Snapshots: 2015 05 23 Cooperstown Classic

Couple of Pictures from the Cooperstown Classic which was played just down the street from the Baseball Hall of Fame on Saturday May 23rd 2015.

Team Knucksie: Yount, Fingers, Niekro, Baldelli, Trammell, A Soriano, Pudge, B Molina

The teams were broken down loosely into AL and NL squads although the AL Captain was Braves Rep Phil Niekro.

For the Alan Trammell supporters here we have a pix of the Tigers Shortstop at the Hall of Fame.

The Wizards: Smith, Glavine, Steve Woodard, Jack Wilson, E Taubansee, Kerry Robinson, Mark Loretta, John Franco, David Delucci, Ron Cey, Vinny Castilla, Bobby Abreu - Tony Perez Foreground, Baldelli and Trammell background

Apologies to Night Owl, but Ron Cey is shielded here. The Phillies had at least six alums in the game including Abreu, David Delucci and Perez.

Roy Oswalt vs Rick Ankiel

As you can see it was a Beautiful day for a game. Short time Phillies Pitcher Roy Oswalt represented the Astros.

Jim Eisenreich & Bobby Abreu

A pair of Phillies Outfielders at First Base.

Ozzie Smith and Rick Ankiel

 NL Captain Ozzie Smith taking care of some third base coaching duties

Jeff Idelson with Phil Niekro 

HoF Prez Jeff Idelson and Phil Niekro likely discussing Pete Rose's reinstatement prospects

Vinny Castilla 

Prior to the game there was a Home Run contest which was won by Colorado Rockies Thirdbaseman Vinny Castilla

Aaron Rowand

The Bob Feller award for Game MVP was given to Aaron Rowand who Homered off Steve Avery. For the HOF game Rowand who played a couple of seasons with the Phillies Represented the Chicago White Sox. 

Bob Dernier

Good Guy Award goes to Bob Dernier, although it may not be just because he is fan friendly. Bobby D was the RF ball boy and happened to be next to the stands and signed dozen of autographs between innings.

Quick Notes
--I have never seen a steal of Home in a real Game but saw one at the Classic, Brady Anderson the back end of a double steal.
--Saw two players lose bats into the stands (Ankiel, Homer Bush). That probably should not happen in an exhibition game of this type.
--I am pretty sure Brian Holman's career ended due to injury and I can see why. It took everything the man had to push the ball 60 ft 6 inches.
--Greg Cadaret who I am not at all familiar with was awful. In a game where the only job for a pitcher is to get the ball over the plate and every pitch is a strike Cadaret could not throw one.
--The Baseball Hall of Fame Jersey is Ugly (see Robin Yount in Pix 1 or Ozzie in pix 2 above)
--
Sources and Links
Baseball Hall of Fame
Baseball-ref

Sunday Night Baseball: Reds @ Cardinals Ozzie Smith

Sunday Night Baseball visits another one of their favorite cities tonight as the St Louis Cardinals host the Cincinnati Reds.

2008 Goudey #229 Ozzie Smith (SP)

When I was younger Ozzie Smith was widely accepted as the best defensive shortstop of his era. Sometimes perceptions of the masses may not match reality. I am very happy to find out that in Ozzie's case baseball fans and writers were correct. Today's advance metrics have revealed that not only is Smith the best fielding Shortstop of his era. He is the best fielding PLAYER of ANY era.

All-Time Career Leaders in Defensive WAR

There he is, the Wizard all alone at Number 1.

And it is amazing how much separation there is between Ozzie and the two spot, 4th and 13th. His dWAR is 10+% ahead of Belanger's and 25% better than Cal Ripken in fourth place. Perhaps more amazing is his dWAR compared with the Pee Wee Reese who ranks 13th all-time. Smith's 43.4 career dWAR is 69% more than Reese's 25.6.

Think about that, Ozzie Smith has a Defensive WAR number that is 69% better than the guy that ranks 13th all time.

I ran the chart out to #25 just so you can see the first active player on the list Adrian Beltre who had age 36 is climbing up near a lot of Hall of Famers on various leaderboards.

2008 Goudey
2008 was Upper Deck's second iteration of Goudey. The UD Retro set was inspired by Goudey's 1934 release.

In 1934 most of the cards featured a "Lou Gehrig Says..." flair across the bottom that alludes to the concept that Gehrig was the author of the text on the cards b-side. Similarly the 2008 Goudey version carried endorsements by either Derek Jeter (AL) or Ken Griffey Jr (NL)

This card was selected for this weeks Sunday Night Baseball Posting because not only do we get to feature a legend for the home team but we also get to recognizing the visiting squad in a small way by having Junior on the card.

I also wanted to note that selecting the mustard yellow background for this Goudey card is a nice contrast for the Ketchup Cardinals Red of Ozzie's Uniform. 

Lets see what the Kid had to say about the Wizard

2008 Goudey #229 Ozzie Smith (b-side)

The text echoes the SABR Stats above by mentioning Ozzie Smith's 13 consecutive Gold Gloves and also goes on to mention his 1987 Silver Slugger. 

The above Ozzie Smith card is a short print in the set and was packed pulled from a blaster.

Sources & Links
baseball cardpedia
cardboard connection
baseball-ref

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Rack Pack

GQ isn't my thing, but I was in the store during it's opening week and picked up a rack pack - I am a sucker for those 3 card parallel packs. Ozzie Smith on the cover was also a selling point.

Racks contain three 6-card packs plus a 3 card framed parallel pack. The price was $9.49.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Shelby Miller

New Atlanta Brave Shelby Miller was the first card pulled in the 3 packs. He reps his new club, but I also picked up an Evan Gattis card that still has him with the Braves

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Zach Britton

I have a Rack of Opening Day that I have yet to post - it didn't have any Phillies cards :( and For the second consecutive pack opening where we didn't get any Phils,

In lieu of a Phils card we are posting a card of Zach Britton from the Team Phungo AL Squad, Baltirmore Orioles.

2015 Gypsy Queen Nomar Garciaparra

MLB Alums are part of GQ - We didn't get an HoF players but we did get this fine card of Nomar reading the signs from his 3B coach.

2015 Gypsy Queen RA Dickey

Great Shot of Knuckleballer RA Dickey. He is holding the now defunct Allan H Selig MLB Baseball that we have had under the microscope in a few recent postings.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen Matt Moore

Cool Pix of Rays Pitcher Matt Moore wearing some sort of goofy uniform

#Added Value

2015 Gypsy Queen Walk off Winners Bryce Harper

This card reps a game played on August 7 2014, an extra-inning game versus the Mets that Harper won with a 13th inning Homer off of Carlos Torres. 

2015 Gypsy Queen Minis 
Salvador Perez
Josh Harrison
Phil Hughes

Each of the three packs contained a mini. Here I present them with the b-side of the Miguel Cabrera card for a size comparison

Bonus Cards

2015 Gypsy Queen Javier Baez (Base and Framed Parallel)

Each 3 Pack Rack contains a parallel pack with 3 Frame Cards which are parallels of the base set. The Frame is an actual frame and slightly raised off of the card.

2015 Gypsy Queen Ben Zobrist (White Frame)
2015 Gypsy Queen Devin Mesoraco (White Frame)

The other two Frames in the bonus pack.

And we close with the wrapper for the pack, Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith

Sources and Links
Baseball-ref
Cardboard Connection

2008 Goudey Blaster Break

I know I am way behind with this one - It sort of got lost in the Phillies stretch run.

So yes, I opened this box a while ago and just wanted to go over the stats just in case anyone out there is still working on 08 UD Goudey. I don't remember the configuration 8 packs of 8 it looks like.

Here are the vitals:

53 Base - Five of which were duplicates of 4 hobby packs that I had bought previosly - that seems a little high. 1 Phil, Hamels, which I needed. 7 of the base were retired stars.

1 SP #229 Ozzie Smith
1 President #250 James Buchanan - The only president from Pennsylvania.
1 1936 Goudey #257 David Wright
1 1936 Goudey mini #258 Jeter
1 Sports Royalty # 276 Bruce Jenner
1 Sports Royalty mini #326 Sanya Richards (Red Back)
1 Hit Parade of Champions #HPC-10 Mr Hockey Gordie Howe
2 Yankee Stadium Legacy #3800 Roy White 09/03/1970 Orioles 8 @ Yankees 4
#3825 Thurman Munson 05/01/71 Brewers 1 @ Yankees 0
1 Game Used Memorabilia #M-JB Jason Bay

08 Goudey fell in the like but not love category for me, I had opened a couple of hobby packs over the summer and generally liked the product enough and that convinced me to get a blaster to gather some additional base cards.

The only disappointment was that 5 of the cards from the blaster I already had in a pretty small collection of maybe 25 cards from 4 hobby packs. Otherwise I was pretty happy, the inserts in this blaster were all decent, Jason Bay isn't the flashiest card in the Materials set, but he is a player I root for so thats definitely a nice addition to the personal collection.

I am also sending out a reminder that Sunday is Spot the Sig! day. This weeks STS is scheduled to go up around 9:30pm Eastern