Stadium Visit: 2014 05 23 Royals 1 @ Angels 6

Got back from LA and wanted to quick a couple of snapshots from the team Phungo visit to Anaheim Stadium.  The Angels hosted the Royals and won the contest 6-1. CJ Wilson pitched 6 1/3 for the home team scattering four hits, but also walked 4. The Royals however stranded 10 runners and Wilson was able to hold them to the single run. Catcher Chris Iannetta and Mike Trout each homered for the Angels.  

Anaheim Stadium - Royals @ Angels: CJ Wilson vs Nori Aoki

This shot is from late in the game you can see the faux rocks just left of center

Danny Duffy vs Mike Trout

Yes this is the pitch that Mike Trout knocked out for a Home Run in the third inning. If you click on the photo it will enlarge and you can see a streak that is the pitched ball.

CJ Wilson

The Angels had a couple of stars on Friday Night, Trout, Chris Iannetta and CJ Wilson shown above.

 

Nori Aoki

The Royals got three of their five hits from leadoff man Nori Aoki. Here we see his distinct batting style. 

Louis Coleman vs Albert Pujols

Royals Reliever Louis Coleman faces Albert Pujols late in the game. Coleman eventually K'd Pujols in this AB. 

Albert Pujols HR Meter

The Angels Pujols HR Tracker located beyond centerfield.

 

Angels Retired Numbers

The Honorees include former Phillies Manager Jim Fregosi (11), Rod Carew (29), Nolan Ryan (30) and of course Jackie Robinson. 

Jill Marie Burke

Anaheim Anthem specialist Jill Burke had a busy night as she also led the fans in "Take me out to the Ball Game" during the stretch

I have a couple of other pix that I will be adding here over the next couple of days, but wanted to get the above shots up in a semi-timely manner

Sources

Baseball-ref

Jill Marie Burke

Snapshots 2013 06 12 Angels 9 @ Orioles 5

Team Phungo made it out for our first Orioles game of the year.  It didn't go any better than the other 4 Phillies losses that I have had the pleasure of witnessing this season. 

The Orioles led 4-2 going into the 7th when reliever Pedro Strop came in and failed miserably.  He was unable to strand the two runners Jason Hammel put on, plus he added a few of his own.  That was the end of what had otherwise been a decent O's outing. By the end of the inning the Orioles were down 4 and ended up losing 9-5..

Snapshots (click any pix to enlarge)

Nate McLouth singles in the first

McLouth got the O's started off strong, getting a leadoff single in the first and scoring on one of 2 RBI Grounders later in the inning.

The game really may have turned on two plays, one of which was McLouth being called out by Joe West on a Stolen Base attempt in the 3rd inning.  I thought he was safe as did Buck Showalter.

Buck Showalter and Joe West

Pedro Strop

Hank Conger reaches on a "Single" in the Angels big 7th inning

There were some big blows after Conger bounced a single off of Pedro Strop's glove, but this play was pretty pivotal. Had Strop handled the ball or even completely missed the comebacker, I think it is likely the O's would have turned a Double Play which would have gone a long way towards getting out of the inning.

Instead no out was recorded and the top of the Angels order came to the plate. Regardless, Pedro Strop really didn't do much else in 1/3 of an inning. He couldn't find the plate and ended up giving up 4 earned. His ERA balooned to 7.58.  

Erick Aybar

Eric Aybar had one of the two big hits in the 7th inning.  This is the swing Aybar had on his bases loaded triple. I was to upset at the time to remember it now. Three Batters later Albert Pujols

Noteworthies

Chris Davis

The AL Home Run leader hit his 21st dinger of 2013 in the 4th inning.

Manny Machado
The Current AL WAR leader was 2-5 with a double.

Brad Hawpe
The newest Angel

Mike Trout
No miracle catches for Trout who was back starting in center after Peter Bourjos big catch on Tuesday Night. During the defesive replacement phase of the game Bourjos did come into play CF and Trout moved to left.

Albert Pujols
Pujols came a triple short of a cycle. He was a DH on Wednesday and he hasn't played the field much lately.  It was very obvious his foot was bothering him and I observed the former MVP talking with JJ Hardy at some point in the game.  He appeared to be motioning towards his heal during the discussion. The O's didn't bother holding Pujols had first whenever he reached base.    

A good Day at the Yard

Even with the Orioles taking the Loss, a day at the yard beats any day at the office.(Pedro Strop v Erick Aybar)


Source
Baseball-Ref

Tell Your Statistics to Shut Up

1999 Sports Illustrated Greats of the Game Autograph Jim Bouton (nno)


I am not sure which character says it but "Tell Your Statistics to Shut Up" is a memorable line from "Ball Four" -  The Jim Bouton chronical of his 1969 season. 

With that explanation, I would like to add another feature to Phungo - Looking at some Stats, mostly with the help of the incredible Baseball-Reference.com.  For Practical purposes I think I will refer to this feature as SUS for Shut Up Stats.

Today I want to look at 2 of the big Off-Seasons signings and the impacts on those two Teams Attendace.  Specifically I am talking about Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols.

Rank	Team	Up/Down	Home Att Dif	Avg Dif
1	MIA	UP	387,479	11,742
2	DET	UP	271,903	9,376
3	WSN	UP	204,449	7,302
4	TEX	UP	177,351	6,821
5	TOR	UP	172,473	5,947
6	STL	UP	149,240	5,527
7	KCR	UP	134,391	4,800
8	ARI	UP	147,178	4,748
9	BAL	UP	131,788	4,393
10	ATL	UP	110,656	4,098
11	CIN	UP	122,050	4,068
12	PIT	UP	87,947	2,932
13	LAD	UP	88,460	2,854
14	CHC	UP	58,096	2,152
15	TBR	UP	46,511	1,550
16	MIL	UP	50,366	1,526
17	SEA	UP	32,764	1,311
18	OAK	UP	12,270	423
19	COL	UP	7,582	230
20	SDP	UP	4,322	127
21	BOS	UP	2,735	83
22	SFG	DOWN	-5,987	-187
23	PHI	DOWN	-17,489	-564
24	NYM	DOWN	-32,556	-1,050
25	NYY	DOWN	-45,250	-1,460
26	CLE	DOWN	-55,446	-1,733
27	CHW	DOWN	-61,361	-1,805
28	HOU	DOWN	-87,129	-2,723
29	LAA	DOWN	-101,318	-3,377
30	MIN	DOWN	-125,593	-4,331
	total	UP	1,867,882	2,064

Interesting stuff on the movement of our two sluggers.  Both Detroit and the Angels have had mediocre seasons - with the Angels surging a bit recently.  However it is Prince Fielder's team that had the Attendance jump while Pujols team has had one of the worst attendence declines in the league. 

The Angels have had 30 Home dates so far this season.  If you prorate Albert Pujols $12MM 2012 salary for those 30 games that means the Angels are paying him roughly 75K a game to draw 3377 less fans. 

Of course there are lots of other factors in attendance - Tean Play, Weather, Weekend/Weeknight games, The Dodgers Success, as well as the Stanley Cup Champs, Lakers and even Clippers.

Other Observations
- ChiTown - Cubs stink attendance up, ChiSox in First Place attendance down
- Least Coast Bias - Both Mets and Yankees down 1000+/Game - Phils also down, Boston up slightly.  ChesBay area O's and Nats both Up Though.
- The Spurned - The two teams that lost Pujols and Fielder both are Up - impressive for the Brew Crew who also went thru the Braun PR Hit.  Of course the Cardinals are coming off a World Championship.  The other World Series Participant Texas is up as well.

Source: Baseball-Reference.com - Year to Year Attendance Page
Stats Captured on 2012 06 12 for games played through 2012 06 11

Phungo Challenge - 2012 First Homers

New Phungo Challenge for May.  Who on this list will be the first to Hit a Homer in 2012.  And how many hit homers before Albert Pujols?

Jimmy Rollins

Bryce Harper

Shin Soo Choo
Starlin Castro
Luis Pujols

Johnny Damon

Omar Vizquel

Vlad Guerrero

Bobby Abreu

Ryan Howard

Carlos Zambrano

CC Sabathia
Jamie Moyer
Andy Pettite

Jason Varitek

Gorman Thomas
Tony Plush

Tyler Moore (MLB Debut w/ Nats day after B Harper)

Mary Tyler Moore

Dominic Brown

Charlie Brown

The Chick on DWTS who was trending yesterday. 
Cute barista at my starbucks. 

The Squirrel on Skip Shumakers Topps Card.   

2011 Phungo Cards Albert Pujols

Apparently the Cardinals and Albert Pujols were unable to come to a contract agreement prior to their deadline today.  Knowing that both sides are very honest and honorable, I would be shocked SHOCKED! if we heard a peep from either side of these discussions the rest of the summer. 

2011 Phungo BFI Dual Insert Albert Pujols

In 2011 Team Phungo hard pressed for exposure in the cramped trading card market have come up with a series of Gimmick Cards.  What could be better than the popular BFI Series - How about DUAL BFI INSERTS.  TWICE THE FUN!!

The DUAL BFI is similar to the Black and Blue Card that was produced by Fleer in the 80s.   I wanted to take the idea of Fleer and apply it to a card(s) where it makes sense.  I have placed pitcher v batter photos onto a single 2.5x3.5 card but the pitcher is always further away and dramatically smaller then the batter.  This makes it hard to ID the pitcher in the Photo.

In the above photo, we are at Pujols' back, which isn't the most desirable situation for a photo.

But I think if you double the size of the image and place it on two cards it is a win-win.

2011 Phungo BFI Dual Insert Cole Hamels 

Cole Hamels and his distinct high leg follow through.


Here we have two cards that each separately feature a single player, but combined form a single great image.   

2011 Phungo BFI Dual Insert Cole Hamels v Albert Pujols (click to enlarge)


Combining the two cards makes for a single great looking card.

I think this is something that Topps could easily take on and would make for a great looking series of cards. 

There are 3 Dual BFI pairs that can be found in the 2011 Phungo Set.  We will features these throughout the year.

Sloppy Topps - 2008 All-Star Game Patch "Relics"

Last year, this was my "Hit" from a Jumbo Hobby Box of 2008 Topps.

2008 Topps Commemorative Patch Relic #CPR-AP Albert Pujols (339/499)

While I admit that it is a fun one to bring out for the All-Star game in a year that Pujols plays the Mid-Summer Classic in his home park, it is in my opinion a really really weak hit.

It is not game worn or event worn, in fact its not anybody anytime worn.

The caption on the back is great:


2008 Topps Commemorative Patch Relic #CPR-AP Albert Pujols (B-side - 339/499)

On top of the commemorative mumbo jumbo they tell me the player featured on the front is Albert Pujols, never mind the fact that the photo on the front is an edit from the one next to the caption itself.

Moving on to tonight's game - The NL has lost this game every year since 1996, when the game was in Philadelphia. I was fortunate enough to go to the game, which may have been the most lackluster in history. There were tons of no-shows including Ken Griffey Jr, The guys that did show included such stars as Roger Pavlik, and Rickey Bottalico was the Phils lone rep.

However the game did have it's moment. Local product Mike Piazza hit an Upper Deck Homer that helped give the NL the victory in a 6-0 shutout.

I would love to see a St Louis local product named Ryan Howard have a similar moment in tonight's All-Star game and get the Senior Circuit back on the winning side of the ledger.

For the Collector
Ok there are not a lot of these 2008 Topps Commemorative Patch Relics in the recently finished sales on ebay but I did find a couple and to be honest they went for a lot more than I expected.

Cole Hamels $7.19
Chase Utley $5.03
Prince Fielder $3.99
Jake Peavy $3.15

and get this

the Ryan Howard CPR went for a whopping $20.25

All the cards above are #d to 499 with the exception of the Fielder card which was 274/379 for some reason. All prices include S&H Charges, which for the Peavy and Fielder cards made up the bulk of the price.

Pretty Cool Mailing - Holliday Peavy Pujols and a newsboy

Has anybody ever received cards from an ebay seller in an envelope this cool???



I mean check it out - First off you've got baseball stamps of Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, Jake Peavy and some guy on the DL - side note: the Children of Malawi are a charity of Cole Hamels and wife Heidi. There is Ethel Merman, Walt Disney, and Henry David Thoreau - The thing looks like this years Allen & Ginter checklist. But wait it gets better - check out the B-side.


Thats the Pope, Michael Jack, and Garry Maddox - all used to seal the envelope. I mean where the heck are you ever going to find a sticker of Paul Owens??? And this wasn't even for an auction of Phillies cards.

Phungo 5 with Cards on Cards

The Phils are on the road for a couple of short series this week, the first of which features the Red Hot St Louis Cardinals. For Phungo 5 we are checking in with Cards on Cards. ConC is based out of Portland Oregon and also covers the upstart Portland Trail Blazers and was also good enough to send me a great lot of Phillies Minor League cards earliar this year. We cover a good bit of ground here including some Cards past and future and the quirky band "They May Be Giants"

1) St Louis is hosting the All-Star Game this year, Do you know of any interesting events the Cards are planning to give it a St Louis Flavor? Anything special you would like to see the Cardinals do? and Do you think they will bring back Mark McGwire for the weekend?

I’m not sure of all of the details, but I know that many former players have strong connections to the team still and they are often brought back for smaller events. I could see a huge group of former Cardinals on hand for the festivities. I know that Pujols is going to be at the center of a lot of what they’re doing. I don’t know about McGwire coming back. If he’s involved, I’m sure it will be very low-key. I find it interesting that you asked that because I was just reading a discussion the other day about how McGwire was a player who seemed to be a lot more popular with casual baseball fans around the country than he was with the St. Louis fanbase itself. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the guy as I’m sure many Cards fans do. I do know that he does seem to be a pretty nice guy, all things aside.

Phungo: This is interesting - I had not known that there was such a ambivalent reaction to McGwire in St Louis. Oddly this is just the opposite of the opinion on Barry Bonds, who is still fairly popular in San Francisco, and generally disliked outside of his home city. Perhaps because the Cardinals won a world Series without McGwire (and a more notable first baseman) St Louis fans have moved on.

2) I have Brett Wallace on my Fantasy squad - is he the real deal and just blocked? Are there any other Cardinal prospects that you woud consider their Autos a good investment.

Brett Wallace is a big-time hitter. I think he’ll find his way onto a team somewhere and at some position, too. I don’t think you’ll see him before September call-ups because the organization likes to work players in slowly, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t see any big league time at all this season even with Troy Glaus’s season a big question mark at this point. I’m sure it’s far too late in the prospecting game to get in on Colby Rasmus. Watch out for Daryl Jones, especially if Rick Ankiel doesn’t stick around.

3) Is there anything going on with the Portland Beavers that we need to know about?? I saw that Kyle Blanks swinging the bat in spring trainging looks like a real monster.

The Beavers seem to be in this sad state of being the split squad San Diego Padres these last couple of seasons. So many of their players seem to float up and down because the Padres have just been atrocious going back to the beginning of last season. I know they’re pretty big on Blanks. They had an even larger guy a few years back named Walter Young, but I would hope that Blanks will turn out more useful than he was.

4) From your profile, I see that you are a "They Might Be Giants" Fan. what song would you pick for their "request a cover" segment?

I think it would be fun to see them do a Queen song or just some really bombastic arena rock. Basically anything but Bohemian Rhapsody.

5) Favorite Molina?

There’s only one true answer to that. As a Phillies fan, I think you should be a Yadier Molina fan by proxy, with what he did to the Mets in the 2006 NLCS.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Yep - always good to work in a dig on the Mets - 5 out of 5 for Cards on Cards, Thanks for another batch of terrific answers. Good to hear the optimism on Brett Wallace, Queen was a great choice for TMBG I wonder what they would do with Bicycle Race?

For a look back at a previous Phungo 5 Click here to find out whats going on with Sports Locker.

And we are looking forward to a future Phungo 5 with Waxaholic.

Complements of Fielder's Choice - Donruss Threads and SP Authentic including PUDGE!!

The bounty from the World Series wager with Fielder’s Choice has just come in. Dave sent me a couple of packs from two pretty nice products, Donruss Threads and SP Authentic. I had not seen any of these cards other than via web postings by various card bloggers.

Dave sent 3 hobby packs of each, which was enough to give me a good sample of both products. Both have a similar price point – Donruss Threads is a new product and did have a fresh quality to them. While the SP authentic felt like a lot of other 08 UD releases – All the UD card backs look similar regardless of what line their from.

Donruss Threads also came through with a pretty sweet Game Used card!

2008 Donruss Threads Century Collection Materials #CCM-37 Carlton Fisk (92/100)

And a healthy mix of of prospects and former players.

2008 Donruss Threads Rookie Gold #149 Yohermyn Chavez (21/50)2008 Donruss Threads #95 Josh Vitters2008 Donruss Threads #24 Mark Fidrych

The prospects were about evenly split between high and low level prospects. The three packs yielded top prospect Vitters from the Cubs, the Braves Jordan Schafer, the Brewers Mat Gamel, and Boston's Lars Anderson. I believe the Chavez card above is a gold variation.

Donruss has been away for a while though and has some issues, can you spot an error on this card?

2008 Donruss Threads #81 Jose Tabata
SP authentic presented a nice selection of current stars. Among them were a former Phillie that hit a lot of Homers and also a new Phillie who only has one homer but it was very memorable.

2008 SP Authentic #73 Jim Thome
2008 SP Authentic #29 Joe Blanton

The Player photo is set off by being slightly raised slightly and somewhat shiny. The cards also features the players uniform number in the lower right hand corner in white. It isn't very visible because it is on a white background, but it is an interesting affect. On the right the number overlaps Blanton's left leg.

Each SP pack came with an insert.

2008 SP Authentic Marquee Matchups #MM-10 Carlos Zambrano vs Albert Pujols

The last card in the 3^rd pack of SP Authentic I opened was the J-Roll card.

2008 SP Authentic Authentic Achievements #AA-29 Jimmy Rollins

Similarly the last card in the final pack of Donruss I opened was a Phillie.

2008 Donruss Threads #38 Mike Schmidt

Pretty cool – and I think it brings us full circle on Dave’s guest post from last week.

Here are the specifics

3 Packs Donruss Threads
13 Base (5 former players , 8 prospects)
1 Century Collection (Pudge)
1 Gold Rookie (Chaves)
1 College Greates (#CG-4 Dave Winfield)

3 Packs SP Authentic
12 Base
2 Authentic Achievements (Rollins, #AA-38 Albert Pujols )
1 Marquee Matchups (Zambrano v Pujols)

Team Phungo would like to Thank Fielder's Choice and look forward to the Phils facing the Rays in a future World Series.

Sources and Links
Phungo Carlton Fisk Hof Index