Eighties Rewind

Reader Jeff (from CA) sent over a couple of Cardinal needs from the elusive 1984 Donruss set recently, as well as a few other '80s cards from the want lists.

I think I'm just conditioned to feel that 1984 Donruss is financially unattainable. In reality, I bet it would be cheaper to put together this set than, say, one of the Topps Heritage sets when you include all of the short prints.

I wonder if anyone ever called LaPoint "DLP"? I know I would have.

Storm Davis is a non-Cardinal, but he's included here as I'm working on the entire 1985 Fleer set. I'm really going to hate having to buy the Roger Clemens rookie. It won't be so much because of the price as it will be for paying money for a card with that fool on it.

Thanks again to Jeff!

Airbrushed Fridays: 2007 Topps #107

In case you've been in a The World Is Ending Soon type of bunker hole, there's a contest going on here at Cards on Cards. There's still time left to sign up! Just get some picks going and you'll be entered to win some prizes, including cards from your favorite team/player(s), a blaster perhaps, and question marks (????)! Good luck and... good luck.

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Rafael Soriano is one of the top relievers in the game. He's also an example of the wide gap between closers and non-closers that exists in baseball. He was relatively unheralded (but decently paid, I suppose) until Mariano Rivera went down with a freakish season-ending injury last spring. Suddenly, he's the team's closer and shutting down fools like it was 2010 again. After finally "proving" himself by maintaining a closer role for the better part of three out of the last four seasons, he's being pushed out the door for someone born in the '60s. I can't blame the Yankees for keeping Mo around, of course, but this team (Ichiro, Youkilis, Jeter, A-Rod's withered corpse) is going to be hilarible to watch next year.

Why does this card exist? Soriano was brutally hit in the head by a comebacker in 2006 in what would prove to be his final season with the Seattle Mariners. Atlanta took a flyer on him, not knowing if he'd ever be the same. He ended up being pretty effective as a mostly non-closer. Of course, Soriano was nowhere near a major league uniform when this set was being put together, which explains his non-Braves-ness.

Airbrushed Fridays is a weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything other than the tears of a Kansas State fan, but you never know!

Contest Reminder! Less Than 36 Hours Remain

If you've entered, get your picks in soon! If you haven't entered, what are you waiting for? The deadline is 10:00 AM PST Saturday morning for the best contest the internet has to offer this week right now (involving baseball cards).

If you're not convinced, check out these testimonials from past participants:

"It made watching the meaningless non-playoff college postseason enjoyable to watch." -- Adam E, Thoughts & Sox

"I know nothing about college football - just picked all the favorites!" -- Bo, Baseball Cards Come to Life!

"It's always a blast." -- Jon, Community Gum

"I know nothing about feetsball..." -- dayf, Cardboard Junkie

"I can't believe I did so well." -- hiflew, Cards from the Quarry

"Stats on the Back will be back next year to bring home third place!" -- mmosley, Stats on the Back

"Nice contest sir!" -- Play at the Plate

"I signed up!" -- SpastikMooss, The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame

"I pick Erin to win." -- Erin

Contest Reminder and Ginter Goodies

Here's just another reminder that I've got a contest going on. All you have to do is pick the winners of each college bowl game. You must enter and at least pick your first game by 10:00 AM PST on Saturday. Subsequent games must be picked no later than kickoff of each respective game, though I'd recommend making all of your picks before Saturday and then changing them later as you see fit. Just to sweeten the pot a bit, if we manage to get more entrants than last year I will go out and pick up some things at the next card show to add to the prize pool.

Speaking of card shows, I picked up a couple of deeply discounted blasters last weekend - a box of Topps Archives and a box of Allen & Ginter. Each was sold to me for only $12. Rather than give a blow by blow of this Ginter blaster, I thought I'd just scan all of the cards I actually needed, which happened to include zero base or SP cards. I'm down to only needing 3 base cards but there are quite a few SPs I have.

As a result, I also have a lot of dupes. Check the list on the sidebar if you are looking for anything from this set or have some extras that you want to pass along to me.

This is only my second Military Leaders card. Of course, there are some insert sets that I haven't managed to pull anything from, but some may be "hobby only" for all I know.

What's worse than two last names? Three last names!

I wonder if Jay Bruce ever wishes he could go back to that brief moment in 2008 when everyone was more excited about him than they were about Joey Votto.

This completes the World's Tallest Buildings set for me. Hooray!

Yeah, these are kind of dull after awhile. I hope they ditch the massive player insert set idea next year, if there is a 2013 Ginter. I am almost hoping that there isn't, just for my sanity's sake. I guess they wouldn't have anywhere to honor the 2012 code winner if that were the case.

I do love minis, though.

I won't rest until every sideline reporter has their own card. Can we get a Jim Gray harassing Pete Rose card? Thank you.

Not pictured: vampires.

It was satisfying to watch the Cardinals take down the Nats in the playoffs, but I have a feeling the Nats are going to come back stronger next season.

No Yankees logo on Maris's jersey? Is that a 'W' on his cap? Or is that a Batman logo?

This card looks great in a black mini version.

I almost can't stand looking at these murder mystery cards, yet I am trying to collect them all anyway. What's wrong with me?

The last pack contained a "hit", and that hit was this Justin Upton framed jersey. It's up for grabs. Nothing else pictured here is, though.

I'll likely post the Archives box early next week. That one is pretty much all trade bait.

Shiny, Blue & Gold

Hey, don't forget to enter the big contest. You know the one. The one I posted about yesterday. Don't know the one? Pretend that it's still Tuesday and you're still at work sipping on your cup of joe and rocking out to some jamstep (or whatever it is that the kids listen to these days) and read that post. Then enter. You've got the rest of the week, in any case. If you can't think of a witty "team name", don't worry - you can change that later. I certainly didn't.

Robert from $30 a Week Habit posted some trade bait stuff recently, mostly of the Topps Update variety, and I couldn't resist. I got some sparkly gold stuff, some not quite as sparkly gold stuff, and some of that sweet, sweet Walmart Blue.

I can't partake in the Blue these days. It's bad for my health. I let others do the dirty work and get that candy to me.

Ugh, okay, I'll drop the charade. I can't go near a Walmart store anytime in the near future because Black Friday was just another reminder of that store's terrible working conditions. I'm going to have to rely on others to get these ridiculously tantalizing parallel cards. I understand that in a large part of this country, Walmarts are the primary (and sometimes only) option for shopping, though. We all have to get our cards where we can, after all. I just feel fortunate that I live somewhere with many shopping options. I only ever set foot in a Walmart store to stake out the little card section, anyway, so it's no great loss.

Of course, this is a perfect pairing of a baby blue throwback uniform and the sort of metallic but not really blue border on the Walmart parallel. Of course!

To top it all off, here's a classy gold framed parallel of Stan the Man from this year's Gypsy Queen set. I just realized that I need a ton of the Cardinal framed cards from this set. I'm not sure why last year's Gypsy Queen set was so much more popular than this year's. I'm guessing it had to do with production numbers?

Thanks again to $30 a Week Habit. (My return portion of the trade should be on its way soon, I swear! Wow, it seems like I say this way too much these days.)

Contest! Pick Football Games and Win Baseball Cards!

Like every great trilogy, this one's back for the fourth time! It's time once again for the annual Cards on Cards College Bowl Pick 'Em Contest. Past winners include AJ from The Lost Collector (2011-12), Mark from Stats on the Back (2010-11), and Adam from Thoughts and Sox (2009-10). There have been some past "winners" as well, but I won't shame them here. Feel free to dig through the archives, though.

If you've participated in the past, you know the drill. Go on ahead to Yahoo and sign up. I have sent out invitations through Yahoo's automated system. If you don't get an email invite, follow the manual procedure at the bottom of this post (and if all else fails, send me an email and I will try to help you out.) For the rest of you, here are the rules and prize details, which will be similar to past years:

• First place will receive: a 2013 Topps Series 1 blaster OR suitable equivalent (subject to availability at Target)... as well as a small plastic pouch of cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc.
• Second place will receive: a Priority Mail padded envelope full of cards from your favorite team/player(s)/etc. (this usually ends up being around 8 bags/pouches or so)
• Third place will receive a prize only if we manage to surpass last year's total of 31 entrants.
• Worst place will receive: whatever I feel like sending you. I've been spending a considerable amount of time cleaning up and sorting through stuff lately, so please be very afraid to finish last this time around. Of course, as past "winners" of this prize can tell you, you will still receive some cards targeted toward your favorite team/player(s).

Because there's no such thing as a free lunch, at least without a copious amount of rules and guilt, here they are (basically copied from last year):

• Participants must sign up through the official Yahoo link. Unfortunately, this means that you must have a Yahoo account. I know this is a deal breaker for some, but I can't figure out another way to accept manual entries and try to math them up according to Yahoo's point system.
• Promote this contest! No, that doesn't mean you need to "follow" my blog, nor does it mean that you'll gain any competitive advantage by posting about this contest. I just want to see a lot of people participate, and will be willing to award more prizes if there are more participants. 16 23 31 people joined the Yahoo group last year - let's increase that total! Put a subliminal message on your blog post. Send a mass email. Casually tell your co-workers in the break room while discussing Brett Favre's latest injury Tim Tebow's latest game winning prayer Mark Sanchez's buttfumble. The possibilities are endless!
• Points are scored according to the Confidence System. This basically means that while you are predicting which team wins which bowl game, you will also be responsible for ranking how confident you are in each pick. For example, if you are insane enough to think that Washington will beat Nebraska Baylor Boise State (actually not that far fetched) and are willing to bet your street cred on it, you will want to assign that matchup a higher confidence rating (30, perhaps) than you would with your misguided "Alabama Georgia TCU will totally stomp Michigan State because I ate at a Buffalo Wild Wings last night the SEC is *AWESOME*" pick.
• Email me your contest information after you sign up. You can't assume that I will automatically recognize your clever Yahoo Pick Set name, nor will I necessarily disbelieve your "friend" who claims your prize after everything is said and done because he swears he's CowboysFan4Ever and is the "most right" about his "sweet picks".
• You can change your picks at any time, so long as your pick is made before the official start time (usually the TV broadcast time) of each game.
• You must make a pick for every game to be eligible for the "worst place" prize. Also, once again this year... please... no tanking it on purpose! The prizes aren't that great, folks. I'd much rather award the prize to someone who failed in spectacular fashion than someone who intentionally went with picks that are doomed to fail like Arizona over Oklahoma State LA Tech over TCU Wisconsin over Stanford.

Click here to sign up! It's free! First timers are very welcome.

Group ID: 27627

Password: quackquackquack

DEADLINE: There's a hard deadline of Saturday, December 15th at 10:00 AM PST. That's the start time of the first bowl game.

Airbrushed Fridays: 1975 Topps #610

1975 was my birth year. It used to make me feel relatively young to say that, but now it makes me feel like I should be reaching for my cane as I say it, talking about the days of yore and such. Well, my memories of 1975 are pretty nonexistent, but we have baseball cards that live on and document the days of a bygone era.

Who is this week's victim, and why do we care? Ron Hunt was a two-time All-Star infielder who primarily played second base. He spent his 12 seasons in the bigs with 5 different franchises, never sticking around for more than 4 years. Hunt's two All-Star appearances came early in his career as a member of the Mets. He also had a rather unique skill as the predecessor to Don Baylor and, later, Craig Biggio, as baseball's Hit By Pitch king.

Why does this card exist? Hunt spent his twilight years with the Expos. In the final month of the 1974 season, Montreal waived Hunt; he was subsequently picked up by his hometown St. Louis Cardinals. Topps  evidently couldn't make it down to the ballpark for any of his 28 plate appearances with the Cards that season, resulting in a ridiculously off-kilter airbrush job on his cap logo. Hunt came to spring training the following season, but did not make the club and opted to retire.

Airbrushed Fridays is a weekly feature as the name seems to imply. If you know of a card with an altered photograph that you'd like to see featured, please contact me. You probably won't win anything other than a hyperlink and a VHS copy of Independence Day, but you never know!