buckstorecards and everyone who entered the contests this year!

The Anticipation

Mostly Cardinals, some of the time. 

I've been rewatching the 2006 and 2011 World Series games in anticipation of the coming season. I have some serious questions about the current group, but I'm hoping they can put together one last run for Yadi and Waino, and it's always awesome to remember the championship teams. This is especially true considering that there aren't a lot of titles in my lifetime for the other teams that I follow.

Ray from All Cardinals All The Time have been pretty productive of late in swapping doubles. I thought I'd show off a few from a mailer I got around the beginning of the year.

Here's another group of fabulous minis. In the middle, we see both versions of Allen Craig's 2013 Gypsy Queen offering. In watching the 2011 Series, it's been nice to go back in time and see Craig at the start of his short run as a very productive offensive player.

This one reminds me of spring, and youth! It's the gold plated edition, die cut, baby!

Well, once again I've done an injustice to a foilboard card, thanks to my scanner. That's too bad. Scott Rolen inserts are cool.

I'll end things here with a numbered (to 75!) Chrome Blue Wave Refractor version of ex-closer Trevor Rosenthal's 2016 card. Rosenthal has been through the pro baseball ringer over the past couple of years, but he's looking to (hopefully) find a place in Mike Matheny's Royals bullpen this season. Doesn't that sound a bit strange?

Even More Cards from Bob

A reader sent more cards in between the last post and the post before the last post. 

If these posts were Star Wars movies, this would be more of an Empire Strikes Back rather than a The Last Jedi. As mentioned previously, reader Bob sent a series of packages my way earlier in the fall, and I just so happened to get the order mixed up. Here's a few cards from the second one (which in Star Wars logic is actually the fifth, but whatever.)

Bob sent a healthy grouping of minor league cards, which is timely because I just got around to building a minor league want list this year. This twenty year old card features the late Chris Duncan in his early professional days.

Here's Jimmy Baseball on a Gold Label gold tiered parallel that is fitting for him, I suppose. Gold Label always looks cool, though.

Former Cardinals prospect Dan Haren put together a pretty nice career as a starter. He wasn't quite fully formed as a Cardinal, but he's fondly remembered nonetheless.

There should be more mini posters in card sets. Seriously.

A Golden Deal

Glittery gold goodies from the @acrackedbat world. 

Back in May, which may as well be forever ago, Tigers fan Julie of A Cracked Bat sent me some cards of my own team, the one that sat in the opposing dugout in the 2006 World Series. While there weren't many Cardinals cards from that particular team in the package (they've probably all been destroyed by now), there were plenty of oldies and new guys (newies?) to be had.

There were a lot of great cards in the package, and I'm probably not doing it great justice by only showing off as many as would fit in my scanner in one pass. This Allen Craig mini from 2013 is numbered to 99.

Jim Edmonds looks like he's waiting for something to land here. He's been part of the rotation of analysts calling games for the Cardinals regional sports network once again this season, and there was a discussion about all of the various nicknames people have given him over the years. It sounds like he's not super comfortable with any of them... even Jimmy!

I am a little bit more comfortable that John Gast is out of baseball now, as there's absolutely no way I wouldn't constantly get him confused with John Gant. Gant (not Gast, and certainly not Ron) occupies a rotation slot on this year's version of the Cardinals, you see.

John Goodman, striking a pose. This is so good. It's not Jon Hamm, but it'll do.

Next time, Panini needs to snap some photos of various Hall of Famers going through the drive-thru line on their way to the annual induction event.

Topps Tribute is always so delectable, so excessive... if Hedonismbot from Futurama collected baseball cards, this is what he'd be into for sure.

This is more of my jam. A "retail relic" card that most assuredly came as a "bonus" in a blaster somewhere. Wait, does that say pants?

Finally, here's Xavier Scruggs, who played a little bit in 2015 after a September call-up the season before. If you suit up at the right time, Topps might end up including you in their products for a full calendar year, and Scruggs is proof of that. This is actually a parallel from the online-only Topps Mini set. I'd never seen the even-lower numbered black parallels before, only the golds (which I think are number to 50?)

They Almost Brought Back Slurpee Discs

What, no extra fun with your cheap sugary drink?

Amidst the excitement and confusion of another excellent package sent to me by The Junior Junkie, I became fixated one particular object that fell out of the package. There was this round, lenticular thing... almost like a Slurpee disc. But was it? Sadly, it wasn't. It has all the markings of a recent Panini project on it. I almost didn't have the heart to look at the back to see where it actually originated from, wanting to believe in my heart of hearts that we still live in a world where trading cards are still distributed with food projects for free. (I was first hooked on the Slurpee discs in the '80s when I ended up with a bunch of these. Awesome, right?) I suppose I can always dream. In the meantime, I was happy to receive this Shelby Miller disc.

That's not to say that there wasn't a whole lot else to like in this package. This is a very shiny die cut parallel from the 2014 Prizm set. It's numbered just 7 out of 60. I figure I'm going to end up with a bunch of nice Allen Craig cards now that he's been traded, because that's how it goes sometimes.

This is my first official Cardinals card from this year's Allen & Ginter set. I need all of the rest of them. And then the rest of them again, probably.

This here's a super large McGwire card because he was a super large man. Something like that, anyway. Big Mac made a return to the Topps line this year, though I haven't picked up any of his new cards. That's okay with me. He has enough of them from this era alone to fill up a country or two.

I guess all of the cards from the 2002 Fleer Box Score set were serial numbered. That's just a hunch, though, based on the small sample size of me receiving four of them and having numbers printed on the backs of all of them. Neat!

Whoa, it's like, far out... man.

Up For Grabs Cardinalpalooza: Allen Craig

Previously on the Cardinalpalooza: Stan Musial | Rick Ankiel | David Freese | Keith Hernandez | Steve Carlton | Lance Berkman | Lou Brock | Dennis Eckersley | Bob Gibson

Allen Craig broke out as a Cardinal star during the 2011 World Series winning season, perhaps overshadowed a bit by the heroics of David Freese and the steady production of Lance Berkman. When Albert Pujols departed to free agency and Berkman was rendered ineffective due to injury, Craig took over as the everyday first baseman and hasn't looked back. He's second in the National League currently with 96 RBI after driving in 92 last year, and has generally outperformed Pujols on a cost controlled contract. He's also been the deadliest hitter in baseball this year with runners in scoring position, which has helped the Cardinals lead many offensive categories this year despite being almost allergic to the long ball.

In short, he's not really a household name, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few collectors of his out there. The list follows at the end of the post.

Who is this skinny kid? This photo was probably taken 6 years ago.

The list:

2010 Bowman Draft #BDP93 [2 available]
2010 Topps #452 [2 available]
2010 Topps Chrome #199
2011 Topps Update Diamond Anniversary #US255
2012 Topps #402
2012 Topps (World Series) #329
2013 Topps #321 [5 available]

[updated 10/2/13]

Why Are We Writing on Cards Again?

The long time affordable group break host Cardboard Collections held a box bust of fancy cards from more than a decade ago, which is also how things usually become affordable in the first place. It seems that no one was able to squirrel away large sacks of lucre with dollar signs on them by investing in Topps Gold Label or, shockingly, something called Pacific Online. The former looks classy and attracts fingerprints like crazy while the latter looks hilarious dated and kind of terrible. I am all about terrible cards if they are Cardinals and not already in my collection, so I jumped at this opportunity. And now I have landed. With cards.

My "other team" in the break ended up being the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in their salad days. I now have a couple of early Josh Hamilton cards to trade. I don't know if there's much of a market for his early stuff as it was a dark time for him and you can barely connect Josh Hamilton the Burned Out Prospect to Josh Hamilton the Very Well Paid Angel.

This one is an insert. These are both headed to the Trade Bait pile, which I still need to work on getting live on the blog.

It doesn't seem like McGwire has had much of a positive effect on the Dodgers since taking over as their hitting coach. I also read this article (column?) and wondered if the LA Times is still a real paper.

Ah, Pacific Online. I don't really even know what to say about this set other than that I've heard rumblings that it's huge and daunting and scary. All I do know is that it prints two URLs on the card, one that redirects to a better known address and one that has probably been defunct for a decade.

I'm not positive, but I think this might be my very first Lance Painter Cardinals card. If it's not, I know that I don't have many. Painter was one of the first Cardinals I got to know better through video games than from actually watching on TV. T.J. Matthews was another one of those players. I miss my old MLB PC game.

Colbey often sends me extra Cardinals cards (which reminds me, I need to send something back!) and this time was no exception. The hand-numbered Allen Craig Heritage mini was icing on the cake, but I still feel weird when I look at this card. I love getting a rare Cardinals card, and one of an excellent first baseman at that. I get that hand numbering cards is supposed to be a sign of a precious rare item, like a little craftsman touch or something. So why do I get a weird feeling when I see this, like what the hell kind of teenager was given a coffee and a sandwich and made to sign a bunch of baseball cards over at Topps HQ? I never got these feelings when I first got a hand numbered Allen & Ginter mini, but these just seem weird. All I can think of is some poor intern drawing on cards for no pay whatsoever.

Another part of me is very happy to own this, of course, and wonders where the other 99 are at.

Lenticulartastic!

My first trade with Scott Crawford on Cards went off without a hitch, and I'm still here to tell about it. Scott claimed some "Up For Grabs" Reggie Jackson cards and a bunch of cards from the 2012 Topps Archives set. Meanwhile, I helped myself to some Cardinals and a few other goodies. (By the way, I had to put the whole "Up For Grabs" thing on hold for a little bit as I was having a hard time keeping up with trades, but it will be back very soon.)

Scott sent me a bunch of bling, 1992 style, in the form of some Gold Winners. I don't think the term "bling" was a thing back then, but let's just say that Juan Agosto is looking pretty fly, dope, and phat. Phat indeed.

I believe this was a hobby shop promotion that was a cross-promotion involving the MLB Network. I don't get to hobby shops too often as they're strangely even less convenient than card shows around here, so I usually miss out on all of the hobby exclusives. This is a fantastic looking card of the former Cardinal great.

The contributions of Allen Craig (and Lance Berkman for that matter) are greatly overlooked in all of the other amazing things that happened during the 2011 World Series. Also, I love gold parallels and serial numbered cards. Have I mentioned that lately?

Scott dropped in a couple of lenticulartastic Opening Day Stars inserts from a couple of years ago. I am collecting all of these inserts and am glad to see that Topps brought them back for a third straight year. I did some work on the sidebar to my want lists recently, which consolidates some of the sets into sub-pages. Things look more tidy, and it also makes me feel like I'm not trying to put together 45 sets at once. Because I'm not. I swear!

Showin' Off

 

In honor of a much needed weekend home sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers, here are some scanned images of a bunch of nice Cardinals "hits" that I've procured recently. I hit up a card shop on the west side of town (aka the suburbs) in search of some much needed supplies and found some bargain-priced Cardinals. Did you know that I like the Cardinals? I bet you did!

I find this card pretty interesting because it's a pitcher's game-used bat, and that pitcher went on to become more of a batter. He's never really approached the level he played at when he first re-broke into the majors as an outfielder, unfortunately.

This isn't really a "hit" per se, but it's a short printed Goudey card that chisels another little notch in the old want list. Plus, it was only a dollar!

Cheap Edmonds jerseys were to be had. I had this one.

This is probably just a base card, but I really like it. Does anyone actually collect Triple Threads? I will never fully understand the high-stakes game of baseball card collecting. I would be just as excited (actually, more excited) about receiving a Jaime Moyer 1991 Bowman card, personally. Does anyone have a Jaime Moyer 1991 Bowman card? What about 1991 Stadium Club? No? I really need to get one of those "top X most wanted cards" lists together soon.

This was another one dollar find at the card shop. I am on record as saying that I'm not overly fond of Chrome-ing up the Heritage cards, but when they are done to my own team it's another matter entirely.

Meanwhile, I recently purchased some Yadier Molina cards for Erin's collection (her birthday was last weekend) and took the opportunity to add a couple of cards to my collection as well, mainly to save on shipping charges. I'm a sucker for serial numbers, parallels and blue cards, and this is all of those things.

Wainwright, as we well know, did not pitch at all last season. This photo must be from 2010 (or before?)

I also snagged a bunch of stuff for myself at the monthly card show last month. There's no card show in town this month as far as I know, so I may splurge and finally buy a Heritage hobby box. Here's another Edmonds jersey card for the collection. I will be updating my Zistle account shortly.

Here's a black Matt Holliday workout jersey swatch on a card that features some cacti (because it's Arizona) and some weird diamond pattern (because...??)

I feel like a broken record, but I'm going to say it anyway. Jaime Garcia should be back, hopefully, soon. And, hopefully, he will be able to contribute to the stretch run.

I picked up a pair of Bowman autographs at the show as well. I tried to just choose one of the two Cardinals at the table, but I ended up going home with both. Joe Kelly has been a valuable contributor as a replacement member of the rotation and has even helped win a game with his bat and speed.

Does Kelly have the so-called "upside" that Kolten Wong has, though? This is what made choosing between the two cards a tough decision. I like Joe Kelly because I've seen him play, and there's always a chance Wong never makes the bigs at all. Wong is pretty highly regarded as a prospect, however, and he plays a position (2B) that is always in demand - especially in the St. Louis organization.

I could have sworn I had this Rolen jersey card already, but I wasn't able to find it in any of my boxes where I store these things.

Finally, last but certainly not least, here's a simply amazing Jim Edmonds bat card that Erin purchased long ago. I was finally able to pry it away from her and now it sits in my collection. For now...