May

Its been just over two months since I posted.  Holy cow, time can get away from you, right?  Attentions get divided, work responsibilities change, blah, blah, blah.  I have received some great cards in the mail, and they are deserving of thank yous and posts, but I wanted to go a different direction.



As some are aware, Ryan Zimmerman's alma mater Virginia won the College World Series last week.

Mark Reynolds and Eppa Rixey (one of the worst HOF selections) also went to Virginia.  But that wasn't the only college post season happening in May.

Lou Piniella went to the University of Tampa.

So did Tino Martinez.  Tampa won the Division II World Series last month.  It was their 7th title. 

Marion Fricano (great name by the way), went to SUNY Cortland.  Cortland won the Division III World Series last month.

Marvin Benard...

...and Keith Foulke were briefly teammates on the 1997 Giants.  They also both attended Lewis-Clark State up in Idaho.  Lewis Clark won the NAIA World Series.  It was the 17th title for the school.  17!





Junior Colleges play baseball too.

Tim Spooneybarger went to Okaloosa-Walton College, which is now Northwest Florida State College.  That school won the NJCAA Division I title. 

 Louisiana State University at Eunice won the NJCAA Division II title, but literally nobody significant in baseball has come from the school yet.

Ditto for the NJCAA Division III winners, Tyler Junior College.




The California junior colleges participate in their own postseason.

Brent Mayne went to Orange Coast Junior College, which won the Community College League of California title for the sixth time.  




The Northwest schools have their own tournament as well.

Bud Black went to Lower Columbia College, winners of the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges title. 

My Horizontal Hero

Man, its the 28th of the month and I've only posted once this month.  My mind has been elsewhere.  New position at work, new schedule that goes with it, sick kids...blah blah blah

Awhile back I had some horizontal cards lying around.  So naturally I sent them off to Mark over at This Way to the Clubhouse.  I don't know if any of them were needed for his "Horizontal Heroes" frankenset, but I think that's one of the more fascinating frankenset ideas, so I sent them anyway.  

Well, he decided to send some cards back my way.

This is a card I've never seen.  2003 Upper Deck Standing O Troy Glaus.  It looks much better when you look at it straight, instead of slightly crooked like I scanned it.

Parallel Angels?  You're speaking my language.

I'm guessing these might be cards that missed the cut in the frankenset.  But I'll take them.  I still think the Slayer parallels are fantastic!

And they brought along some vertical cousins.

All in all, a pretty darn good PWE.  Thanks Mark.

Maybe its just me

I haven't blogged in awhile.  Man, its been over two weeks.  Sheesh.  I've been spending my time compiling the Regional rounds of past small college World Series.  Consider that my entry into the nerd contest.

I've gotten some fantastic cards in the mail recently, but this post is going to be somewhat of a "The Good, the bad and the Awesome" part 2.

I decided to buy some 2015 Donruss.  "Why would you do that??' you're asking.  I dunno, I kinda like it.  And I quit wasting my money on Heritage dupes (I bought a huge lot of them from justcommons).  And I was hoping to get some of the advertised Tony Gwynn cards (I didn't).  And I was really hoping to get some of the 1981 Donruss cards.

The Good

 

 I got a couple of Angels.  I really hope MLB comes to their senses and grants a second license.  These would look pretty sharp without the airbrushing.  Still doesn't really look as bad as I would have thought though.  I had just bought the Trout base card in the justcommons order.

I don't know if there are just a bunch of prospects in the set and inserts overall, but it sure seems like I got my fair share.

And I did get a pair of the 1981s (teaser).  The team name is centered instead of off to the right, which doesn't bother me.  The donruss logo is way too big, which does bother me.  But these are fantastic.  I can't get enough of these.

The Bad

 

I bought two rack packs.  60 cards total.  Minus the 13 inserts leaves 47 base cards.  These are my 7 dupes.  Maybe its just me.  Seriously, I'm just a dupe magnet I guess.    But I like the design.  There's still a little too much wasted space in the borders, but its not as bad as 2014.

The Awesome

 

That's a thing of beauty right there.

Stop me if you've heard this before

Brad dropped a package on me recently with a huge stack of my 2015 base needs (and he's stubbornly refused to send a want list back). 

While flipping through them, I came across a name I didn't recognize.

So I did what I always do, and I flipped the card over to read the back.

Wow, 13 seasons in the minors.

But he was born in 1990?  So he's been playing since he was 11?  Wait, what?

And what's 28.2 hits?  in 2 ABs?

It didn't take me long to figure out who was born in Albuquerque, NM in September 1990:

Of course when I headed over to the trading card database they already had it noted.  So I'm guessing there's other blogs who have written about this, but I missed them.  Are there any other errors I don't know about?  C'mon Topps, you should be better than this.

The Good, the bad and the Ugl...errr.....Awesome!

I picked up two more rack packs of Heritage today.  What can I say, I love the card stock of Heritage, and I sure as heck ain't buying the Base parallels Opening Day that came out recently (maybe I'll find a group break somewhere).  So I'm up to 5 rack packs of Heritage, or almost 100 cards.  What did I get today?

The Good

 I pulled another relic, the second in 5 packs, and Marichal is pretty cool.  But that's not even what's so good about my two packs today.  I only got 3 inserts (we'll see the 3rd later), which means.... more base cards!  I'm a set builder at heart, so most inserts don't do much for me.  Frankly I'd prefer to find a Stanton fan so this card can be where it belongs.

The Bad

 Here we come to a running theme on this blog.  I wish I wasn't always talking about this, but these 7 cards are all dupes.  I have 82 different cards and 7 dupes.  C'mon Topps.  really?

The Awesome

 The card on the left is just a base card, but it's Mike Trout and the guy who stole two of Trout's MVP awards.  I would never be able to get my hands on the Trout mini unless I lucked into pulling one.  I could certainly never afford to buy one on the secondary market.  I guess this was almont something of a Trout hot pack. 

Finally

I got back from my Spring Training trip last night.  I've been gone for 5 days, so naturally I needed to go to the store to get some things for the coming week. 

I made my way over to the card aisle and was about to be disappointed when I noticed some rack packs of 2015 Heritage laying there.

I finally got some Heritage.  I grabbed three of the packs and headed home. 

There seems to be alot of indifference towards Heritage this year.  Seems everybody is knocking the 1966 design.  But is there really anything wrong with 66, or is it just paling in comparison to the iconic 1965 design?  I tend to like the 1966 design.  Sure, it's a bit basic and not as good as 1965, but I like it. 

I got three Angels in my three packs.  The team card up top, plus Calhoun (who goes into his PC) and Iannetta.  Looks pretty darn close to the originals.  The 1966s are actually a tad sharper actually than the Heritages.

The backs of the Heritages are definately more muted than the originals.

Let's see what else is in the packs.

SPs

Let's be honest, SPs are the worst thing about Heritage.  Just a gimmick.

Inserts

 One thing I do like is that there aren't many inserts in each pack.  I like base cards.

Hits

I guess this is a hit?  I dunno.  It's numbered to 999.  But chroming Heritage seems silly to me.  Its the antithesis of what Heritage is.  Right?

I guess this would be my real hit.

Except for the Angels, I'd trade anything I posted though.  I like base cards.


Speaking of trading....

 that's my dupe stack of 2015 Topps base.  I, of course, only have about 3/4 of the set.   I'm looking for somebody (somebodys?) with a similar stack.  Let's complete each other's sets.

I went to a baseball game and a movie studio broke out

So yesterday we went to HoHoKam Park and saw the Oakland A's beat the Cleveland Indians 3-2.  My buddy is a big A's fan, so he was happy.

Today we got to Tempe Diablo Stadium to watch the Angels play the Cubs.  There was a headline this morning that Will Ferrell was scheduled to go to 5 Cactus League games and attempt to play all 9 positions.  Well, I know of at least 2 of the positions he played.

Ferrell showed up around the top of the third.  He made his way down the right field line and into the dugout.  He popped back out to give some coaching.

In the bottom of third he waited until the Angels took the field then ran out to center field.

He not only took Mike Trout's position, he took his glove.....

...and his hat.

There's the best player in baseball running off the field, replaced by the Anchorman.  He re-entered the game in the next inning.

And yes, there was a ball hit to Ferrell.  A single to center.

He's about to throw it back in here.  Somebody's head is in the way of the shot I tried to take of the actual throw.

But that was his only play.  He ran off the field and many of the fans assumed he was done for the day.  But the camera crews stayed.

And so did Ferrell.  He moved over the Cubs as third base coach.  He held up a number of large signs, some of which read "don't steal", "Remember, these games don't count", "Ignore that last card, play hard", "You're sooooo handsome", and "I'm not just saying that"

The Cubs scored 4 runs with Ferrell in the coach's box, including this homer.

Addison Russell received some extra special attention during an at-bat.

When it got to 2 outs, Ferrell stepped up to the plate.  He looked at strikes one and two, then whiffed on the third pitch.

He then began the top of the 5th at 1st base.  After one out, Mike Olt came out, and in a reversal took the glove from Ferrell.  Well, he tried to.  Ferrell threw it on the grass and stomped off.

Despite two homers from Kris Bryant, the Angels won 10-9.

Yes!

That's me tomorrow.  Well, that's not a picture of me specifically, but you get the idea.  I'll be on a plane tomorrow.

And where am I going?

Spring Training!

We'll be seeing the Angels play on Thursday and Friday, and the A's on Wednesday (my buddy is an A's fan).  And who knows, those are all day games, so we might see some random games at night too.

So this blog doesn't always have a reason for going dark for a week, but this week it actually will have a reason.

Angels from Brad

I got a package the other day from Brad over at the aptly name Brad's Blog.  I had sent off some extra red foil parallels and I guess he wanted to say thanks. (If anybody wants/needs any red foil, let me know and I'll see what I have)

Brad sent me a bunch of Angels, so let's look at some highlights.

Chromy-ness!  Ariel Pena made it to AAA in 2011, then was included as one of the three players sent to Milwaukee for the Zack Greinke rental in 2012.  He still hasn't made the majors. 

Here's some ill-advised contracts.  One from 2007 and one more recent.  I knew the Pujols deal would be a problem for the last 5 years of the contract, but I didn't realize he would break down so quickly.  He's still an above average productive ML hitter.  But he's not $25 million a year anymore.

Who doesn't like Heritage and Gypsy Queen?  Although, without the blogosphere, I'd never have any GQ myself.  I hear this year's Heritage is out now?  1966 isn't as universally well loved as 1965, but I think I might go get myself some.