#PackADailyCircus - Super-Sized Saturday

Hello, baseball card fans! We're back with this season's first Super-Sized Saturday! This season, that means we will reveal at least 30 cards each Saturday.

Today's break comes from 2013 Series One - 36 cards per jumbo pack.

Scott Downs - Angels - Free agent
Chris Capuano - Dodgers - BoRosnys (Wahoo!!)
Jose Altuve - Astros - Erins (Wahoo!!)
Todd Frazier - Reds - NachoGrandes (Wahoo!!)

Dan Uggla - Braves - Free Agent
Yadier Molina - Cardinals - Erins (Wahoo!!)
Ryan Vogelsong - Giants - BCs (Wahoo!!)
Will Middlebrooks - Red Sox - DominicFDNYs (Wahoo!!)

Matt Holliday - Cardinals - Erins (Wahoo!!)
Casey Kelly - Padres - Free Agent
Andy Pettitte - Yankees - BoRosnys (Wahoo!!)
L.J. Hoes - Orioles - Free Agent
Ryne Sandberg Cut to the Chase Die Cut - Cubs - Pedersejs (Wahoo!!)

Ryan Sweeney - Red Sox - Free Agent
Bobby Parnell - Mets - Hadsalls (Wahoo!!)
Edward Mujica - Cardinals - Free Agent
J.A. Happ - Blue Jays - Free Agent
Colby Rasmus - Blue Jays - Wilsons (Wahoo!!)
Jonny Venters - Braves - Free Agent

Aaron Hill - DBacks - Free Agent
Brendan Ryan - Mariners - Maddings (Wahoo!!)
Nick Mardonde - Angels - Free Agent
Rickie Weeks Green Foil Border - Brewers - Free Agent
Kerry Wood Chasing History - Cubs - PTownToms (Wahoo!!)
Devin Mesoraco Chasing the Dream - Reds - Free Agent

Andrew McCutchen Mini - Pirates - BCs (Wahoo!!)
Alex Gordon Blue Border - Royals - JoshDs (Wahoo!!)
A.J. Burnett Blue Border - Pirates - Free Agent
Rafael Furcal Blue Border - Cardinals - Free Agent

Hank Aaron Chasing History Foil - Braves - Dayfs (Wahoo!!)
Sandy Koufax Chasing History Foil - Dodgers - StealingHomes (Wahoo!!)
Jerry Hairston - Dodgers - Free Agent
Jed Lowrie - Astros - Free Agent
Chris Heisey - Reds - Free Agent

Wow!! The Erins sure cleaned up here today! Congratulations!! Also, congrats to all the managers who pulled out some very cool players from this jumbo pack. We've also added a great collection of cards to the next free agent draft, so I suspect the next one will be much more hotly contested than the first one.

Speaking of the first draft, we have just over half the managers participating. Some of us, and I say "us" because I am among the group, are sitting out the first one.

#PackADailyCircus #ootp14 - Our First Trade and Busting A Pack

News from the PackADaily Circus League: 

Indiana, Illinois Agree to Deal: The players apparently knew they were on the trading block, so it did not surprise one of them when he learned that he had been traded to Indiana. "Got my bags packed already," Aparicio said, when reached for comment. The MySportsObsessions will receive 34-year-old first baseman Paul Konerko and 21-year-old reliever Chris Sale, while 30-year-old third baseman Joe Crede and 38-year-old shortstop Luis Aparicio will go to the Illinois JediJeffs.

That trade is reflected in the current Manager/Player list.

And, I got the game to actually skip to Opening Day!!*  Tomorrow, we look at Opening Day match-ups and more!

Meanwhile, Let's bust some wax!

2013 Bowman

Shin-Soo Choo - Reds - TSHensons (Wahoo!!)
Delmon Young - Phillies - Free Agent
Matt Cain - Giants - Arpsmiths (Wahoo!!)
Darwin Rivera - Astros - Free Agent
Kelvin De Leon - Yankees - Free Agent

Jurickson Profar Gold - Rangers - RJBreezes (Wahoo!!)
Tommy Joseph Chrome Mini - Free Agent
Bruce Rondon Chrome - Tigers - Free Agent
Hiroki Kuroda - Yankees - BoRosnys (Wahoo!!)
Ian Kennedy - DBacks - PTownToms (Wahoo!!)

Not a bad split! We went 50/50 Free Agents-to-Owned. Congratulations to everyone that pulled cards from this pack. I have to say, that chrome mini is a neat little specimen of cardboard. I hop I pull more of those as we bust packs. Er, I'll have to buy more 2013 Bowman first.


*For those who want to know how: I reduced the draft back down to 1 round and had the computer run that round. As far as I can tell, everyone's players stayed the same and the game continued to Opening Day! Now, to figure out how to let the computer run lineups without managing player trades...

#PackADailyCircus - Just Keep Moving Forward

Hey, everyone! I have the first Tribecards draft done. I've decided to move forward with things and let OOTP catch up when it can. What that means is that managers should check their email for a message from me about their current picks, etc.

Since I know some of my readers like to see what's happening, but not take part in the giveaway, here is the link to the current Manager/Player picks:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LrQ6P9lv3ADEpGH9K3UNoSNp-HD4OJty2XHH_DxTAnw/edit?usp=sharing

A few notes (and then we are busting some wax!):

Because OOTP requires me to assign players every round (even when the manager did not have a player to be picked), randomly chosen players were assigned to certain draft rounds. As you look through the list, you may wonder who on earth would pick Howdy Caton!? Well, I did. Randomly. And then assigned him to whatever team was next in the draft that had no more players pre-selected. The Ontario Jennings are a great example of this. The manager picked ONE player for her list. So, the rest of the slots were randomly filled in order to fill out her team.

No worries, though. We'll get to trades, moves, etc down the road.

I ran into other issues as well such as players with same name, but i wasn't sure which player the manager(s) wanted. They have been contacted and we will sort things out if/how needed.

Now, let's rip open a pack and see what's inside!

1992 Stadium Club Series One

Allan Anderson - Twins - Free Agent
Ken Caminiti - Astros - BackstopCards (Wahoo!)
Dave Magadan - Mets - Free Agent
Gary Wayne - Twins - Free Agent
John Kruk - Philles (miscut) - Free Agent
Pat Borders - Blue Jays - Kazis (Wahoo!)
Todd Van Poppel - A's - Free Agent

Mike Gallego - A's - Free Agent
Al Leiter - Blue Jays - Free Agent
Cando Maldonado - Blue Jays - Free Agent
Kevin Brown - Brewers - Free Agent
Bernard Gilkey - Cardinals - Free Agent
Shane Mack - Twins - Free Agent
Kevin Reimer - Rangers - Free Agent
Ricky Bones - Padres - Free Agent

I was missing my "Wahoo!" when we scored a hit, so I'm putting it back in. I think we need to celebrate a little when a manager snags a card! Speaking of, congratulations to just two of our managers today. We sure got a lot of free agents, though. That's not a bad thing when it comes to this giveaway!

I'll have a draft ready soon for all the unclaimed players we've revealed so far. And, this year, I will send emails to managers to let you know when the draft takes place. No more hit-and-miss with blog post rollouts!

#PackADailyCircus - Riders on the Storm

Good evening! As I write this, Texas has been pummeled (literally) by baseball-sized hail. The storms tearing through Arkansas have skirted my little town, but we expect things to get pretty bad during the late night.

I am still getting the OOTP draft back in working order after the crash. I just hate that I had finished the thing and it was scouting when it crashed! AUGH!  So, slowly, I've been going back and entering everyone's picks. That's okay, once we get rolling, this should be a lot of fun on the OOTP side of things.

As for the car... Well, I was told that I was lucky the fan hadn't broken apart yet and that the service tech was shocked that the assembly was still together (and not sure, exactly, HOW it was holding together). So, a day later, a crying bank account later, and a slew of praises to God later, I have my '09 Charger back and purring (versus sounding like a defective helicopter).

I am at my home computer, so I have the draft picks thus far handy!

Tonight, we're busting open a pack of 2012 Topps Series One

Craig Kimbrel - Braves - Captain Canucks 
Vernon Wells - Angels - Free Agent
Matt Cain - Giants - Arpsmiths

Joe DiMaggio Golden Greats Grand Finale - Yankees - JediJeffs
Frank Robinson Gold Standard - Orioles - CaptainKirk42s
Jeremy Moore - Angels - Free Agent

Kevin Gregg - Orioles - Free Agent
Alex Liddi - Mariners - Free Agent

Wahoo! Congrats to the managers snagging up players for your collections! I can't wait to see these players "in action" once we get things rolling with OOTP!

#PackADailyCircus - Gearing up for season breaks! #ootp

Hey everyone!
  I am getting things in order for the first draft of the 2014 season. Everyone who signed up was notified about the draft by email. Please note that most communication will be done by email since there is a weird delay between the time I post something here and the time some of you get notified that a new post was added.

Be sure to check your email if you don't think you have received anything from me and you are signed up.

We have 44 managers participating this season! That is awesome!!  Thanks so much!

Now, before I roll out the draft this weekend, I want to share a couple of game-related items with you and the folks who are watching this crazy thing unfold!

First up, I created teams for each participant. Look over the list, and you should be able to figure out who you are and where you are within the league. I think I can still change team names if you don't like yours. Drop me a line and I will see what I can do. Otherwise, that will be something I fix next season:

The divisions get their names from places associated with Piccadilly Square, since that is the play-on-words title of this year's giveaway. The teams were assign to their divisions based on the order in which they were received during sign-up. We have two (2) SubLeagues (Think, American/National but without actual names). Because we have 44 teams, some divisions have 5 teams and some have 6 teams. Which have which was randomly determined.

For those interested in the OOTP rules chosen for this game:

To be perfectly frank, I don't have a clue what some of these rules do. I am NOT doing anything with financials this season. I hope that allows for any manager to own any player they wish. I won't know that until I start rolling things out. If I hit any snags, we'll monitor and adjust. As you can see, we will have a 25-man roster to start things off and then that will be expanded to a 40-man. This has NOTHING to do with cards you get during pack breaks. I will hold drafts or trades or something during the season so you can, if you want, expand your picks for the cards you get.

The draft order will be a serpentine format (what I called "snaking" last year), and OOTP has set the order. Since the database is outdated, I will create fictional players to fill in (ex: Yasiel Puig). There is probably a better way to handle that, but I want to get things rolling and don't want to take the time to learn. Haha! Here is the draft order:

I plan to simulate games each weekend for the previous week.
Packs will be opened each day.
Unclaimed players will be put into a pool for selection via draft.

I will be out of town until Sunday night, so I will run the draft then and should be able to kick out everyone's rosters.  OOTP lets me export things to HTML files, so hopefully I can post ongoing information and provide links to it. If not, I will figure out how to get things posted here and we will see how it goes!

OOTP has OOTW support! #ootp

If you've been following along, you might know that this season's giveaway will be tied to the baseball simulator OOTP (Out of the Park). What you may not know is that I have never used OOTP before. As I set out to merge the world of PackADay with the world of OOTP, I emailed Brad at OOTP and let him know what I was trying to do. As with any venture where the primary purpose of a program gets stretched beyond the intended limits, I hit a few snags. They weren't going to stop the show, but I will have to combine some of the things I do manually with some of the cool features of OOTP.

As I set out to create leagues and teams, I was having a hard time pulling in actual players. Brad and I emailed back and forth as we tried working through the problem. Finally, he asked me to upload my files so he could take a look. When he let me know that he could not only duplicate the problem (no players would show up in the draft, even though the program said they were imported) but that he had never seen anything like it before, I know I had something special on my hands.

Turns out, I managed to corrupt my game. I am pretty sure that happened during the creation of my custom league. I am not a "read the manual" kind of person. I am not sure reading the manual would have helped for what I am trying to do, but messing everything up the first time certainly helped.

Mind you, this support took place over the course of more than a week, over a ton of email exchanges. I would also like to note here that as a member of the BBA, I received my copy for free in exchange for posting about the program. My original plan was to (and still is to) incorporate OOTP as part of this season's breaks.

What I did not anticipate was the incredible level of patient support I would get from OOTP just getting things off the ground. Thanks to Brad and the great folks at OOTP who are providing OOTW service! OOTW!? Yeap! Out of This World!

The window for joining the break has closed, and we have 44 managers this season! Follow along as I get things ramped up for the initial draft, daily pack breaks and a baseball simulation that ties it all together!

PackADaily Circus Update #packaday #tribecards

PackADaily Circus Update #packaday #tribecards

Hey all!  Yes, I have decided to go with "PackADaily Circus" as the theme for this season's pack-a-day break because things have been very circus-like since last season!

One of the things I am doing right now is shopping around for a fantasy sports site that will let us run this little shin-dig more like a fantasy league with less reliance on my own time to make it run. Besides, if we can get it into a fantasy-game arrangement, we're talking about the possibility of trades, etc during the season!

My initial goal was to record each individual CARD so that you could trade if you got duplicates. Let's be honest, that would create a fulltime job in itself. Maybe at some point down the road, but i don't see that happening this coming season. Heck, I'm not even sure right now that the whole online fantasy league scenario will play out.

If it does NOT play out, then we will run the show like we did last year: an initial draft followed by weekly drafts all moderated by hand.

So facr, we have 40 people signed up! That seems to be part of the "problem" with creating a fantasy environment because most fantasy sites limit the league to 16 managers. We'll have none of that in these parts! We're going big or going home! Er, well, not home so much as going... umm.. to do it by hand! Sure, it loses a little something there, but most of the people that know me realize a little "something" was lost a long, long time ago.

Okay, talented members of the Tribecards community: We need a new "poster" for the upcoming season. Start creating a graphic that you think encompasses the "PackADaily Circus" theme and email it to me at davidinark via yahoo.  I'll either pick the winning entry or we'll hold a contest!


(image from http://www.arkansasdailydeal.com/engine/SplashDetails.aspx?contestid=28531&productid=4953564)