8th Annual Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web - Official Sign Up Post

It's here!  We made it!  Kind of a lack luster final week with the exception of a few games.  Anyways.  Here we are again the end to another season.  Sadly my team had a pretty rough year, but there are some interesting match ups possible this year and I'm curious to see all your entries!!

The contest hasn't changed in 8 years.  All I want you to do is tell me who's going to win. That's it pick the winning team.  But of course more than one of you might pick the right team, so we have to have our tie breakers.  So I need who opponent will be, how many total points combined, and to round it out how many field goals will be made total.

So your entry should be something like this

Jaguars over the Eagles, 54 points, 3 field goals.

What will you win?  Like the past couple contest I'm not sure yet, but it'll be something cool and of course I'll try to put a nice stack of your favorite team together.  Plus there will also be a door prize just for playing.  And like usual you'll get an extra entry if you promote the contest, either on your blog or other social media platform of your choice.

Here are your choices:

NFC
Philadelphia Eagles
Minnesota Vikings
New Orleans Saints
Carolina Panthers
Atlanta Falcons
LA Rams

AFC
New England Patriots
Buffalo Bills
Pittsburgh Steelers
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tennessee Titans
Kansas City Chiefs

You have until Saturday January 6th, 12 noon AKST, 4pm EST to enter.  First game starts around 12:20 my time.

And don't worry I'll be bugging you all week with reminders.  Good luck.

8th Annual Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web - Mark your calendars!!!

Wow seems like this season just flew by.  Most of the divisions have been won, but there wildcards to determine and of course who's going to take home the NFC South, with both New Orleans and Carolina with 11-4 records?!?

That being said as soon as the last regular season game is played and all the playoff teams have been decided the contest will open. 

The contest will be the same as always. I just want you to tell me who's going to win.  Of course there will be tie breakers too.   Like usual I'm not sure what the prize will be, but I'll come up with something and there will be a door prize as well.  Alright see you all after the last game on Sunday!

I miss competition in the marketplace

When I have a little free time I've been working on cleaning up, verifying, and adding teams to baseball set checklists over at the Trading Card Database.  Part of that involves verifying that cards have the right card designations.  Meaning that if the card has a prefix or suffix it gets added.  So a few  month back while working through a bunch of the 2004 sets, and there were a lot of products released in 2004 with lots of inserts and parallels, I came across this Genuine Insider auto set.  One of my go to places to verify card numbering is COMC and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the autograph was for these cards where.  I figured that maybe these were book cards.  I also found that the Brewers had a card in the set featuring former Brewer Scott Podsednik.  And what's more COMC had one for cheap.  I figure I'd pick one up just to see what these cards were all about.  

Much to my surprise the card was not a book card, but had a slide out autograph.  The mid-2000's were awash in trading card products, especially baseball and football.  Companies were trying everything and anything to get you to buy their products.  Of course after seen the card and playing with it a little bit it dawned on me why the set is called the Genuine Autograph Insider!  For a guy who didn't collect much between 2001 and 2004 rediscovering these great gimmick cards if a lot of fun and even more fun when you can add one for cheap to your collection.

The Blackest of Fridays

I don't go out on Black Friday.  I do however open up my laptop and hit COMC.  It's been an annual tradition since pretty much COMC started doing their big Black Friday events.  To be fair not all the cards shown were bought on Black Friday.  As a matter of fact some of them where bought almost a year ago.  I've been slowly picking up a card here and there as they pop up and deals present themselves.  The deals seem to be fewer and farther between nowadays on COMC, but every now and then I find some gold.  I did manage to find a few deals on Black Friday as I needed to hit the minimum card threshold for the free shipping.  

This past Monday I finally got my cards in the mail.  I was able to finally add about 20 new Younts to my main PC and a nice smattering of cheap relics and autos for my team collections.  And I didn't even have to get out of my pajamas.

It pays to Play

I'm not adverse to a little gambling here or there.  I do love to play poker, blackjack, and craps.  And lets be honest the way trading card products are made these days it might as well be a form of legalized gambling. But for my money, just under 50 cents to be exact, I like to dabble in the no purchase necessary, or NPN, offers that trading card companies are forced to provide, especially for the higher end products.  I have no idea how many index cards I've sent to Topps and Panini over the years, but it's usually send it and forget it and I don't win.  But every now and then I get a surprise package in the mail.  I've never been lucky enough to snag an auto or relic, but I have gotten a couple decent parallels and inserts over the years.

Well last Friday I was surprised to find an envelope from Topps in my mail box.  And inside was a  nice Museum Collection purple base parallel of Astros rookie phenom Yulieski Gurriel numbered to just 99.  Not too shabby way to end the week.

Tales from the card shop.

It had probably been close to 2 months since I last stopped in to Don's Sportcards here in Anchorage, Alaska.  I had met a group of friends out to watch the Packer game and to celebrate the Packers narrowly escaping with a win I stopped down at Don's shop. 

I'll be honest currently I've not been buying much new stuff. OK in the last 3 months I've bought no new products. And I didn't end up buying any packs today either.  And I managed to get out of the store for less than $20, found a new card for my Yount PC, and whole slug of cards I needed to help almost finish my 2017 Allen and Ginter Sports Fish and Fishing Lures set, a bunch of Brewers cards and a few new Favres.  I also managed to walk away with a couple great relic cards for cheap. 

When I walked in a guy had just broke a box of 2017 Triple Threads and hit some pretty sweet cards.  As I was perusing the store another one of Don's regulars came in and they two guys decided to dual a box of Triple Threads too.  Ah the days when I had that kind of money to throw around.  But it was nice to talk cards and sports for a few minutes.  Nothing amazing came out of that dual, but one guy walked away with a stack of Triple Threads.

I ended up finding this Ryan Braun Black Prizm Refractor #/25 in the 50 cent boxes.

I also found this gold foil stamped Yount Rediscover Topps buyback in the 50 cent boxes.

It's seems pretty insane to me how much people want for some of these cards.  The gold foil is the middle tier of rarity for these buyback and for 50 cents it was going home with me.  I also found quite a few other Brewer's buybacks.

One of the features I love about Don's is his Drop Board.  It's pretty much two peg board walls with cards all over it and they each have a price.  The price usually starts a little below book value and keeps dropping every week until it reaches a dollar.  I've picked up some sweet cards over the years off that board.  

Here are few of one's I picked up today. Most were a buck and none were over $3.

Not a bad day out and about.  And I even managed to find part of my wife's Christmas present.

Insert snappy trade post pun here..

Well to be honest this wasn't a trade. Or was it?  Who can keep track of these things.  Regardless no good deed will go unpunished.  Ahem. I'm rambling, and not very coherently either.  Troubling.  So I've been fairly absent on the blogging scene.  I know it.  But there is a man who still manages to put out pretty top notch content on almost a daily basis. Of course I'm talking about Fuji over at the Chronicles of Fuji.  His flea market finds are still my favorite.  It reminds me of my youth when my father was stationed at Ft. Bliss in El Paso, Texas and I use to go to the different flea markets around town.  Sadly there are no flea markets up here in Alaska. 

So while I have been absent, save for my contests and the rare post about trades, Fuji has been hard at work shaping young minds and finding cool stuff and blogging about it.  Rewind to a couple weeks ago and Fuji contact me for my new address.  And last week I was rewarded with a nice pair of Brewers autographs.  

Kodi is still bouncing around the Brewers farm system.  Will he come up?  Will he be traded? I guess time will tell.  The other auto was of the former and now retired Brewer Corey Hart.  Corey was one of the semi-stars on the team eclipsed by  Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder unfortunately, and of course injury.  When Corey was healthy he was a force to be reckoned with.  Plus he's freaking tall.  Sadly Corey was injured  a lot, or at least that's how I remember it.  I was kind of bummed I didn't at least get to see him at the 2012 Spring Training games I got to go to on my honeymoon.  He ended up having to have surgery and missed the whole 2013 season.  After that he spent a year in Seattle and then a year in Pittsburgh and I don't feel too bad, he made some good money those two years.  He retired after the 2015 season, but officially retired this year as a Brewer.  

Two very nice autographs to add to my Brewers Collection.  Thanks Fuji!!

Have you ever started something only to kind of regret it later?

This last weekend we got our first big snow fall.  I think overall it was lucky it happened during the weekend, but I hate going out onto the roads when the first significant winter event happens.  You would think that living in Alaska most of use would be good at driving in the snow, but alas that is not really the case, at least at the start of winter.  I consider myself a very good winter driver, but I'm not worried about me.  Anyway, so with a little over 3 inches falling Friday night into Saturday afternoon I decided to hunker down with the family and enjoy the snow in the back yard and not on the roads.  It also meant I got a good amount of time to cause trouble in my Sanctum Sanctorum.  More importantly organizing a collection that has been mothballed for the better part of 3 years. 

Last June the family and I upgraded to a much bigger house, over twice the size of our previous home.  Having that much space is awesome.  What is even more awesome is my wife gave me one of the spare bedrooms as my "office"/studio/man-cave.  I've posted about some of my efforts in the past.

When my in-laws were up here this summer my father-in-law helped me start another built-in bookcase for the man cave.  I'm huge on storage and I weighed the options on buying prefab bookcases verses building my own and in the end I opted to try and build my own custom shelves.

 I consider myself pretty handy and with Youtube and all the home improvement shows I've watched and all the handyman websites out there I put together a pretty well thought out design.  I couldn't find the plans I had drawn up to post here, but they were pretty detailed.  I did manage to snap a few photos as I went along.  Here is the base of the bookcase.  It's 8 feetish long.

 While my father-in-law was here I managed to stain and polyurethane the frame.

 I picked up a router from a garage sale a few year back and I love any reason to bring it out.

 So the project stalled for about 2 1/2 months with work taking me all over the state, but this fall I managed to get the rest of the pieces cut and put in place.  My plan now is to disassemble the unit this spring and stain and polyurethane the rest of it.

So fast forward to this weekend and I'm waist deep in organizing my comic collection.  My wife is very tolerant.  But even she has her limits and one of the rules she laid down was the craziness had to be contained in this room.  And I'm trying.  Sad, or maybe not so sad, that this in only about half my collection. I still have a ton of stuff sitting in my parents basement in Wisconsin.  So this weekend I buckled down, put on my best superhero pajamas and got to work.  I've been making make-shift dividers out of manila file folders, you can read my tutorial on that at my comic blog here, to try and get all the series together, then hopefully I'll be able to put those in some sort of order.  

 I've literally spread out over the entire room, but kept it mostly contained.

Some of my bigger runs like the Punisher, Iron Man, JLA, and X-men all get their own dedicated boxes. I think I'm only about halfway done, maybe.  I'll do a better post later of the room once I get it better organize a little more presentable.  I also have a major card organization to work on.  That includes my Brewer's team collection and just set's in general.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner - The 7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web has a Winner!

Wow what a great series.  As someone who had no horse in the race it was fun to kick back and watch the show.  I really didn't care who won, I was pulling for the Astros a little simply because this would be there first World Series win in franchise history, but honestly the two best teams in baseball duking it out what could be better?.  And that game 5! 

In the end we had six participants correctly guess that the Astros would win it all.  Out of those six we had 3 that correctly guessed the match up, but only one who guessed it would go 7 games.  No one came close to guessing what a slug fest this would be, but in the end the Sportzcommish came out on top!!

The correct guess plus tie breakers would have been

Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 25 freaking home runs!

The tie breakers run one into another so we had to go to total games to find the winner.

Here were the winning picks!

Sportzcommish - Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 8 homers.

Nachos Grande - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 13 HR

Fuji - Astros over Nationals, 6 games 14 HR

Collecting Cutch - Astros over Nationals, 7 games, 17 HR  PIMPED

Jeff S - Astros over the Nationals 7 games 15 hrs

RAZ - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 18 home runs.

Now for the door prize winner.  I entered all the entries into a list randomizer over at random.org and randomize the list 3 times.  Those that promoted the contest on their blog or other form of social media got an extra entry.

In an odd twist of fate our second place finisher RAZ is our door prize winner!!!!

Sportzcommish and RAZ I will be trying to contact you shortly unless you get a hold of me with your current mailing addresses.

I want to thank everyone who entered this year.  I've been pretty bad about finding time and stuff to blog about, but it's still nice to have a big turnout for the contest.  And since we are already halfway through the NFL season, man it's flying by, I'll be holding my 8th Annual Super Bowl contest in the near future.  

Thanks again everyone.

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - League Championship Series Break Down

Well this was almost a very interesting contest had the Yankees been able to close out the American League Championship.  As it is we last only 5 that round, and while technically anyone who picked the Dodgers or the Astros is still in it, since we have to go to the first tie breakers we can say that there are still  really 6 contestants left, which is actually quite a lot.  6 of you guys correctly picked the match up.  Only time will tell if anyone gets as close as Gavin did last year with his winning pick.

Alright enjoy the World Series.  I'll post the winner and the door prize winner after the last game is played.

Here are the picks if your name is in Green you were one of the 6 who correctly guessed the match-up.

Corky - Dodgers over Astros, 6 games and 15 homers

Sportzcommish - Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 8 homers.

Sport Card Collectors - Cubs over Astros, 6 games, 8 homers PIMPED

Scott Fabiano - Dodgers over Cleveland, 5 games, 19 home runs

Nachos Grande - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 13 HR

Fuji - Astros over Nationals, 6 games 14 HR

Greg Zakwin - Dodgers over Astros, 7 Games, 9 HRs

Nick - Cubs over Astros, seven games, 15 HRs.

Colbey Hopper - Dodgers over Indians, 7 games, 9 HRs  PIMPED

Collecting Cutch - Astros over Nationals, 7 games, 17 HR  PIMPED

Josh D. - Cubs over Red Sox, 7 games, 12 HR

Trevor P - Dodgers over Astros, 6 games, 7 HR

Dion's IP Autos only - Cubs over Red Sox 6 Games 14 home runs total

ketchupman36 - Dodgers over the Indians, 6 games, 11HR

Richard Nebe Jr. - Dodgers over the Indians, in 5, 10HR

Jeff S - Astros over the Nationals 7 games 15 hrs

defgav - Cubs over Indians, 7 games, 18 HRs

RAZ - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 18 home runs.

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - Divisional Series Round Up

Well I can be honest, I haven't seen any of the playoffs so far.  The fact that I don't have cable is part of it and also a late season work trip.  But tonight we go down to four.  I was just reading the highlights of the Cubs - Nats game.  Geez.  Like I said we are down to four teams and well one of those teams just happens to be the Yankees, which no one picked.  Spoiler??

We got the Yankees and Astros League Championship Series starting tomorrow and the Cubs - Dodgers starting on Saturday.  So with that we did lose quite a few people, 19 by my count, and that's almost exactly half.  Here were your picks, those in red are out. 

David Switzer - Indians over Rockies. 5 games. 14 HR.

Corky - Dodgers over Astros, 6 games and 15 homers

Sportzcommish - Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 8 homers.

Sport Card Collectors - Cubs over Astros, 6 games, 8 homers PIMPED

Scott Fabiano - Dodgers over Cleveland, 5 games, 19 home runs

Nachos Grande - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 13 HR

Matt - Indians over Nationals, 6 games, 15 HR - PIMPED

Fuji - Astros over Nationals, 6 games 14 HR

night owl - Indians over Cubs, 6 games, 15 HRs

Rosenort - Rockies over Indians, 7 games, 19 homers.

TSHenson - Indians over Diamondbacks, 6 games, 13 home runs

Swing And A Pop-up - Red Sox over Cubs, 4 games, 16 HRs

jasongerman9 - Indians over Nationals, 6 games, 12 home runs.  PIMPED

Jeff - Indians over Dodgers in 6 games. 17 homers

Greg Zakwin - Dodgers over Astros, 7 Games, 9 HRs

irondequoit36 - indians over dodgers 7 games 12 hrs

shanepatrickwrites - nationals over indians, six games 11 dingers

Nick - Cubs over Astros, seven games, 15 HRs.

Colbey Hopper - Dodgers over Indians, 7 games, 9 HRs  PIMPED

Jafronius - Indians over Dodgers, 6 games, 11 Home runs.

Collecting Cutch - Astros over Nationals, 7 games, 17 HR  PIMPED

Josh D. - Cubs over Red Sox, 7 games, 12 HR

P-town Tom - Indians over Diamondbacks, 6 games, 8 HR

JediJeff - Indians over the Dodgers in 5. Yup - 5 games. Let's go with lucky 13 for the HRs.

Trevor P - Dodgers over Astros, 6 games, 7 HR

Tracy LeVeaux - Indians over the Rockies, 6 games, 24 homers

Ryan H - Rockies over Twins, 5 games, 9 HRs.

CaptKirk42 - Nationals over Indians 7 games 21 HRs

Dion's IP Autos only - Cubs over Red Sox 6 Games 14 home runs total

Adam Kaningher - Rockies over Astros, 7 games, 18 home runs.

ketchupman36 - Dodgers over the Indians, 6 games, 11HR

Richard Nebe Jr. - Dodgers over the Indians, in 5, 10HR

Mark Hoyle - Indians over Dodgers 6 games 13 homers

Jeff S - Astros over the Nationals 7 games 15 hrs

defgav - Cubs over Indians, 7 games, 18 HRs

RAZ - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 18 home runs.

Wilson - Indians over the Dodgers, 7 games, 14 HRs. PIMPED

I'll have another update just before the World Series.  Enjoy the League Championships.

Lack of Better Judgement - the start of a comic book blog.

Not to long ago I joined the Facebook group, Comic Book Collecting.  It's a great group that's sole purpose is to let comic nerds nerd out to comics.  Zero selling or trading allowed it a pure "for the love of" group.  It's really rekindled my interest in my comic collection.  Originally when I started this blog 8 years ago or so it was the intent that this would be an all encompassing collector's blog, but over time it had solidified as a trading card blog.  And so be it.  Of course I had the bright idea to start several other blogs to focus on my team and player collections, my Lego Minifigure collection, my urban gardening and even my drawing and other art.

And since I can't seem to find time to post regularly even here why not start another blog dedicated to comics?  Anyways I can't guarantee how often I'll post there or here for the that matter, but if you're interested in comics take a gander.

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - Official Entries

Ladies and Gentlemen the contest if officially closed.  We had 37 people enter by my count.  Not too shabby.  I'm too lazy right now to see if that sets a record or not, but I'm still happy with the turn out.  And thank you to the people who promoted the contest.  And if I missed anyone please let me know.

We've got a little bit of very one, with it looks like the favorites being the Indians and the Dodgers.  Oddly not a single person picked the Yankees to even show up.

I'll update the contest after the divisional series are done.   Good luck everyone.

The official entries:

David Switzer - Indians over Rockies. 5 games. 14 HR.

Corky - Dodgers over Astros, 6 games and 15 homers

Sportzcommish - Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 8 homers.

Sport Card Collectors - Cubs over Astros, 6 games, 8 homers PIMPED

Scott Fabiano - Dodgers over Cleveland, 5 games, 19 home runs

Nachos Grande - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 13 HR

Matt - Indians over Nationals, 6 games, 15 HR - PIMPED

Fuji - Astros over Nationals, 6 games 14 HR

night owl - Indians over Cubs, 6 games, 15 HRs

Rosenort - Rockies over Indians, 7 games, 19 homers.

TSHenson - Indians over Diamondbacks, 6 games, 13 home runs

Swing And A Pop-up - Red Sox over Cubs, 4 games, 16 HRs

jasongerman9 - Indians over Nationals, 6 games, 12 home runs.  PIMPED

Jeff - Indians over Dodgers in 6 games. 17 homers

Greg Zakwin - Dodgers over Astros, 7 Games, 9 HRs

irondequoit36 - indians over dodgers 7 games 12 hrs

shanepatrickwrites - nationals over indians, six games 11 dingers

Nick - Cubs over Astros, seven games, 15 HRs.

Colbey Hopper - Dodgers over Indians, 7 games, 9 HRs  PIMPED

Jafronius - Indians over Dodgers, 6 games, 11 Home runs.

Collecting Cutch - Astros over Nationals, 7 games, 17 HR  PIMPED

Josh D. - Cubs over Red Sox, 7 games, 12 HR

P-town Tom - Indians over Diamondbacks, 6 games, 8 HR

JediJeff - Indians over the Dodgers in 5. Yup - 5 games. Let's go with lucky 13 for the HRs.

Trevor P - Dodgers over Astros, 6 games, 7 HR

Tracy LeVeaux - Indians over the Rockies, 6 games, 24 homers

Ryan H - Rockies over Twins, 5 games, 9 HRs.

CaptKirk42 - Nationals over Indians 7 games 21 HRs

Dion's IP Autos only - Cubs over Red Sox 6 Games 14 home runs total

Adam Kaningher - Rockies over Astros, 7 games, 18 home runs.

ketchupman36 - Dodgers over the Indians, 6 games, 11HR

Richard Nebe Jr. - Dodgers over the Indians, in 5, 10HR

Mark Hoyle - Indians over Dodgers 6 games 13 homers

Jeff S - Astros over the Nationals 7 games 15 hrs

defgav - Cubs over Indians, 7 games, 18 HRs

RAZ - Astros over Dodgers, 6 games, 18 home runs.

Wilson - Indians over the Dodgers, 7 games, 14 HRs. PIMPED

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - Seriously the last reminder

It's almost time.  If you've been holding out you don't have much longer to submit your entry.  You've got till tomorrow Noon my time, or 4pm EST. 

Go HERE to enter.

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - Almost the last reminder

Wow I haven't posted this much since my Super Bowl contest!  Anywho.  For those who are still waiting to pick a winning team.  You've got a couple days left, just don't forget.

Go HERE to enter and win some cool cards.

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - 2nd Friendly Reminder

We've had a pretty strong turn out already, but I figured a bunch of people would wait till after the wildcard game.  No biggie and if you didn't wait and picked a team in the wildcard game and they didn't win, no biggie either.  Just amend your official pick, just do it before Sunday, Noon Alaska time, 4pm EST.

Go HERE to enter

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web - 1st Reminder

Just a friendly reminder I've got my 7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web contest going on.  You have until this Sunday 4pm EST, noon my time to make a pick.  Go to the official sign up HERE to enter and see the prizes.

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web Official Sign Up Post!!!!

I'll be honest I can count the number of baseball games I've gotten to see this year on one hand, but I've been following my Brewers and reading the sports page on Yahoo pretty regularly.  And even though I've been very absent from my blogs I'm not going to miss putting on my World Series contest.  I'm hoping for a great turn out.  I'll be posting this on Twitter and the Trading Card Collector's Society page on Facebook and over at the forums at Trading Card Database and any place else I can think of..

So what do you have to do?  Just tell me who's going to win the World Series.  That's it.  But I'm sure more than one of you will pick the right team, so we have to have a couple tie breakers thrown in.  So this year, like years past,  I'd like you to tell me who the opponent will be, how many games the series will go, and how many home runs will be hit, in total both teams, for the series.

Your entry should look something like this.

Nationals over the Yankees, 5 games, 12 HRs.   

What will you win?  I've got a couple great cards to giveaway. First is this 2015 Topps Tier One Sean Doolittle autograph #d to 349, hard signed.  And a great 2017 Topps Museum Collection Gregory Planco Meaningful Materials Patch card #d to 50!  Plus the winner will also get a nice stack of their favorite team(s), which may include additional autos, relics, or inserts.  All depends what I can find in the stacks.

And as always there will be door prize for all those that enter.  And if you promote the contest, either on your blog, twitter feed, facebook, etc. you will get an extra entry.  Just one extra though.  But be sure to put a link to your pimp in the comments so I can verify.
The door prize is this vintage 2004 Edwin Jackson Future Phenoms relic.

Alright here are your choices:
American League
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Cleveland Indians
Minnesota Twins
Houston Astros

National League
Washington Nationals
Chicago Cubs
LA Dodgers
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies

Since my Brewers lost to the Cardinals tonight the stage is set.  So you have from right now until, let's say next Sunday, Oct. 8th, Noon Alaska Time, 4pm EST.  That'll mean we'll be knee deep in the Divisional Series', so if you make a guess and you pick a Wildcard team and they don't make it.  I'll let you change your pick as long as it's before the close of the contest.

This post will constitute the official entries page so make sure you comment on this post and not one of my reminders, which I will be posting all week long.  And please make sure you have some way to be contacted connected to your Blogger entry.  I've had winners in the past I was never able to get a hold or and who never contacted me.  But just one. 

OK

7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web!! Mark Your Calendars!

I have been awol most of the year on the blog.  And to be honest I've neglected almost all my blogs this year.  Buying a new house, moving, work, family it all makes it hard to sit down and find something to write about or even worse want to find something to write about.  That being said I didn't want to break the tradition of my annual World Series Contest.  So mark your calendars.  Most of the divisions have been decided or are at least close.  That being said I'll probably open the contest like usual with the close being just after the wildcard games.  And if you've played in my contests before the format will be very familiar.  All I want you to do is tell me who's going to win it all.  And of course there will be a few tie breakers to pick as well. 

Do I have awesome prizes??  You bet. What are they?  Who knows?  But as usual I'll find something cool to give away and a nice stack of cards from the team(s) you collect.  My new mancave is still a work in progress, but I'll dig something out.  So mark your calendars the contest opens after the last regular season game is played or until all the post season teams have been determined and will close after the wildcard games or something like that.

Slowly making progress

I'm about to start another 2 weeks of pretty much nonstop field work, but I can see the end of the tunnel.  Anyways I've been busy settling into the new house and finally was able to get a little storage built in the new man cave.  Work continues.  See you all in a few weeks.

Oh hello there.

So it's been awhile.  I still need to finish up my 30 day challenge, but that'll come. The family and I recently sold our old house and bought a much larger and needed upgrade here in Anchorage.  That means for the time being I get an office/man cave again.  It's a work in progress.  On top of that I've been in and out of town with work which is usual.  Anyways just a heads up I've got a new address and a little room to spread out.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 22

Day 22 - A card of a common player that always seemed to elude you.

Sorry I've been a little busy to post and to be honest Day 22 stumped me for a while.  But after looking through my want list it became apparent of a card, one card, that I need to complete a set, still sits on my wantlist.

To be honest I'm not sure I need this card or not, as the set is squirreled away right now, but if my needs list is correct, Pat Neshek's 2008 Allen and Ginter card is the last card I need to complete the set.  I'll be honest I haven't tried too hard to find it as of late, but it'll be first on my list when I get my collection organized when I move into my new house.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 21

Day 21: A card of a rookie you thought you were "investing" in.

This one was a toss up between two players from my youth.  I think the Night Owl actually did a piece on one of them.  Two players from the 90's stick out from the glory days of overproduction and speculation.  Gregg Jefferies and Todd Van Poppel.  Both were pheoms and both had decent careers, not great careers, and neither one panned out to be the super stars the hobby predicted.  So for today's challenge I'm featuring a rookie card for each of these guys.  I think I still might have my hoard of rookies somewhere, or maybe my brother stole them.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 20!

Day 20:  A favorite parallel card based on the parallel and not the player.

This one's a toughie.  But in the end I went with the 2007 Red Back parallel.  Does anyone even remember those?  So 2007 was one of those years I was working a lot.  And at the time that meant I was working out in the field doing biology stuff.  So I didn't really open much product.  Fast forward a year or two and I decided I want to put together the base set, so I order a couple boxes of Series 1 and Series 2.  I can't remember if I went with hobby boxes or retail jumbo boxes or exactly which format I bought, but I do remember that I had a ton of the Red Back parallel cards from both series.  So many in fact that I had the crazy idea of trying to actually put a base set together of the parallel.  And you know what, I'm pretty close.  Unfortunately with the birth of my son and the lose of my man cave I had to put that project, like all my other small projects, on hold.

So here's the crazy thing, the Red Back parallels the only difference from the base set is the lettering on the back is red and not white.  Here's another interesting fact, this was the set that started the photo variations and gimmicks with Derek Jeter's card featuring President Bush and Mickey Mantel photoshopped into the card.  Here's another interesting fact:  The card that features Bush and Mantel, which wasn't short printed in anyway is much more expensive than the corrected card that was put into the factory sets and produced in much fewer numbers that doesn't feature Bush or Mantel.  Ahem.

Anyways, the Jeter red back is still one of the cards I need to complete my Red Backs set and a few years ago it was still way too expensive for my tastes.  But here it is in all it's glory.