Group Break Update, a New Contest, and More

Just a little housekeeping here.

Late last week I sprang a little group break on you all. I just wanted to let everyone know that the box is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, although it's being delivered by USPS now and they have left my mailbox empty for the past two days. Unless there are unforeseen delays with the box arrival, I will have everything sorted and ready to send out by early next week.

The Bowl Pick 'Em Contest is back for a sixth year. It will be open to all past, present, and future participants as always. Check this space soon for details. If you signed up last year and still have the same email address, you should already have your invite by now. Look at some of the crazy names of bowl games they have now! Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl? And don't get me started on Bitcoin...

I purchased a bucketload of cards from COMC to take advantage of their Black Friday free shipping deal, including a bunch of oddball Ozzie Smith cards and the snazzy Matt Carpenter bat card that adorns the top of this post. If you're looking to send me (or Erin) any cards from our respective player collections, I encourage you to check the hyperlinks which should point to the collections on Zistle. If a card isn't listed there, I don't have it. I know opening huge lists that point to another website can be tedious, but there is a search box available if you just want to look up one or two things and don't want to scroll through my 552 Ozzie Smith cards. (Can't you tell that I'm proud of that number?)

Finally, I neglected to thank Sportscards From The Dollar Store for the amazing LaMichael James "event-worn" jersey card that was used in Friday's Ducks post. Cards on Cards regrets the error. The card clearly paved the way to a thorough beatdown of the Arizona Wildcats and landed Oregon in the big playoff game at the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. You will likely see more of buckstorecards' generosity in future January Ducks posts, of which there will hopefully be several.

Five Years of Cards on Cards: A Free Giveaway!

Well, I would hestitate to call this a contest, because all you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post! To celebrate the fifth anniversary of this intrepid little blog, I am giving away a factory sealed box set of the 1994 Pinnacle The Naturals set. It's chock full of '90s stars and is one of the earlier sets to make use of Pinnacle's exclusive "Dufex" technology. This contest is open to all entrants, and will close at midnight (PDT) on June 30th. You don't even need a Blogger/Google account to enter - just email me with the word "CONTEST" in the subject line if you're unable to comment here. The winner will be chosen at random via "List Randomizer" at random.org.

To encourage others to enter, for every 5 entrants I will add a card to the prize heap to sweeten the pot. The winner will win this set plus any added cards as a bonus. The cards will likely be from my Trade Bait stash or a similarly valued equivalent.

Here's a look at the checklist, and it's a good one! Not many clunkers in this bunch, that's for sure.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

Cards on Cards is Now Mobile

Cards on Cards is now optimized for mobile devices, thanks to a recent Blogger feature release. It's now much easier to browse the blog on your phone, tablet or microchip embedded in your brain! The template only shows posts and no crucial sidebar links, so if you'd like to check out my attractive and interesting want lists, you'll need to scroll down and click on the View Web Version button near the bottom of the page.

WordPress, I believe, has had this functionality for awhile. If you're a Blogger blogger and you'd like to enable this feature (I highly recommend it) you can go to your Dashboard, click on the "Settings" tab and then select "Email & Mobile". Finally, turn the "Show Mobile Template" option to its "On" position. Congratulations! I can now read your blog on my public transportation-based commute to work with relative ease.

What Just Happened?

Did this... really happen? I was enjoying the on-field festivities of the Ducks winning the Civil War and locking up their spot in the BCS National Championship game (an unlikely event in and of itself given their program's overall history) when a brief news blurb flashed up on one of the few screens not tuned to Oregon/Oregon State. Lance Berkman... THE Lance Berkman... a Cardinal? Sure, I'd seen his name attached to the Cards on mlbtraderumors.com, but nearly every free agent and rumored-to-be available player usually has a dozen or more teams mentioned in his news bit. Miguel Tejada has been headed to St. Louis for about 7 straight years now.

For now, at least for the next year, a former nemesis who hasn't played the outfield regularly in about 7 seasons will be taking flyballs and hopefully not getting hit by all of them. Fat Elvis (and no, I really don't expect the Big Puma moniker to catch on) is really taking his act to St. Louis. Crazy.

Speaking of crazy, does anyone else get random unsolicited emails that appear to be loosely related to their blog from time to time? My humble blog has, once again, made it on the Top (insert number here) list of blogs that might have something to do with sports cards. Check out the winning endorsement above. That's Cards on Cards... your leading authority on 108 - Doug Mientkiewicz!

Meanwhile, I will continue to be highly suspicious of any emails from unrecognized senders that aren't immediately promising me specific trading cards and/or unclaimed sums from the family of a high ranking official in a country I've never been to. Anyone want my credit card number?

Good News, Everybody! Cards on Cards Turns Two

It was two years ago today that I wrote about a blurry 1989 Topps Cris Carpenter baseball card and officially launched this thing. After two years, I still have not made the proper introduction post I originally intended on coming in the first week or so. If you're a casual reader of the blog, hopefully by now you understand what it is and what it's all about. Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of epic anniversary post to write today, nor a best of feature or even a contest.

There's something a lot more interesting going on tonight. The first new episode of Futurama in nearly seven years airs tonight (10:00 PM on Comedy Central) and that's plenty enough reason to celebrate.

Oh, yeah, and there's that whole World Cup thing, too. I can honestly say I've never woken up at 7:00 AM for a televised sporting event, but it was a fun experience.

Hey, I've somehow surpassed 500 posts now. Good news, indeed!

I Think the Worst Part is Over

I had to sit through a business dinner tonight with a bunch of Lakers fans, peering over the top of our booth frequently to check out the score. That might have been the most difficult part of my sudden trip out of town.

I'll be back with a real post when I get back in town, either late Wednesday night or when I have more time on Thursday. If I owe you cards, I will send them on Thursday or Friday. (Please e-mail me to remind me if I haven't already contacted you this week and you fit into that category.)

Blaster Failure Number One

I struck out at Target tonight in my attempt to pick up a 2010 Topps Heritage blaster for that stamp-lovin' Cardboard Junkie's Fantasy Baseball Card league thing. I knew there was a reason why I never try and go to these stores after work. They had loose packs and the jumbo/rack packs, but no blasters. They barely had any blasters at all. They were also out of regular 2010 Topps, which was annoying as well.

Instead, here's a grande-sized sneak peak at a box break I'm going to post soon.

Keith Olbermann Video Pack Break and Late Tuesday Night Miscellany

Here's just a few some notes in lieu of a big post tonight as I watch the tape of the Blazers/Clippers game. Keith Olbermann took a couple of minutes out of his Countdown show tonight on MSNBC to open a pack of 2010 Topps on air. The real treat is right after the 2010 Topps pack, though. I won't ruin it for you, but let's just suffice it to say that he opens a pack of something Your Mom Probably Really Threw Out. You can see the "podcast" here as well as a couple of other video formats that don't require a podcast subscription. The segment airs roughly between the 23:00 and 25:00 minute marks, so check it out. It's worth it. I would cut it up and put it on YouTube but I don't have the time. This is the page where all of the current MSNBC shows are housed. I'm not sure where exactly it will be archived on their site after the evening of 2/17/10, so consider this your warning. (I stole the image above from Fielder's Choice, which has returned on a limited basis. If someone can explain to me how to do a screenshot from VLC Media Player or Windows Media Player, please feel free.)

B-Roy is back in the Blazers lineup for the first time in nearly a month, or at least he was in the first half. At this point I am afraid to ever hear anything from the Blazers medical staff again. Marcus Camby is now a Blazer and Travis Outlaw and Steve Blake are doomed to Clipperdom. I I liked Camby as I was a pretty big fan of the Knicks in the late '90s but grew tired of him in his Nuggets years. I miss the old Nuggets and their crazy '80s unis.

As I did with the Andre Miller offseason signing, I'll reserve judgment on the trade right now as I am not sure how it will all play out. I knew it would be hard to find minutes for Travis Outlaw who was just getting ready to return from his own injury with the continuing development of Nicolas Batum and Martell Webster, but it is rough to suddenly say goodbye to your most tenured player. Meanwhile, I felt like Steve Blake was playing some of the best all-around basketball of the season, if not his career in recent days. He plays well enough with Roy that you could see him coming back to Portland in another year or two, but then again, do you really want to return to a team that has cast you aside two times now?

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8 packages were mailed out today by the Cards on Cards Postal Team. Watch your mailbox if you follow this blog! You never know...

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In other Cards on Cards news, I put a poll up a few days ago that only 4 of you have bothered to vote in. If I don't see a few more votes up there before the thing closes, I'll assume that nobody wants anything to do with reading about another mid-'90s junky hobby box. That's okay, though, I'll understand.

Cards on Cards Wins the Day

Well, Redemption Day (also known as Presidents' Day in some parts) came and went today and a lot of people apparently spent a lot of time mashing buttons and clicking on things in futility until something went their way. I do have to admit to checking the Topps website for the new Million Card Giveaway thing last night around midnight EST and then again around midnight PST. I didn't lose sleep over it, of course, and as I got ready for work this morning I read that the madness had begun and people were slowly starting to redeem their codes. For my part, I only had 2 codes which came from purchasing a grand total of 10 regular retail packs plus a jumbo rack pack. And as you may have read elsewhere, this didn't go so well to start with.

Once I got to work, however, things got a bit more interesting. I was starting to see some of the more interesting cards (way more vintage than I expected) that others were getting when I got an e-mail from Chris Olds of Beckett fame. For the most part I have avoided the whole Beckett issue on this blog as they tend to be a very polarizing entity. For full disclosure, I used to buy the magazines religiously when I was a teenager and was particularly obsessed with the price guide. While I don't feel that it ever completely drove my collecting habits (I was never a "prospector"

and couldn't have afforded to be one anyway) I did use the pricing as a starting point for trading with people and judging the quality of my card shop/card show purchases. Beckett was gospel back in the day.

Today I am a Beckett subscriber. I only pay for the baseball online price guide, and I do so primarily because of its reference data and checklists. It's certainly not without its flaws, and don't get me started on how frustrated I get with all of the downtime (scheduled and unscheduled) with the site since they redesigned it, but it's there and I use it. This doesn't mean that other sites do not have their place. I certainly would love for more competition to be out there and I do use Zistle to catalog my player collections (well, one so far.) I've never been to their forums and likely never will, but I did start hearing about their Free Stuff Friday contests. Last Friday, I entered a few of them just for the heck of it as they required little-to-no work, and filed the experience way in the back of my mind - somewhere near the phone numbers of people that I instantly forgot as soon as I started using a cell phone.

And then, this afternoon, this happened:

Most of last Friday's contests were sponsored by Panini (basketball cards! icky!) and I apparently ended up with some sort of high end "box" containing a "pack" containing 5 "cards". Okay, I should probably calm down on the quotation marks. Cool-headed logic would seem to dictate that I should probably sell the thing the moment it hits my door, but I can see myself opening it up because it's exciting and I don't usually win stuff. I could always sell the cards themselves, right? And I'll definitely keep my fingers crossed and hope for a Blazers card.

Eventually, I finally managed to get one of my Topps codes to get through after trying for hours just to sign up for an account, and that's when I ended up with Mr. Smith up at the top of the post. The second code proved to be much, much trickier to enter. I probably tried a grand total of 20 times, each time getting a blank white screen, until I finally got a message that stated that my code had already been used. I then went to look at my collection and then...

Wow! What in the world is this? After showing it to Erin, she was quick to point out that the card is not actually a 2001 card but is a 2002 card as you can see by the logo. Secondly, although I had heard rumors of autographs and other such prizes being part of this larger contest, I had no idea that Topps would stray from straight up regular base cards in the codes that you can redeem right away and would then go ahead and give out a certified autograph from a non-base set. Aparicio is a Hall of Famer, of course, so this is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Part of me thinks this was just my lucky day (in the trading cards world, anyway) although the cynic in me thinks that something wacky and unpleasant will end up happening with this redemption. The same cynic also wonders if I was selected as a winner in the Beckett giveaway not just out of sheer luck or lack of other entrants, but that I was handpicked because I had never entered a contest before or posted on the forums and might be more apt to promote Beckett to others in the future because of this. I mean, there's zero visibility in how people are selected for these things, right?

Then again, maybe I should just shut up and take the cards.

Housekeeping

The offseason has begun in earnest for Cardinals fans like myself. I took a short break from baseball for most of Friday after the incredibly disappointing Game 2 loss, but I got off work early and was able to catch the last 4 innings of the Red Sox/Angels game and felt okay again. Overall, it was a lackluster and pretty disappointing series for the Redbirds, but when I step back and reflect I can accept the result as a fan. Next season, just merely making the playoffs won't be acceptable, however.

And so begins the ritual that is becoming annual of late. This is the time we get to hear about whether or not Tony La Russa will come back for his 383rd season at the helm. Okay, he's not quite in Bobby Cox territory yet, but he's been in St. Louis for a pretty good stretch. There are a lot of things that La Russa does that make my roll my eyes, and even some that infuriate me. I'd have to say, however, that I do hope he comes back. He gets results, and I'm not all that confident that anyone else that could possibly be in consideration (should he decide to walk away) could get the results that he does. Besides, what would Cardinals fans do with their afternoons during the season without a crazy lineup to complain about?

***

I've received a fair amount of packages over the past couple of weeks, which is always nice. I'm still trying to play catch-up as I have a whole new batch of things to deal with since I sent out my last round of packages. One of the incoming envelopes wasn't a trade, exactly, but it was my portion of a group break put on by Thorzul Will Rule. I am always interested in group breaks, but my main caveat is that I'm a simple team collector when it comes down to it, so I tend to shy away from anything that is expensive or random. This break was for 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game, and while I didn't get any "hits", I'm pretty happy with the group of base cards and inserts that were sent my way.

This is one of two Ozzie Smith cards that I was able to add to my Ozzie collection. I'm at about 90% complete with cataloging and scanning my Jim Edmonds collection, so I think Ozzie will be the next one that I tackle. I don't think there's any way I'll ever catalog my entire Cardinals collection, so instead I'll just try and focus on the four players that I collect that supercede the Cardinals collection.

Here's the third of three Cardinals-specific inserts that I received. There's maybe a little too much lower border with these, but otherwise they look fine.

I think I like the base cards better, however. I do find it amusing, however, that Lefty is included as a Cardinal here, yet his stats on the back make no reference to his St. Louis career. His numbers start with the '72 Phillies.

Ah, yes, Tommy Herr. There's been rumors about the powder blues coming back in some form next year. Let's just hope that if they do that, they do it right. Nothing annoys me more than grossly inaccurate retro jerseys.

This set has made me realize two things. One, it is really unfortunate that an all-legends style set cannot be done anymore.

And two, not everything that Upper Deck has done with the Fleer line has been dreadful. These cards look really nice.

Is this card colorized? I'm not sure. It looks great, so I guess it doesn't matter. Do Turner networks still show colorized movies?

Oh, well... if I plug my ears and try to remember a time when Tim McCarver was known as a steady veteran catcher and not the ear infection-inducing FOX announcer, maybe I can sleep at night. If there's one silver lining in the uneven coverage that TBS has done in the playoffs so far, it's that they've at least prolonged the time before McCarver takes the air by owning the rights to all of the Divisional Series games.

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Finally, as mentioned above, I'm still in catch-up mode with trades. I'll be sending out packages on Thursday to Roll out the Barrel, reader Noah, Ryan's Memorabilia and Saints of the Cheap Seats. There are a few others that I will be sending stuff to around the first part of next week after I hit the card show this weekend. Please let me know if anyone needs their portion of a trade expedited as I admittedly easily lose track of how long these things take to complete sometimes.

Matt Holliday Revisited

Has it already been a year? I posted about the pending MLB trading deadline last season around this time in this blog's infancy and it seems that little has changed.

"The pending trading deadline and the deals that go with it seem to be the hot topic these days."

This is true. Felipe Lopez, Adam LaRoche, Julio Lugo and Chris Duncan have already been moved in recent days. The Pirates seem to be content on moving everyone with a swashbucklin' uniform in his locker. The Cardinals just completed what seemed like a glorified scouting trip wrapped in the guise of a rainout makeup game last night during a visit to mopey Washington, DC. Roy Halladay, Scott Kazmir and Adrian Gonzalez have been popular names to come up in trade topics in the past 24 hours.

"The Cardinals were among the teams thought to be interested in the services of Matt Holliday, who of course was the anchor of the Rockies terrific stretch run to the World Series last year. The guy should have been the NL MVP for 2007 and certainly would have had my vote."

Holliday is no longer an MVP caliber player after being separated from Coors Field. However, he has put up a respectable .832 OPS while adjusting to facing primarily AL pitching in AL parks. Even in the days of interleague play, adjusting to a new league for the first time is not always easy. I think Holliday is a better player than he has showed so far for Oakland, but clearly not nearly as good as he has performed in the friendly confines of Coors Field. The big story is that the Cardinals, particularly Tony LaRussa, remain interested.

"But like many small market teams are apt to do at this time of year, Holliday might get dumped off on a contender for prospects."

Holliday only has a couple of months and change left on his contract, so anyone looking to acquire him would probably have to look at the situation as a "rental". This won't dissuade people like Tony La Russa (or most managers, frankly) but it should give front office types great pause. Oakland is always up for a deal and seems to be out of contention, so I would be a little surprised to see Holliday remain in an Oakland uniform for the rest of the season even though they'd figure to get compensated in next year's draft if he left in the offseason.

"Cleveland is a mess, and so their Cy Young winner gets shipped out."

It happened to CC Sabathia last year and it could certainly happen again to Cliff Lee. Lee has been very strong of late after an inauspicious start and Cleveland is battling Kansas City for the bizarro world division title.

"Mark Teixeira, who I just assumed was named after his own franchise, became Brave Tex. What's next for him now, Red Tex? Bronx Tex? (Oh, wait, the Yankees don't do that anymore.)"

Whoops!

"I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't mention that my team has benefited greatly from these types of deals [in the past] so I suppose I can dream about Holliday patrolling left field at Busch later on this summer, as many others debate the ups and downs of mortgaging your future for a shot in the arm."

I'm not so sure that I'm dreaming anymore. I'd say it's more of an anxiety, now. The offering price seems to be top prospect Brett Wallace, who was picked in last year's draft and already has progressed to AAA with a decent chance of earning a late season callup. Is it worth it? I don't even know at this point. I don't think I will complain a lot either way. I can't fault a team in solid contention at the top of a very winnable division trying to fill a void (and it's a pretty huge void) right now in left field to Win Now. On the other hand, Wallace might not be a Major League defender, but he could be a franchise-leading bat.

***

I'll post my Allen & Ginter blaster, soon. In the mean time, I'm posting my first A&G pack of the season over at A Pack To Be Named Later. If you don't know what that is, go look it up and get lost in the awesomeness.

What Do I Do With This?

One thing I completely failed to mention in my write-up of a package I got from dayf of Cardboard Junkie awhile back is that he sent over an unopened pack of the postcard-sized 1986 Donruss All-Stars set. As you can see, the packs come with 3 cards, one "pop-up" card and a few Hank Aaron puzzle pieces (featuring Hank Aaron.) The primary reason I was sent this, I'm sure, is that there's good ol' Osborne Earl Smith showing on the front of the pack in all of his pop-up glory. It turns out that I already have this "card", so now I'm stuck with a minor dilemma. Do I save the pack as some sort of extra Ozzie memento. Obviously, I'm not considering being like one of those creeps who sends in packs to Beckett or other companies to get them graded (what fun is that?) But I could hang onto it in its pristine shape. Keep in mind that I was one of those kids who could not even fathom leaving anything in the package. I frequently have a difficult time making it home before opening packs when I buy them.

Another motivating factor might be that I used to love these large sized cards and the mid-'80s sets are what I started in on collecting in the first place. I have fond memories of all of the 1986 sets, from Donruss and Fleer right on down to those silly Kay-Bee Toys glossy cards that they used to sell in tiny boxes at Newberry's. At one point I had a pretty healthy stack of the Donruss All-Star jumbo cards from 1984, 1985 and 1986, but they are not easy to store and they eventually were purged when I started dumping things en masse that were not in passable condition. (What was I thinking?) Anyway, besides the Ozzie pop-up card, I can see that the top card showing is a Brewers card (I was assuming Robin Yount at first, but when I look at the checklist I think it's gotta be Cecil Cooper) and the last card is most definitely Sparky Anderson. What could the middle card be? I am positive that I don't own the Ozzie Smith card itself from the set, so that possibility is always there.

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I'm going off the grid for a few days, so there won't be any posts here until Monday night at the earliest. I do want to take the opportunity to plug http://sruchris.net/. I recently completed a feature-length trade with Chris and just haven't found the time to post about it yet. He's got quite an extensive want list (and trade list), so those of you who like to do the card-swapping sort of thing should definitely check out his website and go work out a deal. I will give this its proper due next week, I promise.

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For those of you that have digital cable or one of those dishy things, now is a great time to scope out MLB Network. They've been running game 1 of the 1968 World Series in its entirety the past couple of days. I just watched Bob Gibson strike out 17 pesky Tigers, which made me feel better about the Cards dropping the final game of their 3-game series last night. I'm not sure where else I've ever seen full replays of games that old before, and it was fun to listen to Harry Caray call a Cards game before he became a permanently belligerent Cubs Fan / Bud Man.

Your Attention, Please

First off, I have some announcements to make. If you're all good and sit through these announcements without making a fuss, I may even post some images of baseball cards and the results of baseball card packs that I have purchased.

• Cards on Cards is using Zistle now. For starters, I've begun with my Jim Edmonds collection (still a work in progress). I'm just trying the site out. It seems to have a lot of promise and it looks like the team behind it have great intentions of doing something really cool (and free) for those who want to stay organized with their cards and potentially end up with some trading partners. Check the link at the sidebar or, better yet, just go and sign up and give it a look.
• One snide comment I made about Josh Beckett recently touched off some interesting conversation and sparked an inspired post over at Night Owl Cards. To make a long story rather short, I happen to agree with most of what he says. I just don't like to see pitches thrown at people's heads, as I'm sure no one else does, either.
• I will make my "final" Blazers post here to wrap up the season and possibly talk about the playoffs in the next day or two, hopefully before the first playoff game tips off Saturday night (7:30 PM PDT on ESPN!) I say "final" because I fully intend this blog to be committed to baseball cards, yet I am not sure how I will handle the playoffs quite yet. It's a very exciting time to be a fan of both the Blazers and the Cardinals, that much is for certain. Perhaps I will just PhotoShop Rudy Fernandez's head on a bunch of old Score cards or something.
• I've mentioned this before and had no takers, so I will mention it one final time. I have some codes from packs that I've purchased this year. Topps Town, Topps Attax (the code cards from the Topps base set) and some Upper Deck wrappers. If anyone out there has any use for this stuff, let me know and I'll e-mail the codes. I'm not sure what sort of value these codes might have for kids who can participate in the web stuff that Topps and UD have lined up.
  

So, here's what you really came for. I bought a couple of jumbo packs of 2009 Upper Deck at some point this year. I have no idea when or where this happened anymore, to be honest. Let's take a look.

Pack 1:
47 - Curt Schilling (Retired player. He sneaked a card into a 2009 set simply because he waited an entire year to retire, I guess.)
12 - Alex Romero

28 - Casey Kotchman
70 - Ryan Theriot (Did you know his last name spells out "The Riot"? Oh, you did? Is that so? Did you know the Cubs are lame? Think about that for awhile!)
123 - Jeff Francis
186 - Ervin Santana
130 - Gary Sheffield (I hadn't really realized just how many players have changed teams since the end of last year until I started going through these cards.)

193 - Chad Billingsley
465 - Manny Ramirez Season Highlights (A Red Sox card, with a smashed corner to boot.)

SQ-19 - Miguel Cabrera Starquest Common (The Starquest design isn't too bad, I suppose, but I'm not thrilled with the violetish coloring on the "common" cards. I don't know what colors the other versions are.)

479 - Albert Pujols Team Checklist (The Machine)
415 - Conor Gillaspie (RC)
293 - Pedro Feliz
208 - Blake DeWitt (Recently demoted.)
259 - Ivan Rodriguez (Pictured with the Yankees, now with the Astros)
387 - Alex Rios (His HR total went back to where he's normally at - 15 - but he nearly doubled the number of steals last season from past seasons.)
370 - Eric Hinske (Now a Pirate, but not the bad kind.)
380 - Vicente Padilla
5 - Orlando Hudson (A Dodger now)
68 - Ted Lilly
49 - Dustin Pedroia (I still help but feel that Pedroia will go on to be considered the worst player ever to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in consecutive seasons.)
142 - Jeremy Hermida

163 - Mike Aviles (Team Puerto Rico!)
128 - Edgar Renteria (Was a Tiger, now a Giant)
191 - Manny Ramirez
496 - Joe Mauer Team Checklist
412 - Aaron Cunningham (RC)

SQ-3 - Alfonso Soriano Starquest Common (Erin, hide your eyes.)

447 - Rockies Team Leaders (Speaking of guys changing teams, only one of these Rockies stuck around for 2009.)
498 - Jack Cust Team Checklist
242 - Jose Reyes
225 - Denard Span (One of my multi-team fantasy guys this year.)
206 - Chin-Lung Hu
397 - Wily Mo Pena
312 - Jake Peavy

363 - Carlos Pena (Pictured with his Silver Slugger award. I believe he only won in 2007, so perhaps he was presented with the award at the beginning of the 2008 season since he's shown in the newer Rays uniform.)

Pack 2:
1 - Randy Johnson (Randy is pictured with the D-Backs but is now with the Giants.)
64 - Kerry Wood (Cubs ---> Indians)
27 - Tim Hudson
92 - Juan Uribe
194 - Russell Martin

152 - Roy Oswalt (I feel like I've softened up a bit on the Astros in the past couple of years. But this stupid team likes to play dead every season, no matter how much or little talent they have and somehow always catch fire late in the season. It's embarrassing that they caught the Cards last year and I'm hoping that this year, where it seems like they've dropped off talentwise even further, that they won't be a problem for the Cards this season at any point.)
117 - Ubaldo Jimenez
493 - Carlos Quentin Team Checklist
404 - Phil Coke (RC) (When spoken outloud, his name is a verb followed by a noun. I guess my name isn't far from doing that as well.)

SQ-4 - Chipper Jones Starquest Common
485 - Tim Lincecum Team Checklist (According to the back, the poor Giants only have 12 cards in the entire 500 card Series 1 set, including this card and a Team Leaders card.)
424 - Michael Bowden (RC)
265 - Johnny Damon
250 - Johan Santana
267 - Hideki Matsui
365 - Jonny Gomes (Gomes only hit .182 last year. Ouch.)

348 - Adam Wainwright (Wainwright has been fairly shaky so far in 3 starts, but has a 2-0 record to show for it.)
399 - Cristian Guzman
57 - Kevin Youkilis
8 - Eric Byrnes (Ugh.)
71 - Mark DeRosa (Like Wood, a Cleveland player now.)
36 - Daniel Cabrera (Lousy pitcher who still makes 30 starts a year for some reason.)
180 - Jered Weaver
159 - Jose Valverde

103 - Jay Bruce (Oh come on, Reds, you're better than that. I thought this was only a Padres thing.)
166 - Gil Meche
458 - Angels Team Leaders

SQ-11 - Hanley Ramirez Starquest Common

453 - Diamondbacks Team Leaders
462 - Jon Lester Season Highlights (The no-hitter)
233 - Jason Kubel
216 - Corey Hart (Bleh.)
284 - Frank Thomas

382 - Jesse Litsch (The Jays are doing pretty well for themselves so far this season. With Roy Halladay as a teammate, this guy gets overlooked by a lot of people, but he seems to have good numbers on the back of his card.)
364 - Akinori Iwamura
398 - Ronnie Belliard (Quite a character.)

Christmas is Cancelled

Portland has been a total disaster this week. A historically crazy snowstorm seems to have limited most holiday activities and has wreaked havoc on my work schedule as well. Consequently, I have counted at least 8 packages I still need to send out to people. Making it to work unfortunately became more of a priority to me than making it to the post office, so people that I owe packages to will unfortunately have to wait a bit more.

If you're one of the people that is expecting minor league cards from me but has yet to receive them, you're on the list (there are 5 of you.) If you are a particularly generous blogger who didn't ask me for anything, you're also on the list (there are 2 of you.) If your last name is Slette and you really like Andy Pettitte, you're also on the list, although your package isn't completely put together yet. If you aren't any of those people, or even if you are, I hope you have a happy holiday and hope that your sidewalks are shoveled.

Advice for the Team Collector

I am strongly considering a monumental shift in the way I store my Cardinals cards. The timing isn't all that surprising, considering over the past two days I've received large boxes of Cards cards and I will probably be spending hours sorting through them in the coming days. Currently, as in the past, the way I store all of my Cardinals is in binders with plastic sheets, alphabetically, including doubles. I mentioned this to my girlfriend the other day, and she sounded rather surprised about the doubles. It made sense to me for awhile, as I used to only have 4 full binders worth, but now at 7 full binders plus some loose sheets and absolutely no way to hold more cards, I should probably rethink what I am doing. I liked actually looking through each binder and knowing exactly how many... I don't know... 1992 Topps Felix Jose cards I had. But it costs nearly $20 for a binder and a bundle of plastic sheets these days, so I'm thinking about doing something else. Incidentally, Ozzie Smith gets his own binder, but I only keep one of each of his cards in there. Maybe that's the way I should have been doing everything all along.

So I ask you, the team collectors out there, how do you store your cards? Should I get a 3200 ct. cardboard box for my doubles? Is there a fancier, but perhaps still efficient way of doing things?

Basil Shabazz, incidentally, never made it out of AA according to Baseball-reference.com despite having one of my favorite player names of all-time. His card is one of the many that I received the past two days, and I will be doing a post on each of those packages soon.

Waking Up From An Eight-Year Nightmare

Congrats.

I was busy on Election Night, so I didn't have a lot of time to update the blog. Many others had entertaining Election-themed posts yesterday, and probably will today, so I encourage you to check them out. Start with the links I have on the sidebar and work your way through the links that those guys have. Good stuff.

I have been working on my want lists/trade lists at long last. You'll be able to see them creep up along the sidebar as time progresses. Eventually I will posts my official rules for trades and the like, but in the meantime I am still always up for blind team trades.

No More Mr. Reyes

Anthony Reyes was dealt to the Cleveland Indians over the weekend, marking an unceremonious end to his once-promising Cardinals career. Most people would agree that it was best for him to move on, but I can't help but feel disappointed. Some, like this blogger-commenter (can that be a word?) over at the very excellent Viva El Birdos have described this as a win-win situation for all involved, but I don't see the Cardinals ending up as winners here.

Reyes still seems like a talent to me. He has a unique delivery. He throws hard. He has style (obviously- see the high socks, the super-serious flat bill...) He threw one hell of a World Series game in 2006, one that helped set the tone for the series. Do the Cardinals win that series without him? It's tough to say.

I could also say I was a victim of falling for "the hype." For the 1-hitter against the defending champion White Sox. For the World Series Game 1. For my girlfriend's favorite player. I think Reyes will end up alright in the end. I think Cleveland got a good deal. I have my doubts as to whether we'll ever see the 24-year old AA reliever that the Cards got in return. Hopefully Reyes makes it back soon.

What kind of socks do the Indians have to wear?