Happy Trails Geoff Jenkins

2009 Topps Chrome #13 Geoff Jenkins (Refractor)

Today Geoff Jenkins will retire as a Milwaukee Brewer. Jenkins spent 10 seasons with the Brewers but to me he will always be a member of the 2008 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Jenkins struggled most of the 2008 season and would eventually cede his side of a Right Field platoon to an emerging star, Jayson Werth.

But, Geoff Jenkins disappointing season was totally turned around by a single at bat.

Jenkins last career at bat was a pinch hit double in the 6th inning of game 5 of the 2008 world Series. He would then come around to score a critical run to help the Phils to a 4-3 victory in that decisive 5th game.

Geoff Jenkins has not picked up a bat in a Major League game since since that night in October of 2008. Despite his 200+ career Home Runs he has been unable to find a home since the end of the Phils incredible 2008 season, today he is hanging up the spikes.

Phungo 5 with Thorzul Will Rule

This week the Phillies and Brewers meet for the first time since the 08 NLDS. Milwaukees still appears to be a good club but they have a dramatically different pitching look without CC or Ben Sheets in the rotation. In addition at some point Trevor Hoffman should bolster their bullpen.

Team Phungo recently sent out a Phungo 5 for the always witty Thorzul Will Rule crew and got the following responses:

1) The Brewers seem pretty loaded for hitters, what is the
situation with the Pitchers - Gallardo is pretty good.
how do you feel about Parra and Bush? Has anybody ever
sought out a Jeff Suppan Card?

You're right about the offense being loaded. It's going to be a fun
team to watch hit this year, but then you'll have plenty of time to hit the
restroom during the top half of each inning. Gallardo should be good, and Dave
Bush is probably the most underrated guy on the staff. And Jeff Suppan...all I
have to say is that his 2007 Topps Heritage card (and I had at least five of
them) was good for use as a bookmark for the duration of Summer 2007. I read
some good books that summer, including "Cross-X," the true story of an
inner-city high school debate team, which I highly recommend. Jeff Suppan helped
me never lose my spot.

2) You have been doing the cardblogging thing for a while,
do you ever get bloggers block and have to resort to lazy
gimmicks like interviewing other bloggers?

Thorzul Will Rule will celebrate (or has celebrated, I'm not sure) its
second birthday sometime this spring. There have been some lean periods, sure,
but I think the secret is not to post something just for the sake of posting. I
guess part of my fallback strategy is to haul out another page from my sticker
book whenever I can't think of something else to write, but that's
actually gotten some of the most positive feedback out of all the content so
far. I've tried to establish my own niche in this baseball card world, and
I think comedy has been the way to go. I could really care less about breaking
news on a sell sheet or some new product or something like that. If
someone's coming to Thorzul Will Rule for information, they will be
disappointed 99 times out of a hundred. I'm all about the fun of baseball
cards, and hopefully I can make somebody laugh at some point during the
soul-sucking existence we call a workday. I guess I could always fall
back on posting some Brewers card or another, but I really don't want to
get pigeonholed as a Brewers blog. There's way better and more insightful
stuff out there if that's what you're looking for.

3) I don't want to steal any of your thunder but what
can you tell us about the next $5 group break - I like them
and am happy to see that they appear to be pretty successful
so far.

The cheap group breaks will return. They actually turn out to be a lot of
work. I've purchased other lots of cards, but some of them just didn't
turn out to be right for the promo, too much 1990s junk and stuff like that. I
guess I'd like to try doing it three or four times a year from now on. I
really hope everyone has been satisfied so far if they've taken part.



2006 Fleer #267 Randy Wolf
2007 Upper Deck #178 Geoff Jenkins 2008
Topps Flight to 420 #BF-401 Brett Favre 2006-09-24
(Click photos to Enlarge)

4) Do you think Geoff Jenkins looks more like Brett Favre
or Randy Wolf?

Brett Favre.

5) Which is better the Bernie Brewer Slide or the Sausage
Race

The Sausage Race by a mile! Each school year I plan a field trip with my
class that involves a tour of Miller Park. The kids always ask about the slide
and if they can go on it, but there's too much liability involved to let
them. Keep in mind that Bernie used to slide down from the barrel and land in a
glass of beer, but I guess that's too non-PC to fly at the moment. At the
Sausage Race, a true fan needs to pick one variety of sausage to cheer on and
stick with it. I'm a Bratwurst man myself, an homage to my German heritage.
He rarely comes in first during the games I attend. Readers who haven't
been to Miller Park should also know that during the seventh inning stretch, in
addition to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," we also sing "Roll Out
the Barrel," a polka-infused ode to alcohol consumption. Good times.


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Thanks Thorzul - Another Great Phungo 5, Alas we can only award 4 out of 5. As a Vikings Fan, I cannot give a point for Brett Favre, just typing his name irks me - although I did appreciate his cameo in "Something About Mary".

For a look back at a previous Phungo 5 click here.

I am also pleased to let you know that this weekend we are planning to have the prolific Mario from Wax Heaven on the hot seat for the next Phungo 5.

2008 11 02 - Card Show @ Concord Mall, Wilmington DE

To celebrate the Phillies World Series victory I hit the card show at the Concorde Mall outside of Wilmington Delaware last weekend. I perused several dime boxes, here are some of the Highlights.

2008 Topps UH Gold #UH220 Geoff Jenkins #0033/2008
1983 O-Pee-Chee #350 Robin Yount

I picked up bunches of Phillies and some cards of Hall Of Fames like Robin Yount. The Jenkins card was a particular surprise as it was out of the recently released Updates and Highlights.

I also got some some good looking star inserts of players like Vlad, and Griffey.

2000 UD Ultimate Victory #86 Ken Griffey
2002 Topps Gallery Heritage #GH10 Vladimir Guerrero

The Griffey Foil doesn't look good on the scan but is a sharp card. I really like the Gallery Heritage cards and will keep my eyes open for more of these.

I picked up a half dozen cards from last years Wal-Mart Trading Card History. This is a set I keep looking for on ebay and was happy to find a couple at the show. As usual I picked up some Heritage cards of various Stars like Bernie Williams from several different sets Bowman, Topps and UD Vintage.

2007 Topps Wal-Mart #WM6 Greg Maddux
2002 Bowman Heritage #278 Bernie Williams

The best for me was finding thirty 08 Topps inserts in a dime bin including 20+ All-Star Rookie Inserts like the Strawman. I also picked up a couple of Fleer Flair from different years - Always a favorite of mine.

1993 Flee Flair #154 Mike Mussina
2008 Topps All-Star Rookie #AR1 Darryl Strawberry

Obviously I was pleased with all my nickel and dime box finds. Filling out the 08 inserts was pretty awesome. I have also been working on the 1959 Topps base set and was able to find 5 commons pretty cheap.

There were maybe 20 or 25 tables with a wide array of items. The dealers had apparently had a good weekend, business likely bumped by the recent Phillies triumph, and certainly did not complain as much as they do at a typical show.

Damages:

$3 - Nickel Box several Hall of Famers, Oddballs, Sporting News All-Stars, Football, AI
$2 - five 1959 Topps Commons
$5 – 31 Phillies commons, 13 Phils Heritage/Retro , plus 02 Donruss Originals Jimmy Rollins, Geoff Jenkins Topps Gold
$10 – Dime Box 08 Topps Inserts, Walmart 07 TCH, Chrome, Allen Ginter, various Vikings, 2004 Team USA
$5 - Top Loaders

$25 for a fun day at the card show, very worthwhile!