The Padres are also moving on. The offense looked pretty good for them, and they match up against the Dodgers next. I am recording the game-by-logs of Jackson Merrill's first postseason appearance, if you'd like to check it out.
And congrats to the Royals, who dealt the Orioles a swift blow and are going to New York to face the Yankees in the ALDS. Good luck Kansas City; you'll need it.
Lastly, the final game of the Wild Card Series between the Brewers and Mets is today. The rookie Tobias Myers is throwing for Milwaukee against New York's Jose Quintana. Should be a good game.
Now then, down to business. I was looking through my cards, and I found this:
What puzzles me (yes, bad pun intended) is that I don't remember where I got this card from. Reflecting back, I probably happened to get it in one of those 660-card boxes my old card store was selling.
I've never seen this card (we'll just say card) before. I've seen the big 63-piece, 21 part puzzles before, and of the Willie Stargell variety, but this one is the size of a normal baseball card. It seems to be the smaller version of the Donruss Hall of Fame Diamond King Willie Stargell puzzle.
Stargell played 21 seasons in the Majors from 1962-1982. In that time the Hall-of-Fame leftfielder slashed .282/.360/.529 with 2,232 hits and 475 home runs in 2,360 games. He was a 7-time All-Star, and won the MVP award in 1979 (and the World Series MVP that season too).
I suppose it's fitting to mention Stargell as we are in the postseason. He won two World Series and a WS MVP in 1979, when he hit .400 with four doubles and three home runs against the Orioles. Stargell had a career .278/.359/.511 postseason slash line in 36 games.
Anyway, I thought it was a cool find, and the brief research I did on Willie showed me that he was a very hard-working person, but one who had a love for playing the game, which gives him my utmost respect.
'When they start the game, they don't yell, "Work ball." They say "Play ball." '
-Willie Stargell
I like the puzzle pattern on the card. I had never learned about Willie Stargell’s career so this was very cool to learn about his impressive career statline and achievements.
ReplyDeleteI was a fan of the "We are Family" '79 Pirates in the World Series. They were fun to watch. That Series made me a fan of Stargell.
ReplyDeleteThe included those min-puzzles in most of their smaller box sets ("The Rookies", "Traded", etc..)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, I always tossed the Donruss puzzle pieces aside. It wasn't until I was adult trying to relive his childhood that I truly appreciated them. I've collected all of the ones from packs... but still need two (Stargell and Spahn) of these "card" sized ones from the boxed sets. There's also a third type of puzzle produced by Donruss from this era. They are 12 piece puzzles (5" x 7") that were distributed with Super DK sets.
ReplyDelete