What day do pitchers and catchers report?

Spring is in the air and pitchers/catchers are coming out of hibernation. CC Sabathia is gingerly stepping onto a scale, and Josh Beckett is inspecting his hand for blisters. It's time for some baseball. So let's do a quick recap of when pitchers and catchers report for some of the most important teams in baseball:

When do pitchers and catchers report?

Boston Red Sox - Feb 14
Milwaukee Brewers - Feb 16
San Francisco Giants - Feb 14
St Louis Cardinals - Feb 13
NY Yankees - Feb 14
Philadelphia Phillies - Feb 13

If you're wondering which team has pitchers and catchers report the latest it's the Florida Marlins they won't be driving across town until Feb 18.

March 31st (Opening Day 2011)

Yikes - it's been three months since our last post. The SF Giants are the champions of the world and Joe and I have been catching our breath. Excuses aside, please accept an apology from the both of us. It's been three months of silence from Opening Day Cards and that's unacceptable. A few thank you's are in order.

1. Thanks for season #1 - we had a blast building a vivid community, talking baseball and baseball cards, spitting seeds and watching our hometown teams fail.

2. Thank you number 2 is presumptuous... Thanks for coming back for 2011. Joe and I are working on a game plan for 2011 - more free baseball cards, baseball talk, maybe a spring training trip with video interviews? There's a lot to come and we're excited.

For now a quote from the great Rogers Hornsby - "I stare out the window and wait for spring."

We'll be back! Thank you for the community. Chris & Joe (ODC)

TTM - How to get Autographs Through the Mail

This is a guest post by Troy Kozlowski. This guy knows how to pull in autographs and it's been great getting to know him through Opening Day Cards. Thanks Troy!

How to Acquire a TTM Success:

TTM stands for through-the-mail autographs. This is any easy way to, hopefully, to get your favorite player to sign your favorite trading cards. You can also take it further than just sending a trading card. If you would like, you can send a photo, baseball, football, jersey, etc. The easiest thing to send is a trading card. First what you would have to do is write a letter to the player of your choice explaining that you think that they are a great player and that you would like to get them to autograph your card. The best place to mail your card to is the stadium address for the team of that player. Let’s say that you are sending a request to Jason Motte, pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, you would send it to Busch Stadium address. This is a sample letter of something that you could send to your favorite player:

Mr. Motte,
I am a huge fan of both you and the Cardinals. I think you are an amazing pitcher and so glad that you are on the Cardinals. (You could personalize it with an experience that you had or some accomplishment that the person you are writing to has accomplished.) I was hoping that you could autograph my card for me. I have included a self-addressed, stamped envelope so that you could send it back to me. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy day to read my letter and hopefully you’ll get back to me soon.

Your #1 FAN,
And if this player takes the time to autograph your card, you could end up with the great autograph you see at the top of this post!

The most important thing to include is an envelope with your name and address so it can come back to you; but, for a chance to get a success you will have to add a stamp on the envelope coming back to you. If you are sending anything other than a trading card you must go to your local post office to check how much postage you need to put on your package so that it will come back to you. This is a great link to use to get team addresses to send your cards to: http://www.sportmapworld.com/map/baseball/north-america/mlb/.

Collecting autographs is a great hobby to get into. It is great for people that cannot get to the ballpark to get autographs from the players in person. An average wait for the return of your autographed card can be anywhere from 5 days to 3 years; but, a normal wait is usually about 3 months. Some bad things that can happen are: if you send your card to the wrong address you may get everything back with a yellow slip from the post office, which is called a RTS (Return To Sender). Also, if the player is in a hurry they could put the signed card right in the envelope after signing and it can get smudged.

If you really want to get into the hobby of collecting autographs, Harvey Meiselman creates a comprehensive book for every sport, every year, with the players’ home addresses. It is so great to use and you get the address for almost every current and retired player. The link to see how you could purchase it for yourself is here: http://www.sportsaddresslists.com/ . This is the best product to obtain retired players’ addresses and, during the offseason, current players. The Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, NY, has recently added his Baseball Address List to the permanent collection in their library. Harvey gives updates three times a year for addresses that he found out didn’t work and gives a new current address. It is a great resource to have.


A great website to use is Nolan’s TTM, He updates his website whenever he gets a success. His website is: http://www.nolansttmgraphs.webs.com/. Another great website that is always updating their user’s success is: http://www.fanmail.biz/ and click on the tabs for any of the sports and you get to see who signs autographs. I also use this website to see what he has gotten back lately: http://www.sportsautosttm.com/.

Even though I used the above example with a baseball player, you can send to NBA, NFL, and NHL players; but, MLB has the highest success rate if sending to players. I have been collecting since last Spring Training and I have just over 100 autogtaphs and still collecting. On one website that I have come across, someone did a test to see if he will have a higher rate of return if hand-writing the letter opposed to typing it. His study showed that he had a higher rate of return if he had hand-written the letter to the player. It is a really fun hobby and it blends right in with the hobby of collecting. The most important thing to keep in mind is to not send something of value, because you may NOT get it back. The players are not forced to sign items; they just do it for their fans!

Troy Kozlowski

The Red Sox Did Not Make The Playoffs

Well folks. The season is over. The Brewers & Red Sox are headed home early, but there's still some great baseball left. Congratulations to the NY Yankees, Twins, Rangers, Rays, Braves, Giants, Reds & Phillies.

Is the evil empire about to begin a new reign? Is the Big Red Machine back in town? October baseball, while not "Soxtober" baseball, will still be fun. Here at Opening Day Cards, it's been an honor to get to know you this year. We have some fun ideas to get us through the post-season and some excitement for the off-season as well.

Keep an eye out for some incredible guest posts, great card giveaways and yes, we've got a handful of video episodes in the works.

Enjoy the Playoffs!

Chris & Joe

Super Fan Episode!

Welcome to a special Super Fan edition of Opening Day Cards!

As Chris and I were roadtripping across the States, one of my stops was back in the Northwoods of Wisconsin where I met up with a HUGE fan of baseball, cards, and Opening Day Cards...Bennett. This year Bennett's baseball team went an astonishing 14-0! Congratulations!

Join us as we open a few packs of Topps 2010 Series 2. As always, all the cards on this episode are up for grabs. Just leave a comment below and we will ship it out your way.

Episode 35 - Vintage Baseball Cards for Free!

Episode 35 is now live with some teeny tiny, vintage baseball cards up for grabs. Big thanks to TJ Parker a big fan of ours in Cambridge, MA who hunted down these gems at a small antique store. We're working on some exciting things hear at Opening Day Cards - some new things will be popping up shortly. Playoffs are around the corner and we hope your team is closing up the season right. Trips to the mound come with a little more meaning these days.

Play Ball! We hope you enjoy the episode.

Crazy Dance by Oakland A's Vendor

Joe and I have been hitting the road lately catching baseball games in Oakland and Denver. Beyond the baseball highlights we captured this dance on camera as well - it may be worth sharing with your friends. What's the craziest thing you've seen at a baseball game?

Again - Joe and I are road tripping around the states for a few weeks this summer so the mailing of free baseball cards is briefly delayed until mid-august. We'll be releasing details about the "all-star" card competition and publishing new videos soon! Enjoy the summer weather - playoffs are around the corner.

Winner of the Best Card from 2010!

Hey Folks - Great work on the contest happening over on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/openingdaycards. There are some incredible cards posted and this has not been an easy decision. We are announcing a first place winner as well as a runner up winner which will receive a prize as well.

FIRST PRIZE: Nick Shaw! You put Babe Ruth and Ryan Howard on the same card and there's not much we can do about that!

SECOND PRIZE: Todd Fee! Todd's Mike Leake 2009 Donruss Elite MIke Leake Collegiate Patch Auto RC. Even though this card is a 2009 it sounds like it was pulled this year and it is a BEAUTY!

Thank you for all the submissions and remember - there's another great contest running now with an even better prize. Do you have an idea for what we can do with this show? What we can do with this blog? Leave your best idea as a comment on the post below and you could be receiving 5 new packs in the mail for free!

Congratulations again to the two winners and thanks for all the submissions!

Stephen Strasburg - Circle Changeup

Stephen Strasburg and the magical circle change. The kid known as "the most hyped pick in MLB history" is coming through big time. Strasburg has opened the season 2-0 with 32K's in 3 appearances. Does he deserve a coach's selection for the All Star game? Check out our video discussing his first few starts this year.

Upper Deck Victory Prizes - #27

It's been awhile since our last free card giveaway and this one was worth the wait. Speaking of long waits, our gear from Upper Deck came in the mail and we are SO pumped. Check out this episode to see our free boxes of cards, 2009 NFL rookie autographed football and other incredible gear.

Here at Opening Day Cards we give stuff away, so as always the packs of cards we open on this episode are up for grabs! Request a card each and we'll send it to you in the mail at no cost. Seriously there's no catch.

A big congrats to Roy Halladay today. Another perfect game this year, MLB 2010 it's going to be a special season. Enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend. Thanks to all those representing America overseas and here in the States we're thankful for your service. #proudtobeanamerican

Top 3 Baseball Apps for the iPhone

The Major League Baseball season is in full swing and while we encourage you to catch as many baseball games as possible from within a stadium, how do you stay on top of scores when you’re in line at the urinal? We at Opening Day Cards have deemed it officially impossible to be in every ballpark at the same time so we’ve come to rely on iphone apps to keep us up to date on games happening around the country.

Do you know who won the Red Sox game? Do you know who’s pitching for the Royals on Sunday? Did David Ortiz really strike out 4 more times on Thursday? We used to call friends and family to find these things out but with an iphone you no longer need friends or family #thankstevejobs.

Top 3 Baseball Apps for the iPhone:

#3 - MLB LITE - This is our official “snapshot” app and it’s a free one brought to you by MLB Lite. Don’t expect any details with this app but you’ll get up to the date scores, who’s pitching and whose hitting in a snappy interface that’s perfect for a quick check from underneath the conference table at work. That said you won’t get box scores, recaps or any other information. MLB is always looking to make a buck so if you’re a free-spender check out their $9.99 app that comes with all the bells and whistles (It didn’t make our list because $10 is just too expensive).

#2 – Ball Park Envi – Imagine every MLB stadium in your pocket and then pay these guys $0.99 and actually have it in your pocket. Beautiful shots of all the MLB baseball parks in the country and a fun baseball app to keep in mind before you pick up tickets at a new venue.

#1– Sportacular – These guys do it right and they do it for free. They cover every major sport you can imagine but when spring rolls into town we recommend making those MLB scores your default setting. Here you get complete access to scores, recaps, box scores etcetera.

Topps Million Card Giveaway - #25

First of all, HUGE shoutout to our buddy over at The Dugout Cards for sponsoring this episode. Check out the site, pick up a card. It's a great place to find and purchase cards online, with some pretty killer deals. Let us know what deals you found.

Second, HUGE shoutout to Jeremy Dunson, our buddy from Facebook, for hatching the idea for this episode. If you enjoy the madness of Million Card Giveaway, and you enjoy us giving them away, thank Jeremy!

Third, here's the dilly for this episode. We are on a treasure hunt for some Topps 2010 Million Card Giveaway (MCG) codes. People love this stuff. It's like baseball card gold. We have plenty of packs lined up and plan on finding a few codes for you.

The same rules apply people:

1. First to comment gets the card (click the little comment link below)
2. Limit one card per person
3. If you haven't received a card from us in the past (what's wrong with you, do you not like free cards?!) you will have to send me your address at joe@openingdaycards.com
4. Rule #76: No excuses, play like a champion!



That second code is still on the market. Here's what you have to do to get it:

Let us know the most exciting thing that happened at a baseball game that you were at in person. Leave us a comment below. The best story gets the second code. We'll pick the winner tomorrow night at 10 pm PST.

Jody Gerut Hits For the Cycle

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jody Gerut hit for the cycle yesterday which continues to decrease the quality of the Brewers all-time list of players who hit for the cycle.

After Robin Yount hit for the cycle in 1988, and Paul Molitor in 1991, the list was looking respectable. But recent years have seen that list take a nosedive.

In 2004, my least favorite Brewer of all time, scrub catcher Chad Moeller hit for the cycle. Chad is a career .226 hitter, and he isn't exactly a defensive dynamo.

And now, Jody Gerut is the icing on the Brewers Cycle Cake. We acquired Jody in a 2009 trade where we shipped Tony Gwynn Jr. to San Diego. Let's ignore talent for a second, because I don't care who is the better player. What's important about this trade is that it said,

We, the Milwaukee Brewers, will no longer attempt to ever manufacture a run (like perennial powerhouse St. Louis Cardinals have perfected) and will wholly rely on home runs to score.

Way to go Jody. Congratulations.

#23 You Won't Believe What My Mom Did

Free Baseball Cards ladies & gentleman. Did we mention we give away baseball cards? Today is an extra special, first edition episode of "You Won't Believe What My Mom Did". We're keeping this strictly focused on baseball cards and there are some sad stories out there. If you have a story of what your Mom did with your baseball cards leave a comment below and perhaps we'll feature you next!

We're tearing into some Topps Heritage packs, and maybe just maybe, our friend Bill will find a few replacements for the treasures his Mom took care of for him. Check it out!

PS - Rumor has it people like "Million Card Giveaway Cards". Is this true? If you're a fan you'll want to keep an eye out for a crazy episode where we're giving away million card giveaway codes. We'll be announcing the date for that show shortly!

Winner of the Nolan Ryan Card!

So we had some great "best/worst strikeout" stories submitted throughout the last week but we had to choose just one winner. That winner will receive the Nolan Ryan "mother's cookies" limited edition baseball card. This thing is one of a kind and we know we're sending it to a good home.

The winner is.... Drumroll... CHRIS GULDRY! Take a chance to read his story below and feel free to comment with a congratulation. Now come on everybody, be good sports no hate :) only love. Congratulations Chris!

Here's my story: 10 yrs old (Bronco League back in the 70's). I had not struck out once all season. Much like never mentioning a no-hitter during a game, Dad and I never talked about the streak, but he did point to the "0" in the column in the stats after each game. So, last game of the reg season, 2nd at bat and the pitcher is the only girl in the league. She got 2 strikes on me and lobbed a "change-up" toward the plate. No need to spell out the outcome. Dad never let me forget that lone "K".

Watch out for those change-ups and enjoy the MLB season!

Free Baseball Cards! Opening Day Cards #22

Four free packs today and a Baseball Term of the Day to boot. Speaking of boot, did you see the Sox blow that lead today? Dream Cards are back in action, will Chris pull a Tim Wakefield? Will Joe be blessed with a Joe Mauer?

Big week of live baseball for us! Joe is at Miller Park today back in the dairy capital of the world - Wisconsin. He’ll be waking up at 4AM to milk the cows in his suburban back yard and Chris is hitting up two Giants games in San Fran this week.

What games have you been to so far this week? As always, all these cards are up for grabs including the Derek Jeter, ya better watch the episode to discover the rest.

Fan Mail! Episode 20

Episode 20 from chris andrew on Vimeo.

Right now, at this moment as I type this, Chris is running the Boston Marathon. His goal was 2:40, and last I checked his pace was 2:46...so he better pick it up!

So while Chris is running, let's watch a new episode. This one is a shout out to our viewers who have been AWESOME and sent us some mail. Every once in a while I open the mail box and lose my mind to find some baseball cards in there...I hope the same thing happens to you.

If you sent us something and it doesn't appear in this episode, don't worry. We got it, we are just REALLY LATE in releasing this episode. In fact, we already filmed another Fan Mail episode and will release it later this week...plus we have more fan mail we haven't even opened.

Mail is FUN!

Thanks everyone!

Free Baseball Cards: Opening Day Cards Episode 17

Welcome back baseball fans to Opening Day Cards. In today's episode we bust open some Topps 2009 baseball cards. The best part, all these baseball cards are FREE* baseball cards.

The first series of the MLB season is behind us. The Milwaukee Brewers won their first series taking two of three games at home from the visiting Colorado Rockies. Joe is pleased.

The Boston Red Sox dropped two of three at Fenway to the visiting rivals, the New York Yankees. Chris is bummed.

Back this episode is the Dream Card and Baseball Term of the Day. Does Chris get his Dustin Pedroia Dream Card or Joe his Tim Lincecum? And as always, FREE* baseball cards! Be the first to comment and the card of your choice will be mailed to your door.

Due to the incredible response to FREE* baseball cards (and why wouldn't there be an incredible response to free baseball cards) we have changed our policy to limit it to one card per person per episode, so choose wisely.

Thanks for tuning in!

*limit ONE card per person per episode, while supplies last

Episode 16: Opening Day Cards

Hey everybody, we're back in action with some rare finds.

Chris knows a lot of people, and a lot of people know Chris, including a guy over at Know Knew Books in Palo Alto, CA. Chris stopped in one day and struck up a conversation with Bill, the owner (striking up conversations is one of Chris' finest talents...pronouncing baseball players' names...notsomuch). But Bill from Know Knew Books gave us some pretty cool cards. He had a complete set of 1988 Donruss, and an unopened box of 1990 ProCards AAA Minor League Baseball Cards.

Check it out as we each open a pack of these old school cards. Let us know if you know any of the players we opened. Did they make it to the bigs? Did they play for your team? Do you want their card? Are there any horse socks? Is anybody listening to me?

Thanks for tuning in!

A Big THANK YOU!

When we sat down just over a month ago to start a baseball card blog we were excited, excited like little kids opening our first packs. We wanted to share that feeling of opening a fresh pack with anybody who had a few minutes to waste. Better yet, we wanted to give those cards away because getting mail rocks. Getting a letter from Grandma is cool but getting free baseball cards in the mail, well that will make your week. The response to our amateur effort has been huge. We’ve made new friends, we’ve gotten boxes of cards, jerseys, packs, and thank you cards in the mail. Best of all we get to talk baseball & baseball cards with awesome people.

A week ago we found ourselves in a social media “best blog” contest. We reached out to our fans, to our families, to our old high school and college baseball teams. We kept pumping out content for our blog, we kept giving away baseball cards and we even found time to swing by Fenway to be part of the #openingday hooplah - sox win! We also chose to stay out of the drama. From day one there was buzz about whether or not such a recent blog should be included in the voting and there was even a YouTube video questioning whether or not our “television show” was even a blog.

We kept our heads down and stuck to our social strategy, heck we both work in social media in Silicon Valley. We had viewers of our blog contact us with strategies that included getting their little league baseball teams to vote, getting their families to vote and getting their Facebook friends to vote. The support has been awesome, and honestly that’s what social media is about – connecting one-on-one with real people. We started by finding people to vote for us, we energized our most loyal fans and we didn’t waste our time trying to figure out how to game the system or belittle the competition. We saw some pretty awesome activity: tons of comments and tweets, over a hundred cards requested last week and even a few sent to us (thanks!), and ultimately over 1000 votes. Thanks to all of you!

We’re thankful for the opportunity UD created which has driven a lot of buzz about the card community online. Getting the most votes doesn’t mean we’re the best baseball card blog. It means we put together a social media strategy we are proud of and worked hard for votes one by one. We didn’t even know you could vote everyday, we just hustled and discovered that there were about a dozen of our fans who decided they were going to bust even harder than we were. For us this competition has been about establishing a deeper relationship with our viewers. You guys are the judge of our success.

We know we're not like other card blogs. We don’t know cards like many of these other blogs do. We’re approaching things from a different angle; we’re shaking it up.

Other blogs have accused us and belittled what we do, and we’ve found it a bit silly. We focused on baseball and baseball cards, we focused on having fun with our viewers and we focused on opening day. We’re still giving out free baseball cards, we’re still spitting sunflower seeds and we still have a ton to learn.

We’re sorry it became necessary to address all the drama and accusations with a written post. But after reading a few things that were said about us, we felt compelled to say something.

Thank you to everyone who cast a vote for Opening Day Cards and a big thanks to some crazy fans out there who hunted down voters for us. Enough with the banter we’ll be back with more baseball & free baseball cards to celebrate tomorrow.

Hang onto your baseball caps there’s a TON of excitement coming your way from www.openingdaycards.com.

Thanks!

Chris & Joe