Twinsfest!!!!!

Going to Twinsfest the next two days! I'll Tweet about it from @CrawfordCards. Should be a cool event.

Even though I'm a Rays fan, I'm glad I can get to someone's fanfest. As they say, love the one you're with! Though, to be frank, I get the feeling that works better in some areas (like baseball) than others (like one's marriage).

Have a good one everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Who's Wicked?: Twins Winter Caravan

The high today in my part of the country is 1 degree. For most of the day it'll feel like -15 or so. Either way, that wasn't going to stop me from hitting up this year's Twins Winter Caravan.

I had unfinished business from a few years back when, announcing I was going last minute, Wicked Ortega desperately tried to hook me up with a ROMLB to get a Tony O signature for his collection. I'm a big Tony O fan, too, (Tony O for the Hall!) so I was determined to see this one through. I grabbed a friend to take along, offering to pay for his lunch as bait, and we went through the snow and cold out to the Wild Hog. At first they said the players would hand out cards (bummer), but they gladly signed anything and everything.

So, Wicked, here ya go:

As for me, in addition to picking up signed cards of Glen Perkins and Scott Diamond, I treated myself right.

#6, Tony O!

Have a good one everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Update: from the Twitter account of Scott Diamond:

Yup. Right after I left Tony O lost a tooth on a chicken wing at one of the finest establishments in town. Does one laugh or cry?

Stan the Man and the Left Arm of God: Cards from February

My local (located 75 miles away) has 2 card shows per year, one the weekend of the SuperBowl and another in July. I'm never here for the July show, so I try to hit the SuperBowl show. I scanned these cards on Friday with the intention of using them in a later post, but with Stan the Man's passing I'll throw them out there. Everyone around here knows I'm a sucker for off-condition vintage, and these are OFF condition, but for the price why not.

Stan was $5. Stan is universally loved for being a great guy, the leader of the Cards. Heck, even Pujols declined to be labeled "El hombre" in deference to "The Man." On this card in particular I love the contrast between the inset photo and the main portrait. The inset is the "lights/camera/action" Stan we all know and love, while in the main shot he's half-smiling, almost growling. It's his last baseball card, and you get the feeling the shot has a wry, Mid-Western, tongue in cheek, "Jesus, not this again?!" feel to it. Remember, he's been cards since 1948 at this point and wasn't the 20-year old kid who hit Saint Louis in 1941.

Then we have this guy:

Also pretty beat, though for the $7 I couldn't complain about a 1966 Sandy Koufax. I traded away my only Koufax to acquire a 1974 starter set and had been looking for a new one ever since. In connecting these cards, the funny thing is "The Man" absolutely owned "The Left Arm of God" to the tune of a .341/.432/.553 slash line over 44 ABs. For trivia's sake, two other notable slashes: Hank Aaron (.362/.431/.647 in 130 ABs) and the Quad Cities' own Gene Oliver (.392/.426/.647 in 54 ABs). 

Now, by the transitive property, considering that Koufax is one of the greatest of all time, not only does Aaron's sustained excellence stand out in almost three times as many ABs versus Koufax, but you gain a deeper appreciation of the fairly anonymous Oliver given that he has the makings of a HOF case based on his comparative dominance of Koufax. Strange world, isn't it?

Anyway,  just two random vintage pickups on a Monday. RIP "The Man" and Earl Weaver. 

Good night Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Bendable Bender: 1911 T201 Mecca Double Folder

I recently was chatting with the proprietor of Nomo's Sushi Platter about the 1961 Golden Press set. He's recently picked up the Hank Greenberg from the set, and I own the Charles Bender.  I was going to post about the Bender, but came across ANOTHER Bender that's one of my all-time favorites, the 1911 T201 Double Folder.

The old-school feel of the portrait is spectacular. I appreciate the recent iterations of Topps 206 have tried to replicate this, but they come up far short compared to the real thing. You don't need Clayton Kershaw in front of turn of the century insane asylums. A vintage feel is all about the the baroque feel of Bender's posture here, the kind of self-contradictory motions described by Eugenio d'Ors that you'd expect to see exhibited by the saints of a European cathedral. Bender's torso is in full follow-through, twisting above his lower body that betrays almost no movement save for a left foot that seems to shift away from the throw. You cannot throw a baseball as represented here, period. The posture is impossible the way the ballpark is improbably spacious, the way the wine-bottle-shaped shadow at his feet is simply not something that could ever exist. 

Then there's the back. I love how they include Bender's batting stats along with his pitching stats. When was the last time you saw that? At any rate, by all accounts he was a decent hitter. 

What really makes the card cool, though is this:

You flip the card over and you get Rube Oldring, a man who was not only Bender's teammate but also his roommate on the road. As with Bender you get the same feel here. Oldring is somewhere lost in space, in a cow field perhaps, and unnaturally bent over like he's the hunchback of Notre Dame. He's supposed to fit on the card, sure, but he appears to be a human trying to enter the home of a hobbit, not someone preparing to field ground balls.

Anyway, a little vintage on a Friday. Golden Press is coming, just not yet. Have a good one everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Lion in Winter: Fenway Park

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." ---Rogers Hornsby

It's a strange happenstance, but in the past year I've taken 3 ballpark tours at MLB parks (Camden Yards, AT&T Park, Fenway) and attended games at 2 parks (Camden Yard, Target Field).  It's an odd confluence of the academic conference circuit and the MLB schedule, I guess, that has lead to to such extremes as touring ballparks in the middle of winter. And yet that, too, can be awesome.

The 2013 MLA (don't ask) was in Boston. I was in town for interviews and had a touch of the flu, but once I found out Fenway tours ran 7 days a week from 11 AM to 6 PM, I was all in.

As much as you want to call bs on the mythology of places like Fenway, they really are different. I took a 6 PM tour with maybe 10 other people. Other than the tour guides we had the place to ourselves.

It's not just the knowledge that you are slumming around the same grounds as Ruth, Williams, Pesky, Green, or Papelbon (hate that guy). In January you see it as few others get to.

They literally try to conserve heat within the confines up under the bleachers, and you come out through heavy plastic flaps to this, the white field and the money seats dotted with snow. The park itself is ancient and littered with ice throughout. It feels locked down for winter and your being there makes you feel like you snuck into the place, like you are spying on some great event in hibernation.

The visitor's locker room is cleaned out, waiting for spring. Everything is in order, as if spring might be tomorrow...or the next day...or the next. Contrary to what people say about old ballparks, it isn't the ghosts of the past but those of the future that loom over the proceedings, not the greatness that was but the greatness that could be.

The tour nears its end with a trip in the cold and the wind to the top of the Green Monster. It's icy up there, so people are given the choice of going or not going. My night, everyone went. 

And no trip to Fenway would be complete, of course, without an homage to the man, Pumpsie Green.

Have a good one everybody!

1993 Topps Needs

As of 7/16/13

Down to 1!!!

529 Chipper Jones 

Player Collections

Carl Crawford

Jonny Gomes

Jeff Niemann

Delmon Young

David Price

Fred McGriff