Top 10 Week: Top 10 Cards from a Recent Collector's Crack Prize!

 Welcome to the fifth (and final) Top 10 Week post!

Back when the (abbreviated) MLB season was still happening, Mark (from Collector's Crack) held a World Series prediction contest. Somehow, I ended up winning by correctly guessing not just the two teams in the World Series but also the total number of games played (and I missed the second tie-breaker - total number of doubles in the Series - by only one)!  Clearly that was one of my best guesses ever...but I feel compelled to point out that my original entry had a Reds/Indians World Series...and well, we all know how that worked out (so maybe I shouldn't quite quit my day job yet for a life of prognosticating).

Marc included a rather generous prize package for me - and so without further delay let's look at my 10 favorites from the package.

Top 10 Cards from Collector's Crack World Series Contest Prize

#10:  Luis Castillo - Refractor 

I'm a sucker for refractors from Topps Chrome so any time I'm lucky enough to get one featuring the Reds I'm probably going to be super happy!  

#9:  Frank Robinson - Playing Card 

I love games (as evidenced by an earlier Top 10 list this week) so getting a playing card is another good way for me to be happy.  The back of the card says this is a 52-Card Baseball set by Kenny Mayne.  I'm assuming this comes from some sort of online Topps exclusive?  

#8:  Robert Stephenson - Autograph 

"Rob Steve" is no longer a Red (traded to the Rockies a few days ago) and that's probably for the best for both parties.  He couldn't ever come close to living up to his pre-rookie hype and the Reds couldn't seem to quite give up on him...all that managed to do is to end up with a lot of bloated ERAs and team losses.  That all being said, this is a good looking Bowman card (not a sentence I type all that often)!  

#7:  Jonny Gomes - Black parallel 

Numbered out of only 58, the Black parallels from 2009 Topps are sharp looking!  This is easily one of my favorite "random Reds" parallels that I own now!

#6:  Josh Hamilton - Framed Green parallel 

Speaking of favorite parallels, framed parallels are always a favorite of mine...and the Upper Deck Masterpieces parallels are particularly nice!  

#5:  Chris Dickerson - Red Hot Rookie 

I love the "flame" coloring on this particular refractor.  Dickerson is another failed prospect for the Reds (in that he didn't do much as a Red) but his Red Hot Rookie card is certainly not a failure!

#4:  Trevor Bauer - Christmas parallel 

With the holiday season approaching, this is the perfect parallel to grace my blog's page.  Of course, many Reds fans would like another few years of Mr. Bauer as a Red for a Christmas present but that's looking less and less likely by the day.

#3:  Aristides Aquino - Rated Rookie 

I've mentioned a number of times before that I'm a sucker for the Rated Rookies logo - so slap it on a Reds' card and I'm all-in.  I still hope Aquino can be more Adam Dunn and less Wily Mo Pena but I guess next year will tell me all I'll need to know (assuming MLB can play a season next year).

#2:  Joey Votto - Christmas parallel 

Votto has been one of the few bright spots for the Reds (and Reds baseball card collectors) for the past decade or so.  It's kind of shame to witness his decline but I guess that's to be expected in this era of steriod-free baseball play.  

#1:  Don Mattingly - Topps 2020 

This is my first Topps 2020 card ever and it was the main prize for Collector's Crack World Series Contest.  Mattingly doesn't exactly fit in my collection but I have to say that the card is actually really, really cool.  I'm going to give this one some thought as to what I end up doing with the card - but for now I'm going to enjoy it as an early Christmas present for myself!

Many, many thanks to Mark for the awesome contest and prize contents!