Archive for the ‘custom card’ Tag
So Saturday was Willie Wilson bobblehead day at Kauffman Stadium. It was the 20th bobblehead give-away(I think.) Willie is a no-brainer for a list of the greatest Royals of all-time. If I were to make a ranked list I think he would likely fall 3rd only behind George Brett and Frank White. Wilson’s bobblhead was long deserving and I am glad that it is now out there.
I really don’t think there is much to say about Wilson’s credentials to be on this list. He was a Royals outfielder for a long time, he was really fast and a really good player. He played 15 seasons in Kansas City and 19 in his career. He was a .285 career hitter that included a 1982 American League batting title at .332. He had a staggering 668 stolen bases, 2 all-star game appearances and a gold glove. He was a big part of the Royals 2 World Series appearances as well.
If you are a Royals fan you have probably heard somebody complain about Alcides Escobar’s .212 average. They are legitimate, .212 is not a good average. If you have watched many Royals games this year however, you know that Escobar’s defense makes him well worth the outs at the plate.
Specifically if you watched today’s game. For future reference “today” is the day Billy Butler hit a walk-off 2-run home run. In the top of the 8th inning Escobar made an absolutely amazing play. He has made several great plays this year but this play came with 2 outs and the bases loaded in a 0-0 game. That is being clutch with the glove. Escobar stopped a grounder through the hole off the bat of Alberto Callaspo and launched a throw that first baseman Eric Hosmer picked out of the dirt.
Now the subject at hand, Alcides Escobar deserves a gold glove this year. period. His .212 average might be held against him though. If this happens it would be a crime. The gold glove award was made for guys like Escobar. We all remember Rafael Palmeiro winning the gold glove while only playing 28 games at first base all year. He did hit 47 home runs with 148 RBI’s and that is likely why he won the gold glove. What a sham!
Alcides Escobar needs to win this award, he deserves it. If you are complaining about a .212 hitter you have no idea what it was like having Yuniesky Betancourt playing defense every game. If Escobar hits .212 and plays in 155 games and continues to play defense as he has done thus far, it is a well worth him being in the starting lineup.
So Goose Joak mentioned this set on one of my posts a few days ago so I decided to bring the design back for a custom card of the day. I decided to chose the second trending player on Yahoo’s MLB site to be the subject of the card. It was Matt Joyce of the Tampa Bay Rays. Matt Joyce was leading the league in hitting coming into Wednesday. Did you know that? I didn’t. Joyce is having a great year for the Rays and has been a big reason they are only a couple games out of first place in the toughest division in baseball.
I remember this card set, 1993 Triple Play being a big hit with me. Triple Play was a cheap alternative when cards were still cheap to buy. It was a nice looking set and it came out right around the time I started to get serious about collecting baseball cards. It is another black border which is starting to become a trend on my site, oh well, you like what you like I guess. I don’t think I had even thought about this set before Dave from Goose Joak mentioned it to me the other day. I’m glad he did, some cards seem to act as a time machine of sorts, this one did it for me.
This is a card I made a while ago. I made it the same time I created the “missing link” George Brett card from the same set. This card was made simply because I thought the picture was great.
Quick thoughts on the Royals; They won today breaking a tough couple game losing streak where Soria was horrible. Billy Butler continues to hammer the ball and not get enough credit. Chris Getz gave a glimpse of what the Royals hope he can be, great defensively and use his speed at the plate. Alex Gordon looks to be growing into a comfort zone in the leadoff spot. I think Gordon in the leadoff spot could be really interesting for the rest of this season.
Alright, I have avoided this long enough, it is time to talk about what is wrong with Joakim Soria. I have posted several Joakim Soria cards without really discussing his terrible year to this point. The truly sad thing is that the bullpen for the Royals has far exceeded expectations except for Soria.
Aaron Crow has been so good this year that people are starting to talk about making him the closer. This is a bad idea in my opinion. Crow is the logical “backup” for Soria but I really think he needs to stay in the setup role. If Soria struggles through the entire season, then you can talk about making him the closer in 2012. That being said, that won’t happen. Joakim Soria is not right right now, he just isn’t and hasn’t been all year. I think it is a problem that will go off like a switch someday, hopefully soon.
He will recover from this. Right now he is unreliable though. I don’t know what the Royals should do but I don’t want him to lose his role as closer. If he keeps blowing saves and losing games that the Royals have fought hard to be ahead in what else can you do? I still believe one day he will come out of the bullpen and be the Joakim Soria we all remember and we can concentrate on the Royals real problem; starting pitching.
Now that is done. This card is from the 2001 Topps set and I really think it is a good one. The design itself is not one of my favorites but for some reason this card really works for me. I have a hard time showing gold foil many times but I think I found a good mixture for this 2001 card. The picture is from early in the season in 2009 when it was really cold and one game actually ended with the Royals closing it out while snow was falling. I believe that is the snow you can see in the background of the picture. It could be rain but if memory serves it is snow. This card added a little extra challenge in re-creating it. Topps did a “50 years” logo and I had to do it instead of the traditional Topps logo. It was much easier to do than the “40 years” logo I recently had to do for the 1991 Topps card I posted.
Josh Hamilton is back! This guy really changes the way the Rangers lineup looks. I saw the Ranger play in Kansas City a couple weeks ago and both Hamilton and Cruz were hurt and their lineup was not near as scary. Both are back now and Hamilton will try to drive toward another MVP season. He has won one MVP even after being injured a month, why not do it again? He can flat out hit, he is at .339 in a small sampling of games but who know what he can do playing at the Ballpark at Arlington.
I wanted to do something different today so I went with a custom card of Hamilton and one of my Just Fair cards of Hamilton. Ironically both have black borders, not planned I promise. The custom card is not only an old design, it is a football design. This was 1985 Topps’ version of a football set. I posted a bunch of Kansas City Chiefs from this set a while back. I think it is interesting seeing the Rangers in both their blued and red uniforms side by side, they look like completely different teams.
Here is 1991 Topps, a good looking card. This is one of the many designs I never really appreciated until I tried to re-create it. This is another History of Joakim Soria project that Goose Joak has already tackled. In fact he has done several of them including Brayan Pena, Mike Aviles, Zack Greinke and most recently Eric Hosmer. I think he has the better Soria card, I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Look at his card here.
This card has appeared on my site before but I thought I would officially induct it into the “History of Joakim Soria” set. It is originally from my 2011 Royals spring training set that was all Royals, all from spring training and came in at a whopping 55 cards, wow, good times.
This Soria was one of my favorites from the set. I was actually forced to use a picture that I normally wouldn’t. I like to give the picture room to breathe and I had to crop really tightly on this one. I had the same issue with Brayan Pena’s card from the same set. In retrospect, those two cards are likely among my top 5 from the set.
The 2011 Topps design got mixed reviews from me. I like that it is not drenched in silver foil and that it has a big picture on it. The bad points were more minor but annoying nonetheless. I hated the fact that it said Kansas City Royals around the baseball on top and bottom in addition to having a Royals logo in between the two. Not too bad though, I am anxious to see what Royals are included in series 2, could there be an Eric Hosmer rookie card? We can only hope. June 6th you can get your grubby little hands on them and find out.
Here is another of my greatest Royals series. This one is not as obvious as the first two. Paul Splittorff and Cookie Rojas were extremely likely to be on the list of the top 36 Royals of all-time but David Dejesus may raise some eyebrows.
For the Royals Dejesus was one of the most consistent players in an era where the Royals were a terrible team. He was never a big power hitter, he was never in the chase for the batting title, he was just a model of consistency.His numbers aren’t striking for his career, he usually didn’t crack double digit home runs and ended with 50-70 runs driven in and even though he spent a lot of time at the leadoff position, didn’t steal many bases either. He was always one of the best players on the team though.
He played in Kansas City for 8 season before being traded to the Oakland Athletics and I believe he will once again be a Royal. I think that there was so much mutual respect between Dejesus and the Royals that he will return to the team to be a forth outfielder in a few years. The Royals will be contending and Dejesus will be on the decline so the front office will bring back the fan favorite.
So Saturday was Willie Wilson bobblehead day at Kauffman Stadium. It was the 20th bobblehead give-away(I think.) Willie is a no-brainer for a list of the greatest Royals of all-time. If I were to make a ranked list I think he would likely fall 3rd only behind George Brett and Frank White. Wilson’s bobblhead was long deserving and I am glad that it is now out there.
A Hair Off Square 