A couple new blogs

    I've been trying way too hard to put a post out today. No ideas are coming to mind for something to just throw together really quick, so I'm just going to announce two new blogs. One has to do with baseball cards, and one does not. I think my brain is broken because I've been working on a tactful way to throw these into a post, and just couldn't. So here they are.

    

    My brother just started up a card blog, Tanner Bibee's Lumber Co. He kind of has this obsession with players and facial hair, but he makes things funny, so go ahead and check that out.

    I've been reading through the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and am turning into a LOTR addict. Therefore, I just yesterday started a blog, He's Known as Strider. If you like Lord of the Rings, then maybe you'd like to check it out.

    

    There. I did it. In a few days I'll have a real post out. I've been working on a few for a while now, but need to find a few cards that are lost in one of my boxes. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your week, and happy collecting!

    A-ha! I will throw a card in here. I just realized that Jeff Kent got kicked off the HOF ballot in January, and consequently won't be on the ballot for this year. I'm really bummed about that, because he completely deserves entry into Cooperstown. Come on BBWAA, get your act together.

Brenton Doyle in 200 Words

     Brenton Doyle was born on May 14th, 1998 in Warrenton, Virginia. He attended Kettle Run High School, and won 3A East Region Player of the Year honors as a junior. Doyle went to college at Shepherd University, and played there for three years before being drafted by the Rockies in the fourth round of the 2019 June Amateur Draft. He won the batting title in Rookie Ball in 2019, batting .383 in 51 games. Doyle came back in 2021 after a cancelled 2020 season, and batted .280/.336/.454 in A+. He would play 132 games between AA and AAA the next year, and needed a mere 12 games in 2023 before meriting a call-up. Doyle struggled mightily at the plate his first big-league season, batting just .203/.250/.343 in 126 games. He did win the Gold Glove though, playing stellar defense in center field. Things seemed to come together in 2024 though, when Doyle had a crazy mid-season hot streak. He ended the campaign with a .260/.317/.447 slash line and 30 steals. Doyle also won his second Gold Glove in as many years. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do once 2025 rolls around.

A Thank You To Johnny's Trading Spot

    Got a shorty for today. 

    Yesterday, a couple cards showed up from Johnny's Trading Spot. He very generously sent them to me for telling him some players born on October 31st. 

    Methinks John knows what I like: 2024 Topps, Evan Carter, and shiny cards. Can this day get any better? I submit that it cannot! And yes, the Stars of MLB card reads SMLB on the back (I don't know what the deal with SLMB is). 

    I am happy to add these new additions to my PC (now that I've decided to have one, though it's small). Thanks again John for the sweet cards! You've probably dealt me close to, if not half of the Evan Carter cards I own. 

    Now, I shall leave y'all to your days. Enjoy Sunday and the start of the week, and happy collecting! 

Mission Accomplished

     This Wednesday I went back to the local card shop. I grabbed some things for an upcoming event, and then spent some extra time picking out a few cards for myself. Most of these personal acquisitions came from one of the many quarter boxes at the front of the store. 

    These seven 2023 Topps Chrome Anniversary cards came from said quarter boxes. My favorite in the bunch is probably J.T. Realmuto. They didn't show up great on camera, but I think they look really good in-person. I like the color-scheme of the cards. Had I more time, I probaby would have added a lot more of these cards to the mix, but I'll take what I can get, of course.

2024 Bowman #85 Pete Crow-Armstrong

    PCA cost me a quarter too. I really like what the young rookie brings to the table and think that with a few touch-ups he could be a really good player for a young Cubs offense. I think the 2024 Bowman design is great, but I have heard mixed answers when it comes to that. I also just plain like Bowman.

2024 Bowman Prospects #145 Jackson Merrill

    This was the best card of the day for me (the mission accomplished). This is the first Jackson Merrill card I've gotten, which is surprising considering how much I talk about him on the blog. He's become one of my favorite players (probably my second all-tim; Buster Posey will always be #1, and Evan Carter gets the bronze), and I was very happy to find this one in the quarter boxes. I spent a little bit of time looking for more of his cards, but in vain. The individual cards aren't organized by team or player or anything, so I gave up.

    You can't see the picture very well, but it caught my eye immediately with the tongue-sticking mainly. The autograph is of the guy in the middle, Jackie Moore. Moore was a catcher who played 21 games with the Tigers in 1965. He batted 5-for-53 in his only big-league season. He managed the Oakland A's for 2+ years from 1984-1986, accumulating a record of 163-190 in that time. Moore also coached for multiple teams, including parts of twelve seasons with the Rangers. This picture/autograph was only $5, so even though I didn't know who it was at the time, I grabbed it anyway. And hey, I'm not complaining.

    I've saved this card for last.....don't ask why, it just felt right at the time.

2023 Panini Elite Extra Future Threads Relic #FT-CF

    The final card from the trip cost $2, and is a jersey relic (though not from any specific event or game). Cole Foster played at Auburn from 2021-2023, and was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2023 MLB June Amateur Draft. The card boasts of his bat-to-ball skills and ability to switch-hit. The middle infielder, now 23 years of age, is playing A-ball in the Giants organization. He has a minor-league batting average of .225 in 109 games in Rookie Ball through A+. As for his contact skills, he's struck out 134 times in those 109 games, but I guess that's part of getting used to a higher level. I wish him the best of luck moving forward.

    

    That'll do it in terms of my acquisitions from the last card store trip. As I said, the Jackson Merrill was the icing on the cake for me. I would consider this trip a win. The cards don't need to be worth money to make me happy.

    Thank y'all for reading, please enjoy this Friday and your weekend, and I'll catch y'all later. Happy collecting, and see you next time.

This is Downright Looney

    For Christmas (I believe it was this past one), my brother was kind enough to give me a binder full of baseball cards. I wonder why I didn't post this sooner... Anyway, this binder had a particularly interesting set of cards in it. Let's just say I didn't need to look through every card individually to see which 'good ones' there were. 

    The first page of the binder said it all:

    

    Lovely, isn't it? I looked through the whole binder, and it turns out that he gave me the entire 297-card set (or 594 if you count the back of the card like UD does). These are the only nine cards featuring 'players,' and the rest of the cards are comics. The players have some goofy stat line on the back, my personal favorite being Wile E. Coyote's.

It's no wonder he's a wretched pitcher considering that nothing from Acme works...

    

    I won't bother photographing the comics or anything for this post. Rather, I think we'll go with the other eight players. 

1-16: Bugs Bunny

    Oh great! Now the Dodgers have everybody! I love how they add in the part, 'Nothing about Bugs is average.' But I still kinda wanna know what his H/AB ratio is...

2-17: Daffy Duck

    I think I actually laughed like Elmer Fudd when I saw that he was second in everything to Bugs Bunny. The quote is charming.

3-18: Road Runner

    Uhhhhhh.....nothing much about this one, other then he always wins. Maybe the Yankees could have won the World Series had they kept him around. I find it interesting that they made him bat right and throw left, because in my baseball experience, that's pretty rare.

5-14: Sylvester

    Futility infielder? Seems a little bit harsh, but then again, it's Sylvester.

6-15: Porky Pig

    Porky's dillema seems typical of most broadcasters today. Seriously.

7-10: Tweety

    Again, besides a bunch of cheesy jokes, not a ton to say about this card. He makes Juan Soto look bad though when he acquires three times the walks.

8-11: Yosemite Sam

    Now we have a team I like. But of all characters, why Sam? I love what they did with his earned run total. Looks like Camilo Doval's not alone when it comes to wild pitching in San Francisco...

9-12: Tasmanian Devil

    It took me a while to figure out what was meant by 'Make nice hors d'oeuvres.' Now that I get it, I kind of wish that I still didn't. Earning the reputation as the worst interview takes real talent with all the competition he's been faced with.

    I think an Elmer Fudd card would have been a nice addition to the set, but all in all I really like it. I think they did well on the character bios for the most part, and the artwork is wonderful. Getting the entire set is great too. I've already added it to my TCDB collection, which is slowly gaining more cards and is up to about 370 now. I kind of just add as I post. I'm in no hurry.

    This would make for a happy ending, except for the part where I veer off to talk about something completely unrelated, but worthwhile nonetheless. The Diamond King is hosting another Serial Guessing Contest with 100 lovely cards to be given away to the winner. If you haven't seen it yet, then do it. (just click the link above). Wait, doesn't this make my chances of winning go down?!?!!??!?! Well, I do get a second guess for this, so I think it's way more than fair enough.

    I'm thinking of something Looney Tuney to end with post with, but nothing comes to mind except for throwing anvils in your face, and I don't wanna do that -- it means less people will read my blog! So, since I'm not going to cause any collateral damage, I think there's only one thing left to say...

Ripken's Ruined Season

     I am almost entirely sure that Cal Ripken Jr. is the player whose cards I have the most of. Back when the card store sold quarter cards, I would stalk up on Ripken and some other big names from the '90s. But of all my Cal Ripken cards, this one is my favorite:

    I really like the design of the 1993 Classic cards, and especially like the picture on the front of Ripken's card.

    In 1992 Ripken certainly didn't have his best year at the dish, when he slashed .251/.323/.366 with 14 home runs in his usual 162 games. Though I wouldn't consider this a terrible year, he did win the MVP the year before (34 homers, .323 batting average).

    Now, there is one thing that's a little bit peculiar about this particular card. If you haven't noticed yet, it states that Cal Ripken had a measely four home runs in 1992 instead of the correct 14. Just a slight error, but enough to make me wonder: what would his season have looked like if that were indeed the case?

    If Cal Ripken Jr. had actually hit four homers in '92, he would have had 10 less hits. But since the card has the hit total right, I'll assume that these missing home runs were all counted as singles. If this were indeed the case for the Iron Man, then his slugging percentage in that season would have been .319 instead of .366, less than his batting average of the year before! If we're being particular, then he also would have had less RBI and runs, but both of those are correct on the card, so I'll hold off.

    Therefore, I would indeed say that Ripken would have been genuinely bad at the plate had this typo been reality. Thankfully, it wasn't so, and he ended up not quitting after this season and retiring at 32.

    This was the only error on the card. Everything else is correct, including the quiz questions, though some of them are now incorrect over 30 years later. I guess I can use it as ammunition to throw a pop quiz at some friends.

    So Cal, rest assured that 1992 wasn't as bad as Classic gives you credit for. I bet your manager would have appreciated it had you put up the same stats as in the year before, but he'll take what he can get (Ripken did win the Gold Glove in '92). 

    Now that I've finished, I shall leave y'all to the rest of your weekend. Make sure to enjoy the hour that you get back this week, have a great Sunday, and happy collecting!

It is November First

     And I wait to bring this up until November first because today's Fernando Valenzuela's birthday. 5:00 on his birthday, but better late than never. Valenzuela passed away on October 22nd, so I know it's a bit of a wait, but I wanted to give him a small tribute on his actual birthday.

    The first card I got of El Toro was his 1990 Fleer card. 

    Valenzuela put up impressive numbers in his 17-year career, accumulating 173 wins and an ERA of 3.54. He won the Cy Young Award and the Rookie of the Year in the same season, 1981, when at the age of 20 he pitched to a 2.48 ERA and went 13-7 in the strike-shortened season. He helped the Dodgers win the '81 World Series, defeating the Yankees. Thus Fernandomania was roused, and Valenzuela took off from there.

    In 2003, Valenzuela took a role in the Dodgers Spanish broadcasting booth and was partners with his interpreter. He spent more than 20 years as a broadcaster before stepping away due to health.

    Fernando's number, 34, is retired by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who defeated the Yankees again in the World Series. Dodgers fans and baseball fans in general will miss the  pitcher from Mexico.

    I'm afraid I don't know all that much about Fernando Valenzuela. But I hope I knew enough to give him a good tribute. He deserves one.

You are not requred to start over, but you are required to keep going.

                                                                                        -Fernando Valenzuela