Yardwork: Baseball’s Back!
Uncategorized July 13th. 2007, 1:05pm
After seeing this hilarious post about baseball cards, expect to see a lot more in Yardwork. Why? Because baseball cards are fun. And didn’t we all set our cards on the ping pong table in the basement in a kind of ‘card shop’ as youngsters, selling them to kids in the neighborhood?
Detroit 2, Seattle 3: Whew. Putz showed no ill-effects from struggling in the All-Star game, locking things up in the ninth for the Mariners. Interesting four-game set should tell us just how good Seattle’s starting pitching is. We all know King Felix is a stud … who else will step up?
Mets 3, Reds 2: El Duque stole a base? Reyes doubled and homered and got picked off. And a nation collectively bid adieu to 48-year-old Julio Franco, whom the Mets cut Thursday. We’ll miss you, gramps.
Boston 7, Toronto 4: Ortiz and Manny combined to go 5-for-9 with two doubles, three runs, and five RBI. Geez, how long has Vernon Wells been hitting leadoff?
Yankees 7, Devil Rays 3: Everybody gets a hit but Robinson Cano. What a letdown. A-Rod homered again, meaning he’ll need another million from the Yanks to stick around. You knew all along James Shields was dreaming, and now he has been rudely awaken, and soon enough, his ERA will be 5.00.
Chicago 9, Baltimore 7: Ozzie crapped his pants as the White Sox bullpen permitted five runs in the ninth inning, but Chicago held on anyway. Jermaine Dye has been garbage all season, but now that we’re facing him in fantasy, of course he homers. Bastard.
16 Responses to “Yardwork: Baseball’s Back!”
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July 13th, 2007 at 1:28 PM
Very interesting Seattle/Detroit series that will tell us a lot about the Mariners. The rest of the pitching matchups are Bonderman/Washburn, Rogers/Batista, and Verlander/Weaver. How anyone can possibly take Seattle seriously with that rotation, I’m not sure, but we’ll see.
Also, the 4th annual “Johan Santana pwns the American League in the 2nd Half” show starts tonight against Oakland.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:31 PM
Also: I’m getting big Zach Duke vibes from Jamie Shields.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:44 PM
Can we get King Felix to come up with a string of 3 or 4 decent starts in a row before we anoint him a “stud?”
He’s had one dominating performance and only 5 quality starts in 12 appearances since returning from (yet another) injury in the middle of May.
And yes, the only reason I know any of this is because I made the lamentable decision to draft him this season…
July 13th, 2007 at 2:03 PM
The TV landscape is sooo bad this summer that I invested in a half season’s worth of MLB Extra Innings — amazing! I live in the Philly TV market, and now I will get to watch every single MLB game! And getting to watch my Yankees is worth it!
July 13th, 2007 at 2:47 PM
The fact that the Devil Rays field like Roger Dorn doesn’t help Shields out much either.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:52 PM
Were there uglier baseball cards in the 90s than Donruss? Maybe Fleer. Topps had some down years. But wow, Donruss was horrendous.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:11 PM
Good to see Steve “Bye Bye” Balboni. He still holds the Royals single season HR mark with 36. Did someone forget to tell the Royals there was/is a “steroid era” in MLB. Does any team have a lower mark for their season leader?
July 13th, 2007 at 3:12 PM
Fleer and Donruss seemingly had some kind of inadvertant competition to see who could come up with the ugliest baseball cards. Donruss rolled out what you see above in 1991, only to be topped by Fleer with their all-yellow-all-the-time set shortly afterwards.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:32 PM
AZHawk97, great point. Some teams must have really low season HR leaders. I mean, there was a time when HoJo led the NL in homers with 30-something. Back in the day, if you had two players with 20+ homeruns, you had a power-hitting lineup.
Which leads me to this point: Remember the “juiced ball” theories from a decade ago? People claimed that the balls were wound tight and MLB denied it. It was as huge a story as any in baseball in the 90s. Well, why has no one revisited those stories and investigated why no one brought up the steroids issue then? Why was all the focus on the balls?
July 13th, 2007 at 3:47 PM
Sorry s1rweeze, but my vote for the ugliest cards goes to the 90 Donruss, with the red-orange splatter paint look. Also, they printed around a billion or so of them so they’re worth about a buck for the whole set.
That being said, Fleer was just bad for ages. What about the old Score Select cards??
July 13th, 2007 at 3:58 PM
I need more Eric Plunk sightings! Man, those old cards are genius.
July 13th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Is it just me, or does Eric Plunk look like Dave Grohl and Andrew W.K. had a love child?
July 13th, 2007 at 4:10 PM
Well done on the Roger Dorn reference.
I’m very partial to the 88 Fleer set. Looked cool. Score always sucked.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:10 PM
Funny you say that, EWall, because I went through a bunch of old baseball cards last weekend, and I have about 85 times more 1990 Donruss cards than any other set. Is there a card in that set worth more than 25 cents?
July 13th, 2007 at 5:14 PM
TBL, I smell an “Ugliest Baseball Card Set” competition. Perhaps a 32 set bracket-style tournament to determine “Who’s Now?” Sigh, nevermind.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:22 PM
s1rweeze, I think the reverse negative of Juan Gonzalez’s card and maybe the Albert Belle with “Joey” on it might be worth a dollar. Maybe.