Contest Over at Play at the Plate

Who doesn't enjoy a good contest and winning something free? Certainly not this guy. So if you enjoy free things too, go check out fellow baseball card blog Play at the Plate. Topps was kind enough to give him a free box of 2014 Bowman to raffle off in celebration of his 2000th, yes I said 2000th!!!, post.

Congrats on all the great posts, PATP, and keep up the great work!

Check Out the Contest at Autographed Cards

Hey, look at me, a second post in June. Wow, I'm really rolling now! This will be a short post, but I suppose that's still better than no post at all.

Anyway, my buddy Zach, who writes the excellent blog, Autographed Cards, is holding his annual College World Series contest. Now, if you haven't already entered, you missed the preliminary round and the chance to get some bonus points. But, not to worry, I missed out on that as well, and everyone still has a chance to win, so head on over there and give it a shot.

Zach has given away some excellent prizes over the years, such as this autographed card of (now-deceased) Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew,that I won three or four years back. 

Good luck everyone!

Check Out Autographed Cards' College World Series Contest!

Zach over at Autographed Cards is holding his third annual College World Series Contest. Go check it out; it's easy to enter and it just takes a bit of luck to win, something that I've been fortunate enough to do the past two years and I hope to be in the mix again this season.

He has given away some really great prizes over the years, like this Harmon Killebrew autograph that I scored in, I believe, the first year of the contest.

Good luck to everyone who enters!

We Have A Winner

And then there was one.

Congrats to Matt, whose faith in the Cardinals was rewarded with a win in the 2011 postseason bracket contest.

Matt- get in touch with me and we can start working out your winnings.

Thanks to everyone who played, and better luck next year to everyone else!

Orioles Bobblehead of the Week- Surprise Contest

Some of you have unknowingly entered yourselves into a contest within a contest. Since my post on the playoff contest being closed on September 30, I have been keeping track of every comment left on my posts. For each comment you might have left, you earned an entry into my "Commenter Appreciation Contest".

I will now randomize the list of commenters and the winner will get to pick one of these four bobbleheads to add to their collection.

And the winner is...

Congrats to Paul. Just let me know which bobblehead you want and I'll get it in the mail.


Thanks to those of you who commented, I always enjoy reading everyone's thoughts and opinions about the things I write. And if you didn't comment, maybe you now wish that you had. It's possible that I might do something like this again down the road. I'm just saying...

Championship Series Contest Update

Here's the updated standings through the championship series round of the playoffs.

The very few entrants who had faith in the Cardinals and/or Rangers are largely being rewarded, with The Angels in Order having both of his brackets in play while Play at the Plate's decision to choose with his heart is working out for him for a second consecutive year.

However, Matt's taking a chance on the Cardinals could really pay off for him, since he will win it all if the Cardinals win the Series. If the Rangers win, we will have a four way tiebreaker situation in play, so it should be fun to see how everything turns out. Good luck to the remaining four still in the hunt! Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest.

Waiting for a Contest Update

So, heading into yesterday's games, it certainly seemed like more than one team would have been eliminated from the playoffs by this point, but the Rays remain the only team sent home through today. The Tigers-Yankees series will end tonight, while both N.L. series will wrap up tomorrow.

Honestly, as someone who doesn't have a team in the playoffs (I'm rooting for the Cardinals in the N.L. and preferred the Rays in the A.L.) having three of the four series go all five games in pretty exciting. I'm pretty much always up for some additional baseball.

Once all the Divisional Series match-ups are decided, I will post a contest update at some point over the weekend. My only observation to this point is that FanOfReds is in trouble since he picked the Rays to win the World Series.


And now for something completely different...

I was recently able to upgrade the Adam Eaton autograph in my collection to this 2009 Allen & Ginter card, his one and only Orioles card that was released in a set that debuted after the Orioles had cut him loose.

Adam was a decent enough signer when he was with the O's and he signed this Padres card for me in person before a game, but I was never able to catch up with him after his time with the O's. He doesn't seem to sign TTM requests, so I was stuck until someone offered up the A&G on SCN.

It bothers me how many upgraded autographs I need from Orioles who played over the past ten years or so; I have some sort of autograph of all of them, but so many guys have Orioles cards released after their time in Baltimore that it almost always throws a wrench in my collection. C'est la vie.

Playoff Contest Closed, Good Luck!

Now that the playoffs have officially started, you can no longer submit a bracket. We have 34 entries and you can see what everyone picked in this handy little spreadsheet.

I still need a few things from a couple of you, so if your name is in yellow, please contact me. Mostly the problems are with people not following the blog to lock in your picks.


Here's a breakdown of who selected which teams in each series.

Division Series


Rays 13
Rangers 21

Tigers 17
Yankees17


Cardinals 4
Phillies 30

Diamondbacks 11
Brewers 23


Championship Series

Rays 2
Rangers 7
Tigers 13
Yankees 12


Cardinals 2
Phillies 20
Diamondbacks 3
Brewers 9


World Series

Rays 1
Rangers 3
Tigers 4
Yankees 4
Cardinals 2
Phillies 16
Diamondbacks 0
Brewers 4


WS Games
4 (1)
5 (6)
6 (17)
7 (10)


Runs In Deciding WS Game
3 (3)
4 (1)
5 (1)
6 (5)
7 (4)
8 (6)
9 (5)
10 (2)
11 (3)
12 (3)
13 (1)

So if the majority of you have your way/are correct, we are going to see a Tigers-Phillies World Series with Philly prevailing in the 6th game that has a total of 8 runs.

The least picked scenario is a Rays-Cardinals World Series with the Diamondbacks coming out of nowhere to winning it all in a four game sweep with 1-2, or 14+ runs scored in the final game. I'm pretty confident in saying that scenario is extremely unlikely.

Personally, I'd rather see a Rays-Brewers World Series that goes 7 games.

Good luck to you all!

Another Contest Reminder

Just a reminder that I need all entries in my MLB postseason bracket contest by 5:07 PM tomorrow. Sorry for not giving everyone much time to enter, but I have to work around MLB's playoff scheduling.

Contest Rules are here.
Please leave your picks in the comments of this post.

Good luck everyone!

Contest Reminder

Hey everyone, just a reminder that there's only 24 hours left to enter my MLB postseason bracket contest. Sorry for not giving everyone much time to enter, but I have to work around MLB's scheduling.

Contest Rules are here.
Please leave your picks in the comments of this post.

Way to end the season O's! I'm so proud of how you played and the way you knocked the Sawx out of the playoffs!

2011 MLB Post-Season Bracket Contest is Live

Here's the bracket, leave me your picks in the comments section by the start of the first game on Friday at 5:07 PM. All the details are in Monday's post.

Good luck everyone!

2nd Annual Postseason Baseball Contest

Yep, it's back, my MLB playoff bracket contest. Since the match-ups are still TBD, all the slots on the bracket are still blank, but here's what it looks like. Everyone seemed to enjoy the contest last year and I hope that things go well this year too.

Here's the deal, pretty much copied from my contest post from last year...

All you need to do to enter is to be a follower of the blog and fill out this 2011 MLB postseason bracket. Since none of the match-ups are decided yet, it's blank, but by Thursday morning, or whenever all the postseason spots are locked in, I will re-post a filled out bracket so that you don't need to figure everything out on your own. 

It’s pretty easy to play, just pick the teams you think will win each round of the playoffs up through the World Series champ. All rounds are weighed equally. To avoid a tie, you also need to select the number of games the World Series will last (between 4-7) and the total number of runs in the final game of the World Series. If there is a tie after all that, then random.org will be used to decide the winner.  

 

As far as the prizes go for this, I was going to list a bunch of cards that the winner could choose from but I have decided to just say that I'll work with the winner to make sure that they are happy with their winnings. It will be something good from my selection of autographs, bobbleheads, inserts, short prints, and base cards. Your prize will be something that will make you happy.  

If you link to my contest on your blog, I will let you submit two brackets. Everyone else gets one. Start spreading the word and check back by whenever all the playoff teams are locked in for the match-ups and to begin submitting your guesses. Cutoff time for submissions is going to be just before the first game start time on Friday. Good luck everyone!

Contest Winnings

About two months ago, I finished in second place in Zach's 2nd Annual College World Series contest. He sent out the winnings probably five weeks ago and I finally got around to scanning them over the weekend.

The guy who won the contest got the first pick and then we bounced back and forth to select our winnings from his prize pool.

 

I was very happy to add another HOF auto to my collection

This is a pretty sweet collector's coin commemorating the CWS' first year at TD Ameritrade Park

Zach somehow came across a pack of Japanese cards that I was very excited to rip. 

I don't recognize any of these guys but it's still cool to open up a foreign pack of cards.

 

 

 

Next up was a lot of Royals player post cards; the Maury Wills auto was my next pick

Zach was nice enough to throw in a few extra cards of Zach Britton and an autograph of current Royal, Johnny Giavotella.

 As you can see, Zach is very generous with his prizes, so make sure you check out his blog, Autographed Cards, so that you don't miss out on his next contest.

We Have a Winner

I apologize for not posting the contest winner when I said I would but life kept me away from computers all day yesterday. So here we go...

The winner of the Adam Jones bobblehead is Greg Zakwin, the mastermind behind the "Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle" blog. I'm pretty sure that Greg is the only person who earned the max number of entries for the contest by pimping the contest and commenting on each post all week, so he did the leg work to earn the victory, and actually came in second as well. Congrats Greg. And thanks to everyone who entered! Better luck next time to everyone else.And at 10 participants and 50 total entries, I guess it didn't turn out to be the worst contest ever after all.

Worst Contest Ever

So I started a contest to win this Adam Jones bobblehead on Saturday and all of 8 people have entered. Many that entered have earned multiple entries, but that's still a pretty dismal turnout compared to my past contests.

I know that not everyone likes bobbleheads, Adam Jones and/or the Orioles, but people like to win things, so I'm surprised at the lack of interest on this one. You can enter through tomorrow, so get in while you still have a shot. Or don't. I'm sure that the 8 people already entered prefer their current chances! Either way, this bobble is hitting the mail on Monday.


Thinking about worst ever got me to think about some Orioles worsts. Since I looked into the Orioles with the most homers and highest slugging percentage ahead of the HR Derby on Monday, I figured that I would follow that up with some guys who fall at the opposite end of the spectrum.

For whatever reason, I chose to look up the pitchers with the worst ERA while wearing an Orioles uniform.

Dizzy Trout, who weighs in with a 81.00 ERA, is statistically the worst Orioles pitcher in the team history. However in all fairness, he was trying to make a comeback at the age of 42 after four seasons out of baseball. He earned that extraordinarily high ERA by giving up three earned runs and retiring only batter in two games during the 1957 season.

Earlier in his career, Dizzy had been a two-time All-Star and received MVP votes for four seasons, so that silly ERA is skewed by the small sample size, and his comeback attempt.


So I decided to figure out the Orioles pitcher with the worst ERA who had appeared in at least ten games.

 

Step on up, Bob McCrory! 

Bob pitched in fifteen games (13.2 innings) for the O's over the 2008-09 seasons and has the tidy ERA of 16.46. He kicked around the Birds farm system for seven seasons through 2010 and is now playing in Japan. That's no way to lower that ERA Bob!

And to wrap things up, guess who has the worst Orioles ERA and has pitched in at least 100 games?

Yep, Daniel Cabrera; who pitched in 147 games for the O's and has a 5.05 ERA.

It's Derby Time & Contest Info

I've always been a fan of the HR Derby even though I know that it can get a little silly or out-of-hand at times. I could certainly live without Chris Berman and his back-back-back shenanigans, but I've faithfully watched the event over the years. It also marks a yearly get together with me and some friends who enjoy betting on and arguing about who will hit the most homers. I'm almost never right, but always have fun anyway.

Tonight's Derby prompted me to look into the Orioles' players with the most career home runs (Cal, 431, mainly because he played for so many years in Birdland) and the highest slugging percentage (SLG). 

Eric Davis surprisingly has the highest SLG (.567) for any O's player with over 100 at-bats, which is pretty amazing since Eric's 1997-98 seasons in Baltimore were during and shortly after his battle with colon cancer. I can't imagine hitting home runs in the Major Leagues, let alone after having gone through such a traumatic time, but Eric proved that it can be done. 

The Oriole with the highest all-time SLG is Les "Buster" Narum who homered in his only O's AB, which is good for a 4.000 slugging percentage. He was the only player to homer in his first Orioles at-bat until Lou Montanez repeated the feat in 2008. Not too shabby, Buster. 

Interestingly, over Buster's 117 at-bats with the Washington Senators after that one with the O's, he had six more hits; two of those were homers, so almost half of his career hits left the ballpark. That's pretty amazing for a .059 lifetime hitter.

I think that most of you missed my post on Saturday, because not many of you have entered my contest to win this Adam Jones bobblehead. Either that, or you don't want an AJ bobble. The few of you that are in so far have some pretty awesome odds to win, so good luck to you!

If you haven't entered yet, click that link or scroll down to see Saturday's post. The contest is really easy to enter, and could be very easy to win too.

Orioles (Affiliate) Bobblehead of the Week- Manny Machado & CONTEST

This week I'm highlighting Orioles 2010 first round draft pick, Manny Machado, and his first professional bobblehead. Sorry for the crappy pictures but my phone was acting up due to some strange lighting in my house.

 

The O's lo-A affiliate, Delmarva Shorebirds, gave away Manny's first bobblehead to the first 1000 fans prior to to their game on July 1st. It figures that Manny had already been promoted to the hi-A Frederick Keys on June 22, but the giveaway was still very popular. 

It's hard to tell in these lo-res pictures, but the bobblehead's face doesn't look too much like Manny, but they did a good job with his "ready-to-field" stance. 

 

They also got his name and number right on the back, so that's good. And I don't know how to say this delicately, but Manny has some large ears, which are sized to scale on the bobble, so they did a nice job with that detail too.

The box is also really well done, specifically the action shot on the right side. You can kind of see it in my picture, but it looks like Manny has just avoided being taken out in a double play and is about four feet off the ground. 

This picture shows the best close-up of Manny's face. I like how the Shorebirds had the action shots wrap around the box. That's a nice touch.

What's that? Some of you only clicked on this post because I mentioned something about a contest in the title?  

Well, in next Saturday's Bobblehead of the Week post, I will be announcing the winner of this 2009 SGA Adam Jones bobblehead. 

Entering the contest is easy, and pretty standard.

First, you must be a follower of the blog.

Second, leave a comment on any of my posts this week. You can earn one entry for each post you comment on, and since I pretty much post daily, you can earn up to seven entries this way. 

Third, if you are also a blogger, and share this contest with your readers, you will earn another entry. Just leave the link in the comments, which automatically earns you another entry. Easy right?

Good luck everyone!

A Great Contest over at Autographed Cards

One of my favorite blogs is holding an awesome contest this week; Zach who is the man behind Autographed Cards is holding his College World Series pick 'em contest again this year. I really enjoyed the contest last year and was lucky enough to win it too!

 

This is one of the cards I won last year, and it's become even more special to me since Harmon passed away a few weeks ago. 

You have the chance to win some really great cards, so I suggest you get in on Zach's contest before Friday. Good luck everyone!

Tomahawk Chopping Contest Win

A long time ago, long long time ago, Tomahawk Chopping held a contest where you could win a bunch of cards of your favorite players and or teams.

Well I actually won the contest and Derek really went all out to find some cards that he knew I would like. He emailed me saying that he spent a few hours looking for the O's autographs I still need, but didn't have any luck. Believe me, Derek, I know that they're very hard to find, and I appreciate your trying.

Since the autographs didn't work out, Derek checked out what else I collect and check out these awesome cards he sent my way...

 

Caleb Joseph 2010 Bowman refractor, purple refractor #ed to 999, and orange variation #ed to 250

Brian Matusz 2009 Obak, Andrew McCutchen 2010 Bowman Orange & 2006 Bowman Rookie

Brian Matusz 2010 Topps Update gold variation #ed, 2008 UD National Team Game Used Jersey

Derek, the cards are all amazing, I appreciate the time and effort you took in tracking them down and finding something you knew I would like. Great stuff man. Sorry that it took me so long to post them, but my wedding kept me awfully busy throughout May. 

As you might have guessed, Derek is a Braves fan. So if you have some extra Braves cards and don't know what to do with them, I'm sure he would help you out.  If you've never seen his blog, head to Tomahawk Chopping right now.

Thanks again Derek!

Spring Training Contest Winner- Congratulations Alvin!

Happy Opening Day everyone. The O's don't play until tomorrow, so today doesn't feel 100% right to me, but I'm still very excited to be watching some "real" baseball.

The Spring Training contest came down to the last few games but the Royals edged out the Giants by a half game to take home the title of the best ST team. The four teams with the best record were all Cactus League teams (Royals, Giants, Rockies, Brewers) and the Astros were the big losers with a 11-24 mark.

Congrats to Alvin who correctly predicted that the Royals would come out on top. He almost nailed their record too by guessing they would go 21-11; they were actually 20-10 which I guess means that they had two ties in there.
Alvin- get in touch with me and we can work on your winnings.

To honor the Royals' dominance, here's a Royals/Orioles mash-up card of Lou Piniella. 

 

 

Lou made his Major League debut with the O's in 1964, only appearing in four games with the team, so I guess no one could drum up a picture of him sporting the Baltimore uniform. His first full season was with the Royals in 1969 and he won the A.L. Rookie of the Year. Not too shabby. 

 

Sweet Lou went on to represent KC in the '72 All-Star game, win two World Series with the Yankees as a player & another as the Reds' manager, and win two N.L. & A.L. Manager of the year awards. He's had a long and successful career in baseball and is currently working as a special advisor for the Giants. 

Congrats again Alvin!