On August 25, 1995, I screamed in absolute joy at the sight of a baseball on TV flying over a wall in Seattle’s Kingdome. I’m not a Mariners fan, and while Ken Griffey Jr. is one of my all-time favorite players and was responsible for that home run, there was a special reason that hit brought such joy. I won a contest.
The Upper Deck baseball cards that year had a special group of cards that included a date on the front. If that player hit a home run on that day, you could send in the card and get a special set. I unwrapped a Griffey card with August 24. With two outs in the bottom of the 9th, in a tie game and facing Yankees closer John Wetteland, Griffey went deep.
In 2018, Topps is running a similar contest. Theirs has a slight, mentally agonizing twist in that you get to pick the date.
I pulled a Manny Machado card for this “Home Run Challenge.” A quick search of his career home run tendencies suggests he’s fairly balanced as to when he hits his homers, though with a slight preference recently for the month of August. But given that an injury can happen at any time, I certainly won’t be waiting that long.
Instead, I’m pulling off the Band-Aid and getting it over with. The Orioles play an early series in Houston, one of the easier places to hit a home run. The Astros have plenty of top-line pitching, but here’s how they are opening the season:
Here's how the Astros will line up their rotation to begin the season:
3-29 at TEX: Justin Verlander
3-30 at TEX: Dallas Keuchel
3-31 at TEX: Lance McCullers Jr.
4-1 at TEX: Gerrit Cole
4-2 vs. BALT: Charlie Morton— Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) March 18, 2018
April 2 is the home opener for the Astros. Charlie Morton is not their top pitcher. He gives up about one home run per nine innings. He’s right handed. Manny Machado is right handed.
From ESPN
From Fangraphs
So it’s not crazy to envision Machado stepping to the plate, turning on an inside pitch, and watching it land out in the home run zone of Minute Maid Park’s left-field seats, right? And if it doesn’t happen, then fine I miss out on a prize valued at far less than the cookie I’m currently eating.
This contest also features random drawings for everyone who enters, no matter if their guy hits the appropriate home run. And the prizes strike me as a little odd.
I feel like it’s not that much more difficult to let someone have the choice of home or away jersey if they can already pick the player. And for the signed bats, could Topps provide some kind of short list and say hey you can pick from these? I fully expect someone to get a signed Mark Lemke bat.
Anyway, cross your fingers for me.