Contested Shots 33: Big Fun Game Cards from John Miller

I've been away from my blog for a while. My June output of 3 posts was the fewest in a month ever on this blog. I went to a Weird Al Yankovic concert in Spokane with my wife at the end of May. It was a pretty good show once Al and his band came out. The opening act was a set by comedian Emo Phillips, and it just didn't resonate with me. He had some funny jokes, but a lot of his set was (in my opinion) unfunny or kind of mean-spirited. As he went on, I started to regret spending the money it took to get tickets, hotel, and transportation to the venue. Luckily, Weird Al put on a great show and I felt much better about things when it was all over. Here is a link to the setlist from the concert, for anyone who wants to see what songs he did.

During the first couple of weeks in June, my friend/coworker who was fighting Stage IV Melanoma started visiting the hospital for headaches and other complications. He had a scan done, and the doctor told him that the cancer had spread into his brain, and they were pretty much out of treatment options. On the 15th, he went into the hospital again, and on the 16th he was alive but largely unresponsive. He would wake up from time to time over the weekend, but most of his friends and family visited to say goodbye to him. On the night of the 17th he woke up and felt a lot better, so they got him set up with hospice care and he went home on the 18th. On the 19th he went back into being unresponsive, and the nurses said it looked like his organs were starting to shut down. On the morning of the 22nd he died.

I spent a lot of time at the hospital and his house during that period, trying to help out and be supportive of him and his family. My wife was out of town, so I had taken leave from work for the week to take care of my kids, and so I had a lot of open time to devote to being there. I had been in the in the same military unit as my friend for quite a while, starting in 2003, and from 2008 on, we worked in the same building at our day jobs. A couple of his brothers were also coworkers of mine at different times, and a couple of years ago he helped me get into my current job. Our work group grew pretty close over those two years, and it is a pretty big blow to have him gone. He'd been fighting cancer for a while, but we hoped he would be around a little longer. He just went downhill really fast there at the end.

I had a ticket to the WWE Live show in Boise the evening of the 22nd, and I decided to go ahead and go to the show. It was good to get away from things for a few hours, and the wrestling was pretty entertaining. There weren't quite as many of my favorites on the card as there have been at previous shows I've attended, but it was still good.

Last week was pretty much taken up by my friend's wake, his funeral, and the military memorial ceremony they held for him at the base I work on. This weekend my kids took turns being sick, and I am trying to fit in some comp time at work to make up for all the time I missed over the last half of June.

I've still been collecting cards, but I haven't had much motivation to blog about them lately. I'm at the point where I am so far behind that it feels like too much work to get caught up. Hopefully I can get back into a rhythm in my life that includes posting with more frequency.

I got a package in the mail from John Miller of the Johnny's Trading Spot blog the other day. He recently put on a Big Fun Game, which is a contest where participants pick a random number to reveal a prize package. There are options to steal prizes or exchange them, My original selection was a lot of rookie cards, but it was stolen, so my next selection wound up being a bunch of vintage cardboard, mostly from the 70's. That's a fun year in cardboard history, so I was pretty happy to win it.

I mentioned that most of the cards were from the 70's, but this Carl Yastrzemski / Chuck Schilling Sox Sockers card comes from 1964 Topps, which makes it 2 years younger than my parents!

I like these team photo cards, although in many of them you can't really tell who is who. The manager cards are kind of neat as well. Imagine how small the checklists of today might be if rookies still had to share one card between three or four of them, instead of getting a couple cards each in a set!

Here is a fun quartet of cards from the 1976 checklist, with some nice classic baseball card poses on display.

Next we move into 1977, with some really eye-catching (or eye-searing, depending on the taste of the viewer) uniforms on display. I love those colorful Astros uniforms, and that red Cleveland look is pretty cool.

I am not as enamored of these 1978 cards, but there are some gems here still. I like that pose and the uniform on the Adrian Devine card in the upper left, and the evidence of a large plug of tobacco in the cheek of Jeff Byrd.

I close out the vintage cards with some more 1978 cards and a lone 1979. I like how close the Jim Clancy and Mark Littell poses are to each other. Ben Oglivie, John Scott, and Sal Bando all look like they mean business with those bats in their hands. Good stuff here.

The final card in the package was a 2006 Topps Mickey Mantle Home Run History insert card. I wasn't in the hobby in 2006, so I wasn't familiar with this insert set. Apparently Topps made a big cross-brand set with cards for each one of Mantle's career home runs. Card #HR1 was available in 2006 Topps Series 1, and later cards in the set were inserted in other products during 2006 and 2007. It must have been a nightmare to complete the set.

Thanks for the contest and the prize, John Miller! It was fun to participate, and this was a fun batch of cards to sort through!

Contested Shots 32: World Series Door Prize from Collector's Crack

Cynical Buddha of the blog Collector's Crack held his 7th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web last year. I guessed the right participants and the winner, but I was off on the number of games it would take, so I didn't win the contest. I did, however, win the random door prize drawing, so I got a prize package anyway. It was mailed out promptly, and I have unfortunately delayed posting about it until now, as the new baseball season is about to get under way.

First up is this winter-themed parallel from Topps' 2017 Holiday offering. I went hard after this set last year, trying to get the accidentally short-printed Cole Hamels card by busting blaster boxes. I think I opened at least 10 blasters before I gave up and bought the Hamels card on eBay.

That Jon Singleton relic card out of Gypsy Queen is a welcome addition to that player collection. He also included some shiny Astros and a retro Yulieski Gurriel insert from Gypsy Queen. The Joe Musgrove card is numbered # 032 / 250. That Randy Johnson Upper Deck Artifacts card is especially nice, and numbered # 01 / 50. There is also a Nolan Ryan phone card, a collectible that went on a pretty big run in the 90's.

The Nolan Ryan phone card is unused, but the one minute of air time expired a little over 17 years ago. Even if the minute hadn't yet expired, it might be a chore to find a pay phone to make the call from. I'd have to search for nearby pay phones on my smartphone.

Closing things out are a Harmon Killebrew / Mike Schmidt Classic Combos card numbered # 160 / 400 and a Future Phenoms relic card of Edwin Jackson, who has played for 12 different teams in his 15 season career so far.

Thank you so much for the prize package, Cynical Buddha! There was a lot of really cool stuff here, and I really enjoyed these cards! I'm sorry I took so long to post about them.

Contested Shots 31: A Twitter Prize from Topps

At the beginning of January I won a contest that Topps was running on Twitter. The prize was a box of 2017 Topps Inception Baseball cards. I sent Topps my mailing info, and nothing happened. Last week I sent them a message, asking about the status of the prize. They told me that it was sent out a while ago, but that they would check on it. Then they told me that they don't know what happened, but they will send another one out. Translating that from customer service-speak: "Oh shit, we forgot all about that contest!" A little bit later I got a shipping notification from FedEx and today I got the package.

Here's the front of the box. It promises 7 cards inside. The side of the box tells me that there is one autograph included among the 7 cards, and that some autographs may be redemption cards.

Here are the odds from the back of the box. There are plenty of parallels and autograph subsets available.

A single thick foil pack was nestled inside the box.

Here are the base cards and parallels. The Kyle Seager and A.J. Reed cards are Green parallels, which seem to be the most basic parallel. They are not numbered. The base cards look nice enough, and they are plenty thick.

The autograph is an Orange parallel of Matt Strahm, a former Royal who was traded to the Padres. It is numbered # 08 / 50. He's had a couple of major injuries in his career, and doesn't seem to be on the radar as a big up-and-comer.

I hate to be too critical of a free box of cards, but I am so glad I didn't spend the current $95 - $100 asking price on this box. It was fun to win a prize, but in this case the anticipation was much more exciting than the actual break. Thanks to Topps for holding the contest and providing the prize!

Contested Shots 30: A Thanksgiving Playoff Prize from Panini

Every few months, typically around a holiday, there is a scavenger hunt contest on the Panini America blog. They will link to several photo galleries of Panini products, where there are logos hidden in a certain number of pictures. To enter the contest, you have to find the logos and comment with the locations of the hidden images. There are usually 150-200 entries, and 10-20 prizes, so the odds of winning something are pretty good. I recently participated in the Thanksgiving contest, where the prizes included boxes of 2017 Illusions Football, 2017-18 Ascension Basketball, 2017 Chronicles Baseball, and 2017 Playoff Football. I won one of the prizes, which happened to be a box of 2017 Playoff Football. I've won twice previously, getting a box of 2015-16 Panini Preferred Basketball at the end of August 2016 and an Odell Beckham Jr. National Treasures relic card in the 2016 Easter contest. I think there were about 160 entries in this latest contest, so an entry had about a 1 in 8 chance of winning a box of cards. I think it took me about 30 minutes to find all of the logos. Sometimes it takes me a little longer.

A few days after I responded to the e-mail notifying me of my prize, it arrived on my doorstep. This particular product has 12 packs per box, 8 cards per pack, and tells me that I should find an autograph and a relic card inside.

The pack design mimics the box design. Marcus Mariota seems like kind of an odd choice for a cover athlete given that he's barely inside the top 25 fantasy quarterbacks this year, but he had a pretty good season last year and he's the leader of a probable playoff team this year.

Based on what I pulled from this box, a typical pack will hold 5 base cards, 1 rookie, and 2 inserts/parallels.

I think this is a good-looking set. The base checklist includes 200 players, with a mix of active and retired players. It seemed like there were a lot of retired guys in the set, but maybe collation is playing tricks on me. I had to photograph the Broncos from the box, Bo Jackson, Neon Deion, a couple of quarterbacks, and a neat kicker card.

I got a total of 58 base cards in the box, with no doubles.

In addition to the 200-card base set, the checklist includes 100 rookies. They are short-printed, falling about half as often as you'd expect based on the size of the checklist. I got 13 rookie cards in the box, or about 1 per pack. These four were the highlights, the top two because they made an impact and the bottom two because they were rookies for my son's favorite team (Bengals) and my favorite team (Broncos). Also, Jake Butt's last name is Butt. In retrospect, I probably should have ignored Mixon's card because of his legal history, but I forgot about that until I looked him up just now.

There are plenty of inserts in this product. I kind of like most of them. They take me back to the 90's, which were kind of the heyday of inserts. The folks over on Cardboard Connection seem to dislike them, saying they are cheap-looking and pointless. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Boss Hoggs is the running backs insert, highlighting various ball carriers. When I see Derrick Henry, my mind immediately thinks 'Eddie George.' I guess Eddie George will always be Tennessee's running back in my world.

The Flea Flicker insert shows three playmakers from each team, a rusher, a receiver, and a quarterback. This might be my least favorite insert of the group, probably because the three player photos don't leave much room for anything else on the cards.

Gridiron Force is devoted to players on the defensive side of the ball. I was happy to get a Von Miller card, but disappointed to pull two Ravens. I might dislike the Ravens more than I dislike even the Broncos' division rivals. Michael Strahan was a nice pull, though.

These Playoff Momentum inserts are pretty flashy. I think this might be the insert devoted to wide receivers. If not, my collation made it seem that way. I like the design of this insert, with the lines and positioning making the players look fast. The Jordy Nelson is a 1st Down parallel, and is serially-numbered # 96 / 99. All of the parallels in this set have football-themed names, like 1st Down, Kickoff, Hail Mary, Red Zone, Touchdown, and so on.

Star Gazing appears to be a catch-all insert featuring star players. I pulled a receiver, a tight end, and two quarterbacks. There are some pretty decent cards here, although I think Rob Gronkowski's party boy gimmick is tiresome. It works for him, though, and you can't deny his talent on the field.

Thunder & Lighting is the quarterback/receiver insert. I got two of them, with another couple of cards featuring Packers and Patriots. I guess there are worse teams to pull.

The box promises two hits, on average, and both of mine were parallels. The relic card was a Kickoff parallel of Jordan Howard's Headliners insert. This card is numbered # 31 / 49. Howard has been a top ten running back this year, so this is a decent card.

My autograph is another Kickoff parallel, this time of Josh Jones' Rookie Signatures card. It is numbered # 11 / 99. He plays Safety for the Packers, and is currently 4th on the team in tackles. He's also got two sacks. I don't mind pulling a defensive player autograph, especially from a free box of cards. 

I pulled two base parallels from the box. This might be one of the cooler cards from the box, a Kickoff parallel of Jim Brown. Look at that old-school uniform! This is just a cool card. I don't know football cards well enough to say if this photo has been used before, but I thought it was neat. This one is # 075 / 299. 

The other parallel was in the last pack I opened, and it was quite a shock. This is Jordan Mathews' Touchdown parallel, numbered 1 of 1. Mathews struggled with injuries this year, but he's not a scrub. I can't recall ever pulling a non-printing plate 1 / 1 before, so this was a pretty awesome card to find in a pack.

I like this product. If I were more into football cards, I might chase more of this stuff. The base set looks good, I like the inserts, and the hits are about what you expect. The only thing I don't really like is the short-printed rookie cards. You'd have to open 9 boxes with perfect collation to complete the base set including the rookies, and that is just too many. I know a lot of products use short-prints to keep people buying them, but I hate that tactic. Other than that, though, I enjoyed opening this box. It was exciting to win the contest, and I got some very nice cards out of it. Thanks to Panini for the box, and for running the scavenger hunt contests. Even when I don't win, I enjoy spending a little time looking for the hidden pictures and hoping that my name comes up in the list of winning entries.

Contested Shots 29: Charlotte Flair Relic from Sports Card Info

Back in October I won a contest on the Sports Card Info blog. It's taken me a while to get the post up, because I was out of town for a month.

The card I won was this Charlotte Flair mat relic from the 2017 Topps WWE Women's Division set. It contains a bit of the mat from the Survivor Series 2015 event. The timing of this contest was pretty cool for me, as I met Charlotte Flair at a book signing on September 30th.

This year's Survivor Series event was tonight, and Charlotte Flair defeated Alexa Bliss in their match during the evening. I didn't watch the event, although I thought about it. I am having a hard time getting back into the swing of things at home, and I didn't feel like adding more noise into my life. My kids have been on one today, and I have had a month without all of the sound and questions. I'll be a little happy to go to work in the morning and sit in silence for a bit.

Also included in the prize package was a pin with the Sports Card Info logo on it. I think it's pretty neat. The Sports Card Info blog holds a lot of contests and posts plenty of card reviews and box breaks. Go and check it out if you don't already have it on your blog roll. Thanks for the contest!

Contested Shots 28: Sport Card Collectors MLB Pick 'Em July Prize

The Sport Card Collectors blog has been running an MLB Pick 'Em game all season, with monthly prizes and a big end-of-season prize. I've been doing pretty well in the game, although there are several consistent players ahead of me in the overall standings. I tied for the monthly lead in July, and the randomizer selected me as the winner for the month, so I had a few cool prizes arrive in my mailbox.

First up was this 2017 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autograph Peach parallel of Terry Mulholland. Mulholland played in 20 different MLB seasons, threw a no-hitter in 1990, and made one All-Star team. He also played for about a billion teams, with his best years being maybe 1990-1993 for the Phillies, the team whose uniform he's wearing on this card.

In addition to the autograph, I also got a box of supplies from BCW. One was this 3-inch D-ring binder, with plenty of room for pages of cards.

The other item in the box was a 100-count box of 9-pocket pages, something it seems like a collector always needs but never wants to buy. I will actually probably wind up doling these out to my kids, as they have been buying Pokemon cards and I've been pulling my cards out of binders in order to stock their card binders. Whether the kids use them or I use them, they are much appreciated.

It's been fun to participate in the Pick 'Em contest each week, and it was pretty cool to win a prize. There isn't a lot of time left in the season, but if you aren't participating yet, you can go sign up and try for the next monthly prize. Thanks for the contest, Sport Card Collectors, and thanks to both Sport Card Collectors and BCW for the prizes!

Contested Shots 27: A Huge Prize from the Top Ten Contest at Collecting Cutch

There was a contest over at the Collecting Cutch blog during the month of May. Playing on that blog's Andrew McCutchen focus, to gain entry you had to post a Top Ten cards list for a single player collection. My post focused on some favorites from my R.A. Dickey collection. I believe everyone who entered got a prize of some kind, but the big overall prize was a 2016 Topps Dynasty Autographed Patches card of former Astro and Hall of Famer Craig Biggio.

Out of 26 entries, my name came up first in the randomizer, and this # 09 / 10 hard-signed beauty was generously sent out to me. The announcement post also includes links to all of the entries, so if you missed reading them the first time around, it's a good way to read up on a bunch of bloggers' favorite cards. This card probably jumps right to the top of my Astros team collection. I can't think of another card in my possession that measures up.

I was super-excited about winning the big prize, but I was also grateful for the push this contest gave me to look back at my R.A. Dickey collection and remember some of the stories behind the cards I've picked up in the past. I even found a few neat cards that I'd almost entirely forgotten about. It was a cool idea for a contest, and I enjoyed building my post and reading the other entries throughout the month.

Also included in the package were a couple of other cards. This is a Purple parallel of Carlos Correa's 2013 Bowman Prospects card. I am having trouble remembering back that far, but I think the Purple cards were a retail exclusive. Maybe they came in value packs? Either way, it's a cool card of one of the team's best players.

It wouldn't be a package from an Andrew McCutchen super-collector without a card featuring Cutch himself. This is a Pittsburgh Police issue, although I don't know the year on it.

This was a fun contest to participate in, and the prize was exceptionally generous. I was pretty stoked when I saw my name chosen as the winner. Thanks again, Collecting Cutch!

Contested Shots 26: A Game at Johnny's Trading Spot

There was a game recently over at Johnny's Trading Spot, a game whose origins predate my time in the trading card blogger community. But these games have made a comeback recently, with a couple already finished and one currently running over at All Trade Bait, All the Time. The main idea of the game is that there are a number of hidden prizes equal to the number of participants. The participants take turns selecting a prize number, revealing the prizes one at a time. After the prizes start being revealed, later people can pick a new number or steal a previous prize. Most of the time there is a limit to the number of times a particular prize can be stolen.

Pick stealing came into play for me in the Johnny's Trading Spot game, as my original selection was a 1964 Topps Buyback of Dean Chance. Bo came next and stole a different pick from Tom, then Tom stole my pick, and I stole this 2013 Topps Kyle Kendrick error card from Bo. It was the 2nd time this card had been stolen in the game, so I was able to lock it up as my prize. This is apparently a fairly hard-to-find item, as they were only released in early printings of the 2013 Topps factory sets. I plan on keeping this one, as it is just the kind of oddball error that appeals to me. You can't even see his face! I felt moderately bad about stealing such a plum prize, but the game is designed to encourage those shenanigans, and with one more steal available on it, someone else probably would have locked it up eventually.

Also included in the prize package was this Kyle Hendricks Programs insert from 2017 Topps Bunt. Kyle Kendrick and Kyle Hendricks have similar names, and might even be the same person. We'll never know, as we don't actually know what Kyle Kendricks' face looks like. We're pretty familiar with his beltline, though.

Thanks for the game, John! It was pretty fun!