Never give up

Yesterday, Brian of Play at the Plate issued a frantic comment on my blog. It had nothing to do with what I had just written about, but given the news that he wanted to get out I couldn't blame him.

It seems that Topps' Million Card Giveaway had suddenly started spitting out nothing but '60s and '70s cards the last couple of days, like a jammed slot machine coughing up coins.

Unfortunately, I was deep in the middle of work at the time of that urgent message and could do nothing about it. But others reported having some success redeeming '60s/70s cards.

So today, I hit Wal-Mart to get myself a code card because I had plumb run out of them by redeeming overproduced garbage from the '80s and '90s. Now, I HATE going to Wal-Mart on a Sunday. All it means is I'm going to stand in line mentally criticizing the crap the nine people in front of me are purchasing, as if my card purchase is a matter of life and death.

But the opportunity to break my junk wax curse was just too overwhelming. So, I braved the insanity, bought a cereal box -- which I believe guarantees a code card -- and pulled the Thurman Munson code card you see up top.

Munson was a good sign to me, because I hadn't pulled a Munson code yet. There was no messy back story with ol' Thurm.

But the question was whether Night Owl's messy back story would get in the way of this latest redemption opportunity. Let's review the cards I have redeemed so far:

1983 Renie Martin
1985 Scott Fletcher
1985 Pat Tabler
1985 Ron Hodges
1987 Kevin Bass
1988 Scott Garrelts
1993 Donovan Osbourne
1993 Rockies Future Stars
1998 Kirk Rueter

Yeah.

Even though others seemed to be able to take advantage of the Million Card Giveaway's weekend '60s/'70s binge, would I be able to with my piss-poor Giveaway luck?

Well, I just arrived home, entered the code and here is the card:

YEAHHHH!!! FRED KENDALL!!!! 1972!!!!! YEAH!!!! YEAHH!!!!! YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!! NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHH!!!! YEAAH!!!!!! NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!



(Hey, the Bassmasters Classic wraps up today, you know).

Sorry, got a little carried away there. It's just after watching people redeem cards from 1958 with one code, it starts to wear on you.

OK, so it's not a 1958 card, and it's a Padre. But it is a card from a set I'm collecting and a card I need. And, hey, it's Fred Kendall's rookie card. Plus, he's the father of Jason Kendall. That's worth something, right?

I might actually request to get this card shipped.

Now I wish I had saved all my codes for this weekend.

(And, hey, Dinged Corners is back. It worked).