Belated thanks to Number 5 Type Collection

Quite some time ago, Matthew, over at Number 5 Type Collection, had a contest where folks could submit their favorite name of a major league rookie from this season. I put forth the Rangers Tanner Scheppers, as I think Tanner is a great baseball name, going back to the book/movie The Bad News Bears. Matthew chose my selection and my prize was this selection of Pittsburgh Pirates cards.

All but the Stargell and the Miller are O-Pee-Chee cards which was sort of neat. That might be fun, trying to collect a 1978 O-Pee-Chee set. The Topps set of that year was my first foray into baseball card collectiong when I was but a wee lad.

As I was not blogging at the time, a proper shout out and thanks was not given. So allow me to belatedly thank Matthew for the cards and for a great blog. Thanks.

My Hall of Fame ballot, part I

The Hall of Fame ballot was released today to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The stars of the "Steroid Era" are now starting to hit the ballot and the performances of these players are being ignored by those wishing to take a supposed moral stand.

I have two primary issues with those who want to use steroid use or speculated steroid use to deny players their vote for induction into the Hall of Fame. My first issue is the lack of evidence indicating that steroid use provided any assistance to the performance of these players. There are those who cite the explosion in home runs as evidence of steroid use but then conveniently forget that pitcher Roger Clemens, a suspected steroid user, was the premier pitcher of his era, if not all-time. So who were the steroids helping, hitters or pitchers? I personally think no one.

My second issue concerns those who have been denied eligibility for Hall of Fame induction based on their admitted or supposed drug use. Let's see, there's, well, no one. Pete Rose (and others) can't get in the Hall of Fame because their wrongs were deemed worthy of banishment from the game. No players of the late nineties, early 21st century have been banned. They are eligible to be considered for the Hall of Fame based on their accomplishments. It bothers me that there are members of the BBWAA who feel that they can arbitrarily choose to ignore the performances of players they think used drugs based on some sort of sense of moral superiority.

Well, none of that moral superiority will be in evidence here. At Rain of Error, there is a distinct lack of morals. Er, wait a minute. Maybe that's not the phrasing I wanted. Anyway, I've divided the members of the ballot into four groups. The guys I don't think have a chance will be covered today. The gentlemen who I do think have cases for the Hall will be in my next post. Without further ado:

NO POSSIBLE WAY

Sandy Alomar Jr.1988-2007 1st Solid catcher defensively. Not so hot with the bat. Remember back in the day when the Padres had Benito Santiago, Alomar, and Mark Parent all catching in their system? That's 53 major league seasons between the trio. That was some serious scouting/drafting. 

Jeff Cirillo 1994-2007 1st He was a lot better than I recall him being. Career .296 hitter. Walked some. No power. Average glove. Not a bad player but not one you plan on seeing in Cooperstown.

Royce Clayton 1991-2007 1st His one season playing in Coors Field, he led the league in sacrifice hits. That about sums things up.

Jeff Conine 1990, 1992-2007 1st He only retired five years ago? He always seemed to be 35 years old, regardless of what he actually was.

Steve Finley 1989-2007 1st I have faulty wiring in my brain which causes me to mix Finley up with Brady Anderson. I have no idea why. Combined I don't think they're Hall-worthy.

Shawn Green 1993-2007 1st Four homers in a game is awesome and so he will have a legacy in Cooperstown, even without a plaque in the gallery.

Roberto Hernandez 1991-2007 1st Dude almost died from a blood clot. Remember that? Then came back and pitched forever. I don't think I can seriously consider any relief pitcher post-Dave Righetti for the Hall of Fame.

Ryan Klesko 1992-2007 1st Should probably get consideration because he had Jim Rice-level TEH FEAR. At least I thought so. Never a guy I wanted to see up with men on base. If he ever played even a single full season, things would have been different.

Kenny Lofton 1991-2007 1st When he was 29, I would have thought he was a no-brainer Hall of Famer. Being mediocre or worse for eleven more seasons didn't help his cause.

Don Mattingly 1982-95 13th Ditto Mattingly except the cutoff age was 25.

Jose Mesa 1987, 1990-2007 1st More hype than substance in my mind.

Reggie Sanders 1991-2007 1st I have an unpublished blog post about Reggie Sanders that may need reviving. Just a run-of-the-mill outfielder.

Aaron Sele 1993-2007 1st Hall of Fame curveball.

Lee Smith 1980-97 11th All those saves should be worth something. Just not entrance into Cooperstown. 

Mike Stanton 1989-2007 1st Wait, what?!?! Mike Stanton? Seriously?

Todd Walker 1996-2007 1st A lot of people don't know that there is a preliminary stage players have to get through before the actual ballot. You need to have ten years in the majors to get on the ballot and then you have to pass a sort of vetting process. I don't know how Todd Walker made that cut. Or Mike Stanton for that matter.

David Wells 1987-2007 1st Meh.

Rondell White 1996-2007 1st Would it be a tragedy if anyone who played 700 or more games for the Expos earned automatic induction into the Hall of Fame? Carter and Dawson are already in. Vlad Guerrero and Raines should get in. Tim Wallach, Warren Cromartie and Andres Galarraga? That wouldn't be horrible. Jose Vidro, Larry Parrish, Bob Bailey...OK, maybe not such a good idea. Chris Speier, Rondell White, Orlando Cabrera? All right, how about 1000 games then?

Woody Williams 1993-2007 1st I got nothing.

GOOD BUT NOT A GUY WHO SHOULD BE IN THE HALL

Julio Franco 1982-94, 1996-97, 1999, 2001-07 1st JULIOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! The Harold Baines of my generation. And my son's generation. And my grandson's generation. And my great-grandson's generation.

Fred McGriff 1986-2004 4th The Crime Dog was a solid first baseman but in an era of many great first basemen. Too bad.

Curt Schilling 1988-2007 1st He suffers on my ballot from my having watched his career in Philadelphia where he was a really good pitcher. He didn't become great until late in his career and after he left Philly. Through age 29, he was 52-52 with an ERA+ of 113. From ages 30-40 he was 164-94 with an ERA+ of 134.

Sammy Sosa 1988-2005, 2007 1st One-dimensional. Or maybe two. He could throw pretty well. Sort of the Dave Kingman of my era.

Larry Walker 1989-2005 3rd Just not enough games on the Expos. And too many in Coors Field for me to take him seriously. That and injuries.

Bernie Williams 1991-2006 2nd If he plays for any team other than the Yankees, I think he's off the ballot his first year. Nice outfielder and should get bonus point for his guitar playing but doesn't.

Joy of a completed page - 2008 UDX Memorabilia

I'm sure I have effectively eliminated all traffic I once had to this site by not posting but thems the breaks. I intend to begin blogging again with a new blog (more information coming soon) and thought I would try and catch up some things/just write for the time being.

Like most of you, I continue to work on completing the 2008 Upper Deck X set. What's that? You're not trying to complete the 2008 Upper Deck X Set? You think that's a ridiculous idea? Hahaha, yeah, me too. That would be silly. I wouldn't do that. That set is so maligned. No one likes it. You're right, I was just messing with you. You got me....

I'm lying. I like the set, I have liked it, and I continue to try and "finish" it. In the not too distant past, I was able to acquire a small lot of cards I needed including the Freddy Sanchez memorabilia card which let me fill this page:

I love how this set looks. I can't help it.

I'm always interested in trading and if you're collecting the set, I'm sure I could fill some of your needs. Right now my biggest challenge with the set is the gold die cuts. If you have any of those, please let me know.

Look for more blog posts, including at least one other this week!

How I won my fantasy baseball league

Yes, I'm emerging from my six month blogging hiatus to talk about my fantasy baseball team, even though I expressed immense distaste for those who talk about their fantasy teams. Why? Because I felt that my expert knowledge should be shared with those who will be playing fantasy baseball in the future. As for me, I'm retiring on top. This has been the year of unpleasant baseball activities for me, more on that in future blog posts perhaps. Playing fantasy baseball was one of them. I hated the whole experience.

Why did I hate it so much? For the same reason I won. Luck.

Perhaps other formats than the one we used rely less on luck. Ours, though.....

Each week you went up against a different opponent and competed in 12 categories over seven days of the baseball schedule. Anything can happen in seven days. And that's really how I won. There was a clear cut superior team in the league (not mine) followed by five teams that were pretty good (I was in that group). Thanks to the abomination known as wild card playoff spots, I made the playoffs with the fourth-best record in the league.

In the first round of the playoffs I beat the fifth-place team despite my pitchers posting a 6.01 ERA for the week. That put me up against the top-seeded team in the semi-finals. I literally eked out a victory by the slimmest of margins. My season came down to Joey Votto's last at bat of the week. If he had tripled or homered, my season would have ended. Votto walked. I moved on.

Then in the finals, I faced the team with the third best record and won despite a lackluster week.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Oh, you're just being modest. We all know that you have superior knowledge of the sport of baseball. You're just awesome". Thanks for thinking that. But again, it's luck and has been from the start of the season.

First off, the draft. What a waste of time. Of the 25 guys I drafted at the start of the season, do you know how many were on my team at the end of the season? Seven.

1st round - Miguel Cabrera
3rd round - Felix Hernandez
5th round - Buster Posey
6th round - Drew Storen
15th round - Matt Joyce
20th round - Mike Trout
25th round - Tim Collins

Granted, that's not a bad seven. But let's look at luck again. I ended up with the second pick of the draft (pretty fortuitous) and ended up with the guy most people had as the consensus top pick in fantasy at the start of the season because the guy with the first pick went with a favorite player. I ended up with the guy who should be AL MVP in the 20th ROUND!!!! A gentleman who started the season in the minors and whose season was very much unexpected.

So while I ended up with three of the best four offensive players in the majors (add Posey to Cabrera and Trout) and also had a Cy Young contender (Hernandez), I still think it was a bit of a fluke.

But surely there must be some sort of advice I can give so that others who wish to pursue this activity can have the same level of success I did.....

I can only think of a couple of things that I consciously did that might have had an impact on my results. I took pitchers with high K/BB ratios. I had the fourth most strikeouts and the 4th lowest WHIP and would have probably had the best had I not stuck with Tim Lincecum for so freaking long.

The other thing I did that seemed to help me was to eliminate my choices. For a while I was trying to look like a real baseball team. I had five outfielders, a reserve catcher, a utility guy. I was forever trying to figure out which three of the outfielders I should play. Eventually I ended up with a pretty straight starting ten, a fair bullpen, a solid core of starters and then I cycled in other starting pitchers so as not to waste the spots each day (I used over fifty pitchers over the course of the season).

I think the stats reflect my early season uncertainty:

First 13 matchups - 6-7 head-to-head (.462), 67-73-16 in categories (.481)
Final 12 matchups - 11-0-1 head-to-head (.958), 91-41-12 in categories ( .674)

Wow. I had no idea I finished so strongly. Again, though, I feel like it was a lot of luck. If you took my stats in some of those weeks and inserted them against a different opponent, I lose. Just looking back over the final 12 weeks, the only time I lost the stolen base category was in the championship series. This, even though my totals were all over the map. And for all my talk above about WHIP, that was my worst category over the final 12 weeks (I went 6-6 and actually got beaten by .0009 in the championships, or 1 baserunner).

This summary is actually the most fun I had with the league. I never did make a trade and league communication was pretty minimal. And my hope that this would make me follow the game more closely was a flop. The only thing I was more aware of was starting pitchers and even then, I used my usual bias of going with younger guys who I tend to follow anyway so I don't feel like I really followed the game all that much more.

I'll wrap up this excruciating (for you) post with a look back at my most played team (the guys who took the field most frequently for me).

C - Posey
1B - Cabrera
2B - Dustin Ackley
3B - Alex Rodriguez
SS - Jed Lowrie
LF - Joyce
CF - Colby Rasmus
RF - Trout
Util - Logan Morrison/Carlos Gomez/Norichika Aoki

SP Hernandez/Jeff Samardzija/Trevor Cahill/Lincecum/Shaun Marcum
RP Collins/Sean Marshall/Addison Reed/Kenley Jansen/Jason Grilli

Look for me to complain about more baseball things in the near future!

I don't know what to label this post so I won't

Regular readers may have noticed that there has been a lack of book reviews on this site as of late. It's been over three weeks since the last one. What gives? Did I stop reading?

Not hardly. Mostly, I've been growing increasingly disenchanted with our electronic world. I closed down my Facebook account (not that I ever really used it). I switched my go-to search engine from Google to Blekko because I grew weary of sponsored results. I installed Collusion for a while to see who was sharing my info with who. That was disturbing.

It's not like I was naive. I know websites track information. I just was surprised at how much of it is shared with companies who I know nothing about and with whom I have initiated no contact.

Probably the last straw came in an e-mail. I had received an e-mail about an adventure race. I opened it, read it, thought it was not something I have any interest in doing, and deleted it. For several weeks now I am seeing ads for the race all over the place. Not because I'm surfing adventure race websites, but because there's some sort of cookie that is telling websites to display this ad.

So I've been cutting back. I have been checking my e-mail less frequently. I've been trying to surf less. I was greatly disturbed with the way Stephen Colbert treated a guest of his recently and so stopped watching the Colbert Report.

I watched a little video by Gary Vaynerchuk recently and he talked about how we are becoming an app culture. That sickened me.

Facebook, Twitter, eBooks, mobile phones, apps, likes, friends. I just don't want any part of it.

That being said, I like sharing things with folks. Most everyone does, that's why we have way too many ways of doing it. Many "real-life" friends and relatives read this blog. There are also several with whom I have developed online friendships but have yet to meet. So I'm not ready yet to run off to my cabin in Montana. I don't know. I have used blogging as a creative outlet and as a way to get myself to write more and hopefully improve my writing. I don't know how much my writing has improved but I do know that my "writer's club" (a weekly meeting with my friend and co-worker JJ where we work on our respective books) has done more to get me to write my book than blogging has. Maybe at some point what I'm writing about will be what I blog about. I don't know.

If I were to stop blogging, I would miss writing book reviews the most. In case you haven't noticed, I don't read a lot of mainstream books. A little shocking, I know. Right now I am in the middle of four books. One is about the economics of the contemporary art market. Another is a German novel written in the thirties and translated in the eighties. The third is a Ukrainian/Russian detective story (again translated) that involves a writer and his pet penguin. The last is also Russian; a collection of short stories by current writers (I'm on a bit of a Eastern Bloc kick it seems). No Hunger Games. No Fifty Shades of Grey. No James Patterson. No nothing on the New York Times Best Seller List.

It's those things I like sharing. Because I don't know where else you're going to find reviews of the books I read. You'll find some of them somewhere but only I read the books I do. And I know that many of you have given some of the books I read a shot and have enjoyed them (and the number of library patrons who have read Mark Watson's Eleven keeps growing). So I'm going to keep doing that and I'm going to try and do a better job of it.

And that's another reason I've been on a review hiatus. I won a copy of D.R. "Duke" Haney's book Banned For Life. Best book I've read this year. Published by the now-defunct And/Or Press in Vancouver (one of two books they published). Excellent book. Beyond that, though, Duke took part in a book/music/life discussion on Goodreads (this was part of a Goodreads book club (internet has some use) and I found Duke to be very interesting, engaging, and entertaining. The kind of guy I'd like to hang out with, have a beer, whatever. He put a lot of thought and effort into every response he gave on Goodreads and I felt like I needed to put in equivalent thought and effort for the review. Which made me think that for you, good readers (lower case), I really need to be doing the same. I'm not doing that with this post. It'll take time to transition my posts from blogging to writing but it is something I want to do and do well. A lack of time to put forth the effort has partially kept me from doing so, also.

The last reason I have no more book reviews is that I have been reading. In addition to Banned for Life I need to write reviews of Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. And we all have to discuss Satch and Diz in the near future. But I did take time to start a bestseller, one I had looked forward to for a couple of years. I thought the time was right for me to tackle Haruki Murakami's mammoth 1Q84. I've enjoyed everything I have ever read of Murakami's, but have never quite been able to put him in the top tier of my favorite authors. 1Q84 did not improve his status in any way. I got through 180 pages of the book, about 20 percent, and was done with it. I leafed ahead to see where it was going, to see if the effort might be worth the payoff, and didn't see any reason to continue. It also didn't feel right. I looked to see if maybe there was a different translator or something that might have prevented the writing from being enjoyable but that wasn't the case. I don't know. I do know that at least two of the four I'm reading right now are miles ahead of that book in terms of enjoyability.

What makes my disappointment worse is that the dustjacket was designed by Chip Kidd, normally a surefire indicator of an awesome book. Here's an old post on Kidd I wrote, another guy I wouldn't mind having a beer with. Also, here's a nice TED video on book design he recently did that made me applaud numerous times from my seat in front of my computer.


Thanks for reading. Hopefully we can get off the internet sometime and have a beer together, too.

Cards from Number 5 Type - Part 2, The Reds

You can see the previous entry for the introduction. Here are my five favorite Reds cards I got from Matthew.

Start off with some old-timey baseball. Harry Wright and the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Great card.

I was a big fan of Hal Morris and it's always fun to get a card of his. 

It has been widely reported that Sean Casey is an ass. We'll put him up here anyway.

The main reason why I put the Reds number two was the opportunity to get an Adam Dunn card I didn't have. Bo and lehold, I did. I'm rooting for a comeback by him this season but I'm not feeling terribly optimistic.

I always liked Kirk Saarloos. I thought he had a shot to be a big time pitcher but something happened to him during the 2003 season. Maybe the level of competition caught up to him, maybe he was hurt, but he no longer seemed to be the dominant guy he had been in college and the minors (and even the majors his rookie season). It's a shame. I think there are more sad stories in baseball than good stories. Kirk's back at his alma mater, Cal State Fullerton, as an assistant baseball coach.

His name also puts him in select company. Only three other major league baseball players have two different pairs of consecutive vowels in their last names. Can you name them?

Thanks once again, Matthew, for the cards.

Cards from Number 5 Type - Part 1, Grab Bag

Matthew from Number Five Type Collection had a spring training giveaway where he had people choose five favorite teams and then distributed cards based on those preferences. He had a Grab Bag category which included minor league cards so naturally that was my first pick. I got to split those cards with two others. The Reds were my second pick and I was fortunate enough to rank them highest so Matthew sent those cards as well. There were 58 Grab Bag and 43 Reds cards for a nice total of 101 cards.

I had wanted to do a "pack break" video but after creating (no joke) seventeen video attempts, it became obvious that there's just something wrong with my microphone and the video quality isn't much better. Alas.

So you won't get to see all the great cards Matthew provided. I thought I'd highlight five of my favorites from each group, though.



There were a bunch of A&G mini cards. My favorites were these two of Impressionist painter Claude Monet. Monet is one of my favorite artists and to get both a mini and the black bordered one as well is very cool. 

 

There were also a handful of TriStar cards. I'd consider collecting these if the design was a bit better and if I had the Pocorabas to be collecting. This one is of Matt Wieters, likely future catching star of the Baltimore Orioles.

 

Has it really been three years since I was at the World Baseball Classic? Sheesh. Time flies. I did not get to see Chin-Lung Hu play nor will I likely get the chance. The Cleveland Indians had him in for spring training but released him a few days ago. I expect that he will play somewhere in Asia this season. Still, I like the WBC cards.














This last one is a fun card. Hey, wait a minute?!?! It's card #5 of this set. Should Matthew have been sending this to me? Searching his blog it looks like Stockstill was the fifth card in another set earlier in his career but this card has never been featured on Matthew's website. This card looks to be a promotional card made by TCMA in the early eighties and given away by Tulsa TV station KOTV-Channel 6.

Looking at the backs of the cards he sent, there's a whole bunch of number fives. That doesn't seem right to me for some reason.

Getting back to the card at hand, I like guys like Dave Stockstill which is why I'm featuring this card. Stockstill was a professional baseball player for 16 years. SIXTEEN! Never once saw a day in the majors. He started his professional career when I was in first grade and wrapped it up right after I graduated college. That's a long time. You can get to see some of his minor league stats at baseball-reference but it's his Mexican League numbers that really stand out and which aren't included on BBR. Here's the slashlines from his career once he headed to Mexico:

1986: .358/.454/.653
1987: .323/.430/.539
1988: .356/.449/.549
1989: .301/.412/.503
1990: .341/.427/.530
1991: .384/.474/.643
1992: .338/.435/.476
1993: .335/.432/.449

Wow! Those are some fine hitting numbers.

After the 1993 season he joined the Baltimore Orioles organization, first as a coach and then moving up the ranks to his current position with them, Director of International Operations. That gives him something like 18 years working under Peter Angelos which may be even more amazing than his lengthy playing career.

Interestingly, Dave's younger brother John was drafted by the Chicago Cubs out of high school in the tenth round of the 1978 draft. Dave was not selected in the draft but the Cubs signed him, too, and they both were started with the Cubbies Gulf Coast League team. Dave hit right out of the gate and was bumped up to Pompano Beach while John struggled and was sent to the GCL for the 1979 season to repeat the level. John earned a promotion in 1980 but struggled with the bat and was let go.

John went into the baseball business with the Cubs after he was released and he worked his way up to General Manager before rejoining Dave on the Orioles. He started with them in 2005. Dave and John actually switched positions in the Orioles organization not too long ago. John is currently the Director of Player Personnel. I wonder if their parents are proud?

So that's the Grab Bag component of the cards I received. Thanks a lot, Matthew, and if you want the Stockstill card back, I understand.