05 July 2015

Seeking Redemption 13: My 2015 Topps Babe Ruth Call Your Shot "Prize"

At some point in the past few months I won a Tier C autograph from the Babe Ruth Call Your Shot Game that serves as Topps' promotion for 2015 Topps Baseball. The 'Call Your Shot' part of the game consists of determining which of the three blocks you will scratch off on the game card. I have chosen to use the Autograph code on all of my contest cards. When you enter a winning code, you get a notification that you have won a prize along with a list of player names and a link to the longer list for that tier. There are three lists; labeled A, B, and C. A-listers are all the big names and hot prospects, B-listers are the every day guys, and C list is whatever is left over. There is not a specific set of cards made for this promotion. Instead, Topps seems to just send out whatever they have on-hand in the redemption center. I've seen Bowman stuff, base Topps stuff, and premium brands like Five Star and Museum Collection sent to people as prizes.


The main sticking point with this promotion is that you have to pay $4.95 in shipping to claim your prize. I contemplated just not claiming my C-list prize, but curiosity got the best of me and a couple of weeks ago I went ahead and paid up. A while later I got an envelope in the mail that looked like it had been run over 5 or 6 times by a truck. Inside was my 'prize:'


I won a Jeff Kobernus base autograph from 2014 Topps Chrome. Jeff Kobernus is currently in the San Francisco Giants system, having made it into 28 games with the Nationals during his career. He's already 27 years old, and is unlikely to ever make much of an impact at all in the major leagues. I estimate that $4.95 was 2-3 times more than I should have paid for this card. I still have a B-list autograph on the way, so maybe that one will turn out better for me than this one did.

7 comments:

  1. Ouch, that sucks! Better luck on the next one. Really lame of Topps to charge shipping for these.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was pretty disappointing, especially with the shipping charge tacked on. Some people have done all right with these contest cards, but generally I would imagine they are the folks who won A-list and B-list names. It's just a way for Topps to clear all their old stock out.

      Delete
  2. I've got three coming...don't know the level. I guess I should claim them sooner rather than later.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hopefully they send you something good!

      Delete
  3. Hope the B-list nets something a little better. $4.95 to claim a prize seems like a little bit of overkill.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure if it's $4.95 per card no matter what or if it's just charged once per time you clear your cart. I closed out this order just a couple of days before I won my second prize. I am hoping that the B-list card at least features someone I've heard of before.

      Delete
  4. I think it's just charged once no matter how many cards you redeem.

    ReplyDelete