Texas League

Waiting patiently for baseball to start, I look back at some of the high points of last summer's Texas League season. Watched a lot of great baseball and looking forward to driving up to Little Rock again to catch a Travelers game. Unfortunately (for me, not them) it's unlikely that Mike Trout or Garrett Richards will be at AA level again this year, but that's OK. I'm looking forward to the next batch of young players coming up through the AA system.

Shelby Miller threw for the Springfield Cardinals, St. Louis' AA affiliate, late last summer. He is probably close to being major league ready, and if a spot opens up in the Cardinal rotation, he'll likely be given a chance to take it. I plan to keep my eye out for him. I thought he had great poise pitching out jams when we watched him pitch. The MiLB sites aren't quite as up to the minute in off-season as MLB sites are, and I can't tell what roster he's on. If he's still on the Springfield team, hopefully I can get another look at him this upcoming summer. I may have better luck catching him pitch against the Astros in Minute Maid!

Ethan Hollingsworth was playing for Midland last summer, well at least the early half. I watched him throw against the Hooks in May and he looked great for the first few innings and then the world just kind of caved in on him. The Oakland A's moved him up to the AAA club at some point, and I lost track of him. I did a little research and learned that he was traded by the A's to the Kansas City Royals for Kila Ka'aihue. I wouldn't be surprised to see him throwing for the Royals when rosters expand to 40 in September, maybe earlier if needed.

Watching Mike Trout play last spring and summer for the Travs was one of the highlights of the year. Twice I watched him pound out triples to the gap that looked like he planned exactly where it would go. On the Travelers he was hitting lead off both times I saw him. At a pro level, I can see him as a #2, with his bat control and speed. I hope for his sake that 2012 sees him starting at AAA getting every day playing. The Angels are backed up right now, and unless Scioscia has plans to put Trout at 3rd, I don't see him getting every day playing time. Will be exciting to see how he develops.

Garrett Richards, like Miller, could use another full season in the minors. Fortunately for the Angels, they have a very strong starting rotation, which means no need to rush Richards. When Richards came up to the big club in September last year, it was a good test for him to get a feel for the bigs.

Belated thank you to Brian at 30 Year Old Cardboard

Back in October, during the 2011 World Series, Brian at 30 Year Old Cardboard held a contest open to readers, to guess how many games the Series would go, who would win and to pick total runs as a tie-breaker. I thought the two teams were very closely matched and I was pretty sure the series would go 7. As a life long Angels fan, however, I just could not in good conscience, pick the Rangers to win. I chose the Cardinals in 7. Luckily for me that is just how it went down and I was only one to pick it!

Brian sent me over a nice batch of 7 Willie Mays cards. I did email him at the time with thanks, but now that I'm blogging again on cards, I wanted to thank him in style!

This card is a Archives print of the "Baseball Thrills" subset in the Topps '59 set, immortalizing Mays' amazing catch in the '54 series against the Indians.
Side note to you youngsters: Back in the Olden Tymes, they just put subsets numbered as a part of the rest of the set. Didn't make 'em rare. Didn't give 'em red, green, pink and blue border variations. Didn't stick no cotton-picking squirrels on there, nossirree. We just had normal cards with pictures of old men posing with their bats and gloves and that's the way we liked it.
 

This reprint is from the '60 Topps All-Star Selections subset. I was at a show last summer, and a guy had the original of this card in his case, right next to a Mantle of the same All-Star Selections set. The Mays was price-tagged at barely half the price of the Mantle. I told him it was criminal that the Mays card wasn't valued same as the Mantle. We talked a bit, about baseball and so on. Finally, he says he'll give me the Mantle and the Mays for $250. I said only if he followed me home and explained it all to my wife! He passed on that offer. Smart man.

I have long wished I could have been a fly on the wall at this picture and hear what the two of them were saying to each other. You figure they were being polite or you figure they were trash-talking? Remember, back then there were no divisions. You either won the National League and went to the World Series, or you went home and watched it on TV with the rest of us. There is just something about Musial's expression...
Stan: So, Willie, hear you got a big bonus this year.
Willie: Now, Stan, just smile pretty for the picture.
Stan: Cause I was thinking, you could use it to get yourself one of those new RCA CTC-11 color televisions.
Willie: Now whatever for?
Stan: Way I see it, only way Giants are going to enjoy the World Series any time soon is by watching on the TV!
Or maybe the conversation was even more sophomoric...
Stan: "Mine's Bigger."
Willie: ...
I guess we'll never know. 

This beauty, a copy of '72 Topps and is one of my favorite cards of that set. I had the original of this card at one point, pulled from a pack of my own ripping, but somewhere along the line I either traded it or lost it. When I saw this card it brought back a bunch of memories.

Brian, thanks again for the great cards!

Angels could reach .500 W-L in 2012

The Angels record currently stands at 4,053 and 4,079, a .498 Win-Loss percentage. I took a sharp pencil and a blank piece of paper and figured that if they finish 94-68, they'll be 4147-4147 or an even .500.
Now finish the year with 95 wins, not an impossible or unlikely goal, and we're there!

2012 Topps Inserts - '87 Minis

Besides the miniature size, these little '87s are also made of what looks like old 80's cardboard. Abbreviated statistics for the past season are included, but the best thing is the MINI Streak. I seem to remember the original '87 set having a lot of cards telling us what a player's wife's name was, or when they were married, or even what his kids' names were. None of that domestic fluff here. These cards tell us of a streak that the player enjoyed in the past year.

Looking at the new Marlins' logo, I think I miss the old one with its distinct blue color. This new logo has too many colors on it, it looks confused. 

Adam Jones is breaking every little league coach's first day instructions, or do they not teach getting both hands on the ball anymore? I always thought it was pretty lame when I played. I don't recall dropping any flies in the outfield, but I Bill Buckner'd a ball or two playing 3rd base, that's for sure.

Is it just me or does Adrian Gonzalez look like the guy who plays George Lopez's brother?

Still no Angels minis yet, but season is young. Hell the pitchers haven't even reported with their catchers yet. We got lots of time.

I picked up a blaster box, and I think it will be the one and only I get. I mean, you get 40 fewer cards for the same price. That's like 3 full packs! What do you get instead of those 40 cards? A pseudo patch card. I got a Roger Maris card with his number 9. I say pseudo because he never wore it. Some nice lady in China sewed it. Mr. Maris never even saw it.

2012 Topps Baseball - more!

I grabbed a few more packs, I just can't help myself. I looked for any excuse to go to Target, and it didn't take long - dog was out of food! We can't have that now, can we?

Today I received this lovely card. It's always such a weird, conflicting feeling for me to see Nolan Ryan in a Rangers uniform. Some day when the feeling strikes me and I've had a few Shiners in me, I'll write a long post about it. But for now, I'll just enjoy the picture.

I'm not generally a fan of "parallel" sets, I kind of feel like they're just taking advantage of some people's compulsive obsession to have one of everything! I guess the gold sparkly parallel works OK. It sure does on this Jered Weaver card. Love the look on Weaver's face. If you've watched him pitch at all, you know he's very intense. This card works well with the gold because there's not much in the background to distract.

The last pack of the night dropped this fish in my lap. I'm looking forward to watching this guy with a full season of at bats. I haven't been this excited for an Angel rookie since Glaus.

And what was hiding right there behind Trout? But my old friend Mr. Ryan, and this time in Astros gear. I swear the picture looks like every picture of Ryan as an Astro that I've ever seen.So that's a card with Ryan pictured in 3 of the 4 uniforms he wore in his career. Is there maybe a Mets Ryan somewhere in this set, or series 2?

Well, I thought I'd post a few cards from the base set, but looks like that will have to wait. I'm starting to like this set a little more.

2012 Topps Baseball - first look

I thought Topps' latest set was not going to be out until February 1, but imagine my surprise when dropping by Target on my way home tonight and finding new cards! I grabbed a handful of cards and headed home to start ripping. I have read as little as possible about the set and its inserts. I wanted to be surprised for when it came out. Other than the '87 minis, I had no idea.

In the first pack was a one of the new inserts called "Gold Standards". It is meant to chronicle players reaching certain milestones, such as 500 Home Runs or 3,000 Hits. I was stoked to see Reggie in an Angels' uniform.

The second insert in this first pack was one of the Timeless Talents cards, which compares an older player with a newer player. Again, not one but two Angels! The stars were aligned just right for me tonight! Plus it's a picture of Ryan in his first year with the Angels, as '72 is the last year they used the lower case 'a' with a halo on it.

At this point, I was so excited with the inserts, I hardly paid attention to the base cards. They're nice, glossy, shiny, but they're not exactly different or thrilling. They sort of remind me of one of the Topps Total sets, with the oval design.

I ripped in to pack 2 and out drops a mini of Andre Ethier! First Angels now Dodgers! The minis are in the style of the '87 set, and if you didn't like that set, you're not likely to care much about these other than the fact that they're small. I had originally thought they'd be like the '87 minis that were produced back in... '87. The ones that have a white cloud frame around the pic. Thankfully they're not like that.

The next insert in this pack was the "Gold Futures" subset. And as if Topps hand collated these 2 packs for me, out drops another Dodger, Dee Gordon. The cards themselves are nice. I'm not really a fan of foil, but it works on this card, probably because the white background at least makes it legible. I'd have liked a little more room for the picture and less room given to the Gordon's number and position, but such is life.

More about the other cards tomorrow!

Players you just don't like

As a kid I found it easy to dislike baseball players for no good reason. It made it easy that I didn't know any of them personally. I only knew them through pictures in the newspaper, or watching them at Anaheim Stadium, or through baseball cards. I knew their weight, height, what hand they threw with and where they were born, but I didn't know anything personal about them. They weren't really human beings to me. So when they did something that bugged me, I found it real easy to dislike them for that slightest of reasons.

As quick as that dislike would grow over some perceived slight, once the season ended, that dislike would go away. Fall would bring Winter and soon comes Spring Training when all things are new again, old dislikes are forgotten and all teams start out 0 and 0 in the win-loss department.

Being a fan of the Angels, as a kid, back in the 70's was pretty easy. Come April, we certainly didn't have any pretensions that the Angels would make the playoffs. Playoffs were for the Dodgers, or the Athletics, maybe the Phillies, Reds, Orioles or Pirates. Each season, you knew the Royals had a chance to take the AL West, but it certainly wasn't going to be the Angels. I had not just accepted that the Angels would never win anything, I think I just viewed them like some lucky AAA team that got to play other big-league teams, in order to give them a warm-up. just had to accept that the Angels would not win anything. That made it easier to never hate any of the Angels. I was no Red Sox fan stewing on Bill Buckner. That's just not what Angels fans are made of. Imagine if Josh Paul played for the Red Sox... he would be unable to show his face in Boston, hell, the entire Northeastern seaboard for that matter.
About the closest you could come to naming some scapegoat who got in the way of an Angels post-season appearance is Donnie Moore. But what that poor man didn't realize is that we didn't hold that against him. No one did.

So, being as I didn't really have any Angels to hate, I had to look elsewhere for it.

Take for example, as a kid, I just didn't like Pete Rose. There were a lot of reasons, one being how he plowed in to Ray Fosse during the All Star game, but that wasn't the main one. Primary reason was - I didn't like the way he ran to first base after a walk.
I mean, it's a walk!
Trot it down there, shuffle down there, but you don't RUN down there!
His running to first on a walk has long since been replaced by batters who stand there staring at their home run, but for a while there - I honestly couldn't stand Pete Rose for that simple reason.

Around that same time was Steve Garvey. I just didn't like Steve Garvey because... I don't know, exactly, but because he was just so clean cut with that chiseled jawed and his hair was always perfect... I remember watching the '77 playoffs, and the Dodgers had just finished what had to be the boringest final game of a league championship that my 12 year old eyes had seen. It was so boring, that Tommy John was left in to bat in top of the 9th. We all sat there watching, knowing the Dodgers would win and clinch, but nobody even cared. There wasn't even a hit after the 5th inning, I don't think. Anyway, after the game they're spraying champagne all over the place, everybody's soaked, everybody's catching bubbly spray in the kisser, everybody has sweaty hat-head... except Garvey! They get to Garvey and it's like he just stepped out of the hairdresser's chair. He's impeccable! And he's not rip-roaring and yelling, he's talking like he was running for office. Yawn!

Nowadays it's Yankee first baseman Teixeira. At first, I just hated him because he played for the Rangers. Then, once the Angels traded Kotchman away for him, I was OK with him. I could shelve my loathing for a few months and actually cheer him. Secretly inside, I still didn't trust him. By season's end, I was starting to like this guy though.
But wait, season's over and... what? You want to play with the Yankees all this time? You mean, you just kind of lied to us? Were we just the gateway drug to get you to your Yankee heroin?
It's like the Angels asked you to the prom, and you said yes because you figured you'd be more likely to have fun at the dance then you would with the Rangers. But then the dance is over and it wasn't quite the fun you thought it would be with the Angels, so you change your mind and just dump the Angels for that Yankees guy... I was heartbroken! Not only did we give up Kotchman for you, but after you broke up with us, you basically said that you'd always wanted to be with the Yankees. You used us! I still feel dirty.

But now, I don't dislike him for that anymore.
I have grown past that betrayal. I have matured and realized that he probably was never a part of long term Angels' plans, but just a way to clear Kotchman out of the way at first base for Kendry Morales.
So now I just hate him because he makes this stupid blow-fish face.
Zounds does he look stupid!