So Alcides Escobar was locked down by the Royals today through at least 2015. I’ll just say this: I love this signing.
Archive for March 2012
2012 Topps Spring Training Royals: Alcides Escobar Leave a comment
2012 Topps Spring Training Royals: Salvador Perez Leave a comment
Salvador Perez was injured yesterday and will require surgery. With Manuel Pina already injured that leaves on Brayan Pena on the Royals 40 man roster as a catcher. Both Pina and Perez will not be on the opening day roster now. The Royals will have to break camp with two catchers. Pena is sure to be one but the second catcher could be interesting. The Royals started camp with six catchers: Perez, Pina, Pena, Cody Clark, Max Ramirez and Julio Rodriguez. The last three being non-roster invitees. Max Ramirez has drawn some attention with his offense so far in spring training but I don’t think any of these players are a viable option for the opening day roster. Then, of course, there is always a veteran catcher in the Royals dugout who I believe hasn’t officially retired in Jason Kendall. Stranger things have happened.
The Royals traded for Matt Treanor last year just days before opening day. Look for them to do the same thing again. They could even trade for Treanor again! I think the Dodgers will want the verteran catcher to be on their roster however so I doubt it will be him. I think the Royals “backup” catcher on opening day plays for a different team right now. Manuel Pina would have been a brilliant option if he hadn’t gotten hurt in the first couple days of camp. Ivan Rodriguez is available as a good offensive option but I think the Royals would like to have a more pitcher friendly catcher and a cheaper one. It will be interesting to see what the team does.
I digress… Here is Sal’s spring training card.
2012 Topps Spring Training Royals: Alex Gordon Leave a comment
So Here is the first card from my 2012 Topps Royals spring training set. I chose Alex Gordon because he had a home run today and I had to start somewhere. Not being able to make it to Arizona to see spring training, I get ready for the season with this set. Since I’m not in Arizona I take spring training photos from various sources (they are difficult to come by) to make these cards. Among these are Around The Horn KC, KC Star and of course AP photos. Without these sources these cards wouldn’t be possible so I am very grateful for them.
Stay tuned, many more of these to come…
2012 Royals Spring Training Card Set Leave a comment
So 2012 Spring Training has started and pictures are starting to come in from various sources. Last year I compiled a 55 card set of custom cards of Royals that were in spring training and it got me very excited for the year. I plan to do the same. In fact, I have re-designed 2012 Topps already and made a logo to put on each card commemorating that it is the spring training set (something I didn’t do last year.) I will spend today compiling cards and start posting at least one per day until opening day most likely. It looks like the Royals have about 58 players in camp so I would like to get about a 50 card set this year as well. I will get as many cards as I can. Opening Day is only 25 days away so many days will have 2-3 cards posted hopefully. I don’t know how much of value I have to say about the players but I might write about many of the cards I post.
A word about the logo: Obviously it is based on the 2012 Royals All-Star Game logo, almost the same in fact. I re-created it and have changed the wording from “ALL-STAR GAME” to “SPRING TRAINING” and replaced the MLB logo with a Royals logo. There are a couple other very small differences but they really aren’t worth mentioning. I think the logo looks good and will work well with this set. It’s time to get excited! Baseball season is here!
History of Joakim Soria: 1951 Topps 2 comments
1951 Topps is significant to my History of Joakim Soria project for a couple reasons. First, it is the very first year Topps put out a card… there is no 1950 Topps. They weren’t exactly the as other Topps years either. They had rounded corners and were shorter than the regular 3.5 inch baseball card that would soon become common. It had different baseball results so they could be played like a card game. I chose “Ball” for Joakim Soria because it was one of the first cards I found to use for a template.
Secondly, it is the LAST History of Joakim Soria card. My last post was 2012 Topps and soon after I got the motivation to finish off my complete set! I’m pretty excited about it. I spent about a year and a half (off and on of course) re-creating the Topps cards and have finally finished all 61 years. I think it may be a set like no other. I will continue to post these throughout the season as I still have several left to put up on the site.
