Are You Ready For Some, Well, You Know...

       Football!!!

       OK, I got that out of my system.  The answer is yes, I am more than ready for some.  The Mets season fell apart sometime around the all-star break, so it has been a long seven weeks or so.  Just as baseball opening day brings springtime and hope, the kickoff of football brings autumn and despair.  It is fall and everything is dying (to paraphrase a prophet).  Tonight specifically matches up the team of my childhood - the New York Giants - verses a team I might hate more than the Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys. 

One might wonder why I hate the Cowboys more than the Yankees...the short answer is the fans.  Now, if you are specifically from Dallas or even just from Texas, this does not apply to you.  But, and whoa is it a big but, lemme address this to all the other Cowboys fans, the bandwagon jumping, carpetbagging, intolerable jerk-offs who I wouldn't cross the street to piss on if they were on fire: you are not special.  You are not "America's Team."  You are the most insufferable human beings who ever existed and that includes the Klan and the Nazis.  You deserve Tony Romo as a quarterback. You deserve Jerry Jones as an owner and god willing, he will live to the age of 100 and make Al Davis look like Wellington Mara and Art Rooney's love child in the meantime.

This is the only page of Cowboys I have in my binders and I am not even sure how this one got in.

Did I mention I am not fond of the Cowboys or their fans?  How did this happen?  Well, growing up in New Jersey in the early to mid 80's, you were surrounded by "Cowboys fans" - basically soulless, loser fans who jumped ship on the Giants or Jets because they sucked during the 70's and early 80's.  I find these kinds of "fans" to be just awful people.  It says a lot about someone when they do this.  Oh, and did I also mention there is a lot of overlap between these "Cowboys fans" and Yankees fans.  Yeah, despicable doesn't even begin to describe that phenomenon.

Those folks who jumped missed a hell of a ride in the late 80's and early 90's.  And when they were winning their Super Bowls in the mid 90's...dear lord...you would think they had been Cowboys fans their whole damn lives.  Ugh.  Just thinking about it makes me physically ill.  Let's see some more Giants cards to cleanse the palate. 

So what do I predict for tonight?  I hope the Giants defense terrorizes Tony Romo and maybe get a solid deja vu killer hit that breaks a bone or two and knocks him out of the game.

I hope the offense dominates the Cowboys piss-poor secondary and runs up the score. 

I hope the Giants unleash a new hero or two like they seem to do every year.

Ok, I admit, that page is a bit of a mess, but hey, my football pages are still in flux...

And finally, I hope Eli Manning delivers on the proverbial six touchdowns and that the Giants win this game something like 77-0 to set the standard for shutout domination. In the end, I hope the Giants dominate this division and make the playoffs, only to lose in the Superdome for the right to go to the Super Bowl, but that my friends is another post (come back Sunday...).

Wow, football kinda brings out the anger in my blogging, huh?

Mancrush.

From the lovely folks at the urban dictionary:

Man·crush
noun   \manˈkrəsh\

1.  When a straight man has a "crush" on another man, not sexual but kind of idolizing him.

          Many straight men end up having man crushes on Johnny Depp (I don't blame them).

2.  A man having extreme admiration for another man, as though he wants to be him.

          "I've got one hell of a man crush on Hugh Hefner. He's made all the right moves."

       There are a dozen other definitions, but they all say about the same thing.  I am not ashamed to say that I officially have a mancrush on Matt Harvey.  I wrote about him in July during the occasion of his major league debut.  I wasn't 100% sure at the time if I was going to give over my heart to him.  Well, six gutty grand innings later, he had struck out 11 and looked like an absolute horse on the mound.  This wasn't Bill Pulsipher or Paul Wilson fools gold - no way - you could see right away that this kid is a stud: great mechanics, explosive fastball, bulldog attitude.  I lamented not having received a redemption autograph in that other post.  Well, I have since augmented my Matt Harvey collection:

Those bottom three Bowman platinum cards are refractors.  I wouldn't mind picking up a couple more of the 2010 Bowman rookie rainbow now before the cards get to be way too expensive.  Otherwise, I think this is a pretty nice beginning of a long and fruitful relationship.  If it weren't for my policy of not giving the Wilpons any of my money this year, I would have already headed over to Citifield to see him in person.  For now, I will be content to watch him from my living room, as I will be tonight against the Cardinals.

You should know, my first mancrush came to be on May, 22, 1998.  That was the day the Mets traded for Mike Piazza:

This is a page of his first 1998 cards as a Met, it is one of my favorite pages in all my collection.  I had always admired Piazza from afar.  His 1997 season was one for the ages: .362 40 HR 124 RBI as a catcher.  How could you not respect numbers like that from a man wearing the tools of ignorance?  Then early in 1998, the rumblings came that the Dodgers did not want to sign Piazza to a long term contract for the money he wanted.  Next thing you know, he was shipped off to the Marlins and the baseball world was abuzz.  The Mets (back when the Mets actually traded for good players) got him a week later.  I still remember where I was when I heard them announce the trade, it was that big a deal for me.  And let me tell you, it was mancrush at first sight.  He looked so good in that Mets uniform.  He brought credibility to a team that had been trying to find some, much the same way that Gary Carter had 13 years earlier.  Yes, I idolized Gary Carter, but that is because I was a kid when he was playing.  I was a week short of being 23 years old on that day in 1998, so officially a man, thus Mike Piazza will always be my first mancrush.  Oddly enough, on top of all that, today is his 44th birthday.  Happy Birthday Mike!
 
There have been others in between then and now (Prince Fielder, Nomar Garciaparra, Torii Hunter to name a few) but there is one other player to keep an eye on for my baseball admiration, Mike Trout:

My Trout collection is small, obviously, just as my infatuation for him is still growing.  But this kid is unbelievable.  I don't think I have ever sought out an Angel game in my life, but now, as long as this kid is playing, if they are on MLB network or ESPN, I won't miss one.  Plus, he is a Jersey Boy, so that might add to the allure.

***

While I was looking for that Matt Harvey jersey card I thought I had (and I did) I found this card:

This is a 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Team Trios card.  It features bat pieces and uniform swatches of Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Dwight Gooden and is numbered to /100.   I had completely forgotten that I owned this awesome card.  Yet there it was, misfiled in my Mets box with some rookies and right next to Matt Harvey jersey card.  Is that an omen?  A coincidence?  I will not speculate.  I will say this card easily fits into my favorites category.  Hopefully, Matt Harvey will fit in nicely with these pitchers in Mets history.

Laborious.

       It's funny, sometimes I sit down at the keyboard to do a post and the words flow like endless rain into a paper cup (to steal a line).  For example, I did the walk off one from the other day in no time - I had a "moment" watching baseball highlights on TV, and I sat down and wrote about it.  Also, the other night I had one idea, switched gears midway, and it all came out no problem...this post has been sadly underread, go look at it, I'll wait... Did I mention it's a drunk post? (I cannot become one of those people who can only write when he drinks).  Even some of the longer, more specific and involved posts that took a week or more to write came pretty easy.  But right now, I have been sitting here for half an hour looking at a blank screen and you know what?  I got nothing.  I understand that no one really wants to read about the writing process and even fewer want to indulge an author trying to work through writer's block by writing about it, so I am gonna shut the hell up about it and just grab a few random scans out of the 'unused' folder.  Maybe the muses will conspire for me better tomorrow.

This is a very recent scan.  I promised to show this page when I wrote a trade post after my near month long hiatus.   I simply adore the 1994 Fleer design, so simple, so effective.  And like most simple, effective designs, it works both horizontally and vertically.  I can't decide which I like more.  In fact, I might have to make two pages of these, one for each.  Looks like I gotta update the wantlist again.

I am not sure why I scanned this page, but damn is it cool.  Upper Deck loved their multi-exposure photos in the early 90's.  The Canseco and Valenzuela work best, I think, but the Griffey is probably the most famous one, that or the 1989 Nolan Ryan (not shown on this page).  The other thing that this page reminds me of is the recent State Farm commercial with Kerry Wood.  If you have seen it, you should know what I am talking about; if you haven't, go watch it, it's damn amusing. 

I also could not for the life of me tell you why I scanned this page of John Olerud cards.  I have two pages of Olerud in my retired stars book and I only scanned this one for some reason.  Very odd.  I recently got into a big argument with my brother about John Olerud.  It would help you to know that my brother's favorite baseball player of all time is Keith Hernandez and he will rant to whomever will listen how Hernandez belongs in the Hall of Fame.  My argument was that Olerud was a superior player to Hernandez and no one of sound mind can make a strong, legitimate case that he belongs in Cooperstown, so how could Hernandez belong?  Now, I am not even sure I believe this, but the argument really drove my brother crazy.  My instincts as the younger brother to constantly tweak and antagonize my older brother have not dulled with age. 

 I do know why I scanned this page of J.R. Richard.  I have been kicking around the idea of doing a series of posts about players who were either complete failures, or players who didn't live up to their potential due to unfortunate circumstances, or some combination of the two.  James Rodney here would obviously fall into the latter category.  If you look at his statistics, if he didn't have that stroke, he probably would have had a career along the lines of Bob Gibson or Jim Palmer.  He was that good.

Whoa, I actually know why I scanned this page as well.  When I was writing my opening day post, I wanted to use the word "moments" so I scanned both pages of Milestones and Moments that I have and chose one and threw the other into the 'unused' folder hoping to find another use for it.  I am racking my brain here and I can't figure out any reason I would use this page unless I wrote a post about "crappy overpriced crappity crap crap."  Hey!  Maybe I should write that one down, it sounds like a good idea.

This page was also scanned for the aforementioned opening day post.  I scanned two pages of Play Ball and used the faux vintage one rather than this page of straight reprints.  I wouldn't have wanted anyone to get the idea that I was hoarding a page of near mint cards from 1941 and just casually using it in a post without paying it any mind.  A while back, I went through a brief (and expensive) infatuation with vintage Play Ball cards.  Looking back, like any lost love, it was worth it, even though almost all of those cards I had are now gone. 

Last but certainly not least is this page of 1999 SP Signature Edition autographs.  At the same time I went through my vintage Play Ball phase, I also became enamored of this set.  It was brand new at the time and, being an autograph-in-every-pack type product, it was very expensive.  I probably bought the equivalent of a case of this stuff.  I would sell the really good hits to fund my purchase of more packs and boxes; it was a vicious cycle.  And while I pulled a lot of the high end cards, I never did get my white whale.  I don't own a Mike Piazza autograph at all (they are quite rare) and I think this is the nicest one of the few that are out there.  Once every couple of months, I still get (and try to resist) the urge to blow $100-$150 on this Piazza.  Until I do finally give in, I have this page of lesser stars and rookies to keep me satisfied.  You will probably see this page again since I am sure I could easily do a whole post out of it, but for now, showing it here means my 'unused' folder is empty and I have no more "writer's block" crutches to fall back on.

Complete Set Sunday - Strange Things Are Afoot.

       In the 80's, anyone who was anyone had a retail box set.  Every Revco and Rite Aid, Woolworth's and K-Mart, Toys 'R' Us and CVS. These stores and dozens more all had vanity 33 and 44 card sets made for them by Fleer and/or Topps of the superest superstars or the highest highlights or the rookiest rookies or, in rare instances, some combination therein.  I am not going to lie, when I was a kid, these boxed sets seemed like a grand idea.  You could spend $3 or $4 and get a bevy of stars and you even got a checklist telling you exactly who you were getting.  At one point, I must have owned 40 or 50 of these sets.  Time and a greater sophistication of my collecting tastes has dissipated this pile, not to mention some just got broken up and absorbed by player and team collections.  Some of these sets are held in such low regard to me now that when I find them, I just give them away.

       But one retail boxed set has stayed near and dear to my heart and instead of being broken up or discarded, it found its way into my set binders: the 1985 Topps Circle-K Baseball All Time Home Run Kings.

This box is typical for any retail box set of the time: simple graphics, the store's logo prominently on the front, a checklist on the back.  Oh, but what was inside this box is very different indeed from most of the tacky over (or under) designed cards that you usually found in these sets.

Quick aside, for those of you who don't know, Circle-K is a convenience store found mostly in the south and midwest but really all over, though not nearly as much as say, 7-11.  The rest stops on the Mass Pike used to all have Circle-Ks, which is how I know them.  Their most famous moment by far is when they got a shout out in the 1989 film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure:

Those of you with a fine knowledge of stoner cinema already knew that (and that that is where the title of this post originated). 

OK, enough of all that, let's take a look at the cards.

Now that is a classy looking set - great pictures and a clean simple design.  You should recognize that the design comes from the Topps Glossy All Stars Set that they used to advertise on their wrappers.  You collected wrappers and mailed them into Topps and got part of a 60 card set of the year's All Stars and All Star Rookies.  The sets were available from 1983 to 1991 and the only difference in the look year to year was the color of the border around the picture.  They are about as minimalist as you can get without just having a full bleed picture alone on the front of the card. 

I cannot tell you how much I love the look of these cards. The Glossy mail in All Stars always looked good, but with the vintage Hall of Fame stars, the simple design is 100x cooler and Topps wisely co-opted it for this set.

Not to mention they also picked a dramatic subject for the set, it is full of the great sluggers of all time up to that point.  Topps always dabbled in subsets of all time leaders in their main sets and had some oddball issues with them as well, but I think this set is by far their most effective use of all time greats, both in subject (home runs) and presentation (classic).

Hey look, that page is all color photos. Neat!

Of course, this is almost 30 years ago.  The all time home run list has shifted just a tad since then.  If they were to reissue a similar set today, the cut off point of 33rd would not be Lee May at 354, it would be Dave Winfield at 465.  If we were gonna issue a set today that got down to Lee May it would have to be a set of 83, not 33.  (of course the cut off in this set is really 34, not 33; I often wondered why Joe DiMaggio wasn't in this set.  I can only assume he wouldn't give his permission or wanted more money than Topps was willing to pay, Joe D was known to be a little, um, difficult.)

I decided not to use this post to deride the decline in prestige of the home run but rather to celebrate an awesome looking set.  I bought this set 27 years ago and it is the last of the retail box sets that I own that is intact. I kept this set in my collection this way because of my love of retro vintage stars and you have to remember, this was one of the first ways for a kid in 1985 to get cards of players like Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig or, heck, even Johnny Bench and Willie Stargell.  Now, if all retail box sets were 33 subjects, I would consider having more of them in my binders, as 33 can work well since every third set makes 99 - a perfect 11 pages worth.  Alas, most of the Fleer sets of the era are 44 cards, thus screwing up the whole system and ruining my love of the factors of nine.  But this one is here and it isn't going anywhere.  In fact, rather than adding other retail box sets, I should start combing eBay and pick up the All Star Glossy mail in sets to match it instead.

***

This will be the last Complete Set Sunday for a while.  First of all, because I am running out of complete sets in my binders.  Second of all, football is gonna start up next week and I can't think of a better day and a better way to highlight this than designating Sunday for football cards.  I have organized a whole mess of football cards recently and made not one but two new binders just for these newly sorted cards.  I think they deserve a showcase, don't you?

Etymology - Walk Off.

       I like words.  I am surprised it took me so long to start a blog. If you ever meet me, you will tell me to shut up at least twice an hour.  I have started (and stalled) at penning about half a dozen novels.  Not only do I enjoy words, but I like their origins and their archaic meanings and what not.  On top of all that, I am what the kids call a "grammar nazi" (of course, the kids only say that because they are too lazy to actually learn how to spell and proofread properly *shakes cane*).  Even my text messages and facebook updates are written to strict AP Stylebook standards.  The point is, I am the type who when "irregardless" or "very unique" are used, my internal temperature rises and I cannot keep silent.  I am stickler for detail when it comes to language - if only I could be in the rest of my everyday endeavors.  Which leads us to the point of this diatribe: the awful misuse of the the term "walk off" by most baseball announcers and analysts.

This misuse comes from, I believe, a lack of understanding of its origin; to wit, the term comes from Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley.

Eckersley has a unique grasp of the English language.  He turns a phrase and then twists it into a mobius strip.  Sometimes it gets so bad, you need an Eckersley-to-English dictionary to listen to him speak.  Anyone who heard his post-game interviews or his color commentary on Sox games knows this all too well.  His most famous piece of phraseology over time has become, of course, "Walk Off" which refers to the act of giving up a game winning hit.  But it is the defense that walks off the field after such a hit, not the offense.  The offense (usually) comes on the field and celebrates.  But to hear most baseball announcers or ESPN talking heads say it, the batter "Walks off" or the home team "Walks off" and that is just undeniably incorrect.  Eckersley was referring to putting his head down and dejectedly walking off the mound.  When you talk it through, that makes perfect sense, him being a top flight relief pitcher for so long.  Besides, the winning team is obviously too excited to do any sort of walking.  So please, if you use this term, please use it properly.  And if you hear an announcer misuse it, throw something at the screen and tweet them a link to this post.