Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals. They defied all odds and won the World Series despite not having probably even a top 5 team in the major leagues in my opinion. They got hot and caught all the breaks for a while and did something amazing. David Freese was amazing and took the MVP award. I just hope all the praise for Albert Pujols and his performance takes into consideration that he had hits in just 2 of 7 World Series games. He doesn’t even deserve a mention as World Series MVP. You know who does? The Game 6 rain out. Without it the Cardinals DO NOT win the World Series.
Archive for October 2011
Just Fair 2011: David Freese Custom Card Leave a comment
Its game 7! of the World Series! …and the winner is… Leave a comment
So its game 7 and as much as I want the Texas Rangers to win it just doesn’t look likely. The Cardinals have all the momentum they could want. The Cardinals will send Chris Carpenter to the mound against the Rangers Matt Harrison, advantage Cardinals. The Cardinals won a big extra inning affair last night on a historic walk off home run and oh yeah, they are at home. Things don’t look good for the Texas Rangers right now. The Rangers could win with their lineup on any given day but the odds are really stacked against them.
Custom Card of the Day: Aaron Crow 1984 Donruss Leave a comment
I found this card when I was digging through my stuff today. I forgot I made a lot of these 1984 Donruss cards that were really nice. I wish this picture was cropped out just a little bit more so Crow’s hand didn’t hit the swoosh in the design though. This design would make almost any picture look nice though. One of the greatest sets of all time.
Kansas City Royals placemats parts 7 and 8 Leave a comment
Kansas City Royals placemats; left to right; Hal McRae, Paul Splittorff, Ed Rodriguez, Steve Braun, Darrell Porter, Pete LaCock, George Thorp
Kansas City Royals placemats; left to right; Steve Busby, George Brett, Jerry Terrell, Tom Poquette, Willie Wilson, Larry Gura, Marty Pattin
Kansas City Royals placemats; parts 5 & 6 Leave a comment
Kansas City Royals placemat; left to right; John Wathan, Dennis Leonard, Fred Patek, Amos Otis, UL Washington, Joe Zdeb, Al Hrabosky
So here is the first two placemats of the second and final series released. You can see that these are a little different visually. The big Royals crown is featured instead of simply the script “Royals” being the centerpiece. Once again these are by the same artist John Boyd Martin. This set’s pictures are also noticeably different. 3 of the 7 pictures on each placemat are headshots. This makes them clearly distinguishable from the first series of mats. Once again it was a set of four and the first two are here, I will post the final two tomorrow.
Kansas City Royals placemat; left to right; Rich Gale, Jamie Quirk, Clint Hurdle, Whitey Herzog, Frank White, Al Cowens, Steve Mingori
World Series Pick: Rangers in 6; Ian Kinsler MVP; 2006 Topps Leave a comment
I believe that the wheels have got to fall off for the St. Louis Cardinals. An amazing amount of momentum has carried them to the World Series but they will face a better team that is now experienced. The Cardinals pitching has been fantastic, I don’t believe it will hold up against the bats of the Texas Rangers.
The Texas Rangers lost the World Series in 2010 to the San Francisco Giants because their goal was to make it to the World Series, not to win it. They already achieved their goal in 2010. 2011 is different, the goal is to win the World Series and I believe they will.This is why I’m taking the Rangers in 6.
I am taking Ian Kinsler as my World Series MVP pick as well. Kinsler is a gritty player with power and the ability to drive in runs and score runs. He will bat in the leadoff spot but I think this will only lead to Kinsler and number 2 hitter Elvis Andrus to get great pitches to hit. With Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Adrian Beltre, Nelson Cruz and Mike Napoli up after them; they will get pitches to hit. Andrus will get pitches as well but has far less power and has a good chance of being asked to bunt and move runners over. This will make Kinsler vital to the Rangers World Series win.
Kansas City Royals Placemats Parts 3 and 4 Leave a comment
Kansas City Royals placemats; left to right; Al Cowens, Jim Colborn, Marty Pattin, Steve Mingori, Jerry Terrell, Clint Hurdle, Paul Splittorff
Royals Placemats; left to right; Amos Otis, Dennis Leonard, Tom Poquette, Doug Bird, Willie Wilson, Joe Zdeb, Andy Hassler
Kansas City Royals placemats 2 of 8 Leave a comment
Kansas City Royals placemat: left to right: Steve Busby, UL Washington, Joe LaHoud, Larry Gura, John Wathan, Pete LaCock, George Brett
There are a couple things I failed to mention on my first post. First of all the measurements of these placemats are 17″ x 10 7/8″. They are coated with a nice thick matte laminate, this has really helped the condition of these to last over 30 years. The first mat I posted had 6 players but the other 7, including this one will have 7 players on each. This first set is all action shots, the next set is a little different which I will be posting in a couple days.
Kansas City Royals History: Royals Pizza Hut Placemats 4 comments
So as a huge Kansas City Royals fan and an enormous nerd I collect most Royals memorabilia. This includes the obvious, baseball cards but goes far beyond to magazines, programs, bats, autographs, posters and so on. One of the absolute coolest things I have stumbled across are dinner placemats from the late 1970’s.
These were the golden years of the Royals franchise, yeah there was 1985 but the late 70’s were the golden age. They featured usually 7 Royals players per placemat and they were given away once a week at Pizza Hut restaurants in 1978 and 1979. They had a plain ornate design on the back like you would normally see on a dinner placemat and the Royals players on the other side. Each year featured a set of 4 placemats, making a total of 8 placemats. The pictures of the Royals were drawings. They were done by acclaimed portrait artist John Boyd Martin. Martin has also done all of the Royals hall of fame plaques I believe. The hall of fame plaques are oil paintings, these Royals are more line drawings in full color and they are simply striking. They are extremely good. You can view Martin’s other artwork at his website here.
I have labored through garage sales, auctions and the halls of countless antique malls to put together a collection of these placemats. I am happy to say on October 14th I completed a full set of 8 of them for my brother. Now to work on my own set… but that is another subject. These were released before I was even born, so any information on them has been passed on to me. I have dug into the history of the Royals to seek these out and provide information on them.
The bottom line is that there is barely a sniff of these things on the entire internet. No pictures, no mentions, none available on ebay auctions, they are just damn hard to find. My goal is to rectify this. I am attempting to write a thorough article on them to provide a background on these endlessly cool pieces. I will post a good picture of each of the eight here on my site, the first of which is below. I will detail them providing any information that I can. I strongly encourage anybody with additional information to provide it to me so it will be publicly available.
Here is the first of the eight:
Kansas City Royals placemat: left to right: Frank White, Darrell Porter, Hal McRae, Al Hrabosky, Fred Patek, Whitey Herzog. All drawings by John Boyd Martin.
Custom Card of the Day: 1984 Donruss Tim Collins Leave a comment
Royals rookie Tim Collins was very good for the Kansas City bullpen in his rookie season. He posted a sub 4.00 ERA easily was left handed, two very valuable attributes. He was key part of the Royals sending two very disposable pieces of their team to the Braves in 2010 and showed his worth already. Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth were sent to the Braves and Collins was the most valuable player the Royals got in return.
I will say he hasn’t shown the ability to be a lefty specialist thought. It seemed like he failed in that role and was timid to challenge hitters. He is likely a lock for the bullpen next year and if he can cut down on his walks he could be huge for the Royals in 2012.
A Hair Off Square 