Gintery Contest #5 - Clue #3

If you're looking for rules on this contest you can find them here.  Good luck!

Alright, admittedly yesterday's clue wasn't super useful... and also quite hard to really investigate.  Hopefully this one gets you all going down the right path a bit more.

Clue #3: I've never had more than 500 AB in a season but I have eclipsed that dreaded 100 SO mark.

Gintery Contest #5 - Clue #2

If you're looking for rules on this contest you can find them here.  Good luck!

Clue #2: I was in the minors for five years before ever being called up, and even then, I didn't have rookie status until the sixth year.

The 2017 Contest of Gintery Goodness - Part Five

I first want to address contest #2.  Topps released its checklist early this morning (you can find it here) and the number one card in the set is Kris Bryant.  That means that our first contest winner is Chris from Nachos Grande!  Congrats man!

I think we're going to stop at five contests again this year.  For some reason it just feels like a good number.  So far I have:

1. The lazy man's contest of chance

2. A persistent man's contest (with a bit of thinking) Won by Chris - Nachos Grande

3. A subjective contest

4. A contest with a slight advantage to loyal reader's

What do I need... I think a bit of skill/sleuthing is what the doctor ordered here!

So here's the deal.  Everyday for the next week I have a post scheduled for 1pm EST so that's 10am for you folks on the west coast.  Hopefully that's not too early for you.  In any case, each of these posts will contain a hint referencing a baseball player that I have thought of.  The first person to correctly guess said player will win the contest!

You only get one guess per post.  Guesses will only be allowed on the post that is currently "live".  So once clue #2 is released, no more guessing on the clue #1 post.  That being said, you are more than encouraged to throw out a far-fetched guess even if you don't know that answer.  Who knows, you might end up being right!

Today is Wednesday and I currently have seven total clues (I very much doubt I'll need more than that), which means this contest will also end on or before July 19th.

...and yes, I'm going to attempt to make this fairly challenging.  We shall see how I do!  Good luck!

Clue #1: Though I have seen at least one Major League at-bat this season, I did not have one yesterday.  Then again, I don't think anyone really expected me to have an at-bat yesterday.

Two Timely Trunks of Thoughtfulness

I haven't gotten around to trading a whole lot recently, so the vast majority of my packages found on my doorstep have been purchases of some sort.  This changed last week when I received two awesome packages in the mail from fellow bloggers.

The first came courtesy Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown after participating in his Big Fun Game.  I had an early round draft pick in his game and ended up taking one of Gavin's collecting babies in a Topps Retired auto of Jesse Orosco.  

My scanner clearly doesn't do too well with these heavy plastic encasements.  More importantly (and more exciting for me), I got another of Gavin's famed customs!  This one is an ode to the Simpsons, a show that hit its prime while I was still pretty young.  My parents never allowed me to watch it claiming it was "utter nonsense".  They're probably right... it is a show full of utter nonsense, but it also clearly works as the show has been around for 28 years now!

Gavin also included a whole bunch of extras with many a Brave and some Tony Gwynn's, but I wanted to highlight the above extra he included.  I'm pretty sure this package arrived on July 2nd and this card was tailor made for a Fourth of July blog post... I completely missed the boat on that one.

Thanks for hosting the game Gavin!  I greatly appreciate your generosity.

~~~

I also recently participated in a group break hosted by Chris over at Nachos Grande.  I obviously took the Bravos and also ended up with the Rays as a randomized team.  You'll find no Rays cards in this recap... even though I got quite a few, there weren't any cards that particularly stood out to me.

The break included two boxes of Archives, a box of of Diamond Kings, a box of Topps Bunt, along with a bunch of extras and throw ins.  I particularly enjoyed seeing a few 2009 Upper Deck cards from a set I really never touched.

The Bunt box yielded the full Braves base team set (I think you're pretty much guaranteed the base set in a single box) plus this one really sweet blue parallel of Freddie.  I went golfing the other day and someone told me I swing my driver exactly like Freddie Freeman swings a baseball bat.  I loved it.

The two Archives boxes landed me a decent number of base cards with a couple dupes.  I never checked if I actually received the full team set or not.  Above are the two Braves inserts Chris pulled for me and I was quite happy with both of these.  I enjoy that the Glavine tall boy insert features a bit younger version of the loopy lefty.

I think these were the only two Braves cards I received from Diamond Kings... not that I'm complaining.  These are apparently both variations of Dansby Swanson and one of them is even framed.  Yay!  The cards are okay I suppose, but the Diamond Kings box was certainly not the reason I joined this break.

Overall, short of getting a hit, I thought I did fairly decent in this group break.  Getting five inserts/parallels across the break is pretty much as best as you can do in my book.  Chris also claimed he would fill a flat rate mailer with a whole bunch of extras and he made good on that promise plus some.  I received a box full of Braves and Rays from throughout the last two decades.  There was a whole lot of everything from Junk Wax, to 2012 Bowman, to just some randoms from the early 2000's.  It was great!

What was really great though was this surprise autograph of Terry Pendleton that showed up in the box.  This card really made me ecstatic as Pendleton has been a mainstay of the Braves organization for as long as I can remember serving as hitting coach, base coach, bench coach... basically all the behind the scenes positions.  He is clearly highly respected as he's survived two managerial changes along with some changes at the executive level as well.

Thanks so much for the generosity Chris!  I can't say I've ever even seen a certified autograph of Pendleton, let alone owned one!

The 2017 Contest of Gintery Goodness - Part Four

We embark today upon part four of this contest.  Some housekeeping.  From the title of this post you can probably infer that this is contest #4 in a series... if you haven't gotten in on any of the ones prior, they are still open!  Here's some links:

Contest #1 (Deadline: Midnight on July 19th)

Contest #2 (Deadline: Upon checklist release)

Contest #3 (Deadline: Midnight on July 19th)

Today's contest: (Deadline: Midnight on July 19th)

Comment below with the team you think will be featured on the first mini card I pull from this year's Allen & Ginter base set (so inserts don't count, parallels do).  Non-sport subjects will be disregarded and we'll use the franchise rule for players featured on defunct teams (i.e. Montreal Expos = Washington Nationals).  Obviously, since there are only 30 MLB teams, this contest will be limited to the first 30 participants (who knows if we'll even get that many).

Good luck and choose wisely!

The 2017 Contest of Gintery Goodness - Part Three

Onward with more contests!  We're going to do another MadLibs this year as I had a lot of fun reading all your responses last year.  So I suppose this is a selfish contest!  In any case, this year's MadLibs is entitled "Reasons for Fandom" and I'll highlight the top handful of responses on the blog (or maybe more if they happen to all be funny).  The winner will either be my favorite, or someone else's favorite if I can't decide... yes, it's super subjective, but too bad.  The rest of these contests are not.

If you don't know how to play MadLibs, its super easy.  Just provide me a word that fits for each of the below 21 categories.  21 words!  That's it, you're entered!


I've set the deadline for this survey to be the date of the 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter release.  So midnight EST on July 19th.  Speaking of deadlines, we'll make that the deadline for contest #1 as well!  Good luck!

The 2017 Contest of Gintery Goodness - Part Two

Similar to years past with my contests, I'm planning on giving out multiple prizes and having plenty of different and interesting ways to win.  Hopefully you'll all enjoy them!  A reminder of the different things you can win and a link to the first way you can enter:

• A complete base set plus 20 random SP's of 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter
• A selected 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter relic/autograph or two (2) full sized relics (by you) from those I pull (there will be a minor number of disqualifications, but you'll get to see the full list before choosing this option)
• Your choice of six (6) 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter base baseball box toppers I pull
• Your choice of 20 A&G back minis
• A copy of every duplicate I pull from the 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter What A Day! set (on average this should be about 3/4 of the set)
• Your choice of 30 duplicate inserts (mini or regular sized, minis count as 2)

Now on to contest #2!

We hearken back to contest two of last year,

a contest not won by the blogosphere.

So we'll approach it again with hopes of success

a challenge for you all to reassess.

Again, we look to that hallowed first card
a spot that many would agree was marred.
A Cub Topps chose, which was probably fine
but not Rizzo, Bryant, or those of similar align.
"Jorge Soler?!" even Cubs fans yelled,
"does he deserve this honor so unparalleled?"
For 2017 I'll have you colleagues decide
who will Topps put Jorge Soler beside!
Just as last year, you get one guess a night
until the list is released and Topps proves one right.