Rookie tell me where you are now - Greg Maddux

Again my scanner has something against great rookies so it cut Greg Maddux name from the image, but he's one of those that one can recognize without any problem.

He played for a group of teams:

    Chicago Cubs (1986–1992)
    Atlanta Braves (1993–2003)
    Chicago Cubs (2004–2006)
    Los Angeles Dodgers (2006)
    San Diego Padres (2007–2008)
    Los Angeles Dodgers (2008)

Just to say that he was a rookie playing for Cubs when I was born.

Maddux matched with our previous Rookie Randy Johnson with a great career, braking quite a few records and getting even more awards:

    8× All-Star (1988, 1992, 1994–1998, 2000)
    World Series champion (1995)
    4× NL Cy Young Award (1992–1995)
    18× Gold Glove Award (1990–2002, 2004–2008)
    3× MLB wins leader (1992, 1994, 1995)
    4× MLB ERA leader (1993–1995, 1998)
    Chicago Cubs No. 31 retired
    Atlanta Braves No. 31 retired
    Braves Hall of Fame

There is no doubt there why e also got inducted to the Hall of Fame by 2014.

I've give some thought about which one, Randy or Maddux, would I choose back then if I could get one in my team. I think for a minimum difference I'd chose Maddux.

Rookie tell me where you are now - Randy Johnson

I know my scanner cut it but it is no difficult task to identify the AL Cy Young winner.

Lets make some room for Mr. Randy Johnson!

He got himself around a lot of teams:

    Montreal Expos (1988–1989)
    Seattle Mariners (1989–1998)
    Houston Astros (1998)
    Arizona Diamondbacks (1999–2004)
    New York Yankees (2005–2006)
    Arizona Diamondbacks (2007–2008)
    San Francisco Giants (2009)

Got to be a Yankee and also played for other two teams I like, D-Backs and Astros. Just missed Reds and he would be a star player for me.

He's one of those examples that got it right and got even more awards after RotY:

    10× All-Star (1990, 1993–1995, 1997, 1999–2002, 2004)
    World Series champion (2001)
    5× Cy Young Award (1995, 1999–2002)
    World Series MVP (2001)
    Triple Crown (2002)
    MLB wins leader (2002)
    4× ERA leader (1995, 1999, 2001, 2002)
    9× Strikeout leader (1992–1995, 1999–2002, 2004)
    Pitched a perfect game on May 18, 2004
    Pitched a no-hitter on June 2, 1990
    Arizona Diamondbacks No. 51 retired
    Seattle Mariners Hall of Fame


That's insane!

That's why after being RotY he got himself into MLB Hall of Fame.

Rookie tell me where you are now - Hideo Nomo

Since I started reading baseball cards blogs and knowing a bit of the collectors' world I've known about Nomo's myth.

So, there is no surprise about him getting RotY award.

How did he after the award?

Nomo played for:

    Kintetsu Buffaloes (1990–1994)
    Los Angeles Dodgers (1995–1998)
    New York Mets (1998)
    Milwaukee Brewers (1999)
    Detroit Tigers (2000)
    Boston Red Sox (2001)
    Los Angeles Dodgers (2002–2004)
    Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2005)
    Kansas City Royals (2008)

Quite a lot of teams and almost 20 years playing baseball.

And with a few awards:

NPB

    Pacific League MVP (1990)
    Eiji Sawamura Award (1990)
    Triple Crown (1990)
    Pacific League Rookie of the Year (1990)

MLB

    All-Star (1995)
    NL Rookie of the Year (1995)
    2× Strikeout leader (1995, 2001)
    Threw two career no-hitters

It seems Nomo's first decade playing in MLB were the best for him. But it was enough to get him in the Japanese Hall of Fame.

Rookie tell me where you are now - Marty Cordova

Marty Cordova got the '95 AL award for RotY. Lets see if it paid off.

Cordova played for

    Minnesota Twins (1995–1999)
    Toronto Blue Jays (2000)
    Cleveland Indians (2001)
    Baltimore Orioles (2002–2003)

Well, not the longest carrier possible...

It says he got lots of injuries. It's a shame, specially because this was the only award Cordova got.

Two Green make a Blue

I'm seeing double here.

Can you sign me the ball Sir!?

Topps has the monopoly of the official cards but still play safe and don't have out of the box photos in their cards. At least in the flagship set. It's a shame

So now can you sign me this ball Sir!?

Let the Pitcher hit

It's always a plus having a Pitcher card with a photo of the P hitting.

Super Arm

Elastic man. That's what I think all Pitchers are.

Look at that arm!

All I see is blue

I think everyone likes Double-Plays and it's always cool to see them on a card.

But I'm a bit confused here, because if it wasn't for the shirt numbers one other colour and the stripped paints, I'd say they were all from the same team.

How can this be!?

R rated post again

I cannot get players who play chewing gums and also biting their own tongues.

One can make you choke the other can make a mess of your shirt with all that blood.

But you know what they say...Tongue is love!

Lets make this a PG-13 post

Sooooo Dear Walbeck, do you know you have something going on between your legs!?

And if the front photo was not enough fun, the back one has Walbeck destroying his bat when hitting.

You CRASH the game

Back in the days Upper Deck could play fair with Topps, there was this great set they had called Collector's Choice. And it is probably one of my favourite sets, incarnated in a few years.

One of those years were 1996 CC set which had some insert cards that served other propose besides collecting cards and seeing players stats. IT also served as a game. A lucky one...or not.

The game You CRASH The Game consisted in collecting our favourite players and seeing if those players would hit a hume run during the dates showing on the card front.

If one got lucky, one had to send the card to UD (and some money of course) and they would send back a super-hiper-mega-special card!

So I decided to spend a couple of minutes looking through Baseball Reference and see, if I was playing the game back then I'd get some reward.

Starting is Eric Karros and the series during 1996 August 13-15.

Karros has a total of 284 HRs in his career and in 1996 was one of the years he got most HRs, 34, along the year 1999.

Soooooo checking the date...BINGO!

Karros got a HR on August 13 in a game against Cardinals!

Next in queue is Ken Caminiti and a series in August 16-18.

Ken have a total 239 HRs for his all career.

Lets see if I'm lucky again...

...and TRIPLE BINGO!

Ken got 1 HR on August 16 and 2 HRs in August 18! All against NYM

Coming next is Matt Williams for August 19-21.

Williams has a grand total of 378 HRs in his career. Quite a few...

But checking BR I have to sadly say that I get nothing here, because Williams last HR in 1996 was in 1996-07-27.

Finally I have Jay Buhner for a series in July 25-28.

And Jay is the second in this list of the cards I have in HRs, getting a total of 310 homers throughout his career.

But even if 1996 was a great year with lots of HRs, Jay didn't homer between July 23 and 30. So I also get nothing here...


Do you reckon if I send the first two cards to UD they might be my Santa this year and get me something!?

Besides that The cards look nice!

When you look form above you see so many people

This is one of my favourite card of a pitcher.

And in one of my favourite sets.

You sometimes have such a combo card that you like everything about it.

I love UD Collector's Choice set and especially the silver border parallels. Way much more than the golden border ones.

The player signature looks awesome and like they truly had signed it with a silver colour pen.

But forgetting all this great stuff about CC set we have what they are quite well known: the gorgeous photography.

I think this is is the only card I have in my collection with a photo taken floating over the pitcher.

That's quite the perspective!

I think this might have been taken while John Smiley was warming-up on the bullpen. It's the better place to take a picture like this. I cannot imagine a flying photographer flying over mound during a ball game.

It would be fun none the less!

I just know I can 'lose' a great deal of time just looking at this card...

And for the greatness of a single main character card we move on to a crowded card.

The perspective the photographer give in the photo makes us feel right in the middle of the action!

You see the batter swinging (probably striking for what it seems...).
You see the catcher with the glove arm stretched to get the ball.
You see the home-plate umpire ready to shout 'strike!' or 'ball!'.

If the angle was a bit more open and more from behind and we could get to see the pitcher. And I've seen cards like that but I think this card is all about the feelings going on at the home-plate.

Great great!

Now I'm thinking of making a wallpaper using UD Collector's Choice cards theme.

It's a matter of language

Here mister Joe Vitiello last name is quite similar to one portuguese word: 'vitelo'.

And what does it mean?

Calf.

So here our friend Joe is always mister Calf for me.

The pee bating style

I know there is the kicking technique.

But I always think they are anxious to run to the WC.

The Red Shoe Unknown Player

Jose Offerman has someone coming his way.

The Red Shoe Unknown Player.

I think Offerman has the out but I always imagine that the Red Shoe Unknown Player will slap the ball from Offerman.

'Ohhhhhh No! Me boy! You'll not catch the ball!"

Rip the logo

I don't know if Score was not allowed to issue cards with teams logos or not but this card seems a good example of what Panini would do nowadays.

Showing off half of the Boston B is not showing the Boston B.

But Score did it with a fashionable rip of the border.

That or it seems like those cards I've seen in many blogs from the time the owners were kids and didn't like some players team and simply rip off the teams name or logo.

So everytime I look at this card I touch the upper left corner to make sure it 's not ripped for sure.

One Thousand and One Nights

I just don't know if Antonio Osuna is playing a role in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves or Aladdin.

A different side of a card

There are cards that makes me think I'm in a presence of an error card.

Why?

Because the player on the back doesn't seem to be the same as the one in the front.

There are really some cards in what it really happens and even those cards that states a name and the photo is from other player.

Here what happens is that it is the true and real Brad Radke in both sides of the card but he looks sooooooooooooooooooooooooo bloody different in both sides that I always think Radke should forbide any photo of him in perspective...