Gosh Maybe I Can Afford One of These Now

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The Greatest Common Card Produced in the Early 90's (In Defense of Steve Avery)

When you think of the greatest cards ever produced, a few come immediately to mind: 1952 Topps Mantle, T-206 Honus Wagner, pretty much every card made by Topps from 1953-1956. But personally, I think that the greatest common card produced in during the baseball card explosion era of the early 90’s is this:

1993 Upper Deck #472 Team Stars Subset Strike Force

Is it any surprise that it comes from 1993 UD? Personally, I think this card is perfect. The greatest rotation ever on one card. Maddux with his icy glare, Smoltz and Glavine smiling happily. Avery looking happy to just be there. If there’s one thing that might throw someone off about this card it’s the inclusion of Steve Avery. Most would instantly glance at the card, see 3 sure-fire Hall of Fame players and then some other pitcher. Friends, I come to praise Steve Avery and not to destroy him and show that his inclusion on this card is warranted. First lets look at the raw stats:

1990 - 3-11, 5.64 ERA, 6.8 SO/9 in, 1.67 SO/BB

1991 - 18-8, 3.38 ERA, 5.9 SO/9 in, 2.11 SO/BB (6th in Cy Young voting, NLCS MVP)

1992 - 11-11, 3.20 ERA, 5.0 SO/9 in, 1.82 SO/BB

1993 - 18-6, 2.94 ERA, 5.0 SO/9, 2.91 SO/BB (Made All-Star Team)

I could keep listing stats, but that's what he had accomplished up to the point when the card produced except the 1993 stats as the season was just beginning or in progress when 1993 UD came out. Those came after the card came out. Now if you look at the stats of the Big 3, most of these numbers will seem paltry in some respects, but not in others. In 1991, Avery won 3 more games than Maddux and lost 3 less. His ERA was only 0.03 higher than Maddux in 1991 and had more strikeouts per 9 innings. Of course, the comparisons with Maddux pretty much end there as he went on to win the Cy Young Award from 1992-1995. Looking in comparison with Smoltz, in 1991 Avery's ERA was lower by 0.42 and he won 4 more games than Smoltz and lost 5 less. He also recorded 0.1 strikeouts more per 9 innings than Smoltz. In 1993, Avery's best year, he won 3 more games than Smoltz who had a much higher ERA than Avery at 3.62. Pitting Avery against Glavine, in 1991 Glavine won the Cy Young. He only won 2 more games than Avery and lost 11 compared to Avery's 8. Glavine's ERA was significantly lower at 2.55. Comparing Avery's 1993 year to Glavine's, Tommy won 4 more games to lead the Majors with 22 wins but lost the same number. His ERA, 3.20, was higher than Avery. In 1993, the only one of the four to not make the All-Star team was surprisingly Maddux, that year's eventual Cy Young winner.

I know that often comparing the stats I did doesn't work as there are great pitchers stuck on horrible teams or in a difficult division. However, since all of these pitchers were on the same team, all having to pitch to the same lineups and playing with the same offense and defense, it makes the comparison much easier. In looking at Avery's stats in comparison with the other incredible pitchers, I think that it makes perfect sense to include him on this card. He deserves to be there based on his performance and not just because he was the fourth man in an incredible rotation.

Night in the West End

When I decided to move to Greenville, one thing I was excited about was having a minor league baseball team here in town. Sure, there was one when I was in Jacksonville, but getting to the stadium and going to games always seemed like a chore and not like a time to have fun and watch some ball. In Greenville, they in the past few years have revitalized the West End of downtown with shops, the Reedy River Falls park and Fluor Field at the West End. The Greenville Drive, not the best team name but what can you do, is the Single A affliate of the Boston Red Sox. Prior to the Drive being in Greenville, the Braves had their AA affiliate there for years and years. Due to a quibble between the Braves and the City of Greenville over building a new stadium, the Braves up and moved to Pearl, Mississippi a few years ago. Funny thing is that Greenville DID build a new stadium. And when they learned it was going to be linked with the Red Sox, they made it a minor league replica of Fenway Park with the inside dimensions being the same, yet still allowing for the outside architecture to blend in with the existing buildings.

I went to a game between the Drive and the Kannapolis Intimidators, the Single A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. The Intimidators are leading their division of the South Atlantic League right now with an in-division record of 40-18. The Drive tried to make a valiant comeback late in the game, but ended up losing 8-6. The players that really stood out to me were Oscar Tejada for the Drive, who made some great plays at second. He has great range and is lightning quick. However, with Pedroia in Boston he looks to be trade bait or would have to shift to a different position. For Kannapolis, it was reliever Kyle Bellamy. He's not quite a sidearmer, but he gets really, really low in his delivery, had some nasty pitches and ended up getting the save. Overall, it's a really incredible ballpark and a great place to see baseball played. I'll leave you with some pictures that I took at the game.

Mail Day

I got a package from Joe over at The Average Joe yesterday and he filled in some needs from my list. Thanks Joe and I'll hopefully be able to fill in some of your needs and everyone should go over to his site and check if you have anything he needs.

Adam LaRoche is coming home

The Braves entered into the Trade Deadline fray and got fan favorite Adam LaRoche back from the Red Sox in exchange for Casey Kotchman. Adam was kind of in limbo on the Sox with no where really to play and with Victor Martinez coming in, they needed more of a bench player. I think Kotchman will do well in that role and Adam would not have. I never really warmed up to Kotchman and I'll be glad to see Adam back in in a Braves' uni.

[h/t ESPN]

I'M DONE! And a contest!

The last day of me taking the bar was Wednesday. Unfortunately, South Carolina doesn't give us our scores until October. Also, yes I have move from Florida to South Carolina for a myriad of reasons, but it also puts me closer to Atlanta and thus allowing me to attend Braves games. I haven't been to a game in 3 years so I'm looking forward to going to one soon. Also I'm in the process of unpacking everything and I'm having apartment issues so I'll be posting more, but they might be sparse here in the next few weeks.

Also, Ryan over at Trader Crack's is holding a great contest for a Razor Sports Icons cut signature. Head over there to check it out!

Hey Look! An Actual Card Related Post!

Yes yes, I'm actually posting about something card related. While everyone else is caught up in the mania that is 2009 A&G, I am still stuck on 2008 A&G. Hopefully I'll get my hands on some 2009 once things settle down and once I actually have a job that pays me money. I found a blaster at Target today when I went to pick up a few things. I was quite surprised to see a blaster still available, but it is right outside of a ritzy part of the Charleston area so cards might be below the people that normally shop there. Anywho, I ended up getting 6 cards I needed for the set (Needs List will be adjusted accordingly) as well as this

The material feels like it's from a wind breaker or something of that ilk. The box says that this pull is 1:1,000. Hey I'll take it. Pretty neat pull from a blaster. I always love the oddball inserts.

RIP Steve McNair

I never was a huge fan of Steve or anything, but he always seemed like he was a really nice guy and a pretty darn good football player. Such a sad way to go out.

(h/t News Channel 5)

Update on the Day Of Freedom

Boys and girls, while this is a day to recognize the freedoms in the country, my freedom will come in 25 days when I finish taking the bar exam. I'm studying hard and trying to kick as much legal butt as possible. I have bought 3 packs of cards in this time span: One of Topps series 2 a jumbo of OPC and a pack of 09 Goudey. Nothing in those was of note other than a few base set Braves. But I wish you all a happy 4th and look forward to picking every thing back up here in August. Until then I leave you with this which should be watched every July 4:

Finals Are Next Week

And I'm going to watch this before every one of them to get myself ready.

I really swear I'm still here

Guys sorry about the lack of posting in the last few months or so.  I'm graduating law school in the next few weeks as well as moving.  And then I'll be studying for the bar all summer and then moving again.  But I'll try to post a few things here and there, but they won't be too frequent.  Thanks to you all who still visit the blog even though I don't write anything.  Hopefully in August I'll be writing more frequently as things will have slowed down by then.

it's a Love/Hate Relationship

With this weekend being Valentine's, I hope that everyone out there has a great one.  I'm trying to stay away from the self loathing as much as possible.  But, I think what I'm going to do, on the coattails of my last post is all this weekend post things that I love and things that I strongly dislike.  I don't want to use the term hate as it has a lot of bad connotations.  Well, unless I'm talking about certain people.  So I think this is going to be Teams that I love and Teams that I strongly dislike.

Teams I love (or have a decent liking of):

Atlanta Braves

Atlanta Thrashers

Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta Hawks

Jacksonville Jaguars

Furman Paladins

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Florida Gators

Duke Blue Devils

Chattanooga Lookouts

Boston Red Sox

Chicago Cubs

Colorado Avalanche

Team Zissou

Teams I Strongly Dislike:

Georgia Bulldogs

Wofford Terriors

Appalachian State Mountaineers

Citadel Bulldogs

North Carolina Tar Heels

Florida State Seminoles

Ohio State University Buckeyes

Michiagan Wolverines

New York Mets

New York Yankees

Los Angeles Dodgers (Blame this one on the old NL West)

Los Angeles Lakers

Boston Celtics

James Madison University Dukes

Tampa Bay Bucs

Carolina Panthers

Dallas Cowboys

Philadelphia Phillies

Toronto Blue Jays

New Orleans Saints

Detroit Pistons

I have a lot more dislike than love apparently.

Things That I Am Not Particularly Fond Of

Topps Sterling Cards without Autographs

The price point of Topps Triple Threads

People who get excited over pulling a serial numbered card of the player's jersey number

People who do the same thing to a 1/# or to a card that's the last one printed.

Lima Beans

People who don't care about base cards at all

Nickelback

2008 Sweet Spot

Grey or White game-used swatches

The Mets

Having box hits be scrubs

Horrible Collation

Pop Ups

Blog Bat-Around #4

This is the 4th one of these, yet the first one I have participated in.  I'd like to thank Dinged Corners for hosting this one.  The topic is about the value of cards and what we should buy and hold for the future.  First, if you're in the hobby strictly for profit, get out.  I understand if you make a living that way owning a physical card shop or an e-bay store or something of that nature and your derive most of your income from cards.  However, if you are just in it purely for investment and the return you hope you'll get, it's not worth it.  Your ROI (return on investment) is much greater elsewhere.   Secondly, there are the obvious choices: Vintage (1984 or before) cards of already established stars, autographed cards, cut signature cards, some game-used cards, prospects that pan out, etc.  Here's the problem I see with these cards.  Everyone will be or already is collecting them.  If you look on YouTube, as painful as it might be to watch some of the box breaks, most everyone just goes after the hits and chunks the base cards to the side.  While a decent amount of bloggers are set collectors, they (we) represent a small fraction of the whole of the collecting community most of which is made up of people going after the hits.  You've got to figure out what people aren't collecting right now to determine what will be more valuable in the future.  That's why I think the things to go after are complete sets of base cards that come from products that are driven by hits.  In baseball, it'd be Sweet Spot, Prime Cuts, Topps Finest, Bowman Sterling, UD Ultimate, UD Premiere and other sets along that line.  

I know that many of the high end to mid range sets often are all serial numbered or have tons of short prints.  I think that's another reason why these sets are going to be worth having.  They're in limited quantity and they're hard to put together.  They're not like Heritage or Allen and Ginter which are set collector favorites.  The price point as well as the difficulty of set completion drives set builders away from these products.  Not to mention that these products are not focused at set builder as I previously stated.  They are focused on the collectors looking for the hits.  Imagine if you could get an entire base set of Topps Sterling.  Or National Treasures football.  Even something like 2007 Sweet Spot Classic.  All are limited in their production and would be hard to complete, but having a full set of those cards would be very rare.  And worth holding on to.  It might be worthwhile to become a set builder for the future even if you're looking for the hits right now.

Men's Fitness ranked Dallas-Fort Worth the 14th Fattest City in America

Get ready to move up the list because Tubby Jones is coming to your area!

reminds me of a candy bar....Chunky.

Man Walks Into A Restaurant

Waitress:  Good evening sir, what can I get you.

Man: I'd like a Filet Mignon please

Waitress: Very good sir.  How would you like that cooked?

Man: Rare.

Waitress: Would you like that 

super rare

or would you like that ultra rare?

Man:  I.....I don't know.  What's the difference?

Waitress:  To tell you the truth, I don't even know.

Man:  I'll take super rare.  It looks less likely to make me choke.

WOKKA WOKKA!

I've opened 3 retail packs and one blaster of Topps Mayo Football

For a total of 11 retail packs.  Out of those packs I've pulled:

LaDainian Tomlinson Game-Worn Jersey

Chris Cooley Princeton Back Mini

And now for the biggie.

Wait for it.......

Wait for it......

Andre Caldwell Black Card Back Printing Plate Mini 1/1

I think I'm going to keep buying retail.  Or quit while I'm ahead.  I haven't decided.

Mail Day!!

So I worked out a trade with Jamie, who just got back into collecting recently.  He also proved that yes, people other than the people who have blogs read this thing.  He helped me take out a big chunk of my '08 Heritage set, especially the Black Backs.  So I have adjusted the Needs List accordingly.  Here's what I got:

3 Base

17 Black Backs

2 News Flashbacks

1 Baseball Flashback

3 New Age Performers

1 Then and Now

2 Minis

1 Clint Sammons 2008 Topps Triple Threads #/50

I had no idea about the last card.  He said he was sending me something for a Braves fan, but I never thought it'd be that good.  Thanks Jamie and I'll get your cards out to you ASAP.

I Want, nay, NEED this Card

I'm a big Tech fan and I'm glad to see them represented in the 20th Anniversary set.

(h/t Night Owl Cards)

Costas Joining MLB Network Exclusively

LINK

Bob is leaving HBO and joining MLB Network exclusively on cable.  It doesn't affect his NBC relations.  I've watched only a little MLB Network so far, but I'm sure that will ramp up in the near future. I've always been a huge fan of Costas calling baseball games over anything else he does, even the Olympics.  And to me, like Ken Burns, he is always going to be linked with Baseball.  Thanks to MLB and their copyright restrictions, I can't find Costas' call of The Sandberg Game, but I'm sure you all remember it, right?