A Rough Start to the Week

     It's already Wednesday, and right off the bat things are terrible in the world of baseball. For me, at least. I can't complain too much though, about anything except for the recent plight of the Rangers.

    Sunday started with the Rangers losing to the Rockies, marking a three game sweep. The game was close, at 3-1 in Colorado's favor. But with a team struggling so much like the Rockies, it's pretty sad to see the Rangers lose three times straight.

    On Monday I went to an indy ball game, and the home team lost 16-0. Yeah, almost every pitcher they threw (except for the first reliever and the first baseman) got annihilated. This broke their perfect seasonal record of 4-0. It was fun though, going out with some friends to hang out, penciling in some fake mustaches (I wanted a unibrow). 
    And, the Rangers lost again, this time to the Indians (or Guardians, whatever you may call them). This game wasn't close, with Cleveland outscoring the champs 7-0.

    Tuesday wasn't all that bad, although the Rangers lost again by a score of 7-4. That loss marks five straight for the Rangers and gives me cold memories of that nine game losing streak they had last season. Hopefully they'll turn it around, but with injuries to all these guys,

(Brock Burke, hard to see)

And a minor injury out of

    it may be tough for them for a while. It might help if Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia would be themselves. At least they both hit homers in yesterday's loss.

    Besides all of these happenings in my particular baseball world, both of my fantasy baseball teams are losing. But, I don't care too much about that right now.

    Well, there we go. Hopefully both the Rangers and the Railroaders can pick it up. Today is the finale with the Indians (Guardians) before the Rangers face off with the Angels in a three game series on May 17th. To be honest, they'd better sweep that one.

    Anyway, thanks for reading and Happy Collecting!

We Have A Winner!

     Now that the five clues have been seen and all the guesses are in, it's time to announce that we have a winner. I'm really glad I didn't need to give out any extra clues on this. 

    After clue 4 it was pretty obvious who my selected player was. Nonetheless, I got a lot of positive feedback from the contest, which is great because I was unsure how good of an idea it was. I guess the guessing game added a nice and entertaining touch. I am most definitely going to have more contests in the future.

    Before I tell you who the winner is, let me first run off all the clues that you needed to figure out:

1: the particular player I'm thinking of was a 7-time All-Star.
2: This player played for only one team across his entire career.
3: The player I'm thinking of has been shown (on cards, of course) on this blog before
4: The selected player has won two Gold Glove Awards and has been a two-time Silver Slugger
5: This Player hit a home run in his first-ever All-Star Game at-bat.

    The three cards the winner will receive are the following:
                    -2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Evan Longoria (HTA-4) 
                    -2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Josh Hamilton (HTA-5) 
                    -2004 Donruss Team Heroes #166 Carl Pavano

    

    The person who correctly guessed the player completed a pretty impressive feat; he correctly named the player in only two clues! I have to say, I was quite surprised that he was able to guess my player so quickly, and I ran the rest of the contest with a winner, which made me feel kinda bad for the guessers who had no idea. Oh well.

    

        And the winner is.....
        

        Michael Dillard! 🏆

    It seems fitting that my first follower wins my first contest. It was his first guess too. The selected player (as you all know) was....

    David Wright! Wright is one of my all-time favorite players, and was on the Hall-of-Fame ballot for the first time last season, managing to stay on it, which made me very happy.

    Wright was an all-star in the 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 seasons.

    He played for the Mets his entire (technically) 14 seasons in the Big Leagues
    David Wright was featured on the post My Temp's 104!
    Wright won Gold Gloves in 2007 and 2008
    And he took Kenny Rogers deep in his first at-bat of the 2006 all-game, tying it at one. The NL would go on to lose 3-2.

    Sorry to those who guessed Wright after our winner Michael. It was pretty impressive that he guessed the player correctly after only two clues, but he did. It was after about the third and fourth clues that it became obvious who the chosen player was. Maybe slightly too easy? 

    So Michael, please send me your address so I can get the cards out to you, and congratulations on winning my first-ever contest! And for promoting my blog, I will also send you the Larry Walker 2004 Fleer Platinum card. A big thanks to everybody who took part in my contest, and hopefully I'll have more for each birthday of the blog. Happy Collecting!

Clue #5

    By now everybody's guessing the same player. Did I make the clues too easy? Perhaps I did, but there's nothing to do about it now. This clue is just a formality, since I said I was gonna give five. Dang, the original plan was to give four, and it was at the fourth that everybody started guessing him. Oh well. I'll take that into account next time.

    Anyway, here are the first four clues that were revealed followed by the fifth and final clue.

Clue #1: the particular player I'm thinking of was a 7-time All-Star.

Clue #2: This player played for only one team across his entire career.

Clue #3: The player I'm thinking of has been shown (on cards, of course) on this blog before

Clue #4: The selected player has won two Gold Glove Awards and has been a two-time Silver Slugger

    And the fifth clue:

5: This Player hit a home run in his first-ever All-Star Game at-bat.

    Well, there's the end of all my clues. I should have stuck with four, but like I said, nothing to do about it now. If anyone can come up with another player who fits all these categories (unlikely, but I don't know), then please tell me in the comments. And please check out the blog Saturday when the winner will be announced. Happy Collecting! I'm out.

Clue #4

    We have two clues left in my little contest. I've been pleasantly surprised with how it has been going, getting 24 comments from 10 different people. Anyway, it's time for the fourth and second-last clue of the contest to be revealed. But first, as always, the clues prior to this revealing one.

    Clue #1: the particular player I'm thinking of was a 7-time All-Star.

    Clue #2: This player played for only one team across his entire career.

    Clue #3: The player I'm thinking of has been shown (on cards, of course) on this blog before

    And clue four is...
        The selected player has won two Gold Glove Awards and has been a two-time Silver Slugger

    There you go. Hopefully this clue will put all the previous clues together. Good luck on your guessing, thanks for entering the contest, and Happy Collecting!

Clue #3

    Alright, here we go with post three of the contest. We've already seen two clues, and today it's time for the third. Let's review:

Clue #1:  the particular player I'm thinking of was a 7-time All-Star. 

Clue #2: This player played for only one team across his entire career.

And now, clue 3:

    The player I'm thinking of has been shown (on cards, of course) on this blog before

Alright, hopefully it's all starting to come together. There'll be two more clues that y'all will get across the next few days. Thanks for partaking in my little event, and Happy Collecting!

Clue #2

    Here we go. I'm here to give out the second clue for this guessing game. I guess this was a good idea after all, since I got seven comments on the first post. I'll keep this brief. As a reminder, whoever is the first to correctly guess the player I selected will win three to four cards. What these cards were and the rules of the contest can be found in my first post for the contest, my last one on the blog.

    Now then, back down to business. The first clue was:
            the particular player I'm thinking of was a 7-time All-Star. 

    Here is the second clue for the game:
             This player played for only one team across his entire career.

    Well, there you go. Remember, there will be three more clues (posted two days apart), and if nobody can guess it, a sixth one.  

    Thank you for participating in my little guessing game, and good luck. Happy collecting!

A Little Contest

     Alright folks! We've got a contest on our hands! But first, a word from our broadcaster:

(Jared Sandler)

    Alright, what's in for the contest? In the beginning, before I ever started a card blog, I had the desire to have a giveaway, and was very close to doing one on my other blog. I'd love to give stuff away to my valued readers, and the way I'm structuring it, make it fun. Alas, you kind of need something to give away and a reason to have one. While working on this post, I was thinking it may be too early in my card-blogging career to have a contest, but was told by a reliable source that nobody would mind getting free stuff, so here we are. I just had to wait for a decent time to do so. This is coming off my first ever 1000-view month (1393 to be exact), which I'm sure is petty for some bloggers out there, but it's a big deal to me. Hopefully there'll be many more to come. Anyway, since I don't have a ton of flashy cards, I don't have a ton to give away. But, I figured it'd be fun anyway. After this introductory contest, I think I'll try to do a little giveaway contest on every birthday for Don Cardwell (the first will be January 22, 2025). Anyway, looking at my Trade Bait List I found a few good cards to get rid of...I mean, offer as a prize, of course.

    The winner of the competition will receive one of each of the following:

                -2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Evan Longoria (HTA-4) 

                -2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Josh Hamilton (HTA-5)   

               -2004 Donruss Team Heroes #166 Carl Pavano (This is the guy who gave up McGwire's 69th and 70th homers in the 1998 season)

    I got these cards in a box that contained over 600 cards. This box contained about eight of each of the 2011 Diamond Anniversary cards. I think I got three Carl Pavanos, but had been reading about him in a book at the time I got the cards; more accurately, reading his account of giving up McGwire's 70th homer. So, since I had so many dupes of the same cards, I figured it'd be more fun to see a contest first-hand than to have them sit on my trade bait list and maybe or maybe not ever get traded.

    Like I said, it's not a lot, but since I'm planning to have a contest every year (not sure how realistic that is, but I'll try), I'll see how it works out. I doubt it'll be that hard, at least the way I'm structuring it. The most difficult part will be finding better prizes to offer. Well, I'll work harder on that next time. I kind of just threw together the first three cards I found (that weren't 1980's Fleer or Topps).

    You'll need to do two things to win:

a) Correctly guess the player I'm giving clues for

and

b) If you win, send me your address, because chances are I won't have it (there's a comment form near the bottom of the blog page you can use)

    If nobody can guess my player, it means two things: I'm really bad at giving clues, and I'll add another one. This is a week and a half long guessing game with five initial clues, so whoever is the first to correctly guess my selected player wins. You can comment once for each post with a guess (I suppose you could comment otherwise if you wanted), starting with this one.

    I'm going to try a different approach, but it's not going to benefit you in any way. I would greatly appreciate promoting Don Cardwell on your blogs. I love anything, whether it's adding it to the blogroll or otherwise. It'll be much appreciated.
    What the heck, if you promote my blog on yours and win, I'll throw in another card, 2004 Fleer Platinum #33 Larry Walker. Just show me where you promoted it on your blog. If my blog has already been promoted, which I know is the case in many blogs, you've already completed the goal and can win the extra card.

    Alright now, down to business; clue #1; the particular player I'm thinking of was a 7-time All-Star. 

    Let the guessing commence! If you guess correctly and I don't acknowledge it, it's because I'm waiting for the whole process to end. Remember, the first to correctly guess is the winner. Happy collecting and good luck. Please tell me this was a good idea...