Wednesday, November 30, 2011

New Competitive Balance Lottery... WTF????

with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement signed by MLB and it's players, a few new things have come up on our baseball landscape.
Bud Selig's stupidity in putting the Astros in the American League.
Bud Selig's stupidity in allowing two more playoff teams. Everybody gets to play!!!
Bud Selig's stupidity in his insistance on making the leagues one and the same. Mixing teams, interleague play, eliminating seperate umpiring crews, eliminating league presidents, but still insisting on using the DH. That should've been the first thing to go.

and now we have something called the Competitive Balance Lottery. Basically, it's a lottery for teams to get extra picks in the draft, so that the "poorer teams" can compete with the Yankees and Red Sox.

It starts with the 2013 draft, and 13 teams are eligible for picks. There will be 12 picks given away, 6 at the end of the 1st round, and the other six at the end of the 2nd round.
The teams that are eligible are the D-backs, Orioles, Indians, Royals, A's, Pirates, Padres, Rays, Reds, Rockies, Marlins, Brewers and Cardinals.

Read that list again.

Four playoff teams, two division champions, and the World Series winner.

Because they need the extra help and picks.

Bud Selig wins again.

Just when I think there is nothing anyone can do to top Gary Bettman and company, Bud comes back swingin'.

Friday, November 25, 2011

New! Shiny! Bowman somethingorothers.....

at last weekend's card show, I picked up a couple of new shiny Braves from on of Bowman's latest releases.
The first, of pitcher Arodys Vizcaino is a very shiny die-cut thingie. I have no idea what insert set this is from. It's number is 10.
 Cool despite not knowing where it came from. Or why the really odd die-cut shape.

The second was a shiny J-Hey. This one was a little easier figuring out where it came from.
Nice.
Not bad for a hockey show in the Great White North.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Tony Stewart for the win!

EDIT: so I posted this on monday. Apparently blogger is a Carl Edwards fan as it decided not post it. Boo blogger!

Tony "Smoke" Stewart won his third NASCAR championship yesterday. His first as a driver/owner.

My favourite driver since he moved over from Indy car.... Congratulations Tony!!!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

2011-12 NHL Hall of Fame Inductees...

This year's Hall of Fame inductees are....

Joe Nieuwendyk (KNEE-when-dike) Center. (SEN-ter)

Joe ended his 20 year career with 564 goals, 562 assists in 1257 games. And three Stanley Cup wins with three different teams.
Joe's rookie card is this 1988/89 OPC #16. To show you how times have changed, Joe had already played 2 seasons BEFORE this card came out, including scoring 51 goals the season before.
 Mark Howe (HOW) Defence (DEE-fents)

Mark Howe, famous for more than being one of Gordie's sons, retired after 22 seasons in both the WHA and then the NHL. Combined, Mark scored 405 goals and 841 assists.  No Stanley Cups, but two Avco Cups in the WHA with Houston, '74 and '75.

Mark's rookie card is from the '75/76 OPC WHA set, which I do not have sadly. So enjoy his card from the '77/78 OPC WHA set instead.
 Mark did have a card in the '73/74 OPC WHA set, but apparently it does not count as a rookie card like it would in baseball.

Ed Belfour (BELL-4) Goalie (GO-lee)

Eddie the Eagle, probably best known for his masks than anything, finished a 17 year career with one Stanley Cup win in 1999 with Dallas. In those 17 years he had a record of 484-320-125 with a 2.50 GAA.
Ed's inclusion into the H.O.F. is marginal at best, however with the bar set at Grant Fuhr, quite a few goalies from the '90's are going to get in.

Ed's rookie card came in the horroble card year of 1990/91. Upper Deck (seen here), Bowman, Pro Set and Score all had rookie cards of Belfour.

Doug Gilmour (DUG) Center (DUG)

Another marginal entry into the Hall. Mostly due to media popularity. But when Glen Anderson, Bernie Federko and Clark Gilles are in the Hall.... the bar is now set pretty low....
450 goals 964 assists for 8 teams. Traded 7 times.

Dug's rookie card is the '84/85 OPC seen here.
what I thought was a mint set is not as Dug here is the poster child for OPC off centeredness.

Congrats to all the new entries into the NHL Hall of Pretty Good. I mean, Fame.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Who's it going to be???

On Monday, November 14, the National League Rookie of the Year will be announced. It will be an Atlanta Brave. The top three rookies in contention are all Braves. The question is, which one?

Freddie Freeman 1B - .282 with 21 HR and 76 RBI with a .795 OPS and top notch defence....
 or Craig Kimbrel RP - 4-3 46 saves 2.10 ERA 1.04 WHIP .178 avg against and 127 K's in 77 IP
 or Brandon Beachy SP - 7-3  3.68ERA 1.21 WHIP  2.36 avg against with 169 K's in 141 2/3 IP
 all very strong candidates... however, I feel that the voters with lean towards............
Strikeouts are sexy.

Nationals 2B Danny Espinoza will get some votes as well... I just don't think that many.
Thoughts?

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Redemption at the Plate

Awhile ago I received a small package from my buddy who runs Play at the Plate. In it, he enclosed this piece of cardboard....
 3-4 weeks later, another small package arrived at my door from Topps.
Nice.

Now if only Panini and Upper Deck would return my redemptions.....

Thanks Brian!!!

btw... please keep Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos in your thoughts.... LINK