Baseball swap signup reminder (ON topic!)

I must be crazy, but I think I'm going to sign up. Yes, I'll bet on my Cincinnati Reds every night -- Pete Rose and I went to the same high school. He was about 6 years ahead of me. He was a Cincinnati Red by the time I was a senior. He came to most of our high school baseball games back then. My dad played sandlot ball, and he taught me early on how to watch baseball.

I'll have to find a true contender to bet on too! I'll do some research before I actually send in my info. I participated in the Secret Swap Sister event last year. That was fun!

I've been trying to collect 2000 different charms to make a millennium quilt. I've got a few hundred, but I've lost my source. The ladies in the guild stopped after a while. There are three of us still swapping, but we're not exactly building our charm stash at a fast rate!

Gosh, March Madness has only gotten started and I'm looking to the World Series!

I'll be in touch! (At first I thought we were swapping baseball-themed fabric. I'm glad you clarified that!)

Oh, you mean the World Series that will be in St. Louis again this year???????? VBEG

Welcome aboard..

You should see all the Internet Explorer windows I have open trying to get some predictions on the season. Indeed, St. Louis would be one of my picks, but I need my Cincinnati Reds in there!

How many teams do people usually pick? In different leagues AND different divisions?

This is my first time. Honest. . . . even though I do live across the street from Reno. I've only gambled twice - once on a riverboat in Indiana and once at The Nugget here in Sparks. All those penny ante poker games don't count, do they?

And is there a way to anticipate how many squares we'll need to send? How many different varieties of fabric? I assume (I'd didn't say that, did I?) that all the squares we get would be different. I'd like to do some cutting as I go along. I guess you can't answer some of those questions until after the March 31 signup deadline and you know how many people sign up.

Next year I'll be an old hand at this!

Last year I had the Tigers (again this year) and I owed approx 150 squares and received about the same amount. All the squares are different so I have a nice start to a 6" square stash. They make nice postcard sized pieces

How cool!

Remember, if you want the Reds and another team too, that team will have to be an American League team, since the Reds are a NL team.

Definitely a great way to collect charms! I've backed two teams in the swap for 5 years now, and there are only a handful of duplicates in my pile of squares.

About half the swappers pick one team, half pick two (the maximum). The division doesn't matter, just so long as they are different leagues.

The number of people signing up affects it, but so does exactly which games you win and lose. Two years ago my Cubbies finished well under .500 (meaning they lost more than half their games, for those who don't speak baseball), but they won more squares than any other NL team. They won games against teams with lots of backers and lost games against teams with very few backers.

For the first half last year, the Reds received 140 squares and owed 113. Worst NL team (square-wise) was the Pirates, receiving 79 and owing 163. Best was the Padres, receiving 151 and owing 100. Among the AL teams, worst square-wise was the Royals, receiving 75 and owing 161, and best was the White Sox, receiving 152 and owing 75. I can't find the totals for the second half, but there are fewer games, so the amounts will be lower. If you back two teams, you'll have about twice as much to send, and twice as much to receive.

We don't net out the squares - you owe for each loss and get for each win. For example, on Opening Day the Reds start a 3 game series against the my Cubs. Zambrano will win the first game, Lilly will win the second, and then our pitching will completely fall apart and the Reds will win the third game. *grin* That means you'd send two squares to me (and two squares to all the other Cubs backers), and I'd send one square to you (and to all the other Reds backers).

If you owe one particular swapper 8 squares, all 8 need to be different fabrics. But you can send squares of those same 8 fabrics to 20 other swappers, too.

Does that help?

And as a reminder to all who are interested, there is a Yahoo group for the baseball swap. You can find it at

My membership is pending. . . . . I'm ready!!

Very helpful and looooove your sense of humor! I responded to the reminder with my personal info. I'll no doubt have tons of other questions, but I'll save those for the Yahoo group.

Any other Reds fans out there?

Very nice explanation Kathy. Especially the opening series example. I just gave DH a chuckle with your pitching lineup. He wants to know all the won/lost swap statistics. As he said...."after all it's baseball...we need the stats!" heheheh I told him you probably have them stashed away.

You have to have a sense of humor if you back the Cubs! LOL

You won't be lonely on the Yahoo group -- three people have already signed up for the Reds.

Well, I *did* major in statistics. LOL

Really? No wonder you're a baseball fan! It's all about the statistics. Do you play in any fantasy leagues?

I started playing in a free league last year and did pretty good (third out of twenty). I'm in the middle of picking my players for this year -- unfortunately, I haven't seen too many spring training games on TV, so I don't have a feel yet for who is undervalued in the league. I need to pull out my score sheets for the minor league games I went to in the last couple of years to see who's a good prospect.

Howdy!

We're having a pretty good discussion right now, esp for the newbies, as to how to cut fabric, how much, how often, how to pkg and post it, and just lots of fun stuff. I even have pictures showing How To Swap Baseball Squares. but you have to join the baseball swap to get that link, 'cause I'm too lazy to post it here. ;-p

Btw, last year, under special circumstances, I ended up w/ 2 NL teams -- someone [smarter than I] dropped the Col. Rockies mid-season so I offered to pick up another orphan team; boy, was that a hoot: the Rockies sucked! Cleared out some stash, tho', made room for the new stuff. But I'm always picking an orphan team (one no one else wanted), and usually it works out fine. I stay away from the Local Losers (still waiting for my Ranger tickets, having helped pay for the ballpark and all ). This year I signed up early for the Daddies... er...Padres, reasoning that it's cooler in San Diego during baseball season that it is here. Works for me!

And some of our long-time RCTQers are over on the baseball swap. Come join us!

Ragmop/Sandy -- p.s. there's also a pic of a very cute dog in the How To Swap album ;-)

I made the same mistake a few years ago -- sent out about 4x as many squares as I received.

I too am a die-hard Cinci fan -- going back to the days of Veda Pinson and of course the years of the Big Red Machine (Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Davey Concepcion).

A cute story -- we moved from Dayton to central PA in the summer of 1990. My then 8 year old son was (and is to this day) a HUGE Cinci fan. For the life of him, this little guy could not understand why at bedtime he would turn his radio to 700 and he couldn't get the Reds. And of course, on TV all he could get was Pirates and Phillies. This was the year my little son learned to POUR over the sports pages in the newspaper.

So this cute little guy started in his new school Tuesday after Labor day, of course wearing his Cincinnati Reds had and Tshirt. What a teasing this little guy got. He couldn't understand why all of those kids hated Cincinnati.

Well... fortunately... the year was 1990! Cincinnati took The National League championship (by defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4/2). Cincinnati went on then to sweep the Oakland Athletics 4/0). He continued then ... and to this day... to wear his Cinci gear proudly!

Kate in MI