I am continuously amazed by how consistently underrated Brian Roberts seems to be from year to year.
2011 Just Fair Brain Roberts and Brad Bergesen Leave a comment
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.
History of Joakim Soria: 1974 Topps Leave a comment
Here is another card making multiple appearances on my site. I originally posted this as a custom card of the day but it needs to be posted in this category as well. I am trying to get all of the cards that have made an appearance on this site in the past in this category so everything will be fresh.
This is a great looking card. Nice picture and a very solid card design as well. 1974 Topps is probably a design that I will make more samples of in the future. For now here is Joakim, enjoy.
History of Joakim Soria: 2007 Topps Leave a comment
“History of Joakim Soria” #5. This is Joakim Soria’s rookie year for baseball cards. He had an actual card this year, it is the first time I have re-made an existing Soria card in my “Historty of Jokim Soria” series. I like this card a lot but I don’t know if it is better than his actual Topps rookie card.
As I have mentioned a couple times on this site, 1971 Topps is my favorite card set. 2007 Topps is a tribute to this set in many ways. It is the second time that Topps has ever done a black border being the main similarity. Another similarity is that the players signature appears on the front of the card.
I had decided not to do these signatures but changed my mind before ever posting a year that had the feature. I know that a few years have had signatures and I will add a signature when appropriate now that I have re-created it. This is a good looking card, the powder blue jersey really looks good with the black border. The signature gets lost a little in the photo because of the dark spots but it still ties the card together a little and I am glad I decided to add it.
2011 Just Fair Dan Haren, Jered Weaver and Brett Anderson Leave a comment
These are the three current AL ERA leaders as of 4/22/11.
2011 Just Fair Josh Johnson, Dustin Moseley and Jamie Garcia Leave a comment
These are the three current NL ERA leaders as of 4/22/11.
2011 Just Fair James McDonald and Adam Dunn Leave a comment
I hadn’t posted and Just Fair cards in a couple days so I need to play catch up a little bit. I made 20 cards before I got a little bored with it. I’m thinking I probably won’t be able to finish this set. I want to include many of the lesser know players (see James McDonald) but that will make the set really hard to keep going on. I’m thinking of an All-Stars subset to do around the All-Star break but I really don’t know of any other inserts. I think I will have to mix inserts in to make it interesting.
Anyway Adam Dunn is included here. Another White Sox card with a brief message about the guy: he scares the living hell out of me being a Royals fan. I know at some point he is going to stick a dagger in the Royals, I’m just waiting for it.
James McDonald plays for the Pirates and he is a pitcher, now you know as much as I do about him.
History of Joakim Soria: 1983 Topps Leave a comment
Here is a “History of Joakim Soria” card that has been posted on my site before. When I posted it I raved about the design of 1983 Topps. I still will take a second to gush about it. I love the design, right down to the inset circle picture. It is just a great looking card.
The funny thing about how much I like the design of this card is that I never really thought about how much I liked it until I started doing my custom cards. I had to re-create it and it was tough but not near as bad as some I have done(I just did 1997 Topps and it wasn’t easy) I think my favorite sets of all time may now be:
1. 1971 Topps
2. 1984 Donruss
3. 1983 Topps
Louis Coleman gets his shot 2 comments
Louis Coleman got the call. He will be joining the Kansas City Royals. The casualty of this roster move is sending Kanekoa Texeira to Omaha for a while.
A recent custom card from a custom set I did of Louis Coleman.
I recently did this custom card of Coleman for the Royals futures game he appeared in on April 2nd, 2011. It was my first Louis Coleman custom card. He didn’t even make my 55 card spring training set. There is one notable problem with this card. The futures game was on Saturday April 2nd but the card says April 4th, 2011. The card is wrong, along with every other card I made in this 27 card set. Ugh, that is what you get when you try to hurry. I will have to go and change each individual card in this set.
The important part of this post is that Coleman is going to KC. Another great young talent will make his way to the K, I can’t wait.
The day the music died Leave a comment
Alright the music hasn’t died, it is getting moved. A Hair Off Square is now totally devoted to sports and custom cards. I have created a separate blog to track my musical tastes. I will keep both blogs up and running. Now A Hair Off Square won’t have an occasional interuption from a music post and I won’t fill Goose Joak’s blogroll with stuff about hippie music.
The new blog is called “Vocals on Top” I encourage you to head over there for any useless and pointless knowledge on music. But now, more custom cards coming very soon.
A Hair Off Square 