The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge

As I mentioned in my post about the cards from Night Owl, a lot of us on Twitter have been engaging in the 30-Day music challenge. It's a list of categories that you're supposed to run through on a fairly daily basis to identify various songs that come to mind. Day 1, for example is "A song you like with a color in the title." Others get more personal, like, "A song that breaks your heart."

Since I threw the idea out at the end of that post, I thought I'd take a first cut at putting together a similar list for baseball cards. I personally am going to use this list as blog fodder when I am lacking in trade posts -- which will come soon, based on my own lack of time lately to put packages together -- and when I'm not feeling up to a full research post for "Meet the Brewers." The Meet the Brewers posts will begin again soon, but it may be a month or so before I start them up again, so I need a little bit of other stuff to post about.

So, here goes -- here's the list.

For what it's worth, I gave it a background of a photo found through a Google Image Search of the old Milwaukee County Stadium -- the stadium against which all others are measured in my book.

Feel free to share it on Twitter, use it in your blog posts (with or without attribution -- I don't care), tweak it further to improve it, change categories to fit your sport -- whatever makes you happy. If you do decide to use it on your blog, would you be so kind as to leave a message below, though? I'm thinking that there are, again, a whole host of new blogs that I'm missing out on so any new ones I can add to my list will be appreciated.

In some respects, I hope that this encourages more interaction via the blogs than at least I have had in recent months. Much of that is my own fault -- being too busy does that. But I have seen folks lament the old days of the "blog bat arounds" and thought this might be an idea to that end as well.

Day 1

Day 1 on the list is "A card from the current year with a photo you like."

Because I have only really seen a very limited number of cards -- the Brewers cards from Series 1 Flagship and from Heritage in particular -- I have a limited number to choose from at this point. As I said on Twitter, I went with the future.

This is the 2017 Topps Gold Orlando Arcia card, serial numbered and all. I'm itching to start another player collection soon, and Arcia is in the mix for that "honor." As he continues to develop this year, we will see if he starts to solidify a position in that mix or if, instead, he needs to start looking over his shoulder for Mauricio Dubon and Isan Diaz.

For what it's worth, the guys I view as possible new player collections for me are:

1. Brett Phillips

2. Orlando Arcia

3. Jonathan Villar

4. Lewis Brinson

5. Isan Diaz

6. Josh Hader

7. Wily Peralta (he's still hanging around, after all)

8. Zach Davies

9. Lucas Erceg

Erceg, in particular, is a guy who I think could move up quickly through the Brewers system and make an impact in the major leagues sooner than might otherwise be expected. Not that I'm a prospect guru, mind you, but as long as he can avoid trouble and adjust as needed, he just looks the part.

At any rate, I hope y'all will take part at your leisure in the 30-Day baseball challenge. Thanks for stopping by.

Need Cardboard Needs You

Free cards are always good.  Even if you have every single card you get for free, well, you got them for free!

Andrew at Need More Cardboard is running a contest to give away some cards.  What a great idea, by the way -- nothing like a giveaway to get people to come to the blog and link to it!

If you go over there from here, please let Andrew know that Tony L. sent you.

Thanks!

Getting Organized

One of the most difficult things I have dealt with in getting back into baseball card collecting is figuring out what I have, what I don't, and why I still have all those 1989 Topps cards.

Then again, nearly anyone who collected cards in the 1980s and 1990s says that about 1989 Topps cards.

In trying to get my bearings about me and my feet underneath me, I've started putting together lists of the cards and items I would like to get for my collection.  At the same time, I'm also trying to figure out what items I am willing to trade away to get new stuff and also whether there is any demand at all for the things I have.

So, I read a lot of blogs.  A ton.  And not just the ones I link to at the right.  Those tend to be my starting points, but then I jump from reading those to looking at the blogs they link to for new stuff, and so on and so on.  I have found a few people here and there whom I've e-mailed or on whose blogs I've commented -- some with success, some with deafening silence -- and then I have tried to use a couple of different websites with trading functions to try to set stuff up.

I haven't learned anything I wouldn't have otherwise thought to be the case.  Some people are incredibly nice, very prompt, and extremely friendly and welcoming.  Others are gruff and tend to view dealing with people with trepidation and dismay. Still others, well, it takes them a while to get to nearly everything.

In other words, baseball card bloggers are like everyone else in the world.

Anyway, I have put together some want lists that I have linked from the tabs above.  And, hey, if you've read this far, you should see a pretty picture.  How about a Paul Molitor Milwaukee Police Department card from 1986?

Yay! Pictures!