30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Revised an Old Challenge

Four years ago, Daniel over at It's like having my own Card Shop introduced the blogosphere to the Five Minute Post.  He'd set a timer on his phone for five minutes and hit publish when the timer was up.

I knew right away that there would need to be some modifications to the rules if I were to come close to completing this task.

1stFive minutes is not enough.  Fifteen is much more realistic, but still a huge challenge.
2ndScanning, uploading, and arrangement of any images would not be included in the time.
3rd:  The time it takes to research, write, edit, revise, and format any text will be included.

Everyone writes at different paces.  Personally... most of my posts take 30 to 120 minutes from start to finish.  Heck... the introduction alone has taken me close to 20 minutes to write.  Obviously I won't be counting these minutes as part of today's challenge.

Okay... enough chit chat.  Timer set.  Let's write...

Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown sent me a package last week with a few different cards.  One of them I plan to write about this Thanksgiving.  The other five were customs I'll share in a future post.  Which left this insert from the mid 2000's:

2004 Donruss Elite Career Best #CB23 (#'d 0707/1000)

This shiny insert celebrates Giambi becoming the fastest player in Oakland history to reach 100 RBI's in a season.  He accomplished the feat on 8/12/2000.  After a quick peek on Baseball Reference, I discovered that reached that mark in his 115th game of the season.


That got me wondering... how does that compare to this season's RBI leaders?  Aaron Judge was the first person to drive in 100 runs this season.  He accomplished the feat on 8/12/2022... exactly twenty-two years after Giambi did it.  The key difference is it only took him 109 games to do it.

By the way... Pete Alonso was the second player to reach the century mark.  He did it last Friday in his 120th game.

Okay... I'm already at the 11 minute mark... and I'm guessing it'll take me more than 4 minutes to format the text.  So I'll wrap things up here.

Thanks Gavin for the care package.  I'll show off the rest of the goodies in future posts.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!


By the way... I failed to write this post in 15 minutes or less.  But I was close.  The time above included all of this:


It didn't include the introduction (where I wrote the guidelines) or this brief writeup.  Overall... this post took a little under an hour to write.  The good news is the next time I attempt this challenge, I can just copy and paste the explanation to this challenge and the guidelines.

And just a heads up... with my hectic schedule, fifteen minute posts are probably going to be more common than not.

17 comments:

John Sharp said...

It takes me hours to write a post,including the one that I started earlier today.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

I'm way too lazy to put in that kind of effort into the writing. Now scanning is a different story. I spend way too much time on the scanner.

defgav said...

Glad you like! Yeah, I haven't had much luck trying to draft up posts quicker either.

Dennis said...

I'd forgotten all about Daniel's five minute challenge but I remember that now! I take much longer than that because I always feel like I need to add more. You came pretty close to your 15-minute goal at least.

Anyway, I miss the original Donruss brand and its foily numbered inserts that looked like that so I'm glad you had something fun like this to show off AND tie into today's game.

And also Gavin rules. I look forward as always to seeing his work on the customs you teased.

Nick said...

It takes me at least an hour or so to write most of my posts (including scanning & cropping). Which explains why I haven't posted much lately.

Billy Kingsley said...

It's funny, the posts I put little time and effort into tend to get the most interaction, yet the posts I put a lot of research and time into gets almost nothing. Most posts don't take very long to write but I've had a bit of a hard time finding the motivation.

night owl said...

Yeah, when I tried this four years ago, it took me 18 minutes. I don't think it's possible to write a 5-minute post that anyone wants to read.

gcrl said...

I’ve got a post coming tomorrow that didn’t take too long but still wasn’t five minutes. I know I took Daniel’s challenge back then and didn’t beat the timer either.

Nachos Grande said...

With school starting back up, I wouldn't blame you if you went for 30 second posts! Sticking to only 5 minutes is tough for a blog post!

The Lost Collector said...

Definitely had my share of five minute posts. The scanning is the worst part. I don't miss that at all.

RR said...

It takes me too long and that is one of my problems as my hours for going into work are around 9 A.M. and one day 7:30 and today 11. A majority of my posts are done on my two days off. I was writing a few ahead using wordpad so each day I just had to copy and paste but that would be cheating if I timed how long that took. Enjoyed seeing this post and look forward to seeing the other cards.

Matt said...

I could probably whip out one of my Repack Haikus in 5 minutes, but it'd be tough.

Jon said...

With the three blogs now, the time it takes me for every post seems vary quite wildly. The Beavers posts take me the longest though, and it's not even close. I've currently got a couple of drafts on there that I'm stuck on, both of which have taken weeks just to research. As far as quick posts go, well, I've never been able to get the hang of those, so I don't even bother trying anymore.

SumoMenkoMan said...

Good idea and you did well for 17 minutes. Better than I could have done!

The Snorting Bull said...

Five minute post. Hmmm. I might have to try this out. That ADHD hyper-focus can come in handy at times, this might be one of them.

Matt said...

Even my short Big Blue Cardboard posts take me 30 mins to write. Maybe am hour challenge is more suitable

Fuji said...

john sharp - yeah me too. but right now i just don't have the time to write those posts. although the 3 day holiday weekend allowed me to spend an entire afternoon on writing this upcoming week's posts

johnnys trading spot - i'd rather write than scan. scanning is one of my least favorite things about blogging. mainly b/c of my ocd

defgav - thanks for the care package awesome stuff. that sketch is sweet!

dennis - i have the same problem. i keep writing more and more. however when i hit my revision phase, i usually end up deleting about half of the stuff i write, because it's too wordy

nick - your posts are epic (like night owl's). it'd take me a day or two to write the stuff you guys write

billy kingsley - that's interesting. if that was my case, i'd find it very frustrating... and probably just stick to the stuff that gets the most interaction.

night owl - five minutes is about the minimum amount of time it takes me to lay out my thoughts for a "short" post... let alone write it. i'm starting to think 20 minutes is the minimum... and even that is pretty darn challenging

gcrl - unless you're a gifted writer, it's pretty hard to write a post in five minutes. you'd have to be the blogger version of eminem

nachos grande - right now the only posts i'm writing are over the weekend that i'm scheduling for the upcoming week. just not enough time to write during the week. i've even cut back on my reading (which is very sad)

the lost collector - yup. not a fan of scanning.

rr - hmmm. i've never thought about writing my posts ahead and then cutting and pasting. might try that

matt - always wondered how long it takes you to think up one of those haikus. figured it'd be much longer with the research time.
unless all of those facts are already in your brain. if that's the case, that's amazing

jon - the amount of information people get on your beaver blog is equivalent to what you'd get in a major article in a sports magazine, so i understand and appreciate the amount of time you put into those posts.

sumomenkoman - it was rushed for sure. not something i'm proud of, but i've got to find a system that works with both my schedule and my ocd

the snorting bull - may the force be with you. it's pretty challenging

matt - an hour or two is typically sufficient for an average sized post. i just don't have that much time during the week.