Opening Weekend Freebees

Nothing is better than Opening Day at Busch Stadium. I’ve never been, and I know this. It’s actually hard saying what I would give to be able to go to an Opening Day… but since you’re reading this a mere hour or two before first pitch, I’m obviously not there yet! Maybe next year.

Your goal today is simple:

1. Watch the Cardinals beat down the Cubs.
2. Enjoy every glimpse of every red-coated Hall of Famer you can see.
3. Tweet us (@DiamondDiaries) or post in the comments and tell us what your favorite part of Opening Day is. Why? Because we’ve got some freebees to give away! The kind people at A+E Home Entertainment/MLB Productions have provided us with Blu-Ray/DVD copies of last year’s game 6 magic to give away to all of you!

It’s that simple. Deadline for our little contest is Sunday afternoon, 1:15 PM CST, otherwise known as first pitch of the final game of this Cards/Cubs series. We will announce the winners on Monday morning.

Excited to see all of your responses. Enjoy the game!

Pujols’ Presser Giveaway Contest Winner

Sometimes a contest doesn’t go the way you planned it to…

When Erika and I decided on how to give away our copies of the World Series DVD, I doubt that either of us really considered how weird it would feel if the Pujols’ press conference announcing his new contract would really be for another team. That said, we do have a winner! While we didn’t hit the exact date, Dan got about as close as possible. He picked December 9, at 11:00AM. Considering the contract broke a day before and the presser was a day after, that’s about as close as you can get without hitting the bulls-eye. Congrats Dan!

For me, it was weird watching the DVD. I felt the same thing in 2006 watching that DVD, because I was seeing names like Jeff Weaver and Preston Wilson being interviewed. Those guys were names that I expected to go away. In fact, when I watched the DVD a couple years later on a cold snowy day I had actually forgotten about those names completely.

Watching this DVD, it would be impossible to forget about Pujols playing on this team. I almost felt like a knife was being turned in my stomach. Now, don’t get me wrong, this is a stunning movie, and it gave me butterflies watching it over and over. Seeing the joy of the players, hearing that crack of the bat again after going several weeks without any baseball, and listening to those familiar voices and sounds of the game I love… it was incredible. I didn’t even jump into the bonus features and see the extra goodies like game 5 of the NLDS and bonus material from This Week in Baseball, among others. It truly is a treasure, and if you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, seriously, what are you waiting for?

Be on the lookout for our next big giveaway. We’ll be filling a few more Christmas stockings with some copies of the 8 disc set – yippee! 🙂

“Thankful for Cardinals” Winners and Erika’s World Series DVD Review

Whether you spent your long holiday (one ‘L’, not two) weekend filling up on turkey and pumpkin pie, battling the frenzy of Black Friday and/or watching football (only because there isn’t any baseball, of course,) we have a few more Thanksgiving moments to share with you before the mistletoe madness and Christmas rush officially takes over the planet.

As part of our giveaway of the Official 2011 World Series Film DVD set (thank you, thank you to A+E Networks Home Entertainment/MLB Productions), we asked readers interested in winning FREE WORLD SERIES DVDs to send entries telling us which Cardinal players they were most thankful for in 2011.

The following five fun THANKFUL entries showed up in our inbox.  From those, we had the difficult task of picking a winner.  And because we couldn’t pick just one… we’re giving away TWO of the 2011 World Series Film DVD sets.  Congratulations to our lucky “thankful” winners:

Here are the two entries that topped the list for their creativity and won free Cardinals World Series Highlights DVDS:

———-

Sue brought the smiles with her poetic tribute: 

He’s easy on the eyes,

 just one of the guys

Takes his errors with grace,

determined to just help win the race.

Charm is his middle name

and talent in his claim to fame. 

My favorite number is 23

David is the guy for ME. 

———

Lindsey convinced us that Motte had swag:

“This year I am thankful for a blue eyed, red bearded relief pitcher named Jason Motte. He has brought to this team a new meaning of the word swag, and transformed it into the all powerful “Beard Swag” that consumes Jason at all times. With the way he dances around the mound after every pitch, its hard not to mimic his moves in my own living room, making laps around the coffee table and rubbing the imaginary ball between my hands. His antsy behavior makes me nervous and excited all at once, and I love that feeling. Motte has been the Cardinals secret weapon all along, it just took a few years, good timing, and being in Franklin’s shadow for us to realize it. Before this season not many people had heard of the newly transformed catcher-to-pitcher mechanism named Jason Motte. He was just another relief pitcher who paid his dues in the Cardinal bullpen every other 8th inning or so. But right around the time Franklin’s control started to diminish, Jason’s control of his immense fastball gained more recognition. And while he was never named the official closer, I think we can all agree that without his abilities to control the ball at that type of speed and work so well with Yadi, this team couldn’t have made it so far. Pretty impressive for a man who can barely see his catchers hand signals! Sure some people like to argue that Motte had a horrible Game 2 experience in the World Series this year, but lets face it, had he not had an off night our dramatic comeback to win it all wouldn’t have been so sweet! It wouldn’t be our true Cards if we didn’t have a little drama in the mix! I’m even thankful for an off night. Thanks to his incredible performance this year, Jason has made “Motte” a household name. Fangirls everywhere have been falling in love with the beard, myself included. I thank the Cardinal gods for sending us such a blessing in Jason Louis Motte. And I thank them for making him look so good in a Cardinal uniform! ;)”

Our other three fabulous entries (and honorable mentions) were from Nancy, Kent and Eric :

Nancy reminded us of the MANY reasons we were thankful for the 2011 Cardinals: 

“2011 was the most amazing year of my all my years as a Cardinal FANatic.  It tops all other World Series Titles I’ve lived through and followed faithfully – all the way back to 1964, which, until this year, was my favorite season of all.  This year we went from the depths of despair to the heights of ecstasy.  How did this happen?  Who sticks out as the difference maker?  So many different people stepped up  when called upon.  Pujols’ 3 homers in game 3 is one memory I’ll never forget – and Albert delivered a lot of times – but this was not his best season.  Holliday, star power #2, suffered through weird injury after freak accident after weird injury and never really got in a rhythm post-season. The trade for Furcal was absolutely a difference maker and I loved watching him dazzle from shortstop, but his bat suffered.   Guys like Nick Punto, Daniel Descalso, Ryan Theriot, Skip Shumaker all had their moment in the sun for guys who didn’t play regularly.  Allen Craig emerged as an ominous threat at the bat.  Lance Berkman was absolutely worthy as the comeback player of the year – and was the most consistent of all the above-mentioned beloved Redbirds.  Yadier Molina is the man and I wouldn’t trade him for anyone behind home plate.  His bat improved dramatically this year, leading the team in the regular season average tally.  The hero, and most valuable player of the playoffs and the world series is David Freese, hometown boy and emerging superstar – possibly the future face of the franchise.  And exciting as can be.

But I don’t think we win the World Series without Chris Carpenter.  His guts and his emotional command in the final game against Philadelphia coupled with his 2 world series wins carried our team to the title.  His performance in the Playoff Series game against the Phillies reminded me of the Bob Gibson era.  He was totally into every pitch and even when he got into a jam, he never buckled, kept his cool and in the midst of chaos, delivered when it mattered.

Carpenter gets my vote.  And I am so thankful to him and all the Cardinals, including Tony La Russa, Dave Duncan and the entire coaching staff and management for the ride of a lifetime.”

———

Kent made us stop and think with his unexpected entry: 

“The Cardinal that I am most thankful for is Ryan Franklin. Ryan had a very tough start to begin the 2011 season.  He was bashed and criticized on twitter, Facebook, the newspaper and on TV. He handled the poor start with dignity an class even though the people that were bashing him did not. Eventually he was informed that he was being released and again he didn’t leave the team kicking and screaming, but handled it with class.

After laying low for the remainder of the season, Ryan reappeared and again was a person of class. I feel that Ryan is the epitome of what I hope that all Cardinals both past, present and future will portray!

I admire and respect Ryan Franklin and so do all of his teammates!”

———

Eric summed up his choice by going right to the top:

Tony La Russa would be my choice. It all starts at the top. Being a consummate professional. And having the time of his life from August the 24th on including donning a hearts on fire pendant and a talisman from Carlos Santana himself. To guide a team from 10.5 games out to a World Series victory is beyond reproach. Plus handling all the media crush, the AP contract situation, the Colby Rasmus trade among other things. I know the city will miss Don Tony. He made me smile right up to the last out of the World Series. Wish him the best and I’m thankful we had the right skipper for the red draped ship.

———————————

***And now for my quick official unofficial review of The 2011 World Series Highlight Film:

This DVD absolutely surpassed my expectations.  So much more than just a rewatching of the series, this DVD combines those lovely behind-the-scenes videos and interviews that make us smile while perfectly complementing the theatrical narrative of our Cardinals’ incredible journey to the 2011 World Championship.  Close-ups of the boys, player interviews (including multiple moments of insight from our darling MVP, David Freese), new video angles and footage I’d never seen from the televised coverage of the World Series – all pleasant surprises.  Even though I knew how the story went (oh, don’t you LOVE happy endings?!?) I was on the edge of my seat, cheering and reliving the ups and downs as the Cardinals (again) ba

ttled through 7 hard-fought games against the Texas Rangers.   My son may or may not have rolled his eyes at one point, saying “Mom, this has already happened, you know…”

Okay.  Honestly?  The 2011 World Series Highlight Film DVD set is phenomenal.

Buy it for your Dad, uncle, cousin, grandpa, sister… whomever you know that loves the Cardinals.

Then go and watch it with them.  Win/win!

…or you could just go buy it for yourself. Consider it your little way of lightening Santa’s load.  He’ll have more room in his sleigh.  You’re so thoughtful!

And when you settle in for some December DVD baseball magic, try not to cheer out loud when Freezer hits that walk-off homerun (again).  I dare ya!  😉

Didn’t win?  Didn’t enter our other “Guess the Pujols Presser Date” contest?

It’s okay.  You can buy it HERE:

2011 WORLD SERIES HIGHLIGHT FILM 2-DISC SET

http://shop.mlb.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12328342&cp=2366583.2498437

Summer Baseball Book GiveAway

We have a new giveaway!  Details below!

But first things first, our Redbirds are again #1 in the National League Central! woohoo!!!  *or at least they are right now as I write this before leaving on a family camping trip. 😉

Also, belated congratulations to Cardinals pitcher Kyle McClellan and his wife Bridget on the birth of their baby girl, Olivia Grace McClellan, born Sunday May 15^th!

Now, in honor of the end of school and good summertime reads, we are excited to be able to give away another great baseball book to one of our loyal Diamond Diaries readers!

I recently met another Cardinal fan on Twitter (@KentStock) and learned he is an author with an amazing true story to tell.  His story.  However, the crazy thing I learned from talking with Kent was that I sort of already knew him.  You see, one cold afternoon this past winter, my family settled in to watch a baseball movie called The Final Season.  As it turns out, the movie’s main character was Kent Stock, played by Sean Astin.

If you love a good baseball book, one of faith, tradition and the journey of a life gifted by the game, then Kent Stock’s tale will capture your attention.

Like many American boys, Stock grew up chasing the dream of playing in the Majors. However his book is much more than just another version of a ballplayer’s progression from little league to college ball and beyond.  It’s his “beyond” where a truly remarkable baseball adventure unfolds.

In Hollywood’s charming production, The Final Season, a legendary small town baseball program faces extinction and a young assistant coach signs up for the momentous task of captaining the team in its swan song season.

Stock’s book, Heading for Home is a fitting tribute to coaches who not only teach, but inspire something special in their players and team.  A refreshingly fun read, it is a reflection on life, love, hard work and taking chances – wrapped up in baseball.

… and being a lifelong Cardinals fan (bonus points), Kent also weaves a bit of Cardinal baseball history into the book.  Brilliant!  😉

Special thanks to Kent Stock for offering the freebies!

You can find out more about the book or movie (and order copies for yourself!) at KentStock.com.

To win your free copies of both the book Heading for Home and the movie The Final Season, give us your name (a valid email is required) and pick a number between 1 and 100.  If your number matches the lucky number chosen by my kiddos, you win!

It really is that easy!

In the odd chance that duplicate guesses are received and win…. oh, we’ll cross that bridge if we get there 😉

Winner will be notified by email and the winning name will be posted below in the comments section by Monday, May 30^th.

Good Luck!!

and Go Cards!!

And the Pujols Biography winners are…..

Drumroll please?

Our three winners of CDD’s first ever giveaway are:
Diane Schultz
Bryan Felker
and Debra Pearlstein

**Congratulations!!**

If you are one of our lucky winners, please send your mailing address to cardsdiamonddiary@gmail.com to claim your book.

*winners have until February 11th at 5pm to claim their copies.  If not claimed, a new drawing will be held from among the original entries.

Big thanks to all of you who took the time to enter. We found all the kissing up fun and creative entries extremely entertaining!  😉

And thank you again to Thomas Nelson Publishers for allowing us here at Cardinal Diamond Diaries the chance to spread some baseball joy with the free copies of their new book, Pujols: More Than The Game.  


Want a copy for yourself?

Check your local bookstore or order online at Amazon.com.