A Hair Off Square   custom cards

Here are a couple AL East shortstops. Yunel Escobar is red hot for the Blue Jays and Reid Brignac is not for the Rays. Neither one of these guys are likely to be in the All-Star game anytime soon but you never know. The Blue Jays may need a representative if a couple of their stars get hurt or really drop off. Either way Derek Jeter will make another undeserving All-Star start and a backup is more likely to be someone like Elvis Andrus of the Rangers or Alexi Ramirez of the White Sox. I will still hold out hope that is Alcides Escobar of the Royals picks up his hitting he might make it but it is extremely unlikely.

This morning I read about Adrian Gonzalez’s new monster contract in Boston and I wanted to post a White Sox card for csd’s custom cards.  So today I will post two sox of a different color.

Adrian Gonzalez’s contract was inevitable I felt, I was just shocked it didn’t get signed as soon as the deal to send him to Boston was done. I read the article on Yahoo! about the contract and saw it as an omen to add him to my Just Fair set today. Gonzalez is a monster, he is a left handed hitter with tons of pop that is a pretty good fielder as well. Boston knows that the first base situation is taken care of for a few years now. I think this is a good signing and the Red Sox won’t regret it. I can’t wait to see Adrian take Mariano deep in a September game this year. I know I’ll see it because every damn Red Sox-Yankees game is nationally televised.

Brent Lillibridge is a young second baseman for the White Sox. I think he plays some outfield as well. He is a guy who scares me when he strolls up against the Royals, he gives me the same feeling Joe Creede always gave me when he batted in KC. CSD does a lot of custom cards of his own and goes the extra miles by both using his own pictures and creating backs for his cards. Both of these things are very tough and admirable tasks. I am a fan of his site even though I believe he is a White Sox fan. This card is posted for CSD, go visit his website.

Derek Lowe has been around a while. He is not an “ace” type of pitcher but has been consistent and reliable over the years. Lowe was of course a Red Sox and a Dodger which brings me to my lasting memory of his career. He was a member of the first Red Sox championship team in around a century and went to LA the next season. On a Dodger off-day, he traveled to Boston for a ring ceremony for the championship. He walks onto the field at Fenway Park wearing a Red Sox jersey! He was a Dodger at the time. This caused quite a stir. Many people panned Lowe’s loyalty to his current team. I wasn’t one of them. I thought it was a great and bold thing to do. In my mind, that is Derek Lowe’s legacy.

Kyle Drabek looks like the real deal. He is a much hyped prospect and is getting his shot this year. He is a second generation major league pitcher. His father Doug Drabek was quite a good pitcher in his own right. So Kyle is with the Blue Jays and has three starts under his belt this year and has compiled a spiffy 1.93 ERA in those three games. He is off to a great start.

What I would like to talk about has nothing to do with his performance. Look at the picture of Drabek, do you notice anything… odd? How many major league pitchers have you ever seen with a single digit number on their uniform? I can think of one, David Wells, who I believe wore #3 because of his fascination with Babe Ruth. I was thinking I saw a pitcher wearing #9 a couple years ago but I can’t remember who it was. It is rare, I know that for a fact.

If anyone know any other pitchers with a single digit uniform number, especially active pitchers, I would love to hear who they are. Anybody who finds one can pick my next custom card to do (card type and player) and I will do my best to produce it.

Today gets two nice landscape shots, one of Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon and one of Royals opening day starter Luke Hochevar. I talk about the Royals a lot on this site so there is not much to say about Hochevar for me. I don’t think he is an “ace” or he ever will be. I think he could be a solid 3-4 starting pitcher for several years.

Jonathan Papelbon is an incredibly animated player, I’m sure we remember his dance in the playoffs a couple years ago. He is a front line closer, one of the best in the league. He has put together a great track record and fantastic ERA and saves numbers. The best part about Papelbon is he beats the Yankees a lot. This card actually displays him about to close the door on the Yankees on April 8th. The Red Sox won, I checked. I consider anyone who is an enemy of the Yankees a friend of mine. I will cheer for Papelbon anytime he isn’t pitching against the Royals.

This one is for the Cubbies! Starlin Castro just missed making my sample set so he gets in early on the second wave of cards. Castro is of course one of the young stars for the Chicago Cubs. He was a rookie last year in a fantastic cast of first year players. He had a good enough season to be in the NL Rookie of the Year voting consideration. Casey Coleman is a young starting pitcher for the Cubs. His major league numbers are good in a small sampling, he has a winning record and has managed to keep his ERA at a respectable level at 4.34. He is a third generation major league player, one of only two in baseball history.

This is the big premiere. I have made several “tribute” cards to other sets and now I have decided to start posting my own. I have been mulling over ideas for the last couple weeks and I found a design that I really like. It will be called “Just Fair.” I am posting a sample size of starter cards. 2 horizontal cards and 2 vertical cards. Each card is a little different design as you can see. These will be the four variations in the base set, which player gets which format will depend strictly on the picture and which design fits it best.

These are samples of four different players from four different teams. I had to include a Royal and my favorite player that has never put on a KC uniform, Jim Thome. The design is in the early enough stages that I could still change it a little. I think it is very solid overall.

Notes about the design:

Black border: The last decision for me was a black border or white border, I went with the black border because the foul pole in the card shows up much better. I imagine at some point I will post some of the white “variants.” The black is taken form possibly my favorite Topps set, 1971.

Name block: The name block is simple and is a little like1993 Donruss, another set I really like. The two tone color scheme really separates it and makes it readable.

Foul pole: The foul pole was an idea I had when thinking of what other sets had done. A baseball has been used a ton of times and occasionally bats have been used. The closest to this is 1989 Upper Deck that had a baseline on the side of the card, a brilliant idea in my opinion but I always thought the baseline looked a little too cartoony.

Big picture: Keep It Simple Stupid; I like a big picture of a player, that is after all why the card is interesting. I maximized my picture area by slimming down the border to a minimum width and keeping the name block floating as opposed to docking it against any of the sides, this allows the picture to surround it and seem much larger. Also notice the netting on the foul pole is transparent like it should be. This allows the picture to be seen through the netting on the foul pole, possibly my favorite part about the card design.

Logo: I designed a quick logo for my “Just Fair ’11” set because this is something Donruss and Fleer always did and Topps has done since the late ’70s. I chose a color to match the foul pole on the oppisite side of the card and outlined it in black to keep it readable. I went with a script font to make it seem modern. The year is somewhat separated from the name so if I decide to produce anther set next year, I can simply change the year and go. I would of course vary the design somehow as well.

I would love to have feedback on the design or the set. If there are any players you would like to see in the set, post a comment and I will make them a priority.