Kimbrel For the Contest

Collecting Cutch is on a tear with his September giveaways; pink cards to support breast cancer awareness. The 2nd of his contests is a blog bat around-style post about our favorite Baseball player born in the 1980s.

Admittedly, my choice is rather obvious. I've been "super collecting" (I use that term lightly) Craig Kimbrel for over a year and a half now. Despite his struggle to shine with the Chicago Cubs after being signed halfway through the season, I'm going to stick it out with Kimbrel and buy his cards while the active saves leader's stock isn't all that high.

Kimbrel was born on May 28th, 1988, towards the end of the 1980s, making him just 31-years old today. Given that he had over 330 saves after the conclusion of the 2018 season, it didn't make sense for him to hold off on signing for as long as he did.

I realize that in today's game, players are influenced by the money they can earn. When you're on-pace to rival Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman on the all-time saves list, however, can you really afford to miss half of a season while you're in your prime?

Collecting Cutch also promised an extra entry for those who included a pink card in their post, so I found this pink refractor from 2017 Topps Chrome, featuring one of my favorite photos of the 7-time All-Star.

I pulled this card back when this set was released, just a couple of months before I officially began super collecting Kimbrel early on the following year.

While I'm on the subject of Kimbrel, I figured I'd show off the newest addition to the PC. It's a good thing this card is from Topps Heritage because the photoshop is so poor that it reminds me of the terrible airbrush jobs from Topps Flagship back in the 1970s.

In all seriousness, I wish nothing but the best for Kimbrel, both this year and in 2020, his first full season with the Chicago Cubs. He left my favorite team for my 2nd favorite team, so there's still a lot about Kimbrel for me to like.

I just hope playing a full season next year will help him get back on track as one of the game's most dominant closers, something he didn't have much trouble doing before the 2019 season.

Everyone's A Winner

It's somewhat often that I see other baseball card bloggers hold giveaway contests, celebrating blogging anniversaries or throwing holiday contests. Despite that, I've never really seen myself on the winning end of the contest. Most contests have upwards of 20 entries, making it more difficult to walk away with a win.

Granted, luck is pretty much certain to come my way one of these days, meaning it's only a matter of time before one of these contest victories belongs to me. However, there's one way that anyone participating in the giveaway can be pleased with the results; a contest in which everyone's a winner.

A little over a month ago, Night Owl cards held a draft-style giveaway to celebrate 10 years of the blog. The rules behind the contest were very simple with a draft order being randomized and each participant has the ability to choose one card that they'd like. 

This way, everyone wins in some way, depending on the card they end up choosing. And even with my pick being at #24 out of 31 spots, I was still able to end up with one of my top choices, the Charlie Blackmon relic you see above from 2017 Topps Update.

I originally had intentions of completing a trade for this card back in 2017 when that years' Update set was fresh on the shelves, but I ended up going for a couple inserts instead. Flash forward 1 year and the card is still available in the contest and later at pick #24. 

It's a gold parallel numbered out of 50 and Blackmon is a very well-respected player. In fact, there's a very good chance of me adding him to the new group of players collections I posted about yesterday.

I might be one of the only people who genuinely liked the 2017 All-Star game jerseys, but I truly felt they did a solid job representing the city of Miami and bringing something new to the table. It's easy to roll out the same red and blue combo that we see every single year. But for the main colors to be bright orange and light blue, now that's something we don't see every day.

I'll probably put some type of holiday giveaway together, maybe in the form of baseball card care packages being sent out based on the recipients' favorite team. I haven't yet worked out all the details, but I know I want each person who wants to participate to be able to.

Because if I've learned one thing, it's that the best type of contests are those where everyone's a winner.