Okay, it started with me trying to build suspense, but it has since turned to me just having zero time... I had hoped to slowly pull each winning card and THEN announce the winner, BUT I think I have made y'all wait long enough... I had shown off the Al Kaline card already. Joining Mr. Tiger are 2 Hall of Fame hurlers. I wish I had scanned each card individually, but alas the time issue... Plus, since I no longer own these, it wouldn't be right for me to post them - that is the WINNER'S job!The total prize package ended up containing, from 1956 Topps Baseball, card #20 Albert William Kaline (white back), card #180 of Robin Evan Roberts (white back) and finally card #255 of Robert Granville Lemon (gray back). 3 cards, all Hall of Famers. One of the finest hitters of All Time, coupled with arguably the BEST pitcher of the 1950s in the American League AND the top hurler of the '50s in the National League. I won't post their bios or stats, again, winner's responsibility...
Oh, now that the prize is set, y'all probably wanna know who won, right? There is the topic of certain awesome bloggers saying neener neener neener to other amazing bloggers. Read on, I WILL get to it. If you really read this blog, you know you have to READ!
Let's rewind for a moment... In case y'all don't remember what the contest was; here is a quick rundown... My son was expecting a child, my FIRST GRANDBABY and I set a contest for the blog-o-sphere to guess exactly what time the baby would be born. On December 22, 2010, Atlas Ray came into this world at 11:35 PM. Over 130 of you guessed and about 10 of you got within a half hour of the correct time.
Three of you were within 6 minutes, but the GRAND PRIZE WINNER guessed 11:31, just 4 minutes from the time. This Troll has already awarded two Honorable Mention Prizes, but this is the GRAND PRIZE. Well, the blogger with the neener neener rights is none other than my second favorite Padres fan (can't beat Padrographs Rod!)
The GRAND PRIZE WINNER OF THE FIRST EVER COLLECTIVE TROLL'S GRANDBABY CONTEST IS: (pause and drum roll please...) The granddaddy grand prize winner is the blogger we all know as Doc.who writes nearly as many blogs as I do, including, but not limited to Baseball Card Recollections, which, coincidentally is holding a contest RIGHT NOW!
Always quick to kill 2 birds with one stone (who doesn't love killing birds economically?) this is me pimping Doc's Contest RIGHT NOW! Another GREAT blog that Doc runs is the super cool 1,000,000,000,000,000 (or some large number) Cards For Kids... I LOVE making the trip to All Children's Hospital in St. Pete, Florida with bags of Rays cards for the awesome kids there. One day I will actually get some pictures and contribute to that blog. One day. Anyway, I managed to draw this out long enough...
The Cliff Notes version is this. Contest over. We have a grand prize winner. It is Doc of Baseball Card Recollections. He wins 3 cards. They are all 1956 Topps. They feature Al Kaline, Robin Roberts and Bob Lemon. It is now Doc's responsibility to acknowledge his win here. Then deliver the appropriate neener neeners throughout the blog-o-sphere and then email me his mailing address within 3 days of this post. 
THEN I will say goodbye to these 3 beautiful slabs of cardboard. Then I will attempt to return to "normal" blogging.
Personally I had a ton of fun with this contest. I loved sharing my amazing news and super new grand baby with all of my collector friends. The well wishes and comments made me feel great and I want to say thanks to ALL OF YOU who played along. There were over 130 entries and even more people who didn't enter, but showed me some love and support anyway. I love this forum we all exist in. Y'all rock!!!
Doc, congratulations to you sir. I hope you are pleased with your winnings. I am glad that I didn't pick the Jackie Robinson envelope cuz I REALLY love that card, but I hope you aren't disappointed with what you ended up with. Thanks again to all of you! Thanks for reading, commenting, following, trading, chatting and collecting with me!!!! I don't always have time for this blog, but I LOVE this hobby and always will!!!
On a collecting note - all of my want lists are current and up to date. I REALLY wanna finish off 2010 Topps before 2011 comes out. 
I sorted out ALL of my dupes and I am working on making a list today, so check that out when it happens... 1965 Topps Baseball shall be priority #1 until its done (which may take forever) so keep me in mind if you bump into any...
While I have your attention I must kill a third bird (not an orange one!) and pimp another SUPER contest at one of my favorite blogs.. . Want a chance to win a certified autograph of a Hall of Famer??? Just click here and leave him a comment. Its that easy...
Speaking of easy... I am killing a 4th bird right now... My buddy and fellow Floridian Chris from the Vintage Sportscards Blog is giving away some Hall of Famer cards himself... Check it out RIGHT HERE!!!
One more note... Does anyone remember last year when I worked as an outdoor security guard and braved the cold to blog like crazy? Well, I will be covering shift the next 3 Saturday nights so look forward to some actual card blogging from your friend the troll.
That's all for now... Seriously... No more birds shall be harmed today... Go vintage! troll out.
I didn’t like Zaun in the Rays lineup last year, but the way he handles a pitching staff is AMAZING. I was really hoping he would stay with the Rays (as a backup) until retirement and then hang on as a pitching coach. I think GZ will make a fantastic pitching coach in the future. Now onto other deals… 
The first deal the Rays made was trading Aki (to dump his payroll) for Jesse Chavez (who was going to sure up the ‘pen). Now the Rays have dealt Chavez to the Braves for Rafael Soriano (who makes much more than Aki did). I’m confused. Don’t get me wrong, I am not upset that Soriano is a Ray. 
The dude is a flame thrower and a legit closer. Nothing is as exciting as having a guy in the bullpen that can hit triple digits and get the ball over the plate in the late innings. If they use JP Howell (around 80 MPH) to set him up, his 98 MPH fastball will look like 105. For this year (2010) I think that the Braves are in a better situation with the more experienced Billy Wagner, but having Soriano in St. Pete is exciting. What confuses me is I thought the Rays were trying to dump payroll, not pick it up. RS will make six and a half million this year. That isn’t completely out of line for a guy who struck out 102 batters in 75 innings-he is an exciting player to watch. He may put more fans in the seats and fans that show up might stay for the whole game with a legit and exciting closer in wait. It just isn’t congruent with their idea of value over quality. If money isn’t an object than why were Kazmir, Jackson, Akinori and Hammel dealt?
The Rays will have a decent battle for the starting rotation this spring, a good battle for the starting second baseman job, the right field spot and hopefully the role of designated hitter. I would be thrilled if they were able to move Pat Burrell, but I don’t want to see them have to dump a key player or prospect to do so. Baltimore may be the only team dumb enough to take (and afford) him and I really like the Orioles. Seems like the Yankees could afford him though-maybe trade him straight up for Eric Hinske? Anyway, I am glad to have a closer-Soriano wasn’t on my radar or wish list, but I think he has a good arm in the few games I saw him pitch (on TV) and I am pleased with his acquisition. If they can stumble through the remainder of the offseason, not trade any of their nucleus and perhaps find a sucker, I mean taker, for Pat Burrell, I would be elated.
I have held one before-I can distinctly remember looking at one that was priced at 50 dollars many years ago. I would have jumped at it, but I was about 48 dollars short and my Mom didn’t want to advance my next years allowance to me, so I didn’t get it. I did purchase a Star Company rookie of MJ’s and sold it for a profit and then invested all of that money into an ’84 Topps Traded Dwight Gooden card. I wasn’t meant to make money at this hobby-ever. Dayf also mentioned Jerry Rice’s 1986 Topps card as the most iconic football rookie. This is not the blog to host that discussion, but I encourage another blog to pick that one up because it could be an exciting topic to argue. I would vote for the ’89 Score Barry Sanders (which I also invested a lot of money in). Like I said, card collecting isn’t and should never have been an investment for me. He chose the 1980 Wayne Gretzky in the hockey department. Captain Canuck was the first to nominate Gretzky, so he ended with 2 votes. That is pretty impressive for a hockey card to get multiple mentions in a baseball card contest. I guess that is why they call him the great one. The last card that dayf picked was Adam Bomb from Garbage Pail Kids series one. 
I didn’t get on the GPK bandwagon until series 2 and I was always partial to Mark Bark, but I wouldn't argue with dayf's pick of Adam Bomb-that card was and is huge. Okay, back to baseball…. Before I name the Top-5 vote getters I wanted to mention those that didn’t get any votes… The Big-3 from ’83 did not receive any nominations. Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg and Tony Gwynn were 3 of the most coveted rookie cards when I entered the hobby, this was surprising. Jose Canseco and his ’86 Fleer and Donruss cards were huge! I think there was a time when the Donruss was selling for over 100 bucks, very surprised that Canseco didn’t garner votes. The 1984 Don Mattingly did get some love, but in ’84 the bigger cards (in my neighborhood at least) were Ron Kittle and Darryl Strawberry. These were the first cards that really cemented the idea that you could open a pack of cards that you bought for 50 cents and turn around sell one of those cards for 4 dollars. It blew my nine year old mind. The big rookies from ’85 weren’t mentioned either and this surprised me because these 4 cards went through the roof price wise and people went crazy over them-I am speaking of Roger Clemens, Eric Davis, Kirby Puckett and Doc Gooden. 
Okay, moving on…
He was 5 cards deep with the Topps and Fleer. Placing 4th with 4 votes is the 1985 Topps card of Mark McGwire on Team USA. MM was a non-factor on the team and was supposedly a last minute inclusion in the set. I had several copies of this card and sold them at the right time-perhaps the only time I made money at this. My ex-wife promptly blew my profits on something stupid, so in the end I lost. Anyway, it is still an iconic card-according to this vote; it is the 4th most iconic card of the 1980’s. In third place is the most iconic 3-panel rookie card of the decade. I think that if the vote was for the most iconic player and not rookie card, this man would have won. He brought America back to baseball and in a lot of ways he saved the sport. McGwire and Sosa did the same thing, but then ruined it all. This guy was all class as a player and as a citizen. When I found out I had an exclusive interview with this man, I threw up. I got through the interview without throwing up, but was completely star struck and really wasted the opportunity AND I broke all the rules of ethics by asking him for an autograph. I haven’t done it since, but I don’t regret it-he’s Cal Freaking Ripken and his ’82 Topps card takes third place. In second place is the greatest player of all time (in his opinion at least). 
Looking back this may be the best rookie card of the 80’s, but in 1980 the hobby was still very much underground. I don’t think that this card brought the national attention or notoriety that the Mattingly, McGwire, Canseco or Griffey rookies did. I don’t think that is a bad thing though. All that notoriety caused prices to skyrocket (temporarily) and caused the mass overproduction of everything for nearly a decade. I think that Henderson deserves an award for NOT ushering in the junk wax era. Well, I have cited the cards voted from fifth to 2nd place, you can probably guess the winner by now… This card did change the hobby-it launched a new company that was at the top of the game for twenty years. This card has been the face of that company for that long, too. All of Upper Decks success started with Griffey and they rode that train for 20 years. Griffey didn't rewrite the record books like Upper Deck predicted, but he still has had a great career even though he didn’t break Hank Aaron’s record. KG Jr's career is almost up and Pete Rose is still the hit king and Griffey doesn’t have a ring for every finger, but he is still a first ballot Hall of Famer whenever he decides to call it quits and he launched a card company that stood in against the big 3 and outlasted two of them. The Most Iconic Rookie Card of the 1980’s is Upper Deck card # 1 of the 1989 Upper Deck set. 
It was literally the first Upper Deck ever, Ken Griffey Jr. You voted for it Blog-O-Sphere and so it is, the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Junior card #1 is the most iconic rookie card of the 80’s. Thanks to everyone who voted! You probably want to know now which name was yanked from the hat this morning. The drawing was done as soon as the wife woke up, while I was still up from the night before (insomnia sucks) and the drawing was done before makeup and a shower so photos were not permitted. This is the name that was pulled. 
If this is your screen name, please comment here with the card that you select. I will get it in the mail for you on Monday. Thanks to everyone for playing along, for voting, for reading this blog and for all of your comments and feedback on the previous post. As for the ad question… They will not return until the 2 readers who were upset say they are okay with it (at least one of them) and I receive a check from Google for the money they owe me. Once the season begins and traffic increases I am considering bigger ad offers. Another blogger has recommended Yard Barker and I am considering them, does anyone else have any advice? If I can get a decent ad offer then I can spend more time covering spring training-maybe get some good pictures, perhaps do some interviews, we will see. Again thanks to everyone who participated in the vote. Congrats to the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. card for being voted as the Most Iconic Rookie Card of the 1980s and congrats to Wicked Ortega. Sorry to Beardy-I think this is the ONLY blog that you haven’t won a contest on… Before I sign off I thought I would remind y'all to check out my wantlists. 
I am slowly going through the 600 Rays cards that Joe sent me and the 
Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! Are you guys ready to win a really awesome rookie card from the 1980s? Okay, then relax and read on...
That should leave the contest up for about a month and should allow plenty of people to have the chance to vote. The normal rule that you must follow the blog to enter will apply. You must vote for a card to be eligible, but that is it. 
No other hoops to jump through. After hit number 51,000 I will close the contest, all of the entrants will be randomized (only 1 entry per blogger) and a winner will be selected. The winner will receive the card that is voted as most iconic rookie card of the 80’s. 
I picked the 80’s for a couple of reasons-1. It is a hell of a lot cheaper to furnish the prize-I don’t wanna buy a Mike Schmidt (70s) or Steve Carlton (60s) rookie to give it away. 2. I started really collecting in the 80’s and I think most bloggers did as well. 3. The hobby really took off in the 80’s-there were negative side effects like overproduction and crappy product, but the hobby grew to a crazy, almost mainstream level in the 80s. 
Okay, now who wants to vote for the most iconic rookie card of the 80’s? You need to choose the year, the brand and the player, that’s it. Some year by year suggestions include: 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson. 1981 Fleer Harold Baines, 
1982 Topps Cal Ripken, 1983 Fleer Tony Gwynn, 1983 Topps Wade Boggs, 1984 Donruss Joe Carter, 1984 Topps Don Mattingly, 1985 Topps Mark McGwire, 1984 Topps Traded Dwight Gooden, 1985 Donruss Roger Clemens, 1986 Topps Traded Barry Bonds, 1987 Fleer Update Fred McGriff and of course the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. You don’t have to choose from these suggestions, pick whatever you feel is the most iconic rookie. Whichever card wins will be the prize. That is guaranteed. 
If over 100 people vote I will add a second and maybe even a third prize, but either way someone is going to win a really sweet rookie card. You don’t get an extra entry for advertising this contest, but if it helps get more entrants than it would be appreciated. What are ya waiting for? VOTE GOSH DARNIT!!!
He basically said Dontrelle was his guy and the blog-o-sphere wasn’t big enough for the both of us. He was kidding obviously, but I considered his statement. I could ignore him and try and grow my collection beyond the 5 cards that I had or I could give in. I checked out his blog and realized that he already several hundred Willis cards and I decided that he had me beat in the dedication department. I sent him my 5 five Dontrelle cards and a few other players from his list. He collects Will Clark, Luis Tiant, Big Papi, Manny Ramirez, Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla and all of the Marlins, too. He completed his end of the first trade and I was pretty happy with what I got. Then he posted a few cards as trade bait that I wanted badly. I had already sent him all the cards that I wanted to give up. The only thing left that I had that he needed was my Josh Johnson collection. Once again, I gave in and sent those to him, too. He now owns every single Marlins (my second favorite team) card that I had. That’s okay, because as you will see I got some pretty damn nice cards in return and I feel better being more focused on the Rays and the few other players that I collect. On a different topic, I am pretty bummed that no Florida teams are in the playoffs. I do think that the Fish surprised a lot of folks this year. They got off to a pretty bad start and no one thought they would contend and they did. With their pitching staff, their infield solidified with Nick Johnson and if Chris Coghlan can build on his rookie year, they will be a team to watch in 2010. I would love a Citrus Series next October that would be awesome! Okay, so back to the trading. I don’t recall which cards came in which packages, but these are the highlights from all three of them.
Wicked completed my team set and he did it mainly with black-bordered cards which is pretty darn cool. He also sent a few regular ones, too, including my favorite Jason Bartlett. 
There will be more JB cards at the end of the post, just a warning.
Longo and Price and from series 2 a nice action shot of Matt Garza. 
This year I haven’t cared two much for any products not made by Topps, but that wasn’t the case last year. I loved the 2007 and 2008 UD Masterpieces. 
He sent along the Longoria from 2008, along with the sweet Carl Crawford that is totally new to me.
He looks all tough in this shot, I love it! It’s a Ginter back, too, bonus! As soon as I finish up the 2009 (4 cards left, now) I plan on jumping into the 2008 set. I have a hobby box on its way and I can’t wait!
I was really psyched to finally have a card in my Doby collection, thanks so much for this Wicked! I wish it was a 1952, but I am just glad to have a card of this Legend. This one is from the 2001 Fleer Traditions set. It is card #8 of 25ST. It has a short bio on the back and the Newark Eagles logo on the back, SWEET!
Mitch won 13 games in the minors in 2007 and 2008. This year he spent a lot of time rehabbing and not too much time pitching, but he did earn a September call up to the big club. I really wanted to get this out to him for a TTM attempt, but I was late on the draw, there is always next year.
Longoria and now I have die-cuts of both Crawford and Upton.
He included a penny sleeve with a couple of 2009 Ginter minis in it. They weren’t Rays, but minis are cool regardless. I don’t actually remember who the first 4 cards were of, but sandwiched in the middle was this Inventions of the Future card. 
AWESOME! I think that this was one of the secret insert sets that weren’t on the checklist; it is definitely the first one that I have seen anywhere. This is the clock defier, card #F12. The back has a checklist of the other 4 cards in the set. I kind of wish that it had some info on this clock defier because I am intrigued. Of course I would love the other 4 cards in the set, but I don't wanna set my sights too high...
The first is a 2004 Upper Deck Etchings Rookie Autograph of JB. It has a serial number on front, 578/700, right below a portrait shot, which is above the sig. The card’s design is pretty nice with the bronzy/gold color and the baseballs framing the corners.
I don’t really like the design of this one too much, but it is a freaking Bartlett auto, so its still one of my favorite cards. It has a fairly low serial number (on the back) of 071/100 with a short bio and his AA stats. The part of the design that I dislike is that the auto sticker cuts right through the full length posed shot of the player in the corner, that’s just a bad design. It’s still a super sweet card and now I own 3 Bartlett autos, woo hoo! My goal is now to pick some relics and autos of him in a Tampa Bay Rays uniform. I think 2010 might be the year that the card companies begin to notice guys like Bartlett, Aaron Hill, Pablo Sandoval, Adam Jones and… Well, I can’t think of anyone else right now, but there are a bunch of quality players that are consistently overlooked. Anyway, HUGE thanks go out to my buddy Wicked Ortega for hooking me up. It's hard to believe that a Dontrelle Willis card started our friendship, but I am so glad it did! He just posted the last package that I sent his way (more Willis cards included), which means I have a new one coming soon. The Rays are my team and this is my hobby and I LOVE IT!!! Thanks so much Wicked, Go Rays! Go Twins! Oh, I nearly forgot… I have stooped work tomorrow night, so I will be limited to watching the highlights of the game after work, which really stinks. I am pretty confident that the Twins will take care of business, but if not, the Tigers ain’t so bad either. I do have a contest challenge for the Tigers fans out there, if they actually read this post all the way through. Post a comment with your prediction of the score. I think the Twins are gonna win myself, but if I am wrong, I will reward the Tigers fan who can come closest to the final score with a Tigers relic card, how’s that for a challenge? 
Comment here. Sorry Twins fans, don’t mean to leave you out, but if you make the playoffs that is a prize in itself, plus there will be a contest prize for whatever team knocks off the Yankees. Okay, bedtime, school tomorrow. I really hope the car doesn’t explode. Troll out.
apply the blindfold and pick from the 62 different folded pieces of paper. 
The papers were shaken and stirred and then a winner was chosen…It was …
Please imagine a drum roll or something dramatic as I tell you who the winner chose on his HOF ballot. The winning entrant selected Joe Jackson and Pete Rose who both got in. Dale Murphy, who despite some threats from Captain Canuck didn’t even crack the 10 and admitted steroid user and home run hitter extraordinaire Mark McGwire, who surprising to me received only one other vote. His final vote was for former Birmingham Black Baron’s shortstop Artie Wilson. Artie had a spectacular, yet short Negro League career, followed up by a spectacular but short career in the PCL followed by a one year stint with the Giants. The winner (if he is reading this) probably already realizes that it is him and if you didn’t vote for these guys, you know you didn’t win either, but I am still trying to draw this thing out. Anyway, without further adieu, the winner is Rod from Portland, Oregon, the proprietor of the Padrographs blog!
If you didn't win, don't blame Esther! This was fun. Go Rays! Troll out.
and then drawn from said hat by a blind-folded and impartial third party (the lovely Esther Gin N Juice) 
at the Troll Quarters this afternoon. Thanks to everyone who entered! 
I think we will make contests like this a regular part of this blog. Anyway, without further adieu, I will announce the winner…
(imagine a drum roll)
The winner is 
Go Rays! Troll out.
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