The Hook-up from Upper Deck

I received this in the mail Saturday afternoon....



And all I could think about is Mario's sponsership with Upper Deck and thinking "Wow, could they really have seen my podunk blog and thought it was worth a damn? Are they interested in me? What the heck is this?" Sponsership agreements and my thoughts on refusing it swirled in my head.

Then Kim opened the package to reveal this letter from Upper Deck.....
LOL @ the above silly notions.

And enclosed was this card....


a Black Bordered 2008 Masterpieces Felix Hernandez card.

So those NO PURCHASE NECESSARY entries that Gellman mentioned and were featured on Voice of the Collector (looks like he got one too) actually came to fruition! So if you haven't done it already, go to http://sports.upperdeck.com/npn/ and enter to win free samples of your favorite product.

I did this a long time ago when I was a kid with 1993 Topps. I sent a selfaddressed envelope to Topps with all the right info to get a Gold Card. The card I got in the mail was a gold card of someone on the new expansion team the Colorado Rockies. I can't remember who the player was but I remember he was from the Rockies. Does Topps still do this? But more importantly do they do it from their web site? Upperdeck has definately embraced technology and I absolutely love seeing that. They get demographic information, you get baseball cards and free stuff, everyone wins!

Oh and to continue with the theme of surprises of the day, I went to my local card shop "All About Sports" in Winston-Salem and had Kimmy pick a couple packs of Goudey cards for me. Let me tell you this girl is lucky sometimes. She may not get a hot hit, but she'll find the hit in a box. Like this........an auto of Edwin Encarnacion. Given this can't even touch the Don Mattingly auto but I haven't pulled JACK from all the Goudey packs I've bought so this was definately a surprise. There were talk amongst some Yankee fans that after A-Rod opted out the Yanks should try to go after Edwin to fill that 3rd base hole. Obviously that never happened and to be honest I was never big on the idea. I was defiantly content with Betemit at 3rd base and to this day if they couldn't find a "superstar" to replace A-Rod, I would've been perfectly happy with Betemit.

Anyway, just wanted to thank Gellman and Guido for posting that No Purchase Necessary info and urge you guys to give it a shot, you never know!

PS. Would someone tell Upper Deck about the NO SCOTCH TAPE RULE when closing the top of a toploader? Seriously. Painters tape or something similar please, the glue that stays after the tape is removed is annoying as hell.