Phungo Cards - Chase Utley

2009 Phungo #26 Chase Utley

This is the first Phungo card I am featuring of an active player. I wanted to get a better picture of Utley as he is one of my favorite players, but while you are watching and photographing a game you fall into the trap of choosing one of the other. Once you start trying to take pictures you really cease being a spectator, which is really the whole reason I went to the game in the first place.

I would of liked for the shot to be from a more front on profile rather than this 3/4 rear profile here. You can also tell it is a night shot both from the graniness/fuzziness and the fact that Utley's uniform is washed out in white. The Fuzziness is also partially due to using MS-Paint. for some reason the fidelity of pictures degraded whenever I transferred the Photos to paint.

The fuzziness factor also carried over to the text in the information boxes at the bottom of the card. I am a big fan of being able to track a card to a specific game, and since I knew what games my pix were taken at I added that as a feature of Phungo cards. The date is given in YYYY MM DD format. This is for sorting purposes - I am a software developer by day and this is something that always makes things simpler in our field. Finally the card number is in the bottom right hand box. For many players I used their uniform numbers - This is a technique that Topps uses with their hoop cards and I liked it. I also like hero numbers so some of the players that got booted from their uni numbers ended up on the zero and five numbers (20/25/30)

Chase Utley needs little introduction. He is arguably the best hitter on the team - pretty amzing considering there are two players on the team that have won MVP awards in the last three years and he is not one of them.

I got a lot (4 comments on a post is a lot for me) of positive feedback on the originial Phungo Card post yesterday and it is much appreciated. As we go thru the rest of the set, please let me know of stuff that you like or would modify.

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Moving on to the Spot the Sig! competition, PTBNL got another one and doubled. Night Owl Cards picked USC by 17 in the Rose Bowl. The Trojans won by 14, but Penn State had to stage a pretty big comeback late to make it that close and even almost made it interesting at the end. For picking USC by 14 NOC gets a Sac fly to score a well earned manufactured run.

We now have 4 players on the scoreboard with PTBNL pacing the competition at 4 runs.

Here are the current STS! standings

PTBNL - repsresentin those Fightin Phillies - 4 Runs - Man on 2nd
Stats on the Back - Mets - 1 Run in - Man on 3rd
Cardboard Junkie - Braves - 1 Run in - Man on First
Night Owl - Dodgers - 1 Run in Bases empty
Cardboard Addiction - Bosox - Man on First
A Cardboard Problem - Yankees - on Deck
Covered in Wrappers - an affiliate of A Cardboard Problem and Cardinals rep possibly? - Also on Deck.

For further information regarding the Phungo Spot the Sig! contest click here and join the party - you just may find yourself with a stack of cards come spring training!