Spring Training for 2020 begins on February 12, when three teams welcome pitchers and catchers in from the winter cold.
Over the ensuing 43 days, Major League teams will fill up stadiums and complexes throughout the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues as they prepare for what they all hope will turn into a championship season.
Of course, only one of them will reach that ultimate goal, and it will take another seven months to sort it all out. But by Opening Day on March 26 (the earliest start ever!), we’ll at least know more about our favorite teams and players than we do right now.
To help set the cardboard mood for all the jostling to come, I’ve decided to spend the 43 days of Spring Training — plus a couple beforehand and Opening Day itself — dusting off the Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge that I began last year.
(You can find that first edition of The Challenge right here.)
Specifically, I plan to choose one card each day, each with at least some tangential connection to spring and Spring Training … but rather than write about it here, I’m going to give each card a quick video treatment over on our YouTube channel.
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Then, I’ll also post each video here.
And even better than that, I invite you to play along … aside from just watching my picks, of course. So how can you join in?
At least a few ways I can think of …
- Blog about your own card choice for each (or some) day.
- Comment on my vids and note which card you would choose for the given topic.
- Chime in on Twitter — I’ll Tweet my latest post each morning, and also tag it with #SpringTrainingChallenge
- Make your own video choices.
Any and all are fair game!
Now, to get to the meat of the matter, below is the schedule of card topics I plan to tackle. See you on February 10!
- Day 1: A card that shows a player in his old uniform
- Day 2: A card that shows a player in his new uniform
- Day 3: A card that shows a palm tree
- Day 4: A card that shows a player with a spring name
- Day 5: A card that looks cold
- Day 6: A card that looks hot
- Day 7: A brand new card
- Day 8: A card of an expansion team
- Day 9: A card of a defunct team
- Day 10: A player’s first card
- Day 11: A player’s last card
- Day 12: The first card you ever owned
- Day 13: A multi-player rookie card
- Day 14: A wax pack that makes you think of spring
- Day 15: A card you’ve never seen before
- Day 16: A player you’ve never heard of before
- Day 17: A card you traded for
- Day 18: A card you always wanted but never got
- Day 19: An airbrushed card
- Day 20: A card where the player has no cap
- Day 21: A team card
- Day 22: The first card from a set
- Day 23: The last card from a set
- Day 24: A card of a player you saw in person
- Day 25: A card of a player you wish you had seen in person
- Day 26: A card that shows a stadium you visited
- Day 27: A card that shows a stadium you want to visit
- Day 28: A card that shows a player in a warm-up jacket
- Day 29: A card that shows a player who never made it to the Majors
- Day 30: A card that shows a player who won a World Series
- Day 31: A card that shows a player who never played in a World Series
- Day 32: A card that shows a player who only played one year
- Day 33: A card that shows a player who made the Hall of Fame
- Day 34: A card that shows a player who made a big comeback
- Day 35: A card that shows a player who flamed out early
- Day 36: A card that shows blue sky
- Day 37: A card that shows a player in sunglasses
- Day 38: A card with a painting or drawing of a player
- Day 39: A manager card
- Day 40: A card with a very young-looking player
- Day 41: A card with a very old-looking player
- Day 42: A card you bought as a single
- Day 43: A card you traded away
- Day 44: A card with a cartoon on the back
- Day 45: A silly card
- Day 46: A World Series card
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