Free Cards!!! Contest!!! Giveway!!!

UPDATE: PHASE ONE OF THE CONTEST IS CLOSED.  CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FINAL SET AND YOUR LAST CHANCE TO ENTER.

“Keep your eye on the ball.”  That’s what every Little League coach drums into their players’ heads.  Good advice in theory, but taken literally, it can lead to your downfall.  Just ask Nick Masset.

During Thursday’s Reds-Rockies game, with runners on first and third, Masset went into his wind-up by raising the ball to his face and waited there like a chess player figuring out his next move.  While he was eyeing the ball, or staring at the ground or slipping in a little yoga meditation, he paid no attention to the runner on third, Rookie Chris Nelson.

Nelson decided, on his own, it was a great time to steal home.  He had never stolen home, or even a base in the majors, but he broke for the plate.  Upon hearing his teammates screaming, “He’s going!” Masset came out of his trance, and with a “which way do he go, George?” expression on his face, whipped around to throw the ball to… second base.

Needless to say, Nelson scored, which broke a 5-5 tie and proved to be the winning run.

BUT what does that have to do with giving away free cards?  I’ll get to it shortly.

Masset shouldn’t feel that bad, at least he doesn’t have a play named after him like Fred Merkle.

It was dubbed the “Merkle’s Boner,” as if the incident weren’t bad enough.  In 1908, with the pennant on the line, the Cubs and Giants in a tied game, two outs in the last inning, Merkle, of the Giants, was on first and a runner that was the potential winning run was on third.  A single was hit to centerfield.   The runner on third scored, winning the game and the pennant for the Giants.  Going from first to second base, Merkle saw the fans start to swarm the field.  He retreated to the dugout without ever touching second base.

The shortstop for the Cubs, Johnny Evers,

noticed this and got the ball, touched second base and after some umpire debate, Merkle was called out, the third out of the inning, so the winning run did not count, which preserved the tie.  The game was called due to darkness and the Cubs went on to win the tiebreaker makeup game the next day, ending the Giants season.  The ball sold at auction this year for $76,375.   

BUT WHAT does this have to do with GIVING AWAY FREE CARDS?  I’m almost there.

Still, keeping your head in the game is not always a Cubs trait, just ask Milton Bradley.

In the eighth inning of a 2009 game against the Twins, while playing for the Cubs, Bradley made a decent catch off a ball hit to him in right field and then threw the ball in to stands to a Cubs fan.  A nice gesture except for the fact that the ball he caught was the second out of the inning.  The Twins scored a run and advanced the runners thanks to Bradley’s goof.  But he shouldn’t feel back because Larry Walker...

did the same thing when he was playing for the Expos.    

SO, ARE YOU GIVING AWAY FREE CARDS OR WHAT?

Why, yes... yes I am.  And if you haven’t figured it out, I’m giving away all the cards you’ve seen in this post.

But wait, there’s more.

To sweeten the deal, I want comments, lots of them, but one comment per person please.  

Pick your favorite moment, the kind that made you cringe if your team committed the error or made you experience extreme schadenfreude if your team benefited from it.  Leave it in the comments to this post by Monday, September 20^th, 2010 at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.  

I will look through all the comments and repost the best of the incidents, perhaps all of them if I'm inspired; with the cards of the players involved.  Then I’ll give all the cards away to one lucky person.

But how do you get a chance to be the one who winds up with all these cards?  Here are the ways you can earn up to five (5) entries until the September 20^th deadline

1 – If you follow All About Cards Blog, that’s worth one entry.

2 – If your moment makes it into the set and you follow All Abut Cards Blog, that’s an additional entry.

3 – If you have a blog and link this contest to it (please provide the link in the comments section) that’s another entry.  Please put All About Cards Blog on your blog roll/suggested reading/blog feed/etc while you are at it

4 – If you like us on Facebook, that’s another entry.

5 – If you follow us on Twitter, that’s another entry.

After the deadline, I will compile the set and post it for all to view.  You will then have until Monday September 27^th, 2010 to leave your comments on the set.  If you follow All About Cards Blog and leave a comment on that final post with the complete set before the 27^th, you will get an additional entry.  So you can wind up with up to six (6) entries per person.

Can we really buy your interest in this blog?  I sure hope we can.  But once we have your interest, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to stick around.

But the main thing to remember here is this set and this contest will only be as good as your participation in it.  The set will get better and grow bigger in direct proportion to the feedback received.

Lets have fun with this.  I look forward to putting this set together.

UPDATE:

Carlton Fisk, Willie Randolph, Jeff Kent, J D Drew, Paul Lo Duca, Travis Fryman, Chuck Knoblauch, Leon Lett, Pete Stoyanovich, Dale Berra, Bobby Meacham, Enrique Wilson have been added to the set.  More to follow.

FYI -  these moments can be from ANY SPORT, Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, etc.