Not content to simply give swag away at the end of the month, I've decided to hold occasional secret contests to give swag away throughout the month as well. To keep things lively, I'm not going to announce what the secret contests are until they are over. Think of them as "pop" contests; the best presents are the ones you never knew were coming!

This installment of the Amazin' Avenue Secret Swag Contest will award a prize to the user who:

Posted the most game thread comments on the recent road trip

The Mets played a lot of long, boring games that carried on into the night, but some of you guys toughed it out in the game threads and actually made some of those wretched games somewhat bearable. The Mets wound up going 3-3 against a couple of pretty tough teams, coming away with victories in games started by Micah Owings, Dan Haren and Brad Penny. The top five contributors to the game threads over that time were:

Rank	AA User	# Comments
1	MAN in the BOX	88
2	Simons	62
3	JoshNY	52
4	DoctorK16	43
5	DbacksSkins	41

Congratulations to MAN in the BOX, who led the way with 88 comments in the six game threads. His prize is an autographed copy of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die by Matthew Silverman. Matt was kind enough to send us some copies to give away, so you guys are the beneficiaries of that generosity.

There's plenty more swag to give away, and no telling when the next secret contest will start or end. Hooray for mystery!

Congratulations to ams258, the winner of the Amazin' Avenue Swag Contest for April! If the scores look higher than expected it's because the monthly scoreboard was *not* up-to-date, even though I kept insisting that it was. I *thought* it was, but only found out afterwards that the scoreboard was inaccurate. However, the scoring has been corrected and now all scoreboards should reflect the correct scores. This includes both the monthly scoreboard as well as the individual game scores. So, you can now check on your scores after each game as well as view the aggregate scores for the current month. You can go back and check scores for previous games, too, and they should all be correct as well.

So, I apologize for the confusion and the erratic scoring to this point. There were a few growing pains, but I think we have hammered out all of the major bugs and, now that most people are familiar with how the whole thing works, the May contest should run much more smoothly.

For those of you who are new to the site or who still don't know what the deal is, all of the information about the contest can be found in the left sidebar under "AA SWAG CONTEST". There you will find a link to the current game, the current month's scoreboard, and the contest rules. If you have any questions about the contest I ask that you read over the rules first. If anything is still unclear after reading them then by all means fire away.

For winning the April contest, ams258 claimed -- among several options -- the 1986 Mets World Series DVD Set, which is a nine-disc collection featuring Game 6 of the NLCS against the Astros and all seven World Series games against the Red Sox. These are the full television broadcasts of the games, not abridged highlights or NFL Films-style recaps. There is also a bonus disc with modern day interviews with many of the participants of that World Series. Definitely a neat set, and a must-own for any Met fan.

Having won a month, ams258 is not eligible to win another monthly contest this season. If the Mets are fortunate enough to make the postseason we will have some sort of playoff contest, so he would be eligible for any prizes there. Also, there's a chance to win a prize every single game for racking up a perfect 100 on that day's contest, so he (or any other monthly winner) could still cash in there. It's not easy to score perfectly; you have to get all five questions right, including nailing the pitcher's game score right on the nose. However, this is a neat way for past winners to keep playing and for folks who missed a few games or joined the monthly contest too late to participate and still win a prize even if they are too far behind to win the monthly contest.

Here are the top ten scores for the month of April:

AA User	April Score
ams258	993
metslaw	913
IanB in MD	895
anonymous	866
Simons	850
kingcritical	816
kendynamo	811
Dissento	735
mmxii	656
sireric	644

The full April scoreboard can be found here. Some of the scores vary slightly because I have manually reconciled duplicate entries for folks who accidentally filled in forms with the same username but different e-mail addresses. The April scoreboard doesn't always reflect that. I can't promise that I will do this every month, so make it a point to fill in the same username and e-mail address every time and you'll have nothing to worry about.

I want to thank everyone who participated for making the first month of the contest a big success. I think we all had a lot of fun, and hopefully it made the games and the game chatters here a little more interesting. Here's to more fun and even more participation this month.

Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow, though some players have already arrived. To kill some time on this hump day, here's another installment of "Who Am I?". Some are harder than others, but hopefully these are a little more challenging than the last round.

It's more fun when you figure them out on your own, so try not to use sites like Baseball-Reference.com to track these guys down.

Who Am I?

• I played for three seasons with the Mets.
• I finished 6th in Rookie of the Year voting (not with the Mets).
• I also played for the Pirates, Orioles, Marlins and Expos in a 14-year MLB career.
• I hit six 17 homeruns (total!) for the Mets playing mostly first base and outfield.

Who Am I?

• I began my career with the Mets and spent parts of five seasons at Shea.
• My park-adjusted career OPS was 8% better than the league.
• My dad played pro ball, primarily with the White Sox.
• I was a career .272/.325/.421 with the Mets.

Who Am I?

• I played just one season with the Mets, in the aughts.
• I was still active in 2007, my eleventh big league season.
• My OPS in that one season with the Mets was 123 points higher than my next best season.
• I was originally a 4th round pick of the Mariners.

Who Am I?

• I played parts of three seasons with the Mets in the nineties.
• I was originally a first round pick (not for the Mets).
• I had my best big league season with the Mets, though I had a few other good ones before coming to New York.
• I had pretty good speed, swiping 37 bases one year (not with the Mets).

Bonus

Nine current Hall of Famers have played for the Mets. I'll have an article later in the week on these guys, but see if you can name them (again, without scouring the archives at B-R).

Idea blatantly stolen from Twinkie Town, but it should make for a fun diversion while we wait for the Twins to shit or get off the pot.

Given the factoids below, name the current or former Met player being implicated.

Who am I?

• I played collegiately at the University of Alabama.
• I set an SEC record and led all NCAA hitters in 1983 with a .525 average.
• I was a career .292/.391/.386 hitter in 701 games with the Mets.
• I walked 99 times more than I struck out as a Met.

Who am I?

• Before coming to the United States I spent 14 years in Japan with the Kintetsu Buffaloes andthe Yakult Swallows, compiling an 88-83 record and a 3.71 ERA
• In my two seasons with the Mets I posted ERA+ marks of 107 and 101.
• I played my final MLB game on 9/11/2002.

Who am I?

• I was a first round pick the same year as Ramon Castro.
• My career OPS is .757.
• I hit .333 in the 2000 World Series.
• I went to college with Jason Varitek.

Who am I?

• Originally a seventh round pick of the Mets, it would be seven years before I collected more than 100 at-bats in a season with the big league club.
• I hit .263/.317/.453 as a 17-year-old in the Gulf Coast League, my first season of pro ball.
• I have a respectable 96 career OPS+.
• My last game was October 1, 2000.

Post your guesses in the comments. Or don't. See if I care.

Congratulations to Simons, who won thanks to his Nostradamus-like guess of the total pitch count. Also, he's totally not related to me.

AA Member	HR Derby Runner-Up	ASG Winning Team	ASG Winning Pitcher	Over/Under 2.5 HR	Jose Reyes SB	ASG MVP		Total Pitches		Score
Answer Sheet	Alex Rios	American League	Josh Beckett	Over	Yes	Ichiro!		292		--
Simons	Alex Rios	National League	Jake Peavy	Over	Yes	Magglio Ordonez		291		4
The Irresistable Force	Prince Fielder	American League	Jonathon Papelbon	Over	Yes	Justin Morneau		299		3
DocMets16	Albert Pujols	American League	C.C. Sabathia	Over	Yes	Alex Rodriguez		300		3
Mikeybags84	Justin Morneau	American League	Francisco Rodriguez	Over	Yes	Vladimir Guerrero		310		3
Josh	Justin Morneau	American League	Dan Haren	Over	Yes	Alex Rodriguez		272		3
BlackOps	Matt Holliday	American League	Justin Verlander	Over	Yes	Vladimir Guerrero		375		3
Max in NJ	Albery Pujols	American League	Jonathon Papelbon	Over	No	Magglio Ordonez		310		2
anonymous	Vladimir Guerrero	American League	Dan Haren	Over	No	Alex Rodriguez		333		2
kingcritical	Prince Fielder	National League	Jake Peavy	Over	Yes	David Wright		264		2
Shomov	Ryan Howard	National League	Jake Peavy	Over	Yes	Barry Bonds		320		2
whynot	Prince Fielder	National League	Cole Hamels	Over	No	Chase Utley		260		2
mrmetfan15	Albert Pujols	National League	Chris Young	Over	Yes	Carlos Beltran		285		2
TheFlushingKings	Ryan Howard	National League	Francisco Cordero	Under	No	Miguel Cabrera		296		0

I know it counts this time, but that doesn't necessarily make the game any more interesting to watch. What does? Gambling. Okay, so we can't really put money on it *cough*, but we can at least make it a little more interesting. Whoever correctly guesses the most of the following questions pertaining to Tuesday's All Star Game will win a copy of the New York Mets Vintage World Series DVD. Here we go:

1. Who will be the runner up in the homerun derby? (i.e. finish second)
2. Which league will win the game?
3. Who will be the winning pitcher?
4. Over/Under: 2.5 homeruns hit by both teams combined.
5. Will Jose Reyes steal a base?
6. Who will be the MVP?

And the tiebreaker: Guess the total number of pitches thrown by both teams combined. Closest, over or under, wins.

Good luck!

The final round of voting has completed for the first ever Amazin' Avenue caption contest. There were a lot of lousy captions contributed, but the best of the worst belonged to future for this gem:

"Yes, Derek Jeter's penis is really that small."

You can see the results of the final vote here. future wins a copy of New York Mets Vintage World Series Films DVD. Yay!

* * * ROUND 2 UPDATE * * *

Here is the virtual voting booth for the first ever Amazin'A venue Caption Contest. Remember, the winner takes home a copy of New York Mets Vintage World Series Films DVD.

Voting will end at 5pm on Monday, so get your votes in.

(This is the second and final round of the voting. You can see the results of the first round here.)

UPDATE [12/9 @ 9:53am]: PollMonkey.com, the supplier of these polls, is having some server problems. Once those are sorted out the current poll as well as the link to the first round poll should be available. Sorry for the confusion.

UPDATE [12/10 @ 12:45am]: PollMonkey.com has their server problems sorted out so the poll should be working now. Thanks for everyone's patience with this. The next time promises to be a much smoother process.

Continue reading this post »

UPDATE: Remember folks, contest expires at 5pm EST today, so get your captions in.

The Winter Meetings are underway in Orlando, Florida, so while we wait for interesting news to roll in, I though it'd be fun to have a caption contest. You know the drill: I'll post a picture and you guys post captions. The best captions will be put to a vote, and the winner will get a copy of New York Mets Vintage World Series Films DVD.

Here's the picture (click to enlarge):

Yes, it's David Wright doing Jebus-knows-what. And here's my sample caption:

"Wooo! That dude is totally coming on to me!"

Contest ends at 5pm on Wednesday. And... go!

(oh, and unlike the postseason caption contest that was a complete bust, I will actually follow through on this one.)

Originally posted on Mon Dec 04, 2006 at 03:13:58 PM EST

* * STICKY * *

Here it is, the first annual Amazin' Avenue Postseason Comment Contest. Here's how it goes. As you may or may not be aware, the Mets will be taking part in playoff baseball for the first time in six seasons. This is a good thing. A good thing for us because we get to watch the Mets play meaningful games, and double plus good for you because you can cash in on the Mets' success simply by taking part in the game chatters here at Amazin' Avenue.

The goal of this contest is to spark increased participation in the open threads here. Not just idle chatter, but meaningful contributions to the discourse. At the end of each game you will have the opportunity to nominate your fellow AA (?!) members for the title of "Best Commenter". At the end of the postseason (hopefully many weeks from now) I will aggregate all of the nominees and you will be allowed to vote for your favorite contributor. Democracy in action, folks. So it's all out there in black and white, here are the rules (these may be amended as needed).

1. Everyone is eligible to be nominated. That means if you've been around since the beginning or if you just signed up today (or tomorrow, etc.), you can still participate and still win.
2. Only those of you who have been members prior to today (10/2/2006) will be allowed to submit nominations. I apologize if this may seem unfair to those of you who will sign up after these rules are posted, but seniority means something here. This should not be a deterrent; you can still be nominated, you will just have to make an impression on an existing user. There will be plenty more contests during the offseason and into next year, so do sign up so you'll be in better position next time.
3. You can't nominate yourself.
4. Any nomination must be seconded in order to be considered. You can't second a nomination of yourself.
5. Once the postseason is over, I will collect all of the nominees and open the vote up to the community. Only users who have been members of AA prior to today (10/2/2006) will be allowed to vote. You can still win if you weren't previously registered, you just won't have a vote. This is to prevent someone from signing up a bunch of times with various e-mail addresses and stuffing the ballot in his favor. Nominees will not be allowed to vote, either (for yourselves or for someone else). Sorry.
6. The nominee with the most votes will win a copy of The New York Mets 1986 World Series Collector's Edition, a nine-disc DVD set that contains Game 7 of the 10986 NLCS along with all seven games of the epic World Series battle between the Mets and the Red Sox, along with a bonus disc of interviews and other goodies.
7. Bonus rule: If we get enough participation (and the Mets last long enough) I may consider giving a set away after each series, not just after the entire postseason. That's up to you guys. If it gets crazy enough in here.

That's it. Good luck everybody.

Originally posted on Mon Oct 02, 2006 at 12:10:29 AM EST.