Football '15 Week 1: Here We Go Again.

       I was all ready to root for the Steelers to clean the Patriots clocks Thursday evening, because even as an unabashed Brady apologist, I would like to see a little karmic retribution for them.  Then I watch the pregame show and got reminded why I hate the Patriots haters in the first place.  They gave the softball lob to Tony Dungy to talk about all the "new" spygate evidence and he sits there and starts pontificating.  Now, Dungy likes to portray himself as this holy man of god above all reproach, even though his list of sins and failures is long and luxurious.  He's such a "man of god" he allowed his sons to become junkies through his absentee fatherism and one of them killed themselves.  His early-aught Colts teams were constantly out-hustled and out-muscled by the Patriots in ways that had nothing to do with stealing signs or game plans and all the Colts could ever do is whine about it and demand rules changes.  Oh, and one of those rules was for golden boy Peyton Manning to be able to handle and control his footballs before the game, you know, the rule that led to the entire Ballghazi debacle.  Not to mention those Colt teams pumped crowd noise into their moribund stadium all the time and only won their one Super Bowl because of that.  But oh no, Tony Dungy is such a good man and Bill Belichick is such a scumbag. 


Two other teams were charged with major rules violations in the off season but because it was the Browns and the Falcons - two teams that have never won anything ever - no one even cares.  But because the Patriots win, everyone jumps on them and calls them out for every perceived infraction when every team and coach would look just as awful and devious if they were put under the microscope the way the Pats are.  Hell, after the game, the Steelers couldn't stop making fools of themselves, blaming New England for hacking their headphone communications and Big Ben  - another paragon of virtue if there ever was one - decided that a simple defensive shift was cheating.  Seriously, if it weren't for paranoia there would be no emotion for the Pats at all.

       It comes down to the fact that in a business where multiple billions of dollars are at stake, there are no rules except the ones you can get away with breaking.  So once again, fuck everyone and their short-sighted homerism and misguided misunderstanding of how pro football works (and has always worked).  I hope the Pats rip through the league again 16-0.   I hope Brady throws for 6000 yards and 60 touchdowns and every week Giselle brings her supermodel friends in for multiple post-game orgies.  Of course, I'd then like the Saints to beat them in the Super Bowl, but that goes without saying.  What it comes down to is, maybe everyone should look at their own team and wonder what they are or aren't doing to win and leave the damn Pats alone.

Football '14 Week 15: Tradition.

       Every family has their own quirky holiday traditions about hiding and finding things.  For some, it is the Elf on the Shelf, for others, it is the Mensch on the Bench, however, we have a different spin on this idea around here...


Here, we do Brees in the Booze.  I find this a much more appropriate alternative.  You find him in the liquor cabinet, do a shot, and then hang him on the tree.  Who Dat!

***

It is very simple for the Saints tonight: win.  If they win out, they take the division and host a playoff game.  The Bears have been mailing it in for weeks, and yet I fear this game will be a non-stop heart attack derpfest and by midnight this evening, it is very likely I will have emptied that bottle of rum. 

Football '14 Week 12: Ugh.

     I just can't even.

Football '14 Week 11: Do or Die (Cut).

       The game in the NFL is one of inches.  This cliche has been ridden into the ground so far it has come out the other side of the earth.  But cliches are cliches for only one reason: they are true.  The Saints face this brutal fact right now: they have to start winning close games and must make the important plays.  Want to know the difference between being a 4-5 disappointment (and yet somehow in first place in a truly crappy division) and being an 8-1 juggernaut?  Four plays. 


On opening night, the Saints led in the last minute of the game and let the Falcons convert a third down they should have stopped; they then lost in overtime.



In week 2 it was literally deja vu: they led the Browns in the last minute and gave up a late third down conversion they should have stopped and lost in regulation on a last second field goal.



Week 7 against the Lions, they led by 13 points with 4 minutes to go and somehow coughed up the lead, including an impossibly stupid cross-up on a third down that led to a 75-yard touchdown play.  I consider this play the most unforgivable of all.  When you have a lead late, you are playing the clock as much as the other team, let them have all the 6 yard pass plays down the middle they want, you cannot CANNOT go for the ball and let a man score.  Rob Ryan should have been fired after this game.



And finally, last week.  Leading by a field goal in the last minute, the secondary somehow loses track of the best receiver on the 49ers on fourth down and allow a 50 yard completion that gets the Niners into field goal range.  The Saints lose in overtime.  I am not even going to bring up the ridiculous call of offensive pass interference on a completed hail mary at the end of regulation that would/should have won the game.  This and the Lions play still make me so mad I now have to get up and pace.



Okay, I'm back.  So there it is, four plays.  The Saints are four plays from being 8-1 and are instead 4-5.  Sure, you can point to dumb turnovers and lost opportunities during the game but greatness can be measured best when the game is on the line.  Are the Saints an 8-1 team?  Obviously not.  Are they a 4-5 team?  Well, you are what your record says you are.



I have a big batch of pulled pork and a sixer of Yuengling and I am ready to watch the Saints (hopefully) beat up on the Bengals - another team full of disappointment.  As you may have noticed from these posts, watching and enjoying football for me has not been easy this year.  If the Saints lose this one, you can look forward to a lot of hockey posts and longing for pitchers and catchers.  But I have faith that if this game comes down to one play, the Saints have learned their lessons and will make it.

Football '14 Week 10: There's Something About Drew.

       You saw the title of this post and no doubt thought it was going to be yet another love note to Drew Brees.  Well, you couldn't be more wrong.  If you read this blog with any regularity, you may have noticed I have a slightly off-kilter sense of humor.  One of my favorite funny movies of all time is the origin of that title, There's Something About Mary, the seminal (and semen-al) 1998 Farrelly brother's comedy. Amongst the great gags in that film is that one of Mary's ex-boyfriends is quarterback Brett Favre. 

What I found out this week is that Brett was the third choice to play the ex, which is hard to imagine since he fits the role so well (not to mention the brilliant murdering Ben Stiller does of his name).  Okay, so who was the second choice? 

Steve Young, whose Mormon upbringing wouldn't allow him to be in such a risque film.  No caffeine, weird underpants, and boring movies.  Wuss.  So who was the first choice? 


Would you believe Drew Bledsoe?

I mean, it makes sense in the grand scheme of things, the Farrelly brothers are New England born and bred after all.  Turns out one of the more ridiculous moments in Drew's turbulent Patriots history kept him from accepting the role, which is too bad because if anyone could have used a little joyful tidbit in his past, it is Drew.  As it is now all anyone remembers him for is failing miserably in the Super Bowl and for nearly getting killed (seriously) by Mo Lewis which led to the rise of Tom Brady.  Oh, what might have been. 

***

Feel like some vintage baseball?  For nothing?  Head on over to my man Robert's $30 a Week Habit blog and enter his contest.  It is easy, I promise there is no math involved. 

Football '14 Week 8: One Last Chance.

       Well, I am on the road again.  I have spent the last few days here in New Orleans drinking too much and meeting celebrities and now, finally, it is game day. 

I am ready for a do-or-die game against the Packers on Sunday Night Football; I really will be waiting all day for Sunday Night...

You might look at that photo and wonder what is draped across my tickets...

Somehow, I forgot my lucky stadium day helmet (I blame leaving at 4am on Thursday).  So I had to improvise and yesterday I came across this glorious thing at the Black and Gold Shop in Metarie.  And I must say, it makes me look fabulous.  Besides, what fun is football without silly hats?

At 2-4, the Saints need this win in the worst way.  In a poor division, 9-7 could easily mean a playoff spot.  If they do find a way to blow this game as they have so many this season, I do have a back-up plan.

I got a hatbox full of junk wax cards to go through (gotta love the antique shops in this town), which, after a drink or three, should yield some amusing results.  But I hope it doesn't come to that.  I want a dominating win followed by an evening of late night decadence.  Luckily in New Orleans, it is hard to tell the victory celebrations from the defeated drownings. 

Football '14 Week 7: I Still Just Can't Even.

       I am like an overwrought teenage girl right now, football and all the nonsense from earlier this year still has me with a bitter taste in my mouth.  I will watch the Saints today, but I probably won't enjoy it.  In the meantime...

Here is a little reminder of better times; this magazine is my latest Listia pick up and it goes nicely with my Super Bowl coffee table book.  Living in New Jersey, I wasn't able to get all the cool local swag back in 2010, so I am overjoyed when I find it for free online.  And yes, those are Christmas Ornaments on the left, but I am sad to report they have been left out all year.  Don't judge me!

Football '14 Week 5: October (No) Surprise.

       I want to apologize to all five of you who look forward to my weekly football posts.  The awful things that have been swirling around the NFL this year combined with the beyond awful way the league has reacted to them has made my stomach turn and left me unable to enjoy football very much.  Now that the calender has turned to October, as usual, the NFL will start inundating us with their pink regalia.

I find it in poor taste that the league pays such lips service to something as important as breast cancer and then goes out of its way to profit off of it without actually giving much to charity.  This year they are "toning down" the pink to try to lay low until all the bad pub dies down and they can go back to being the money-making juggernaut they usually are.

Now, if the NFL had any gumption or dignity, after all the Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, Ray McDonald, Adrian Peterson (isn't it sad that I have to list so many and could keep going) stories, they would have switched off the pink this year and made it purple for domestic violence awareness, which also has its "month" in October... 

But sadly, there is no shady charity for the NFL to exploit and then profit from on colorized memorabilia, so that would never happen.

Football '14 Week 1: Shakin' in the Sixties.

       Football!  Football is back. With the Mets being so terrible for most of the year (and with no love whatsoever for Derek Jeter or his day), I have been aching in anticipation for the return of the gridiron where at least one of my teams might not suck.  To open up this year's weekly Sunday spectacular, I figure I would do a nice "What I Did Last Summer" review.  Now, I have done decade breakdowns before, one of them - the 1970's version - is the second most viewed post on this site.  This summer, I focused on building nine pocket pages, via ebay and shows, for the decade of the 1960's, the NFL's big turning point decade.  How did Topps cover this turbulent decade?  Let's take a look...

1969:

I covered the first two years of the 60's back on that 70's post, but for the sake of continuity, I will cover them again.  I kinda like the '69 design, it is simple and effective with little quirks.  The most striking quirk is that some of the backgrounds are full bleed and some of them are white-bordered.  I haven't quite figured out if there is a pattern to that, but it is definitely hard to miss once you realize it.  Perhaps I would find a pattern if I had the whole set in front of me, alas, building a vintage football set is not in the cards for me.

1968:

I stand by my earlier analysis that these cards totally look like time-release capsules.  It reminds me of an old commercial where they would split the capsules and all the little dots of medicine would spill everywhere and my OCD, even as a child, would just start screaming "nooooooooooooooo!"  Anyway, this was the first year in a few where both the AFL and NFL were seen together.  I guess when they merged the leagues, they saw fit to have only one card maker. 

1967:

In the decade of drugs, this is as psychedelic as it gets.  Sad.  We'd have to wait until 1972 baseball to get pure colorful explosions.  For the Summer of Love, these aren't the grand Lucy In The Sky artifacts they could have been, more like staring at your gramma's cameos after a single hit of blotter acid. 

1966:

Topps went all TV set in 1966 and they even synchronized the hockey and the football designs but I guess they didn't feel like aping the 1955 Bowman baseball design.  This was a much more effective design for hockey because they used the fun rink backgrounds and here you just get head shots and blue sky.  But really, Topps had already done the perfect horizontal card, which we will get to in a moment.

1965:

Tall boys!  Now these cards are the ones I picture when I think of the 1960's.  I don't think I saw a 1967 Topps football card until I was at least 20 years old but these are ubiquitous in their familiarity.  Sure, their size makes them annoying but man, who cares, just look at those.  The colors, the photos, it all works.  It helps that probably the iconic football card of all time is in this set - the equivalent to the 1952 Mantle.

And look at these amazing backs:

The extra real estate makes room for an enormous cartoon.  All the players get a long write up. The pink and black on off white make them very easy to read.  Topps tried to reprint these in the regular size two years ago, which misses the point.  I really wish they would do a separate throw-back Heritage set in this size and design.

If the size of these bugs you, there is always 1965 Philadelphia to soothe your soul.  You will also see that the Fleer cards (Philadelphia was the name of their football sets) of the era had the NFL and the Topps cards had the AFL.  This was true from 1964 to 1967, probably the last time there was any real friction in the card world between leagues and the only time between 1955 and 1981 Topps had any real competition in any sport. 

1964:

A while back I wondered why Topps didn't use the stars they use on their printer's sheets as part of a design, completely forgetting that the 1964 football cards exist.  I must say, my musing that this would make a good border was a proper one, these look great.  Plus, if the 1970's was the decade of the ribbon, the 1960's is the decade of the solid color background.  No less that 4 of the sets use it, plus 2 others have a majority of the cards with the sky as the background. 

1963:

I would really like to know if the dude who designed these also designed the 1975 baseball because, whoa, colors.  Twelve years before that seminal set, these were the obvious prototype: greens, reds, blues, yellows everywhere.  My favorite thing about this page, though, is the position on the center card, you just don't see that anymore in the age of specialization. 

1962:

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the best sports card design ever.  Not just football, not just horizontal, but the best period.  I will not accept any other applicants.  I will fight you if you disagree with me.  This is it, this is the pinnacle.  It has been a slow decline ever since.  The large square color portrait. The small black and white action shot.  The blast of color with the text box.  It is perfect composition.  It is all very De Stijl; they are of its age but timeless.  The black borders tie the whole thing together, keeping everything in balance.  Topps has been doing baseball cards in older past designs of other sports, I would kill to see them do a baseball set like this. My love of this set is very violent.  I take it back, I might build a vintage football set after all and this one would be it.

Okay, let's calm down and look at the backs.

The only thing that isn't perfect about this set is that they backs are "eh.."  I mean, the cartoons are nice and big but the write ups and stats leave something to be desired. Not to mention the red is also too drab.  I guess you can't have everything.

1961:

Between this and the baseball set, 1961 could very well be the most dull year ever in terms of set design in Topps' history.  I mean, a simple text box on the bottom can be very dynamic if you want it to be, but let's face it, this is not.  All black backgrounds, all yellow text.  Yawn.  No wonder they had to step up their game in '62 on both fronts.  I will try not to fall asleep before I finish the last year.

1960:

See?  This set proves that simple doesn't have to be boring.  The texture of the photos are reminiscent of the 1957 baseball set and I believe this is the first appearance of the "chubby football" element I am so fond of that Topps uses from time to time.  I do like how the simplicity of the '60 and '69 sets nicely bookend the decade.  Plus, look at that helmet Middleton is leaning on in the bottom center card, is that a leather helmet?  In 1960? No wonder all these guys died in their 50's.

Speaking of the 50's, I have precious few Topps cards from that decade.  If I am going to do a 1950's version of this post, I am gonna have to step up my eBay purchases.  Luckily, the first Topps set from that decade didn't happen until 1955, so I only have to do half the work I did here.  Heck, I don't even have all the 1990's sets covered in full nine pocket page form, so that one is gonna have to wait too.  For now, you will have to be satisfied with this glorious post and the return of football.  Really, what more do you need?

***

And 64 silver dollars if you got the post's title reference...

Football '14 Week -2: The Tyler Rose.

       Tonight for the Saints is the third preseason game, the "dress rehearsal" for the season opener and I might consider turing off the FXX Simpsons marathon to watch it.  We can all agree there is nothing more insubstantial that preseason football, so here instead for consideration is one of the most substantial players of all time, Earl Campbell.

One of my earliest football memories was watching The Houston Oilers on CBS and seeing Earl Campbell just destroy everyone in his path.  I was mesmerized that the fastest man on the field was also the strongest.  Whoever he didn't run over he just out ran, he was amazing.  If you never watched Earl run, it was as if Barry Sanders, Adrian Peterson, and a Cat Bulldozer had a love child, here,  see for yourself.

Earl's first three years in the league were incredible, and heck, his next three weren't too shabby either.  Alas, the body can only take so much punishment so by his seventh year, it was obvious his legs were betraying him.  As was any superstar's right of passage back in the 1980's, Earl spent his last two years in the league a shell of his former self for the New Orleans Saints.  Bum Phillips brought him in with the hope to recharge him but after the 1986 season, Earl retired.

As you can see from the last two Nine-of-a-Kind pages, The Tyler Rose found himself enshrined in Canton five years after he retired.  He was always a favorite of mine and is the standard to which I hold all other running backs I have ever seen since - remember, I never saw Jim Brown play live, I am not that old.

There's A Draft In Here.

       Tonight is the first night of the NFL Draft and let me tell you the best part about that: in four days, people will stop talking about the NFL Draft for about 11 months.  Yes, I realize I am part of the problem and not the solution by pointing that out but it does give me the opportunity to also point out that if as much time, effort, meticulous attention to detail, and just pure man hours were given to any number of this countries' problems as is given to the NFL Draft then every Late April/Early May we could solve a problem a year until there were no problems left.  Drugs, teen pregnancy, financial imbalance, racial injustice - all could be eradicated rather than speculating what kind of tools Johnny Manziel has. I am no social engineer, but I am willing to bet I am closer to correct than wrong with that particular hyperbolic speculation.

The NFL Draft boils down to a few simple things.  Your team will take some players and you have no idea how they will work out.  None.  And you probably won't have any idea for at least three years.   The first round will shake out as follows:  2 or 3 players will be superstar to hall of fame caliber studs, around 20 will have anywhere from serviceable to admirable careers, and about 10 of the players chosen will completely wash out.  That's about it.  The rest of it is all mindless nattering and endless conjecture.  The NFL draft make election coverage look subdued and innocent by comparison. 

Want to know why all the attention paid to the draft is useless?  Ryan Leaf.

Sure, there are hundreds of busts to choose from but Ryan Leaf encapsulates every possible bust story.  Leaf was a decent college quarterback in a second level conference (he is the second most famous person from Washington State).  But he looked like an NFL QB. The scouts fell in love with him.  He shot up draft charts.  He looks stupendous in workouts.  People actually once argued over whether he or Peyton Manning would be the better franchise quarterback.  There was no one who came out against him.  A tremendous wave of goodwill washed over Ryan Leaf.  No one doubted him, everyone loved him, he had the world at his feet.  And he booted it.  Badly.  He failed miserably as both a football player and as a human being.  I don't think I need to rehash his entire story here, but believe me, no one has ever crashed and burned so spectacularly.  You can see some busts coming a mile away and some sneak up on you.  Ryan Leaf somehow did both.

So while it was once an interesting little distraction during the spring after the furor of baseball returning died down, I now find the NFL draft a colossal waste of time to follow.  It gives people who have no accountability jobs and encourages the sports media to continue the misguided notion that speculating about the games is more fun than the actual games.

Who knows, your team might draft a game changer of this caliber...

It is that last part that has resulted in me - an absolute sports nutjob - from watching less and less ESPN as the years have gone by to the point where I hardly watch any of it at all, except when actual games are on.  I used to watch SportsCenter all morning when I was at home and now I watch MLB Network and their Quick Pitch show because they actually show highlights of the games.  What a concept.  On the days when I accidentally have it on the worldwide leader, I usually can't change the channel fast enough because all there ever is is people arguing, speculating, some kind of awful cross promotion to a movie, or some kind of tear-jerking human interest story.  Anyway, I have bitched enough.  Wake me up when the Mets actually score a run.

Football '13 Super Bowl Sunday: The Big Game.

       This afternoon I am rooting, in order, for the meteor, the food, the commercials, and the puppies.  I might even watch the game for five minutes.  And as you watch the Super Bowl today, remember that every time you say the words the big game, there is only one professional football league that was going to refer to its game as The Big Game:

OK, so the XFL changed the name to The Million Dollar Game, but still...

...and as you can see, I was really interested in collecting all the players from that failed experiment.  Enjoy yourself tonight and don't drive drunk.  Pitchers and catchers report in two weeks.

Football '13 Week 20: Championship Week. (Here We Go Again)

       You probably think that little parenthetical statement is about Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning but sadly, it is not.  It seems that this year is following the exact same pattern as last year in terms of my blogging - I got off to a good start at the new year but then got the flu and then during that sickness get very very depressed.  It happened last year and it would seem it is happening this year.  I have been sick as a dog all of the last week and instead of following up on my Hall of Fame rants, I have been dormant and feeling terrible.  Well, I am gonna try to work through that shit this time around.  Please bear with me while I do.

Unfortunately, there is not much to get worked up about in my world about these football games.  We have all been through Brady vs. Manning in the playoffs before and I don't see how anything that happens in this game changes either one's legacy.  Tom Brady is what he is.  Peyton Manning is what he is.  And neither one of these teams is as good as either of the NFC offerings, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  Plus, the last time I checked, there is 21 other players on the field and they might have a bit to say about what happens in the game.  

The team I hate least of the remaining teams is the Patriots, but as I have stated before, while all my New England living made me love the Red Sox, the same never happened to me about the Pats.  I don't root for Tom Brady but one can't help but respect him, though no man in the NFL has more haters than Tom Brady.  I guess that is why I want to side with him - Tom Brady has a whole swath of football fans who need to just shut the hell up.  I mean, a restaurant in Denver had this sign up outside completely forgetting that if that is true, he is no doubt wearing the panties of the Brazilian supermodel he just got done banging who happens to be his wife.  Rough life, that Tom Brady.

The late game is the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Seattle Seahawks and well, let me just make this point: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, fucking hate the 49ers.  As a counterpoint: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, fucking hate the Seahawks.

My hatred for the Niners is decades old.  I hated them when they used to play the Giants and hate them now when they play the Saints.  My anger toward them is an old spouse.  The Seahawks, on the other hand, is a new found hatred (much like all their bandwagon fans).  I never had an opinion about the Seahawks but then four years ago the Beast Mode run happened, now I can't stand them.  I can't stand Pete Carroll, I can't stand Russell Wilson, I can't stand the aforementioned Beef Moe, and I certainly can't stand every single player of their defense.  My anger towards them is a torrid new affair. 

When these things come to a head, what usually happens is you go back to your wife.  I cannot measure my complete and utter dislike for these teams with existing technology but the one little thing that I would enjoy watching for two weeks is people pick apart Colin Kaepernick the way they do individually but on the national stage.  Much like Tom Brady, Kaepernick has haters - and why do they hate him?  Because he has tattoos...the horror!  Because he wears his cap backwards on the sideline and during interviews...oh the humanity!  Most of these haters?  50-year-old-plus white male sportswriters.  It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.  So it would be very pleasing to hope that a few of these dinosaurs will say something so awful and racist during the Super Bowl bye week that they lose their jobs.  Yup, I guess I am rooting for schadenfreude.

Football '13 Week 19: Divisional Playoffs.

       I'm sorry folks, I just can't.  I couldn't write anything yesterday and I am not really up to it again today.  I don't have a football rant in me, I don't have a hall of fame rant in me, hell, I don't even have it in me to mock A-Rod one more time.  The Saints loss on Saturday afternoon just took it all out of me.  I guess you wanna see some cards.  Here, this oddball page is all I got:

These make for lousy football cards but surprisingly good bookmarks.  I will regroup and try again tomorrow.  I hope you all understand.

Football '13 Week 18: Wild Card.

       A couple of times this year, I posted very early on Sunday morning going on and on about how the Saints were going to destroy that week's opponent.  That was a poor choice of blurbs as both times the Saints ingloriously lost on the road to lesser foes.  So I learned my lesson for the playoffs and decided to hold off any pregame braggadocio and let the games take their course.  This course of action worked well as the Saints beat the (hated) Eagles in Philadelphia for the first road playoff victory in team history.  Sticking it to the awful Philly fans was just a bonus. 

In celebration of the Wild Card victory, let's look at a couple of player pages with a different player stuck in as a, um, wild card.

Here is a page of Superstar Jimmy Graham with a Chrome Kenny Stills rookie card in the lower right.  Stills showed great promise as a fifth round pick this year. 

This is a page of unsung receiver Marques Colston.

There are some great inserts on this page and in the lower right, a rookie card of Nick Toon.  Sadly, Nick got hurt before last season and has not returned.  I am rooting for him not just because he is the son of Jets great Al Toon but because he has one of the great simple wonderful names in recent memory.

OK, that whole idea is a little silly, so let's just look at some cards instead.  I grabbed the first two fancy cards on top of my Saints pile and scanned them for your enjoyment.

The first one is a manu-patch of Drew Brees from the Super Bowl season.  Those last two things way overcome that first one.  The second is a great autographed patch rookie card of Kenny Stills.  I believe that swatch is from the '8' from the TV numbers on the shoulder.  That or Kenny is a much smaller guy than we are lead to believe.

Oh, and look, a team set.  I always liked this design and Topps used it across the sports that year.  I think it actually works better for football than it did for baseball.

In case you were wondering, these are from 2010 Topps...

...and we all know what happened that year...

Next stop Seattle.  Revenge is a dish best served piping hot.

Mail Call: Oddest of the Odd.

       I have not chronicled my new found love of Listia as much as I think I should here on this blog.  I certainly have shown my love for oddball cards and dime boxes at card shows.  Listia allows me to indulge these two loves at the same time without even having to leave my house.  I mean, sure, I try and secure quality cards from Listia, but my real favorite thing is to find weird lots of cards and buy them.  Last week, I bid on what I thought was three pretty crazy cards.  Instead, the seller put some unexpected bonuses into the envelope and may very well have created the freakiest lot I have ever seen:

The original lot was the Strawberry, the Whitney Houston(!) and the Superman hologram.  I am not entirely certain how I even ran across this lot; I must have searched "strawberry" I suppose.  As I have shown in the past I love those 1990 Starline cards (and I don't have the individual Stawberry), I adore shiny (and Superman), and say what you will about Ms Houston, but that rendition of the Star Spangled Banner is top drawer.  So I figured, what the hell, the expense was minimal.  In and of itself, though, that odd threesome probably would not have warranted its own post.  It seems the Listia gods were looking down upon me and struck hard.  The seller threw in the other six cards you see there with no warning or provocation.  And what a wonderful six cards they are.  First of all, how did they have the prescience to know I collected Frank Thomas, much less include a card I did not own.  Then there is the marvelous Brooks Robinson K-Mart oddball card, also a card I did not own.  I covered goofy fun NFL names yesterday and Dana Stubblefield definitely fits that mold.  And while basketball cards are not my favorite, an über 90's looking Phil Jackson, a so-lame-it-is-wonderful Amar'e Stoudemire rookie, and a Tim Hardaway NBA Hoops rookie is a triumvirate I can get behind. 

Thank you rosemaryforsythe, I will never forget you.  This group is so ugly, so disparate, so random it's wonderful.  I almost want to leave them as a single page but alas, this is the one time they will all be together for posterity.  Drink it in. 

Football '13 Week 11: Lyrical.

       Many of you have noticed my fascination with words and names.  While some are just amusing in and of themselves, others are simply lots of fun to say.  I love to go to a Mexican joint and order chimichangas.  I will say it two or three times.  Chim-eee-chan-gaaaaa.  I am saying it now as I type and giggling.  Plus there is also words like serendipity.  Rigamarole.  Hootenanny.  Phantasmagoria. Blubber.  So so many.

The Giants in recent years have had more than their fair share of fun names to say.  I lamented the loss of Osi Umenyiora from their defensive line because he and this man made up one hell of a good sentence:

Mathias Kiawanuka.  Key-a-wa-nuuuu-kaaaa.  So much fun to say.

And don't sleep on Prince Amukamara.  I really hope they somehow team up for a sack today just to hear the broadcasters announce that one.

I have a friend who is a huge Steelers fan and she just loves to yell Pa-la-ma-looooooooo whenever they play.  I gotta admit, I like Troy just for that reason.

Anyone else have a favorite player just because their name is fun to say?  Doesn't matter what the sport is...Buddy Biancalana and Fernando Valenzuela come immediately to mind...Shaquille O'Neal...and of course, Zarley Zalapski.  Let me know in the comments.

Football '13 Week 10: Veteran's Day.

       Today is Veteran's Day.  If you have any friends or family that served in the military, please thank them for their service today.  Heck, even if you see someone on the street, shake their hand and offer thanks.

Except for one glaring exception, you don't hear much about professional athletes who served in the military.  This is a blessing and a curse, I suppose, since without the draft they can focus on their sport and not Uncle Sam. 

If you watched any football this weekend, they had moments for our military at all the stadiums.  Of all the mistakes and horrors that came out of the Vietnam war, one of the worst was how we treated the men and women who returned from that conflict.  Luckily, we somehow learned a lesson from that and while we still participate in fruitless wars, we try and show our appreciation to our service members who return.

So as you settle in to watch a god awful Monday Night Football game this evening, keep in mind all those around who protected your freedom to be incensed at ESPN.