Dibs McNasty

Rob Dibble, 1989 Donruss

Name’s Dibs, a.k.a. Nasty Boy, a.k.a. Dibs McNasty. I got a rocket launcher for a right arm and an attitude to match. That means my attitude is also a rocket launcher in that I WILL BLAST OFF ON YOU. You’ve been warned.

You’re not a woman, are you? Good. I don’t care for women around ballparks. They don’t pay attention to what’s going on, and what’s going is that I AM DOMINATING MEN WITH MY BASEBALL PITCHES. They’re in the stands, these women, all like, “Hair and nails, something something, that’s my husband over there, he’s number such and such, I forget, I don’t like math, Barbie dolls and tea parties, I shave my armpits, did you hear what woman said about other woman, menstrual cycles, flowers and children and what not,” and meanwhile I just struck out like 17 guys and NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION TO ME.

One time I threw a ball into the stands as hard as I could for no reason and it hit a woman, and I’m all like WHAT IS SHE EVEN DOING HERE? Wikipedia described the incident as “inadvertent,” as if the ball hitting someone was some random happenstance that occurred as a result of a ball being thrown directly into a condensed group of many people. I was making a point, and the point was that: I AM ROB DIBBLE. Point: RECEIVED.

I throw balls at dudes, too. I don’t care. I threw a ball into Doug Dascenzo’s back one time while he was running down the first base line. That is my own personal way of recording outs, because throwing the ball into the first baseman’s glove is for sissies. Also, nice name, Dascenzo! GO BACK TO POLAND. Man, I am so pumped right now. I want to throw a ball at somebody so badly. Do you have a ball? I want to throw it in your face! No, you don’t have a ball? LET’S FIGHT WITH OUR BODIES. One time I threw down with my “manager” Lou Pinella. He was in the locker room all like, “Baseball, blah, blah, blah, look at me yelling at full-grown adults!” and I was like I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR CRAP. So we fought and I won. That dude is such a hothead.

A lot of people don’t know this, but I broke my arm in that fight. Still pitched the next day. Struck out 12 guys on six pitches, world record. That’s why it really sticks in my craw when pretty boys like Strausburg stop pitching because they have boo-boos on their arm. They’d have to drag me off the mound with a complex pulley system operated by dinosaurs before I voluntarily left the game because my arm had an owie. YOU’LL TAKE THIS BALL FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS, PINELLA. The way I figure it, some boy in the stands came to the game with his dad for the first time just to see me pitch, and I’ll be gosh darned if I let that kid down. I want him to say, 20 years from now, “Daddy, remember that time we went that baseball game and that pitcher gave up 38 runs and then his arm exploded and we never heard from that pitcher again and the franchise had to move because they had invested so much in that pitcher? I LOVE YOU, DAD.”

DIBBLE, OUT.

Kip Cut

One of my friends growing up had, on his basement wall, a framed uncut sheet of baseball cards. I don’t recall the set, or which players it contained, but I do remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, “What the … ?”

I’m sure I would have eventually deduced that baseball cards were produced and manufactured in the same fashion as say, 64 slices of American cheese, and that’s not to say I had ever really thought about the origins of the cards I so enjoyed. But I think my naïve little brain subconsciously believed these cards were created with the same individual care and attention-to-detail with which I tended to them. By whom, you ask? I don’t know … elves with microscopic tools and a graphic design degree with full access to major league ballplayers? Prolly. But again, I didn’t really think about it.

That somewhat jarring dose of reality and the youthful disappointment it evoked was almost immediately replaced with a feeling of OH MY GOD WHAT DOES YOUR DAD DO FOR A LIVING I NEED TO GET ONE OF THOSE NOW!!! It seemed impossible that a person—much less a person I knew—could possess such a magnificent, priceless item. I thought it was worth more than the house in which it was displayed. That my friend’s dad knew someone in the industry of producing baseball cards (or, had a lot of money to give an obese sheister at a card show) seemed more improbable than had I discovered he knew the President of the United States. I mean, geez—even the President couldn’t get his hands on a sheet of uncut baseball cards without having to compromise on trade sanctions or something. POLITICS.

The uncut nature of the sheet was the true allure, as my slowly maturing brain was beginning to realize the Collector’s Formula that proved the less utilitarian a thing was, the more valuable it must be: mint condition < in an opened pack < on uncut sheet < doesn’t even exist. That is why, I think, I proudly own an unopened Derek Jeter figurine that will be worth, in 80 years or so, not that much money. But at least I can say, from eternity, it was never soiled by human hands.

So yeah, I stood in awe of the uncut sheet. After that experience, every now and then, I would get a card that was less awe-inspiring, but that nevertheless reminded me of the uncut sheet, and the unreliability of human hands, even the human hands that operate machine hands.


Bob Kipper, 1990 Topps

No offense to Bob Kipper—he was done justice on other cards in which he played a hilarious top-hatted beekeeper—but it was a darn good thing for 11-year-old me that this absurd nightmare of a cut involved Bob Kipper instead of … (remembering there were zero good cards in this set) … someone else. This is the type of card I would look at every now and then and think to myself, “I can’t believe I collect these things. I should start a blog when the Internet is invented.”

Meanwhile, my buddy is sitting on a sectional in his finished basement, playing the latest video game system I don’t have, an uncut and untradeable sheet of baseball men resting on the nearby wall, priceless yet ignored, like true love often is.

Bob Kipper struck out a career-high 83 dudes in 1987. He pitched 39 innings for the Twins in ’92 before calling it quits. Some might say his career was cut short. Others might say his career was cut long. Kip himself was just relieved he was never decapitated.

The Steve Nicosia Story

Steve Nicosia, 1985 Topps

“GET YOUR ELBOW UP!” is what my dad would be yelling right now if he were Steve Nicosia’s dad instead of my dad and if Steve Nicosia were playing Little League ball instead of Major League ball. If my dad was still my dad but Steve Nicosia was on my Little League team, my dad would be yelling, “Lookin’ good, Stevie boy! Hum-batta-batta, let’s go Stevie!”

Let’s find out what the back of this Steve Nicosia card has to say re: Steve Nicosia:



What club’s pitching staff posted 17 shutouts to lead the N.L. in 1984?

Steve Nicosia?

(Turns card upside down …)

San Diego Padres

I am disappointed. Let’s go to Steve Nicosia’s BR Bullpen page to find out more:

Nicosia was a pitcher early in high school. As a sophomore, he threw in one game.

Steve Nicosia was a pitcher in high school. One time, he pitched in a high school baseball game. This is the beginning of our trip down Steve Nicosia lane, and I have to admit, I am thinking of turning around.

He hit batters with his first two pitches, walked the next batter on four, then allowed a grand slam on the next.

Kind of like a {least favorite pitcher on your favorite team} start! ZINGER!

He later recalls "I could see I probably wasn't going to make the big leagues as a pitcher...I couldn't even make the second inning."

If I had that type of outing, I wouldn’t be thinking, “Aw shucks, guess I won’t be in the big leagues as a pitcher!” I’d be like, “Get me out of here I hate baseball I think I’m going to be an artist I feel like crying but everybody is looking at me I am going to transfer to a different high school.”

He transferred to North Miami Beach High School the next year, which had just opened across the street from where Steve was living. Nicosia volunteered to catch for the team, opening his path to pro baseball.

I mean, hey—it’s right across the street! How can you not transfer there? Especially since you can volunteer for the team instead of undertaking the burdensome endeavor of trying out, and thus gain community service hours.

Now, if I am creating “The Steve Nicosia Story” movie for the Disney Family Channel, I am loving this sort of interesting and self-deprecating anecdote regarding his early baseball life. The only thing that would make it better would be if it were followed-up by some sort of fish-out-of-water story once he makes it to the bigs.

Steve had never seen snow, having grown up in Florida, and he got excited when the temperature in Rocky Mount, NC fell to 25 degrees while the team was there. Teammate John Candelaria sprayed fire extinguisher foam over the swimming pool in the motel where they were staying and convinced Nicosia it was snow. Steve later recalled "If you've never seen snow before, a lot of things could be snow. It was white and it was yet [sic]...You ever try to make a snowball with fire extinguisher foam?"

I’m calling b.s. I’ll give you that he never saw snow before, fine. But c’mon. I’ve never seen Mars before, but if someone put a giant red ball in a motel swimming pool and told me it was Mars, I’d be like, “Go back to bed, Candelaria you idiot!” What, Nicosia never saw snow on TV, or didn’t possess the basic human knowledge that snow doesn’t fall in isolated 18’ X 36’ areas?

If you've never seen snow before, a lot of things could be snow.

Steve Nicosia: Hey, what is that thing on the ground? Snow?

Normal person: That is a bicycle.

Steve Nicosia: How did it get there then? Did it fall from the sky?

Normal person: Somebody put it there.

Steve Nicosia: A snowman, probably.

Normal person: No.

Steve Nicosia: What about that? Is that snow?

Normal person: That is a mailbox.

Steve Nicosia: Hey, what is that white substance falling from the sky? Toasters?

Normal person: That is snow.

Also, what a dumb prank. Is there an old story about athletes or rock stars that doesn’t make hotel/motel management appear nonexistent or as a bunch of bumbling morons? It almost makes me wish the motel experienced a fire shortly thereafter, and as everyone scrambled around trying to locate fire extinguishers, Candelaria was outside in his underwear like, “Dorf! Me was playing snow pranks!” and then he had to pay out-of-pocket to build a new motel. This story makes no sense. It’s getting me kind of angry, actually.

He broke two ribs in a home-plate collision with Mike Scioscia, knocking him out of action for a spell.

Scioscia + Nicosia X collision = Collioscia!

That is all.

The Jay Bell Twelve

Jay Bell, 1998 Upper Deck SPx (?) series

Rule of thumb: When the player featured on your baseball card is less noticeable than your gimmicky logo, something has gone wrong.

Two things about this card: 1) It is so thick that when I went to scan it, the cover of the scanner did not close all the way and the ultraviolet gamma-scanner rays blinded me and I fell down and I when I came to, I was naked except for a top hat. 2) What in the freakin’ heck is that logo?



I have been staring at this for what feels like six hours. Here is what I know. It is gold. It is made to appear as though it has been screwed into the card, which makes me feel like a man. Its center reads SPx, which means: I don’t know what that means. It kind of sort of looks like the World Series trophy, except the sun is rising out of the top of it, and also out of the bottom of it. Two suns? That is one more than earth has. This card flies in the face of modern science. It is the Copernicus of baseball cards. According to the back of the card:





This is No. 2712 out of 9000. There are 30 teams in Major League Baseball, each with a 25-man roster. That is 750 dudes. They made 9000 of these puppies, which is 12 cards per player. I am one of the “Jay Bell Twelve.” I must seek out the remaining 11 owners of this card in a year’s time, and we will meet at a discreet location, preferably a cave with a giant wooden table, and we must do so before the sun rises in the east and sets upside down, in order to fulfill the prophecy. There, we will discuss all things Jay Bell-related over crumpets and whiskey, and then announce to whom each of us will bequeath our card, so that future generations may also meet and uphold the grand tradition of the Jay Bell SPx Upper Deck baseball card from 1998. Again, this is all I know.

Let’s find out more about Jay Bell from Wikipedia:

Originally a first-round pick of the Minnesota Twins in 1984, Bell made 129 errors over his first three minor-league seasons

I don’t want to go crazy with math here, but that is 43 errors per season—minor league seasons are only like 140 games, by the way—which means that every single time the ball was hit to Jay Bell, he booted it in hilarious fashion. There is no way a player like that stays in baseball, much less gets called up, unless:

General Manager: We’re calling up Jay Bell. He literally cannot catch a baseball, but I like his guts. Catching baseballs doesn’t win baseball games—guts do. They should call this game baseguts.

Manager: Agreed. We’ll hide him at shortstop.

Wikipedia goes on to acknowledge that Bell won the Gold Glove in ’93, so either the previous anecdote is a misprint or this is the greatest story of defensive improvement since that time a different player who I cannot recall really improved defensively.

As a player, Bell was well known for wearing eyeglasses on the field.

Ha, ha! NEEEEEERD!

In the 2001 World Series, Bell scored the series winning run in Game 7 on a Luis Gonzales bloop-single, then what would become an iconic image was Bell clapping his hands over his head and then running into Diamondback's third basemen Matt Williams' arms.

I don’t recall that.

In 1999, Jay Bell hit 38 home runs with 112 RBI after a year of 20/67 and before a year of 18/68, which seems totally legit to me. It’s as if he were playing in a world with two sunshines, which helped him see the ball better, as did his glasses.