The only card blog you'll ever need; just kidding, take a look at Don Cardwell's Favorite Blogs list and the blogs I follow. I'm just that kind of guy...
Monday, July 22, 2024
6 Months
Friday, July 19, 2024
Cars in Indiana
Gee whiz, this was a while ago by now. About two weeks ago I went to an indy-ball game with the family. Usually when you go to one of these, you can get away with at least a few autographs. Well, this particular time I ended up with two.
One of these autographs is from a 25-year old relief pitcher named Tanner Riley, who has a 17.47 ERA this season. He signed my old raggedy baseball glove that I got when I was eight years old. Yeah, I've had it for a while now.
The other auto that I got was one that I've been waiting for for about two years. I finally found Curtis Terry, who's actively playing for the Lake Country DockHounds.
Terry played part of a season with the Texas Rangers in 2021, which didn't really go all too well. He went 4-for-45 (.089) at the dish in his 13 big-league games. But on the bright side, he did hit two doubles. He was really good in the minors before coming up, slugging well over .500. While playing for the independent league, Curtis has a batting average below .230, but the slug is still there.
It was really nice to get the autograph of a former major leaguer, especially one whom I have the rookie card of. He was really nice when I talked to him briefly (more of just a 'Hi, will you sign this?'), and I'm glad to finally rest knowing I got what I came for.
Y'all have a great weekend, and happy collecting!
Sunday, July 14, 2024
What to Look Forward To
Well, to put it bluntly, the All-Star Break begins tomorrow. The actual All-Star Game is to be played on July 16th, at Globe Life Field, home of the 2023 World Champion Texas Rangers.
While my campaign failed to bear much fruit since Jose Altuve won the starting second base role for the AL All-Stars, Marcus Semien will be starting the game anyway. It appears that Altuve will miss the game while nursing a sore hand.
While both of the All-Star teams look really good this year (with the exceptions of a few positions), there are a few players that I am dissapointed are left out.
Thursday, July 11, 2024
The Rifleman
I haven't posted in a week. I've been out of town, busy with family, and struggling with computer issues; the usual, I guess. Anyway, I threw this draft together a while ago, but never thought to post it. It wasn't that good. But since It's already prepared and I have nothing else to go with, well, here we are.
Here's something cool; I saw The Rifleman a little while back. In case you didn't know, it's a western TV show that aired from 1958-1963. A little but before my time, but MeTV is always playing those older shows in the mornings, so I'll check them out sometime.
Anyway, I found the lead actor really interesting. After doing my research, I figured out that he played briefly in the majors in 1949 and 1951. His name is Chuck Connors, and his nickname was, of course, the Rifleman.
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Fourth of July
Happy Independence Day!
Let's hope that nobody encounters any aliens or accidentally burns their house down with an errant firework.
Ah yes, on this day in 1776 our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and made the USA an independent country. During the baseball games today, the teams wear special hats to commemorate the event.
If you wanna see something cool, quit reading this blog and take a look at the Fourth of July post from Wrigley Wax. If you wanna see me be a wise-guy, well then you can stay here. I'll give you a minute to check out that Wrigley Wax post.
Now then, let's cheer for the Red, White and Blue!
Friday, June 28, 2024
Help the Cause
Starting this Sunday, I believe at 11:00 Central time, voting for the starting positions of the 2024 MLB All-Star game starts.
Why do I care? I mean, I didn't even vote for the all-stars on the initial ballot (though I did fill one out). Well, you see, the starting second base role is going to be vied for by these two gentlemen:
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Thinking out Loud....
I'm going to be headed upstate on Friday to a sibling's baseball tournament with the rest of my family, so that's nice, but I'll have less access to the blog.
Now then, where was I? Oh yes. I was thinking to myself earlier today. While this isn't a particularly peculiar thing for me to do, what I thought of I wanted to share in complex fashion today. Well, here we go. Buckle up, especially if you don't agree with me.
Josh Sborz. He's a relief pitcher on the Rangers. He struck out Ketel Marte looking to end the World Series in 2023. Simple facts. However, a few things came to mind while reliving this moment in my head about four hours ago. While a few of them I would love to go over, I'll go over the more indirect one that came up rather than the fact that the closer didn't close out the win!
Josh Sborz had a 5.50 ERA in 2023 in 52 1/3 innings pitched. This is not good. I have long considered seasons like this among relievers bad. And yes, on the outside, and quite too often on the inside, they are. When your pitcher is just mediocre running on bad all year. I know what it's like. Anyway, in the postseason that magical year, Sborz pitched to an 0.75 ERA in twelve innings. This, obviously, is really good.
Yes, I do like Josh Sborz, though he's not my favorite relief pitcher. More of a Jacob Latz guy myself. Wow, those two sentences sounded odd. I am currently working on filling out my favorite position players of 2024, but that's a post for a different day.
Anyway, Josh Sborz, like many relievers, gets really hot and looks like the best in the game, and then fizzles out and looks like the worst. Then he gets hot again, then he fails again. That'll happen sometimes. A bad outing really bloats the ERA of a reliever. A brilliant example of another reliever who suffers from this is another Josh, Hader.
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Captain's Log
This is useless, frustrating, tiring and boring. My computer seems to be broken and won't let me access my files, so cards isn't happening. I feel so helpless!!!!
I just love how as soon as I take up card-blogging, the computer won't let it happen. Isn't it just so funny?! Well, it may be time to get a new one soon anyway. The poor thing seems to be on its last legs. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully I'm wrong. But I doubt it.
While I would love to go into a big fat rant, Don Cardwell is not the place to do so. I usually do that on Talkin' Baseball, so it'll be a bit out of character. I'm sorry. Computer issues have been happening so often so early in my blogging career that it probably seems like I'm faking it. It's frustrating.
Well, I guess I'll wrap it up. Just wanted to get something out there since I've been itching to post for so long (thinking back to six days ago, it hasn't been that long since my last post). Hope the computer gets working again soon, but if not......................I don't know. We'll figure something out.
I've been really busy these last few days, so I suppose it's not the worst time for the computer to quit on me. I was only planning on posting once a week now until I finish my responsibilities.
Also, a big thanks to Kerry and Matt for all the cards! They are much appreciated.
Thanks for reading, have a great rest of your week, and Happy Collecting!
Friday, June 14, 2024
Revised Post (Flagship Collection Box)
This was the first real post I made on the blog. Looking back about five months later I noticed some mistakes that I made that, if corrected, would've made the post better. But what can I say, it was the first post I made using cards.
If you'd like to read the post, go ahead. If you don't, you probably want to skip all of the italicized portion of the post (which makes up most of it). Alright, without further adieu, here is my first post (besides the intro):
For Christmas, my uncle gave me the 2023 Flagship Collection Box of Topps baseball cards. It is a hefty set, with 10 regular card packs, 3 flagship collection packs, and an oversized base card. Here's some of the cards that I liked from it.
The oversize card I got was Riley Greene; that was pretty cool because I really like him.
The Blue Foil Freddy Furmin is probably my favorite card I got.
Those old-school looking cards are neat too.
Yes, the one on the right is Felix Bautista, not Adley Rutschman.
They call Nolan Arenado the favorite son. I feel bad for his brothers.
And now for all 15 of my flagship cards:
Well, that about wraps it up. Thanks for reading my first post, and I hoped you liked it. If you'd like to read more baseball stuff (not card related), check out talkinprobaseball.blogspot.com or thebaseballpessimist.blogspot.com (you may need to copy and paste the links.)
Thanks for reading!
So, what was wrong with the post? You see the blue foil Freddy Furmin card, the one I said was my favorite? Well, it's a purple foil, not blue. I also neglected to say (and didn't even notice this until about twenty or thirty minutes ago) that it is in fact numbered 648/799. That blue Eugenio Suarez foil is also numbered, 276/999.
The numbering of both cards makes them more special to me; especially the Freddy Furmin, as I have grown to really like him. There are a few other mistakes when it came to the cards (mostly not clarifying what indeed they are, like the Corbin Carroll card being Topps Black Gold, and so on and so forth), and I'm not even gonna go into the writing style. The lighting was also bad as well as the cropping, but hey, we learn from our mistakes.
This may have been a waste of time, but I felt like I needed to clear this up, even though it wouldn't make a big difference and y'all probably wouldn't even have noticed had I not made a big deal out of it. Well, maybe getting the colors wrong would be noticeable...
So there we go. I have cleared up the error of my younger self's ways. Now I can sleep at night. Have a great weekend y'all!
Monday, June 10, 2024
And Just Like That The Cardinals Winn The Game
Man, I love Masyn Winn. He was popular among my family when he came up last year, but didn't perform to standards, batting .172/.230/.238 in 137 PAs. Coming into 2024, Baseball America had him ranked as the #39 overall prospect.
Winn played three seasons and 322 games in the minors, and slashed .272/.351/.437 with 35 homers. He scored 266 runs in that time, his most impressive stat, and also stole 92 bases. In the All-Star futures game of 2022, Winn threw a ball from shortstop to first at an astounding 100.5 MPH! This crushed the MLB record for an infield throw of 97.8 set by Oneil Cruz. Unfortunately, Winn wasn't yet in the majors to officially break the record.
In his big-league debut on August 18th of last season, Winn went 1-for-4. Kind of boring, really. Unlike Vaughn Grissom, who went 2-for-4 with a bomb and a steal. Doesn't really matter though, because Winn is doing way better than Grissom right now. A whole .158 better.
He also has one of the more, how do I put it.... interesting nicknames around. Winn has somehow gained the nickname of Energizer Bunny. I have no idea where this originates, for I could find nothing on the internet about it. It's funny though, whether I get it or not.
And finally, Winn has impressed so far this season as St. Louis' primary shortstop, slashing .306/.355/.435 with 8 steals in 58 games. He's been doing a lot of leading off for the struggling club, and is quickly emerging as one of the Stars of MLB (hopefully not LMB).
Friday, June 7, 2024
Let's Keep This Brief
Well shoot. I kinda forgot about the Friday post until just now. Oh well, let's keep this brief.
Today marks the last post for the 2021 binder. Next I shall move on to 2022, then 2023, and so on and so forth. Enough talk; let's get right down to it.
Note: For the sake of keeping this brief I will not show off my '65 Bryce Harper redux.
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Monday, June 3, 2024
Snow on the Field and a Childish Third Baseman
Sometimes when you're bored and tired, and just can't sleep, you go and look at your baseball cards. It was on one such day when I came across some cards that made the wheels in my head turn (hence the stupid name for the post). After all, I don't typically post with valuable cards or anything, so I've gotta make it interesting somehow, or you lose business. That's just how it works these days.
Anyway, some of these cards indeed were interesting, and worth (at least I hope) showing on the blog. Maybe it's just because I was tired and so my brain wasn't working correctly. After all, it was a long day. I had just finished coaching the championship game of my little brother's team (GGs boys!), and boy, that game was 'lit,' so to speak. In the end, we won 6-5. After this, we went out to eat. Then I tried in vain to crash, so here we are.
It appears that Swanson is staring into the depths of the soul of his baseball bat. Bet it wasn't doing so good for him that day. I went ahead and did my research on this, and Dansby didn't have a good day on 2018 Opening Day, going 0-for-4 with a strikeout.
Friday, May 31, 2024
Remember that one Friday in 2021?
October 29th, 2021 was a Friday. What happened in baseball that day? The Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros 2-0 in game 3 of the World Series. Ian Anderson got the win for the champion Braves, going 5 scoreless and no-hit innings with three walks and four strikeouts. The Astros ended up getting only two hits all game, and game 3 put the Astros up in the series 2-1.
I remember the game well. I was rooting so hard for the Braves to win the series, and they won pretty convincingly to prove they're the real deal. They've been awesome ever since, winning 101 games in '22 and 104 in 2023, but can't beat the Phillies in the postseason (sigh). They are currently lined up to win only 95 games in 2024, due in part to injuries to their starting rotation and Ronald Acuna Jr.
Enough with that (although I could live in Braves land for the duration of a really long post) Now I must continue sifting through the 2021 binder and finish it.
Up to this time, I had forgotten to sprinkle trade bait into the mix. I'll make sure to do that sometime. Just like in fantasy baseball, I love trading.
And this first card features a player from the team the Braves defeated in the 2021 Fall Classic:
-
I was looking through my email drafts when I found the draft of an email that I feel is my duty to share. So, where does it start? ...
-
Alright folks! We've got a contest on our hands! But first, a word from our broadcaster: (Jared Sandler) Alright, what's i...
-
I just finished my first trade-by-mail on February 24th (today). This trade occurred with my friend over at Johnny's Trading Spot . ...