12 Days of Christmas 2022 Countdown: Day 1 - Top 1 List (the RESULTS of YOUR Votes - Best 2022 Set, Best Blog, Best Card, etc.)!!

Welcome to this year's edition of my 12 Days of Christmas. Today is the final day of the countdown and it's a big day!  Not only is today Christmas Eve but it's also time to name the winners of the 2nd Annual Nachos Grande End-of-Year Awards.

I've spent all 12 Days of my Christmas Countdown making Top X lists where X is the number of days remaining until Christmas.  Since today is Christmas Eve, X is now 1...so let's look at the #1 vote getter for a variety of different categories that my blog readers voted on earlier this month.  However, before I get to the winners of the poll I'd like to invite all my readers to join in my Discord channel that is dedicated to baseball card collecting (join here).  I plan to host a big group break starting in mid-January and all group breaks sign-ups will be posted on Discord prior to anywhere else - so get in to join in the fun.  In addition, the Discord has a Question of the Day (when I remember) as well as plenty of places to chat and show off various cards you've added to your own collection.

Okay, now to the results of the poll!

Best 2022 Topps Set:

2022 Winner:  Topps Clearly Authentic

2021 Winner:  Topps Stadium Club

Here's a surprise right off the bat as far as I'm concerned.  I didn't see much (anything?) about Clearly Authentic on the blogs but the set must have impressed a number of you out there.  I don't own anything from this set myself (though I hope to in the future since Barry Larkin does make an appearance) so I had to nab the above picture from an eBay auction.

Best 2022 Bowman Set:

2022 Winner:  No Bowman Product Deserves an Award

2021 Winner:  Bowman's Best / No Bowman Product Deserves an Award

No love for Bowman which is fair in my book as the product line doesn't appeal to me much at all.  

Best 2022 Panini Set:

2022 Winner:  Donruss Optic

2021 Winner:  Panini Chronicles

Donruss Optic is basically Panini's answer to Topps Chrome.  It's a set with plenty of parallels and lots of shine, hard to go wrong with collectors I guess!

That does it for the main baseball card votes.  I did have a few open ended questions but we didn't any sort of consensus on those.  I definitely need to start the nomination process for the voting earlier so that I can take those nominees and then do a second round of voting (next time, hopefully, though I said that last year as well).

Moving on to blog specific awards...

Favorite Blogs to Read:

Blogs nominated under this category included:

• Cardboard Catastrophes
• Cardboard History
• Cardboard Junkie
• Cards over Coffee
• Chronicles of Fuji
• Collecting Cutch
• CrazieJoe's Card Corner
• Death Stare Cards
• Dime Boxes
• Johnny's Trading Spot
• Junior Junkie
• Nachos Grande
• Night Owl Cards
• Nine Pockets
• Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts
• The Collector
• Too Many Verlanders

As usual, this is a great list of blogs to make sure you have on your daily reading list.  I didn't vote in any of my questions so there are a few other blogs that I'd personally add to this list but overall it's a solid representation of the baseball card blogosphere!

Funniest and/or Most Entertaining Blog:

2022 Winner (tie):  Cardboard Junkie, Cards Over Coffee, Dime Boxes, and Night Owl Cards

A bunch of blogs entered but four came out on top in a dead heat.  

Favorite Under the Radar Blog:

• Cards Over Coffee
• Crocodile Sports Cards
• Mint Condition
• Not Another Baseball Card Blog
• Nothing If Not Random
• The Best Bubble
• The Collector
• Turning Two

I was happy to see some blogs here that I personally didn't know anything about!  I can only hope that being listed here gives each of those blogs a bit more in the way of viewership.

Best Blog of 2022:

Winner:  Night Owl Cards

For the second year running, it's none other than Night Owl Cards!  Congrats to Greg, writer extraordinaire of the always informative Night Owl Cards.  

Winning blog of the year back-to-back is no small feat but Night Owl's basically won just about every "best blog award" that I've seen done for baseball card bloggers in the past decade or so.  With informative posts full of well-researched ideas, it's no surprise to see him win yet another award - and it's definitely deserved!  

Next year, I hope to run a similar "Best of 2023" vote but hopefully I'll remember to start the voting process a bit earlier in the year.  It very well might take someone to remind me though (special shout out here to Matt who reminded me to start this back up this year!

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Thus ends the holiday festivities!  I hope you all enjoyed today's post as well as the rest of the posts in my 12 Days of Christmas Countdown for 2022.  Merry Christmas - and may Santa be good to you all tonight.