while you're standing in line to vote, here are some cards featuring double play turns

i am not very vocal when it comes to politics.  i am smart enough to know that i am not going to change anybody's mind with my views, no matter how strongly i feel about a certain issue.  i let my vote do my talking, i suppose.

i'll be voting later today, and i'll probably be standing in a long line to do so.  so, in case your polling place also sees a strong turnout and you have some time to kill, here are some mindless baseball cards that show the double play turn at second base.

1995 topps stadium club cal ripken jr cause and effect subset

i suppose the cause is a sliding baserunner (hello john jaha) and the effect is a jumping ripken.  the back of the card notes that ripken holds the record (as of 1995) of 7 seasons leading shortstops in double plays turned.

1995 upper deck sp championship series ozzie smith

another hof dp

1998 upper deck spx craig biggio

and 1998 upper deck spx craig biggio radiance parallel

those are some soon to be hof dp turns.  with wally joyner joining in.

1998 upper deck spx nomar garciaparra

strange that on biggio's card, joyner also comes through in the scan, but on nomar's card, my scanner does not care for gary disarcina

1997 topps stadium club jose vizcaino

with a special appearance by steady eddie murray.  the viz has a bunch of dp cards to enjoy

2011 topps update dj lemahieu

i am guessing he landed hard on aj pierzynski, just to make michael barrett proud.

2012 topps ian desmond gold sparkle parallel

desmond has become a dp card regular

2012 topps cliff pennington

the guy sliding in on pennington's card is just barely visible in the lower right corner, but it's enough to convince me that this is a dp turn

1986 topps ricky adams

oh, the joy of the right foot swipe along the bag while making the relay transfer.  one of the best things about playing shortstop.

2009 topps chrome orlando hudson

o-dog turning the double play while i'm turning out the vote!

double plays for the weekend

it's saturday, and the twins and indians will be playing two today.  that has nothing to do with anything here, other than i was going to do a play on words with ernie banks' famous double header exclamation and title this post "let's turn two".  i chose not to do that, but i will show some new to the blog double play cards that i found in the recesses of my collection or picked up recently from various sources.

1998 ud spx finite nomar garciaparra 

nomah has another double play card in this set that i am tracking down.  i do have his 1999 fleer sports illustrated card, though

here's astros top prospect fletcher thompson on his 1995 ud minors card

fletch was such an astros' top prospect that at the time this card was released, he was no longer in the houston organization - playing independent ball before being signed by the brewers later in the season.  he never did make it to the majors.

1995 upper deck special edition barry larkin

when i think of hall of famers that played during my fandom, larkin does not readily come to mind.  i was surprised when larkin was elected on the third ballot when alan trammell had been on the ballot for a decade without coming close to election.  not to say larkin doesn't deserve it and trammell does - the voters may have got it right - but the disparity between larkin's vote totals and those for trammell does not compute in my mind.

1996 upper deck jose valentin

a brewer turns two against the cubs

1998 donruss jeff blauser

and a cub turns two against the mariners.  sorry, at first glance i thought that was a brewer sliding in, and i was going for a tit for tat thing, but amaral was a mariner.

1998 pacific invincible chuck knoblauch gems of the diamond insert

knobby was supposed to enter the twins hall of fame this year, but his induction was canceled due to some legal troubles for the former rookie of the year.

2013 topps howie kendrick silver slate blue sparkle parallel

i found a few of these parallels on the cheap.  anybody want a jp howell?

1995 upper deck sp vinny castilla

hello bip!

1995 upper deck sp championship series vinny castilla

it just doesn't look right to see castilla playing shortstop, but that's what he did until walt weiss joined the rockies.

1995 upper deck sp championship series ray durham die cut parallel

i like the view from the third base side - this post was getting a bit monotonous.

everything's shinier in texas

how else to explain the nice package of shiny dodger cards i received from the play at the plate dude a while back?

brian sent some cards from 1997 fleer flair showcase, including one with hideo nomo at the bat

one with raul mondesi looking annoyed with his own antics

one with eric karros looking exasperated by the shortcomings of my scanner

and one with mike piazza seeing red on the back

he also sent a mondesi

and a nomo

from the 1997 upper deck ud3 set, and another karros from the 1998 upper deck spx set

more karros from 1999 fleer brilliants

as well as an adrian beltre rookie from the same set

those cards are brilliantly shiny

as are topps gold label cards.  these are from 1999, and we get karros

and beltre again

this particular beltre card, from 2002 donruss originals, is not shiny

nor is this 2013 panini pinnacle clayton kershaw card

but they are appreciated nonetheless.

this matt kemp card, also from 2013 panini pinnacle, is clear and shiny

while this adrian gonzalez museum collection parallel from the same release is kind of a mess when scanned

back to some really shiny stuff, brian also sent a trifecta of purple refractors from 2013 topps chrome - adrian gonzalez

andre ethier (stupid scanner)

and paco rodriguez

thanks brian!

it's like having my own gary sheffield dealer

i recently completed a trade with daniel over at it's like having my own card shop in which he sent me a bunch of late 90's/early 00's dodger cards.  that means a healthy dose of gary sheffield.  take a look:

1998 donruss signature edition

1998 topps gold label

i miss the outfield murals

1998 leaf rookies & stars

2000 pacific vanguard

i've been halfway thinking about doing some sort of post that tries to capture the craziness of pacific in 2000.  this card looks like sheff is flying through space as part of the pinkish lantern corps.

2000 upper deck spx

2000 upper deck mvp

that's a goodly amount of sheffield cards, and i don't think i showed them all.  i've said it before, i was just getting comfortable with sheffield as a dodger when he started to pull his shenanigans.  still, the guy put together one of the best offensive stretches in dodger history.  and, if he ever finds his way into the hall of fame, he might go in as a dodger.  he spent four years in la (eclipsed only by his six years in florida) and got more hits and hit more home runs as a dodger than anywhere else he played.  if that happens, what do the dodgers do?  do they retire his number?  and if so, which number - 5 or 10?  i can't see that happening, but it would be a first if he were to be enshrined in a dodger hat and they didn't retire the number.

they don't have to worry about all that with this next guy - shawn green on his 2000 upper deck mvp card

he didn't make the cut this year for reappearing on the hall of fame ballot, so he's one and done.  here is his 2000 fleer gamers card

and his 2003 fleer ultra gold medallion card

on which he makes like roberto clemente by losing his helmet.  speaking of which, anybody else out there see 'chasing 3000'?  i watched it a couple of weeks ago, and it was cool to see some old footage of clemente.  not so cool to see some recent footage of ray liotta.  shoeless joe is not aging too well.

here's a 1998 ud spx chan ho park card

and a 1999 upper deck black diamond adrian beltre card

just to prove that there were dodger cards from this timeframe that weren't either sheffield or green.  sometimes it seemed like the only players i was seeing in packs were those two and kevin brown, but there were others.  i can't imagine having been an astros fan and only getting cards of the killer b's over and over and over.

thanks daniel!