Groundhog Day Contest Follow-Up--Experiment Complete

I've had a couple of people (who wish to remain anonymous) ask me recently how they can get more followers/hits on their blogs. I'm really not the best person to ask since I'm really new at this, but I've seen this topic covered on the 'sphere before. I decided to use my February contest to conduct a little experiment.

For those of you who have been following Play at the Plate since it started in October, you know I don't normally ask for anything in my contests. It might be a simple question, but I don't make it too complicated or research intensive. I've also never required any pub on your blogs as a part of entering. For the Groundhog Day contest I offered a bonus prize for mentioning the contest on your blogs, but that was optional and part of the experiment. At least 14 of the 46 entrants in the contest did mention the contest on their blog. That is HUGE because it got my blog name in front of people who might not already be aware of it.

As a result of the contest, which always generates more hits/comments, and the publicity on other blogs, Play at the Plate saw record numbers on February 1st, the day of the contest.
That contest post got 51 comments overall, not including mine. There were 46 entries in the contest. The number of comments and entries were far over anything I've seen for a previous contest. Play at the Plate added 4 new followers as well. According to statcounter, I had 415 page loads that day, beating my previous high of 195. There were 211 hits from unique users (previous high 139) and 117 hits from first time users (beating 81). That day also put brought the blog hit count to 10,171. That number astounds me.

I'm sure those numbers are nothing compared to what some of you draw on a daily basis, but for a guy who just started out in October, they are pretty good. I'm still amazed anyone reads, but I appreciate everyone who stops by, whether on a daily basis or only for contests.

The experiment showed me you can use contests to draw in readers. You might even get a few new followers out of it. I still find new blogs almost every day by seeing them in someone else's blogroll. Commenting frequently on other blogs will help. Putting together good trade packages is another way of getting people's attention. That is what I was doing before I started blogging. In the end, I think it all boils down to content. The quality of your posts is what gets people coming back. Good writing is helpful, but not a requirement. A little humor goes a long way. Good scanned images help make a blog more appealing, but I didn't have a scanner until Christmas and inexplicably there were people who still read my blog. There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of bloggers out there with better advice and more knowledge about this whole process than me.

I would love to see some of you put up a post with tips and ideas for new bloggers and people like me who think they know what they are doing but don't. I may be the only one in that last category.

Groundhog Day Contest Winner

The sorting is done, the pile of dupes grows taller, and we have a winner in the Groundhog Day Contest. And this Matt Kemp is still my favorite card of the year so far.







After 55 retail packs of 2010 Topps, the base set completion percentage is...92.42%. That's 305/330. That makes Thorzul, Grand Master Bipper, our winner with a guess of 92.6%. I'm sure Thorzul will be happy to receive his prize of 8 brand spanking new 2010 Topps Packs since he's got some crazy idea to put the set together without buying any. Bill, instead of sending Brewers, I'm going to include a healthy stack of my 2010 Topps duplicates if that works for you.
One of the cards, #68, was damaged so you will see 26 cards in my want list, but I counted it toward the total since I did get it.

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest and to those who publicized the contest on their blog. Here is the list of blogs/bloggers that I KNOW mentioned the contest. If you posted about the contest, but your blog isn't listed, please post a comment/link so I can get you in the drawing for the bonus packs. That winner will be determined by random.org and will get 5 unopened packs of 2010 Topps plus some extras. I'll do the Randomization Sunday night to give everyone a chance to let me know if I missed them.

Cardboard Junkie
The Collective Troll
The Paper Chase
In the Ballpark
Night Owl
A Rookie (baseball) Card Collector
Great Sports Name Hall of Fame
Waxaholic
The Other World
The Great Orioles Autograph Project
No One is Going to Read This Blog
The Real DFG
Condition Poor
All Your Base Cards Belong to Us
Balk Four

Thanks and congrats again to Thorzul Will Rule.

Be afraid, very afraid

I'm blogging from work. That's normal. I have what I sometimes call a "just in case" job. A lot of my time is spent waiting for something to happen. I do have things to do on a daily basis, but there is also enough down time to blog a little. Or a lot, depending on your perspective. Having said that, I only worked half a shift today because someone owed me some time. That cut into the important stuff like blogging, but I had to mention something today.

It's getting to the point where I am afraid to open packages in the mail. It used to be that I would get excited at the sight of one or more of those beautiful packages waiting for me. Today I arrived to find 4 packages waiting for me and for the first time, I was a little wary. I eyed the packages suspiciously...for goodness sakes, there are bippings galore going on across the blogosphere. Night Owl has been bipped FIVE times already!! Check out Thorzul's site to see how many people have been bipped and I'm sure this list is already out of date. Fortunately none of my packages was a bipping.

One of the packages was a mystery. It was from a postal center in Redondo Beach, California. No note, no identifying marks. I don't know who it came from. Anyone out there want to claim responsibility/credit? I also got packages from the Collective Troll, Dan over at It's Like Having My Own Card Shop, and Roy. I'm almost certain Roy has a blog, but I'm at a loss at the moment as to what it is. Roy, drop me a comment and let me know and I'll give you proper credit. Thanks for the packages everyone. I received two cards that I'll be highlighting in the next couple of days.

A contest note. The Groundhog Day Contest will stay open for entries until sometime tonight. I've sorted the cards and the numbers are set. I'm happy to say that in 55 packs, I got ZERO triples. Of course, there were plenty of dupes, but I'll wait until tonight to post the winner and the results. Thanks to everyone for playing and also for publicizing the contest on your blogs. I saw quite a few of your blogs, but I may have missed one or two. Before I do the bonus random prize, I'll post a list of the blogs I saw and you can drop me a comment to let me know if I missed yours.

A new infatuation

I've never been a big John Smoltz fan. I respect the guy. He's done amazing things, going from starter, to closer, back to starter. Just look at the numbers.

1996--24-8 record

2002--55 saves

2002-2004--144 saves

In his 21 seasons, he has 213 wins, 154 saves, a 3.33 ERA and 3,084 K's.

He has one Cy Young Award (1996), 8 World Series starts(2-2, 2.47 ERA) in 5 World Series (1991,1992,1995,1996 and 1999).

The guy is good. He's a winner. He's been on 5 NL Pennant Winners. He's got a World Series ring.

Still, I'm not a Smoltz guy. But I did find a new card to love yesterday and it just happens to have John Smoltz on it.

I pulled this in a random pack of 2009 Heritage High Numbers. It's a Black Chrome Refractor. WOW! This is one beautiful card. I love shiny and this thing is super shiny and refractory and probably some other made up words as well. The scan does not do this card justice, which is probably why I may have seen these on other blogs, but never noticed them. By the way, these are 1:102 packs in the retail, 6 Heritage, 2 UH card packs.

It's numbered 21/60 on the back. It's my first and only Black Chrome Refractor from this set. But it won't be the last.

I know it's never going to happen, but I want more of these. I can't afford it, I'm sure. I may never get more than a few, but that's ok. A guy's got to have a goal right? I'll probably get over it in a few weeks, but who knows?

Phil has spoken

Punxsutawney Phil has spoken. The little rodent saw his shadow so we WILL have six more weeks of.....

That's right...more bippage.

By the way, if you missed it (I don't know how you could with all the awesome pub yesterday), there is a contest going on. See here for the details. We already have nearly 40 entries...and all kinds of PATP blog-breaking records, which I'll go into after the contest. You have about 36 hours or so to get in.

Packsearcher caught red-handed

Last Friday, I made a stop back at the Target where I found the 2010 Topps gravity feeder. This time I bought 25 packs to open and some extras for the contest I posted earlier today. At this Target, the card section is at the far end, near the "grocery" end of the store. It is just a few steps from the door and right across from the little snack bar. As soon as I walked in I could see a guy, probably mid-50's in age, pawing at some packs. I think they were Bowman Draft Pick rack packs, but I haven't bought any of those so I'm not sure. He was really working the packs over looking for auto's I guess. I walked past him and stopped, hanging back about 2 steps behind and maybe 5 feet to his left. He didn't realize that I stopped. I watched for maybe a minute and then I did something very uncharacteristic. I challenged him.

I said, "So you're the dumbass that's bending all the cards." He quickly looked back and didn't say anything. He had two rack packs sitting on the top of the shelf that he had already decided to get. I started counting out the 2010 Topps packs I wanted and he saw what I was looking at and tried to deflect my criticism by engaging me in a conversation. He showed me the 2010 Topps Blasters and I said I didn't want them because they had 10 packs with 8 cards and for the same price I could get 10 single packs with 12 cards. I said, "So, you'd rather I bought the blaster because you can't molest those packs? You want me to leave these single packs for you to bend up?" He got really nervous and then I did something that made him move. I turned around to the cashier behind me and asked for the manager. She picked up her little phone and called for a manager and Mr. Douchebagger Packsearcher picked up his two rack packs and walked over to the Snack Bar where he paid for the packs and left. I told the manager what he was doing and that while it probably wasn't illegal, he was bending cards and making a mess of things.

Some people think packsearching is ok. Personally, I don't think it's right because it can damage cards and those people generally leave the card section looking like my son's bedroom. If I ran into some guy doing that and he reacted like he wasn't doing anything wrong and the manager didn't care, I'd drop it. This guy obviously felt like he was in the wrong because he took off in such a hurry. I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with me being 6'3".

I've posted previously about packsearchers and how they don't get it all. Based on some of the posts I'm seeing across the blogs, I'm glad they are missing stuff at your stores as well.

Groundhog Day Contest

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. Personally, I couldn't care less what Punxsutawney Phil has to say about winter. We don't suffer too bad down here in North Texas and I like cold weather so whatever the little rodent does isn't a big deal to me. HOWEVER, I have made some friends here on the blogalaxy. (I'm trying to use THAT "sphere" word less). Some of those friends live in northern parts of the U.S and Canada and for their sake, I hope no shadow is spotted and global warming can start heating things up again.


I'm doing my part to "stimulate" the economy by giving you a chance to win some unopened 2010 Topps packs. I posted recently about the 30 packs of 2010 Topps I opened. I got 220/330 base cards which is 66.7% of Series 1. Over the weekend, I opened another 25 packs from that same retail gravity feeder.

When I put the 25 new packs with the first 30 packs, what percentage of the base set do you think I'll have? Remember, I'm starting with 66.7% and adding 25 more packs. Post a comment with your guess and favorite team and if you win, I'll throw some extras in with the prize. I'll leave the contest open until at least Wednesday. If you publicize the contest on your blog and leave a comment with the link so I can see, I'll enter you in a random contest for bonus 2010 packs + faves.


NOTE: I forget my ^*$%$*(*@ flash drive again so no fancy pics today. Welcome to February.