A Hair Off Square   custom cards

Alright, I have avoided this long enough, it is time to talk about what is wrong with Joakim Soria. I have posted several Joakim Soria cards without really discussing his terrible year to this point. The truly sad thing is that the bullpen for the Royals has far exceeded expectations except for Soria.

Aaron Crow has been so good this year that people are starting to talk about making him the closer. This is a bad idea in my opinion. Crow is the logical “backup” for Soria but I really think he needs to stay in the setup role. If Soria struggles through the entire season, then you can talk about making him the closer in 2012. That being said, that won’t happen. Joakim Soria is not right right now, he just isn’t and hasn’t been all year. I think it is a problem that will go off like a switch someday, hopefully soon.

He will recover from this. Right now he is unreliable though. I don’t know what the Royals should do but I don’t want him to lose his role as closer. If he keeps blowing saves and losing games that the Royals have fought hard to be ahead in what else can you do? I still believe one day he will come out of the bullpen and be the Joakim Soria we all remember and we can concentrate on the Royals real problem; starting pitching.

Now that is done. This card is from the 2001 Topps set and I really think it is a good one. The design itself is not one of my favorites but for some reason this card really works for me. I have a hard time showing gold foil many times but I think I found a good mixture for this 2001 card.  The picture is from early in the season in 2009 when it was really cold and one game actually ended with the Royals closing it out while snow was falling. I believe that is the snow you can see in the background of the picture. It could be rain but if memory serves it is snow. This card added a little extra challenge in re-creating it. Topps did a “50 years” logo and I had to do it instead of the traditional Topps logo. It was much easier to do than the “40 years” logo I recently had to do for the 1991 Topps card I posted.