This is the second card in my Royals 1984 Donruss series. I plan to get the whole team captured in this set in their powder blue uniforms. This is a great picture of Butler, I think it captures the full body in action shots from the original set.
Archive for the ‘Custom Card of the Day’ Category
Custom Card of the Day: Billy Butler 1984 Donruss 2 comments
Custom Card of the Day: 1993 Topps Mike Stanton and Carlos Gonzalez 3 comments
Here are a couple guys that can flat out rake the ball. They each belong to expansion franchises that began their legacy in the major leagues in 1993, the year of Topps I have depicted them in. I remember seeing the very first cards of the new Marlins and Rockies back in 1993(actually 1992 Upper Deck had a couple.)
I made the Carlos Gonzalez and realized I hadn’t had a card of Mike Stanton yet on my site. I felt it would be highly appropriate to do these two great young talents together in the 1993 Topps design.
Custom Card of the Day: 1984 Donruss Nate Adcock Leave a comment
Nate Adcock stepped into a bad situation and made a great start for the Royals today. Because of the injuries to Kyle Davies and Bruce Chen and the unfortunate outing by Vin Mazzaro, the Royals are left very short-handed in their starting rotation. So enter long man Nate Adcock.
Nate Adcock is a rule 5 draft pick in his first year with the Royals. He has been in a few games so far this year and has far exceeded expectations for a throw away of sorts from the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. His longest outing before tonight was 3 1/3 innings. This was his first start of the season. He stretched himself into a great 5 shutout innings against a very good St. Louis Cardinals team. He didn’t get the win, nor the loss. The Royals would go on to lose 3-0 to the Cardinals.
Adcock’s great start will likely be forgotten by most people which is a shame. He has been a very pleasant surprise for the Royals and I think he will continue to be a great addition to the bullpen/rotation.
He donned the fabulous powder blue uniform shown in this 1984 Donruss custom card today. Look for more Royals custom cards in powder blue from the 1984 Donruss set on this site soon.
Custom Card of the Day: 1985 Donruss Raul Ibanez Leave a comment
I like Raul Ibanez, I always have. He used to be a Kansas City Royal. That seems like an eternity ago but he was. If I recall correctly he really wanted to stay in Kansas City when we sent him toward Seattle. He was a guy that didn’t have much value when he was a Royal but had a couple good seasons and built up his stock as a Major League Baseball player.
He has been a Phillie for a couple years now. He had done well for them overall, he is currently struggling batting just around .230 but I’m sure he will heat up and end up around .270 like he has the last couple years.
I chose 1985 Donruss pretty much randomly. I had a vector Phillies logo so I chose a Phillie to put on the card. I was making summary pages for “History of Joakim Soria” “Just Fair 2011” and “Custom Card of the Day” when I realized I hadn’t done a custom card of the day for a while. This is why I chose to do this.
Custom Card of the Day: Joakim Soria Modified 1997 Topps 2 comments
Jim over at the The Phillies Room made a good observation and point on 1997 Topps card on my site the other day. I have quoted it below.
“Very cool. Topps used red for American League teams and green for National League teams in 1997. I always thought this could have been a great design had Topps gone with team colors for each card (Joakim would have had a blue card), and if they had included the team name at the top in the same style as the players’ name.”
One of the great things about having a template ready on these cards is I can visually see what something like this would look like. All the work was already done so this was whipped up in about five minutes. I don’t know if this is exactly what Jim had in mind but I have modified my 1997 Topps Joakim Soria to match his description. I really like the blue. I’m thinking maybe I should have made “Kansas City” solid and “Royals” in outline to balance the card. Oh well, We will just classify this as a card that never was.
By the way, Jim is doing some cool things with the 1983 Topps design over at The Phillies Room, you should go check it out.
Custom Card of the Day: 1984 Donruss Jim Thome 2 comments
Jim Thome is my favorite current baseball player. I like many of the Royals a lot but Jim Thome still comes out on top. He is today’s custom card of the day with the great set: 1984 Donruss.
I saw a graphic in The Sporting News the other day about the top 10 home run hitters since 1990. Of the 10 listed, 9 have been linked to steroid use. The one that hasn’t been linked to the juice; Big Jim.
Thome blasted his 591st long ball of his career the other day in Camden Yards. He should get to 600 very easily this year barring an injury. At one time that number would have been monstrous, only 3 people had done it when I started liking baseball, now some skinny little juiced-up punk playing third base in New York is already past that feat.
The achievement won’t be lost though, especially with Thome who hasn’t been linked to any illegal substances. All this taken into consideration, didn’t put Thome in Cooperstown, New York a couple years ago. He has been a DH for several years witch really hurts his chances but I believe he is now “in.”
When Thome joined Minnesota at the beginning of last season he was just a great player, not a hall of famer. With his simple 25 homer season as a part time player he solidified his spot in the baseball Hall of Fame. I think he may not make the first ballot, in fact, probably won’t, but I strongly believe he will make it.
I remember buying a pack of 1995 score when they were still on the shelves and pulling a Thome card and thinking; this is going to be one of my guys. From that point on I have followed his career closely, which has been a pleasure. At the time I started following him, the tall, skinny third baseman for the Indians had somewhere between 30 and 55 career home runs under his belt. It is safe to say I have cheered for him sending a lot of balls out of the yard.
I believe Thome will bow out after this baseball season, hopefully injury free. He will eclipse 600 home runs and call it a career. He will never win a World Series but he was there and didn’t exactly ride the pine at the time. He has numerous post-season heroics so not winning the big one will be a minor blemish on his record. I need to make it to a Twins game this year and hope he is playing. I would like to see him again before he retires. Take in what you are seeing with him, he is a rare breed.
1991 Fleer Billy Butler Custom Card of the Day Leave a comment
1991 Fleer makes its very yellow appearance felt again here today. I did a Billy Butler version first when I made the design, I posted the Rays new leadoff hitter Sam Fuld first however. This is a nice studio shot of Butler and I though it fit the card well. I don’t think the picture really fits with the original concept of pictures for 1991 Fleer but I’m not too concerned with that.
I wanted to post a Royal today because I have a couple things I would like to voice my opinion on regrading the Royals. First of all just a little catch up if you haven’t been paying attention. Robinson Tejada went on the DL today and Blake Wood was called up to replace him, it would appear Aaron Crow might be Joakim Soria’s setup man for a bit. The Royals are at the moment of this post 9-4! If you asked Royals fans, even optimistic ones before the season started if the Royals at any point would be 5 games above .500 they likely would have said no. A great start has been led by a great bullpen through 13 games who’s worst perfomer to this point is likely All-Star closer Joakim Soria.
Lets discuss Joakim Soria. Nick Scott of the great broken bat single podcast mentioned that something could be wrong. He mentioned maybe being fatigued as well as something being medically wrong. Soria struck out his third batter of the season tonight. He already has four saves and one win but only three strikeouts; that isn’t the Soria we have all come to love in KC.
He just doesn’t look…right so far. I really don’t think anything is wrong myself but tonight Aaron Crow started warming in the bullpen behind Joakim Soria, how often has that happened in the last three years? Not often when the Royals have the lead I’m sure.
My main topic on this post is the April 14th game against the Mariners. The game was called after 8 1/2 innings due to rain. The Royals got a win with Bruce Chen getting credit for a complete 8 inning game in which he looked really good against a really bad team. I mention the fact that the Mariners are bad because that is what this post is about.
I don’t know exactly how long the umpires waited to call the game in Kansas City on the 14th but it wasn’t too awful long. I’m glad, the Royals won and the bullpen got a little extra rest. I contest that if it were the Red Sox or Yankees in town on that night, the Royals bullpen would not have gotten that rest. I think Major League Baseball wouldn’t let that game be shortened if one of the “marquee” teams would have been losing to the consistantly bad Kansas City Royals.
The Seattle Mariners get cheated out of a long shot to rebound from being down four runs is not a big deal. If the Yankees were down four runs in that situation, the end of that game would have been played. It is not right but I truly believe that statement is true. Call it an East Coast bias or whatever but the I know that the rain passed and I believe the end of that game could have been played that night. If there were a chance that Derek Jeter would have came up with the tying run on, the umpires/Major League Baseball wouldn’t have denied him that chance.
Custom Card of the Day: 1980 Donruss Jonathan Broxton Leave a comment
Yes, 1980 Donruss; the set that never was.
Jonathan Broxton was on a highlight last night so I decided to feature him today. The most interesting part of this post however is that the card design is 1980 Donruss, a set that doesn’t exist. Apparently this is a legitimate design. Donruss released two sample cards in 1980 of Reggie Jackson and George Brett. The court ruling that allowed Donruss to release a set didn’t conclude until time for the 1981 set. But this awful design is left behind.
The card is terrible in my opinion. I found it to be even worse when searching for a picture of Broxton to put in the design. The top ribbon is so big that it covered part of Broxton in the first several photos I picked out. Even this picture doesn’t comfortably fit. So I will deem 1980 Donruss a set that thankfully never was produced.
Custom Card of the Day: 1991 Fleer Sam Fuld Leave a comment
I decided the Royals cards were getting a little stale and I need to force myself to vary brands and teams a little bit. So I decided to turn on baseball tonight and feature the player that was the star of the first highlight that I watched. It was Rays at the White Sox and Juan Pierre is up with the bases loaded. My first thought was; “Oh no.” Juan Pierre is one of my most hated players in the majors and I really didn’t want to feature him on a custom card on my site. Pierre hits a deep drive to right field and Sam Fuld makes a diving catch that is likely the best play I have seen so far this baseball season. His head-first dive to catch the ball was on a dead run and landed him on the warning track.
Who is Sam Fuld? He is a young player that has played parts of two season with the Chicago Cubs before joining the Rays this year. He has a whopping one long ball and five runs batted in in his major league career. I’m sure this catch was the highlight of his career so far. He will have the distinction now of being my first “Custom Card of the Day.”
I chose 1991 Fleer to feature because in some ways I think it is an awful card design, but that some how makes it kind of cool. The striking yellow makes the card stand out in any collection and the design is simple, really simple. I made Billy Butler as my first card of this set but as I mentioned I want to post some cards other than Royals.
I would like to do a “Custom Card of the Day” often from now on as I have a strong catalog of card designs re-created at this point. I will try to do odd players like Sam Fuld and less of players like Albert Pujols. I hate the Yankees so don’t expect to see many of them.
A Hair Off Square 