Snapshots 2012 04 30 Cubs 4 @ Phillies 6

Phillies get a Win 6-4 largely due to a fine outing by Vance Worley, 1 Run over 7 innings.  Phils strung together a couple of hits off Chris Volstad early and were able to get 4 first innings runs.  Offense then returned to their more typical dorment form.  Chad Qualls blew the lead in the Top of 8th when he gave a up a Home Run to Bryan LaHair who is having a breakout year.  Phils got the lead back in the bottom of the inning thanks to a timely 2 run double from Placido Polanco.

W-Qualls L-Scott Maine, SV-J Papelbon, HR-LaHair 

Snapshots (click to enlarge on all)

 Premium Start from Vance Worley - 1.97 ERA over 5 starts for VW so far in 2012

Placido Polanco

Cubs speedster Tony Campana

etc
-I guess I must be getting better about what I eat.  It was a dollar dog night, and I resisted the hot dog temptation.
-I am surprised I was unfamiliar with Campana prior to this weekend - The Cubs had such a rought 2011  that they must not have made it onto my radar.  He appears to use the LH slap hitter technigue, we have seen from Ichiro a lot.  Getting several steps down the line while swinging. 
- Phils got 2 bunt singles (Jimmy Rollins, Pete Orr) while they were able to retire Campana on his bunt attempt.
- Jim Thome didn't play and the Phils have several players that may be coming off the DL soon.  He hasn't looked good at the plate and I am wondering if he gets involved in another Phils Home game. 
- Papelbon's save was his 8th in as many attempts. 

Swag from Tomahawk Chopping - catching up

Happy New Year! - good last wk of the yr for Team Phungo - hope the beginning of 2012 finds everyone well. 

Now I have some catching up to do.


Way back in the beginning of November Derek over at Tomahawk Chopping ran a different kind of a Box Break.  Well it wasn't really a break.  It was a draft - of Cards.  TC had a lot of nice cards that were in midlevel products that Team Phungo really doesn't get to pick up.  The Draft had 15 rounds I think and guaranteed an Auto and a Relic.  Here is Much of the Team Phungo draw: 

click to enlarge

Lots of Chomey stuff here - I went after Phils and former Phils, HoF and some favorite players.  The Relic is an All-Star GU card of Placido Polanco in the bottom row.   I am holding the Auto (might be subject of a future Phungo STS!) 

Some of the chrome and parallels of stars in the lot include Chase Utley, Roy Halladay, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels masterpieces,  There is a Chrome Flashback of Dom Brown near the top right

Francisco Liriano, a Fine looking Joe Mauer card (bottom right),  Strasburg, the Freak, Pedro Alvarez, Gio Gonzalez, Nice Pat Burell Chome Parallel,  and  Kyle Drabek are among the non-Phils in the lot. 

Just want to mention one more time that the Topps Photography was real sharp in 2011 and I hope they continue to keep it up in 2012. 
 
This was a fun idea and I am glad Derek put it together.

 

2011 Phungo Cards - Placido Polanco

The All-Star Rosters are out.  The sole Phillies player to be voted onto the team is Third Baseman Placido Polanco.  This years marks Placido's 2nd All-Star appearance, both at different positions.  His previous All-Star start was as a second baseman representing the Tigers for his then manager Jim Leyland in 2007.

2011 Phungo #27 Placido Polanco, Jimmy Rollins, Charlie Manuel

Polanco was new to the Phils in 2010 and for the 2011 Phungo Set I wanted to produce a card of the fan favorite.   I didn't have many very good shots of Placido and went with this Photo from the 2010 opener.  Charlie Manuel is also on the card which is noteworthy going into the All-Star Break as he is the manager that finally led the NL to a victory in the Mid-Summer Classic for the first time in over a decade.  The 2010 NL victory was the first one since the NL won the game in Philadelphia (at the Vet) in 1996. 

Happy New Year!

Chinese New Year that is. 

Thursday marked the Chinese New Year, 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit or Hare - The Chinese Zodiac runs in 12 year cycles rather than a 12 (or 13 month Ophiuchus??) cycle. 

Year of the Rabbit luminaries include:

Born in 1927 Richie Ashburn!

Sorry, PC still on the blink so your getting Photos rather than scans.

Ray Chapman (1891)
Bert Blyleven (1951)
Red Dooin (1879)

Chapman was killed by pitch thrown by Carl Mays in 1920.  The incident led to rule changes regarding the use of new baseballs and batting helmets.  Red Dooin was the Phillies catcher roughly 100 years ago.  

   

Johnny Callison (1939)
Cy Young (1867)

Randy Johnson (1963)
Lou Gehrig (1903)
Placido Polanco (1975)

Lot of great Year of the Rabbit players - 1987 is off to a pretty good start as well - I am saving that spot for Phillies Prospect Dominic Brown.

Other rabbits I didn't have the patience to look for included Joe Gordon (1915) and Jim Bouton (1927).

Going Way Back 
Representing 1855 Paul Hines who won the first triple crown in 1878.  Another Triple Crown Winner, Carl Yastrzemski is a Rabbit as well (1939).  The first Rabbit would be Nate Berkenstock (1831) who is the earliest born player in the history of baseball.

Rabbit King
That is a lot of incredible names but perhaps the most significant Baseball related Year of the Rabbit Birth is Hall of Famer Walter James Vincent Maranville or RABBIT MARANVILLE born November 11 1891. 

Sloppy Topps - 2010 Heritage

This may have been discussed elsewhere - but I don't recall seeing it, so I am bringing it up here.


2010 Topps Heritage #368 Placido Polanco
1961 Topps #433 Art Mahaffey

Are friend Placido Polanco is back from earlier in the week to help out with this demonstration. The Polanco card appears pretty close to the 61 Original of Phils Pitcher art Mahaffey. The only real discrepancy between the cards (other then the blatant photoshopping discussed previously) is the Topps Heritage logo. The color scheme for the boxes at the bottom rotate throughout the set and I really have no issue with this. however.....

Take a 1961 original and a 2010 Heritage card.

Now take both cards and flip them over.


2010 Topps Heritage #368 Placido Polanco (b-side)
1961 Topps #433 Art Mahaffey (b-side)

The Card backs are reversed in 2010 Heritage.

This seems to be a pretty hard detail to miss.

Heritage is popular with collectors because it mimics the Topps classic designs well. The one thing that Topps has on the other companies is their history. If Topps does not honor their history properly, they risk making a mockery of an asset.

Sloppy Topps - 2010 Heritage Placido Polanco

2010 Topps Heritage #368 Placido Polanco

In general this is one of the poorer jobs of photoshopping done in the 2010 Topps products. In A lot of the cards I have seen the uniforms look pretty close and flow with the picture quite well. This one of Polanco looks like classic 70s airbrushing. The colors are a mess. This is supposed to be the Phils Home Day game uniform, I think, which are really a cream color not this bleached white they have dressed Placido in.

But what really caught my attention was the knob on the bat handle. While this card will surely not get as much attention as another bat knob, it does contain a rather irksome error.

If you look closer you can see that the handle contains a number.




It is a little hard to make out, but the number is #14. Once again the good folks in the Topps Art department have made it look like a current player is wearing a retired number. Yep #14 is retired, but not for the player you may think it is. It is retired for Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning, not Pete Rose. Rose is banned from the sport and I suppose this keeps his number from being officially retired.




As can be seen from his Baseball-Reference page Polanco wore #14 with the Tigers. Since returning to the Phils, he has reclaimed the #27 which he wore in his previous sting with the Phils.

Cards that never were - 2009 Topps Placido Polanco

Faux 2009 Topps Placido Polanco

I have noted the baseball lineup cards featured at Phils games several times in this space. This year the Phils have retained the card design from 2009 Topps. This means for players that did not have a card last year, a new card had to be created. This is the one for Placido Polanco, who of course did have a 2009 Topps Card but it was with the Tigers.

These lineup cards were on display during the Phils on-deck series this weekend. We went down for the Saturday game of the series. The game did not count in the regular season standings, but it was a beautiful day and a great opportunity to get down to the ballpark. If I can get some real life stuff done this week, I will try and put together a game report.

Yesterday during the Phils Home Opener Polanco had a fine Phillies Re-Debut which included a Grand Slam and 6 RBIs.

For a look a custom Polanco card check out 2010 Chachi #2 over at The Phillies Room.

2004 Topps Heritage Faux Blaster - 1955 Topps Returns

The Phungo Faux Blaster is basically $20 worth of cards out of a single product or in a certain theme. Today we are examining 2004 Topps Heritage.

04 Heritage looks back at 1955 Topps, the first of the Topps Sets to feature Landscape/Horizontal cards. Here is one other link dedicated to 1955 Topps.

I picked up Five packs of the 04 Heritage at a show last month and opened the first pack over at A Pack to be Named Later. Recently Matt F of Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius has been busy opening a lot of quality 1980's and early 90's wax.

Here is what came out of the remaining 4 packs

Pack 2
304 Rocco Baldelli
1 Jim Thome
160 Carlos Quentin (early card but not a RC)
66 Kyle Davies RC
NPA15 Josh Beckett
67 Tim Salmon
270 Ramon Ortiz
103 Hideo Nomo

The Inserts (click to Enlarge)

Pack 3
86 Ray Durham
325 Alex Gonzalez
212 Darrin Erstad
133 Wes Helms
F10 Flashback Robin Roberts
4/4 Checklist (on some really thick cardboard)
277 Ty Wiggington
178 Shane Reynolds
322 Junior Spivey

Thome Short Print with Thome Base (Click to Enlarge)


Pack 4
353 Brad Lidge (Astros)
372 Eric Karros
189 Braden Looper
392 Jamie Moyer (Mariners)
1 Thome (SP)
76 Placido Polanco
285 Neifi Perez
199 Javier Vazquez

Phillies Past and Present

Pack 5
44 Jimmy Haynes
143 Brad Fullmer
280 Brian Giles
55 Brendan Donnelly
195 Flash Gordon
53 Jose Contreras
215 Randy Johnson
107 Jarrod Washburn

The five packs pretty much came up as promised. The lot didn't contain a "hit", four of the five packs contained either an insert or a short print. As far as I can tell the last pack does not contain an insert. The Short Print I pulled was of Jim Thome and 1 of the three inserts was of Robin Roberts - Very happy on the Phils meter. Pack four was probably the pick of the lot as it contained two Phils including the Thome SP, plus two future Phils who would make up part of the 2008 World Championship pitching staff.

Whenever I pick up packs in bulk from the a dealer at a show, I try and get a then to throw in some sort of a bonus. With the 5 packs of 04 Heritage I also picked up a pack of 2003 Fleer Tradtion which is featured in this post. That pack produced 10 cards the Highlights were a Sammy Sosa insert, Drew Henson SP, and an early Jake Peavy card.

Summarizing the 2004 Topps Heritage Faux Blaster: No big hits a couple of inserts and short prints. Who knows maybe the packs were searched, or I got the end of the Heritage box.

Overall I came away with 50 total cards broken down as follows:

36 2004 Topps Heritage Base Cards
1 Short Print Variation (Thome)
3 Inserts (Robin Roberts, Josh Beckett, Herb Score/Kerry Wood)

7 2003 Fleer Tradition Base Cards
1 Short Print (Drew Henson)
2 Insert (Sosa, Jeter Puzzle Piece )

The Heritage cards included 7 Past, Current or Future Phils of some significance which made the Faux Blaster a success, otherwise I would have considered it mediocre. Regardless, I think I would prefer this Blaster to a Blaster of 90 current topps cards.

1955 Topps

Lets take a look back at some of the other 1955 Topps related cards in the Phungo Collection:
1955 Topps #11 Ferris Fain

Ferris Fain played his first 6 seasons (1947-52) with the Philadelphia Athletics. During his career he posted an On Base Percentage of .424, which ranks 9th all time! Fain was basically a singles hitter (48 career Homers) with a lot of walks and it is doubtful he would have ever gotten consideration for the Hall of Fame. He also only played 9 seasons, one short of Hall of Fame qualification.

2004 is not the only time that Topps has recycled the 1955 design. They have done this as far back as 1975 when Topps had a subset featuring the Topps cards of the Leagues previous MVPs.


I am sure that most of you are also aware that Topps has used the design for a Mantle Subset and included a handful of 1955 style cards in their Fan Favorites Series:


2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #84 Johnny Podres
2008 Topps Mickey Mantle Home Run History #HHR536 Mickey Mantle
(click to enlarge)