Happy Trails Randy Wolf

We got the news that Randy Wolf announced his retirement last week. The southpaw will turn 40 later this summer and had a fine 16 year career. It does bring a bit of sadness to Phungo HQ as he was always a house favorite.

2003 Fleer Tradition #U256 Randy Wolf

Corinne Landrey wrote a terrific tribute to Randy Wolf's career over at Crashburn Alley which can be found here. Wolf's was an important player that bridged the era between the 1993 and 2007 NL Pennant teams but never got to play in the postseason with the Phillies. There are times when I look at those lean years with fondness and think about Scott Rolen, Mike Lieberthal, Bobby Abreu and Randy Wolf - That crew deserved better.  

Randy Wolf has two careers; his first eight seasons all with the Phillies and the other eight which he spent as a journeyman pitching for seven different clubs. And Yes as noted by the above Fleer Tradition card Randy Wolf represented the Phillies at the 2003 All-Star Game in Chicago.

2003 was the final of four consecutive seasons where he recorded double digit wins for the Phillies. He deserved the honor as he was coming off perhaps his best season (2002: 11-9, 3.20 ERA, 210 IP, 172Ks).

flip

2003 Fleer Tradition #U256 Randy Wolf (b-side)

The back of the card tells the story of Wolf's sole All-Star appearance. The game was a 7-6 AL victory played at US Cellular Field in Chicago.  The strikeouts were recorded against Jorge Posada and Alfonso Soriano. The RBI was ceded on a single to Carlos Delgado who plated Ichiro.

2003 Fleer Tradition
The '03 Fleer Tradition release homages the original 1963 set, I don't think there were all-star cards in that set. These 2003 cards do a decent job of echoing the 60s stylistically, but really don't appear to close to 1963F. The one nod is retaining the card numbering element, a circle backed by crossed bats.

Sources and Links
Corinne Landry - Crashburn Alley 
Baseball Cardpedia
baseball-ref 

Swag from Nachos Grande

Picked up a bunch o cards in the lastest Nachos Grande break. Posting some of the highlights here

2014 Topps Stadium Club Auto Mario Hollands

I was the big winner in the Topps Stadium Club portion of the break. Yes it is a rookie card auto, but considering some of the other possibilities of autos in 2014 TSC this is a disappointment for the group break.

With Antonio Bastardo out of the picture, I imagine Hollands is in the mix for LH bullpen guy.

2013 Panini Triple Play Cole Hamels, Carlos Ruiz

I wasn't a fan of 2012 TP, the images were a too vague for me. I think they is a significant upgrade in the artwork for 2013.

2012 Spotsclix Figurne Randy Wolf

This is a W - Randy Wolf is a bit of a Team Phungo Favorite. He has taken a spot on the Phungo Shelf of Fame.

Munnatawket Custom Cards - 2008 A&G mini tribute

These special bonus cards are an ABSOLUTE Highlight. To me the Munnatawket Customs look better than the cards produced by Topps in 2008 - How cool is it to get an Auto from the Nachos Grande Author. We  are less than 3 weeks into 2015 and this may be the best card I get all year!

Sources and Links

Nachos Grande

Cardboard Connection

Swag from Nachos Grande

In January Chris from Nachos Grande ran a group break involving a bunch of boxes from the early 2000s.  If you're a Phils Fan the early aughts is a pretty quiet time - typically this means a lot of Scott Rolen and Bobby Abreu - neither of which is a fan favorite.  Despite this the Nachos Grande break was a fun one and provided us with a bunch of nice cards.  Here are some of the highlights:

 A couple of Phils from my childhood.   These are from the UD Vintage set.  These are the cards that mimic 1975 Topps.

Fleer Vintage cards that homage 1954 Topps.

Topps Finest Bobby Abreu and Todd Helton - The NG break featured one random team, Team Phungo got the Rockies.  Not a great one if you like classic cards, I mean who are they going to put in the Vintage sets Larry Walker?   

 Fleer Inserts of Pat Burrell and Die Cut of Phungo Favorite Randy Wolf

2011 Phungo Cards - Randy Wolf

The Phils are out of the postseason playoffs.  while I have not completely recovered from their ouster at the hands of the St Louis Cardinals I still enjoy baseball enough that I am try to watch the other playoff games whenever possible. 

There are very few players with Philly connnections on the four remaining squads, but one of those players is Phungo Household favorite Randy Wolf.

2011 Phungo #16 Randy Wolf

Wolf is never going to be the A starter for a team with World Series aspirations, but he is a decent lefty who can hold down that 3 or 4 spot on a good team.  Tonight he will try and hold off Albert Pujols and the rest of the Cardinals lineup in game 4 of the NLCS.  I would like to see Brewers advance in the playoff just so I can have a former Phil to root for in the Series. 

The Brewers are facing another former Phils Pitcher in Kyle Lohse, but I really don't count him.  He was only here for a brief post trade deadline stint, and I think he only lasted an inning in the sole game I saw him pitch for the Phils. 

Phungo Game Report - 2010 09 05 Milwaukee Brewers @ Philadelphia Phillies

It was Home Run Derby night at Citizen's Bank Park - The Brewers and Phils combined for 6 dingers. Oddly the games deciding play came on a sacrifice fly and botched throw.

The Phils took the see-saw game 5-4. The odd Sac Fly started on a 1 out fly ball to Ryan Braun by Placido Polanco. The Phils had Carlos Ruiz at third who may have screened rookie catcher Jonathan Lucroy on the throw which bounced away. On the errant throw Phils backup infielder Wilson Valdez came all the way around from 2nd to score the winning run. It was the most exciting play in a night that was filled with Homers and nice defensive efforts.

Prince Fielder, Alcides Escobar, and Core Hart (2) supplied the fireworks for the Brew-Crew. The Good Guys got Homers from Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth. Despite giving up four homers for first time in his career Roy Halladay got the W - makes up for a couple of tough losses he has taken earlier this season. The Phils bullpen pitched 2 innings of spotless relief, with Ryan Madson and J C Romero setting it up for Brad Lidge's 20th save. Kameron Loe took the loss for the Brewers. Local product Dave Bush got the start for the Brewers and pitched well and did not factor in the decision. Carlos Ruiz was 3-3 on the night - The Phils picked up a game on the Braves and are now 20 games over .500 for the first time in 2010.

Snapshots
A Robin
This statue of Robin Roberts guards the first base gate at Citizen's Bank Ballpark.


A Wolf
Former Phil and Phungo Phavorite

A Vegetarian
Prince coming in from BP. Might be Prince's first appearance in Phungo.


and A Jimmy
J-Roll has never been featured on a Phungo Card. He is always batting lead-off - I think I am not quite ready to take a picture when Jimmy is at the plate. Rollins was also spotted at the Red Bull Flugtag earlier on Saturday.

Other Observations
It was a really windy night - blowing left to right - I would have thought anything to Left would have gotten knocked down, but both Escobar's and Werth's Homers were drilled deep. The Bank may have held Fielder's sky-high homer on another night - same with Howard's.

The Brewer's were fairly well represented in the crowd. It is a holiday weekend and I am sure a few fans made the trip to Philadelphia for the series. Most common shirt I spied last night was Ryan Braun, with Prince Fielder not getting as much love as I would of thought.

Every Phillies home game is a sell-out, but there are levels of sell-outs. some are mobbed and some feel like Sell-outs in name only. Surprisingly last night was closer to the Mobbed variety. Lots of college students have returned to town and there was a Penn State promotion which added to the festive evening.

I only caught the tail end of the Brewer BP and they had the reserves swinging that bats. Rookie Lorenzo Cain looked pretty sharp lacing several hard hit liners and popping a long homer to left. Mat Gamel also hit the ball hard several times. Craig Counsell had the most consistent BP knocking several balls sharply up the middle.

Good Guy Awards
Mat Gamel and Willie Randolph were both spotted signing autographs for fans.

Looking Back
For a previous Game Report check here for the Rangers and Orioles (2010/08/21)
For the last Phillies Game Report click here for a game featuring the San Francisco Giants (2010/08/17).

Looking Ahead
The Labor Day Baseball Bonanza continues with the tricky Night Game followed by a Day game as team Phungo travels to Baltimore to see the Orioles host the Rays.

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.