Jeff Kent - 2012 Survivor Phillippines just for the Money???

According to the Baseball-Ref salary estimate Jeff Kent made $86 Miillion playing baseball from 1992-2008.  He was named to 5 all-star teams and won the 2000 NL MVP.  In 2002 he was part of the San Francisco Giants team that went to the World Series but lost to the Angels - Kent had 3 homer in the series.  While he never was on the winning side of World Series he played 65 games for the eventual 1992 champion Toronto Blue Jays prior to being traded for David Cone.  His current ELO rank for Jeff Kent is 138 just above Mark McGwire.  He is a borderline Hall of Famer with similarity comps in his top 10 including 4 HoFs Jim Rice, Sandberg, Santo and Billiy Williams. 

 

 

 

With all that money and the MLB accolades I was curious as to Kent's motivation to be on Survivor. 

 

2010 Phungo #37 Juan Pierre & Jeff Kent

 

I have come up with 3 possibilities

 

 

1) The Money - Although if Kent blew through the $86MM I think the 1 Million that Survivor offers would make little difference

2) The Spotlight - This is just part of the bigger picture, keeping Kent's name out there as he works on a TV/Movie Career.    

3) The Competition - He was a professional athlete and enjoys the competition.

 

 

With #1 covered above #2 is intriguing.  As far I can tell Kent isn't involved broadcasting or any other role with a team (Dodgers Giants or other).  If Kent wanted to remain out there you'd think that would be an avenue, but he has to this point not chosen to go that route. Perhaps Survivor is a career move for Kent - keeping his face out there for additional TV roles.  He has already appeared in a reality competion series previously, "The Superstars" in 2009.  Kent is from Southern Califormia and perhaps those are just the circles you run in if you are already a celebrity.  

 

 

Finally we come to the competition.  Kent spent 17 years in the Majors - he was a member of several succeful teams, going to the playoffs 7 different times.  Perhaps Survivor appeals to Kent's desire for competition.  Survivor is "played" more in front of a virtual crowd, but on Monday nights it may be more watched then any game Kent played in outside of the 2002 World Series.       

 

 

I wonder if Survivor is paying Jeff Kent win or lose.  Survivor is carried by CBS, which is the network that might currently be the farthest removed from Baseball - teaming with a retire MLB star doesn't seem to be the smart way for the network to go, but who knows what those crazy execs are thinking.  .  

  

 

 

Once again that leads us back to the spotlight.  I have never really watched Survivor much, but I may peek in a bit this season.  Lisa Whelchel (Blair on Facts of Life) is another Celeb contestant - she wouldn't be enough to get me in the door, Maybe Nancy McKeon (Jo) would get me to think about it.

Phungo Card

The above Phungo Card photo was taken prior to game one of the 2008 NLCS.  Kent didn't start the game but did get an AB as a pinch-hitter (strikeout).  He appears here next to current Phillies outfielder Juan Pierre.    

Sources & Links

Phungo Jeff Kent HoF Index 

Jeff Kent Wikipedia (plus Survivor and other pages) 

Jeff Kent Baseball-Ref

Jeff Kent imdb

2010 Phungo Cards Cliff Lee

Last week I mentioned the fact that Cliff Lee could go an entire year without getting a home win.  Well Clifford didn't let that happen.  In likely his last home start prior to the anniversary the Phils and Cliff Lee came up with a 4-1 victory versus the League Leading Washington Nationals. 


I am a little surprised to find out I hadn't posted a Phungo Card of Cliff Lee yet.  He has been in and out of Philadelphia for a while now.  There are so many traditional cards in my collection I must of deferred to those cards prior to tonight.  

2010 Phungo #34 Cliff Lee

There is a Cliff Lee card in every Phungo set since 2010.  This is the first Cliff Lee card we put together here at Phungo HQ.  The photo was taken a little over 3 years ago at a game against the Diamondbacks in which Lee pitched brilliantly winning 8-1 throwing a complete game and giving up only 2 hits 

2012 Topps A&G Gold Minis......Dislike. And a Variation Question. .

Ok My name is Phnungo and I admit I am a sucker for the rack packs that have 3 packs plus a mini pack of 3 parallels.  The product doesn't matter.  I largely view parallels a scam, but I enjoy them in small doses.

This interest is waning with the 2012 offering of Allen & Ginter.  The three packs come with 3 mini "Gold" Parallels.

 2012 A&G Gold Minis Hank Aaron, Padro Alvarez, Dan Uggla. 

It is pretty hard to tell the Gold Minis apart from the regular minis.  Same size, cardstock, basically the same color.  The border artwork on these gold cards is more detailed and looks good, but you can barely tell the difference from the regular minis.

  

2012 Topps A&G 
regular mini Mike Moustakas 
Gold Mini Hank Aaron
Regular Hank Aaron

The Moustakas is the standard mini.  The Aaron mini is the gold variation.

My question is does anybody know what is going on with the Hank Aaron card having differnent poses on the mini and the standard size card.  I haven't been following 2012 A&G that much this year.

A note on collation

The Three minis I pulled in the mini pack were all present within one of the single packs of A&G in the Hanger.  note 2 - I once saw Moustakas and Alvarez play in the same minor league game in Wilmington DE.

Phun Cards 1959 Topps #178 Ruben Amaro

1959 Topps #178 Ruben Amaro

Ruben Amaro played 40 games for the 1958 Cardinals, but his first Topps card was issued with a Phillies Logo in the 1959 set.  This is despite the fact that Amaro would not play with the Phillies unitl June of 1960.  Amaro was a member of the Phillies for 6 years including the ill-fated 1964 season.  Amaro was good enough to stick hold down a majore league job for 11 seasons, but that is about it.  He did not really have any offensive standout years and finished his career with 8 home runs and a .234 batting average.  His 11 years were split among 4 clubs including the Angels and Yankees in addition the Phils and Cardinals.  Thanks to the Phillies 1964 collapse Amaro never got a chance to play in the post-season, but he did earn a Gold Glove for his play during that 1964 season.

  

Ruben Amaro is of course the father of Ruben Amaro Jr who is the current GM of the Philadelphia Phillies.  Ruben Amaro JR or RAJ in @TwitterSpeak also played a few unremarkable years with the Phillies.  While doing some Wiki-research I found out that the RAJ is actually a 3rd generation professional ballplayer.  His grandfather Santos Amaro played in the Cuban and Mexican Leagues.  According to Wikipedia Santos played 17 seasson in the Mexican League compiling 1,339 hits and a .314 batting average.  He was elected to the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.  

For the Collector

The 1959 Topps Card for Ruben Amaro is a Rookie Card, but basically a common. I picked up this card up for 30 cents.  A graded PSA 8 Amaro card sold for $243.26 recently.  The PSA 7 graded cards are significantly more affordable with 3 auctions ending at under $26. 

2009 WBC #5 Phillippe Aumont

2009 Topps WBC #5 Phillippe Aumont

On Tuesday the Phillies added Phillippe Aumont to their roster, filling in for Jeremy Horst who is on the Paternity leave list. 

Aumont was the 11th overall pick of the 2007 Draft by the Mariners - He came to the Phillies as part of the 2009 Cliff Lee trade.  

Since this is a paternity leave for Horst, this may only be a short call up for Aumont.  Hopefully he gets into a few games and can show the Phillies something.  His numbers at AAA Lehigh Valley in 2012 are mixed - 4.26 ERA in 44.1 innings.  He does have 59 Ks - of course that is offset by 34 walks. 

For The Collector

The above card is from the 2009 Topps World Baseball Classic set.  This was a 55 card set that came in a blaster.  The sets initially sold for $20.  I occasionally see the set at about half that price.  There is a Yu Darvish card in the set which contains a mis of stars and lesser know international players.

etc

Phillippe Aumont Baseball-Ref page
Phillippe Aumont Wiki page     

SUS: Cliff Lee Winless at Home....

SUS: Shut Up Stats

The 54 Pitchers that have won a game at Citizen's Bank Park since Cliff Lee's last Home Win (9/5/2011)

Acosta	Durbin	Lannan	Qualls
Beckett	Garza	Lester	Roenicke
Belisario	Gomes	Lincecum	Romo
Billingsley	Gonzalez	Lohse	Sanchez
Blanton (4)	Gorzelanny	Madson	Savery
Broxton	Halladay (5)	Maholm	Schwimer (3)
Burnett	Hamels (6)	McClellan	Sheets
Byrdak (2)	Hanson	McDonald	Volquez
Capuano	Harang	Niese	Westbrook
Carpenter (2)	Horst	Nolasco	Worley (3)
Detwiler	Hudson	Oswalt	Zambrano
Dickey	Jurrjens	Papelbon (3)	Zimmermann
Diekman	Kendrick (3)	Peacock
Dotel	Kennedy	Price

List includes Chris Carpenter and Ryan Madson who haven't thrown a pitch in 2012.  Mike Schwiner has 3 Ws since 9/5/11!  Rookie Jake Diekman on the list.  .   

Unless Lee gets a W in his next start - likely Sunday v the Nats.  He will go an entire year without a Home win.

Source: Baseball-Reference.com

Snapshots 2012 08 20 - Reds @ Phillies

The Phillies soundly defeated the Reds 12-5 on Monday night.  Every position player in the starting lineup came up with a hit.  John Mayberry Jr came a triple short of the cycle as he recorded 3 RBIs.  Ryan Howard and Erik Kratz added Home Runs as well.  Roy Halladay was unspectacular, but got the W giving up 5 runs over 7.

The Reds put up some offense (12 hits) but ran themselves into several outs (3 that I can think of)  and Mike Leake (as well as the Reds Bullpen) didn't pitch well - all contributing to the blowout.  

Snapshots     

Ryan Howard
Howard was one of the Philllies offensive heroes with a homer and an RBI single. This AB is not nearly as exciting - he was intentionally walked.   

Roy Halladay

Good Guy Award

Brandon Phillips
This is a 2nd GGA for Phillips who was signing autographs posing for pix within about 5 minutes of his first AB.

Jay Bruce
Bruce was 3-3 with a pair of RBIs.  Chris Heisey also had 3 hits including a double for the bad guys.  In the Photo above that is Erik Kratz behind the dish.  He had another one of his mammoth Home Runs last night - He has 7 in 61 ABs this season.    

Jimmy Rollins

Blurry shot here, but I wanted to mention that Rollins was honored by the Phillies pre-game for passing Larry Bowa in games played.  Bowa was in the house to help mark the occasion. 

Vittles

We tried the Paninis($10)  last night (behind sec 133).  The Italian one was pretty decent.  The chicken and Brocolli was way heavy on the cheese for me.