A Card I'd Like to See in 2015 Topps Archives

Now that we know the base card designs Topps has chosen for its 2015 Archives set—1957, 1976, and 1983—here's a card I'd like to see in the set.

A Few Great Things About 2013 Topps Heritage Minor Leagues

I recently purchased a box of 2013 Topps Heritage Minor Leagues. While I was not a fan of the Major-League edition, I am a fan of this version. The lightweight, too-smooth card stock and low-resolution photography don't bother me here. I like that I got practically the entire base set, not to mention a smattering of inserts, from my one box. Here are a few other great things about this set:

Rio Ruiz needs to change his name to "Rio Bandita." Amiright? 

1) The team names are not in a uniform color. Now, I have not heard of many of these teams. And their Major-League affiliations? Forget it. But it doesn't matter. My Heritage-programmed brain saw two cards of players on the Quad Cities River Bandits (the Houston Astros' Class-A affiliate in the Midwest League), each with "River Bandits" in a different color, and immediately thought one was a variation. Once I saw that this was true for many other teams, my love for it increased. It was not a variation! It was just a quirk of the design to add a little spice into the set. Awesome.

2) There are many teams represented, and not just at the same level. Granted, the set is supposed to highlight the 225 best players (or most hyped) minor leaguers in the system, but it's still fresh to open a pack and get a handful of players from different levels. Also, some of the team names are just ridiculous. Drive? Power? Storm? C'mon. At least at seems some thought went into "Lug Nuts" and "Blue Rocks," although both are smirk-ready for a bus full of 19-year-old jocks.

3) Each player smacks of potential, upside, whatever you want to call it. Not every one of these guys will star at the Major-League level. Heck, most of these probably won't even get to the Major Leagues. But that's what makes a set like this great: You can smell the optimism when you open the pack.

4) The traditional Topps "magazine-cover" design of the 1964 base set really works for some of these cards. They look like how a classic baseball card should look. You know what I mean? This card of Michael Choice is what I'm talking about. Actually, many of the cards achieve this effect, but those with bats leaving the frame work the best.


5) I counted four sons of ex-Major Leaguers on the base set checklist who shared their dads' famous names. And then there's Mike Piazza. Born in 1986, he's too old to be the son of Mike Piazza, right? This is some "Baseball's Two Hal Smiths" territory here, folks.

6) If I have a son, I will definitely give him a weird name. Because if today's crop of 20-year-olds is any indication, an off-the-wall name will give him better than a fifty-fifty chance of achieving professional sports stardom—or at least a shot at making the cast of a reboot of American Gladiators.

Finally, best card of the set: Joe Panik, Flying Squirrels. Let's be honest: If a flying squirrel was coming at you, I'd bet the first thing you'd think of is "panic."

Besties

Mike Piazza, 1995 Upper Deck

Eric Karros: This guy is just too good at baseball! Argh! I’m going to strangle him with my baseball bat!

Mike Piazza: Ha, ha … dude, I’m on your team, don’t do it!

Karros: I don’t care, argh! Strangle … ha, ha!

Piazza: Ha … clears throat. Alright, man, that's enough. See you out there in a bit.

Cameraman: Hey, wait a minute. I like that good-natured ribbing about you wanting to strangle him with your bat. Can you come back here and do that again?

Karros: Oh, man, I don’t know. This is Mike’s card. I don’t want to be a card bomber. I mean … Mike?

Piazza: Oh, uh … no, man. Doesn’t really matter to me. You uh … sure that’s the shot you want? Him about to strangle me with a bat?

Cameraman: Oh yeah, it’s perfect. Since this is your All-Star card, my original thought was to have you heroically hitting a mammoth home run off into the distant sky, your muscles bulging out of your crisp uniform, mustache glistening in the setting sun. But now I think it would be better if we just had Eric Karros playfully trying to choke you with his bat.

Karros: You know, Mike, it would be cool to show everyone how well we get along. We ARE pretty much best friends ...

Cameraman: Exactly.

Piazza: Yeah, I mean, well ... okay, maybe I wouldn't say best friends, but I guess it would be nice to show kids I don't hate you or anything. Do you think kids assume I don't get along with Eric, like we need a contrived photo shoot to prove it?

Karros: Well, ya' know, I don't like mustaches, you do. I use a black bat, you use a brown bat. People may assume we reside at opposite ends of the clubhouse and that we don't we don't playfully bust each others' balls. But hey, if you're not comfortable, Mike, it's f--

Piazza: Oh NO, NO, NO. That's not it at all. I just ... my only worry is that kids may assume this is a checklist card, and not my own All-Star card, that's all.

Cameraman: Is that ... is that really a concern of yours?

Piazza: I mean, yeah, a little bit. I remember how much checklist cards sucked from when I was a kid, and I don't want some kid to assume this is a checklist card, NOT turn it over, and then never discover what awesome stat of mine you put on the back, ya' know? That's all.

Cameraman: I'll make sure everyone knows it's your All-Star card, m'kay?

Piazza: Just ... you're not gonna use a term on the back like "playfully bust each others' balls," are you?

Cameraman: I won't do that. I don't think I will do that.

Piazza: Okay, alright, that's fine, that's fine. Let's uh ... let's do this then, I guess.

Karros: Argh, gonna strangle this guy!

Piazza: Alright, Eric, whoa, hang on! He's not even ready yet. Relax, dude. And can you back up with that thing? You're supposed to be pretend choking me.

Karros: Yeah, okay, my bad. Just trying to recapture the moment.

Cameraman: Alright, the two of you, smile! Say "besties!"

Piazza: Through smiling teeth ... If this comes back to haunt me I am seriously going to stick that bat up your a--

Karros: Through smiling teeth ... BESTIES!

UPDATE: Note that I had Eric Karros as Brett Butler before astute reader and non-idiot JasonP alerted me to the error. I honestly can't tell them apart in this picture even though Brett Butler was 50 years old every year.

A Tale of Four Wrists

Eric Davis, 1991 Score, "The Franchise"

Don’t get me wrong—never once in my whole life did I ever question my unrelenting admiration for one Donald Arthur Mattingly, nor did I ever wish I had latched on to a different baseball player for such a one-sided endeavor of unconditional love. That said, if, during this time, some unbelievably unfortunate circumstance had forced me, kicking and screaming violently, to set my Donnie aside—gasp!—and choose another, if only so that my family could survive—bastards!—and this “other” could not be a member of my chosen team—sorry, Pags!—then, and only then, I would have chosen … Eric Davis.

Why, you ask? Let’s let Score explain:



Even in a season like 1990 when Eric was hampered by bad knees and a bum shoulder, he is the man who can make a difference.

Say it’s a year like 1990, and you’re sitting at home in your Skidz overalls with your bad knees and bum shoulder, thinking to yourself, “I don’t feel like making a difference today … look at me! Ugh!” Then you turn on the television only to see that Eric Davis, the baseball player, has hit 24 home runs and stole 21 bases and has an OPS+ of 123 despite similar ailments. “Did that make a difference?” you wonder. Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you go ask the World Series.

The most talented player in the game,

No offense to Eric Davis, but people say this like Mattingly couldn’t steal bases or hop over outfield walls to rob home runs. I mean, Mattingly chose to not to steal because his advanced sabermetric mind told him not to. (Smartability is now the sixth tool.) Besides, Mattingly beat an ostrich in a race back in ’87. It was on Fox. Then he jumped over the ostrich to rob a home run, except the ball was an ostrich egg. You didn’t see it? It was awesome.

Eric came through when it counted, hitting a solid .280 in the second half of the season.

Coming through when it counts = having a batting average of .280 in the second half of the season. I just read that sentence over like, 30 times. The ratio of extremely boring thing said about extremely exciting player—boring thing/exciting player—is off the freakin’ charts. Literally, it is impossible to make a chart about this.

Here’s the thing. Eric Davis was awesome. Super fast, tons of power, exciting as heck to watch defensively, etc. But ask anyone from my generation of baseball fandom what they admired most about Eric Davis, and they’ll all tell ya’ the same thing—his remarkably strong wrists:

Eric’s remarkably strong wrists generate enormous power;

A lot of regular guys generate home runs with their arms, or chest, or legs, or bat, or head, or shoulders. Eric Davis? All wrists. In fact, many longtime baseball men-slash-wrist scientists believed they’d never see another player who could equal such remarkableness in the wrist department.

That is, until …



Mike Piazza, 2001 Topps Stadium Club

Goodness, gracious! Look at those … wrists!



ANALYSKILLS:

Let us recall that ANALYSKILLS are a complex formula of skills, analysis, the analysis of those skills, and the skills at obtaining such analysis.

Long, yet powerful stroke.

Not taking the bait.

Not taking the bait.

Not taking the bait.

Not taking the bait.

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID! Arg! I have no self-control.

… Big into weight training, but generates power from unusually strong wrists…

“Chapter 8: From Remarkably Strong To Unusually Strong: From Davis To Piazza: Baseball’s Power Wrists,” was the colon-filled title of one section of Ken Burns’ famous PBS documentary, “Baseball Stuff.” I also enjoy how Piazza generated power not from his weight lifting, but only from his wrists. What kind of adept analyskilltician made this observation? Kind of makes you wonder why Piazza continued to weight train. Was he so vain? Also, did the wrist exercises help? It’s the age-old question of wrist nature versus nurture. We’ll never really know.

We’ll never really know. (Frowny face.)

A Return to Adolescence

Mike Piazza, 1997 Topps

I feel like this card should come with its own musical jingle, which would feature a piano and maybe a saxophone and which would go:

Ninety-six seeeeaason hiiiiiiiiighliiiiiights …

Then, a seductively-voiced narrator, like—who did "Planet Earth?" Sigourney Weaver? Not her. The other one. Yeah, Whoopi Goldberg—Whoopi Goldberg would say the following:



On July 9, 1996 in Philadelphia, Mike Piazza returned to the city of his adolescence as an All Star

I can’t imagine how collectively emotional the entire city of Philadelphia was in welcoming back its native son, who now plays baseball for a team other than the Phillies. They probably yelled, “You’re dead to me, Piazza!” and then had their young sons throw whole cantaloupes at him.

and left a hero.

I went to Opening Day at Citizens Bank Park in 2007 with my buddy Brandon, who grew up in Philly and is a die-hard Phillies fan. While we were waiting for McFadden’s to open, we ended up near the statue of Mike Schmidt that stands tall outside of the stadium. Brandon looked up at it, nodded his head and—probably caught up in the positive vibes of Opening Day and feelings of nostalgia—said, “What a jerkoff.”

Nobody leaves Philadelphia a hero.

The Los Angeles Dodger catcher crashed a monstrous, 445-foot home run

Crashed?

into the upper deck in the second inning, and later added an RBI double in the NL’s 6-0 victory.

I trust that the dramatic red and blue lines leading to the dream montage-style photo of Piazza have adequately captured the raw emotion of this moment. If not, Whoopi—take us home:

Piazza, who played at nearby Phoenixville High School, was moved by the weight of the moment. “I’m really emotional right now,” he said. “I’m all choked up.”

Piazza actually said this to AL shortstop Derek Jeter as he attempted to round second base after he crashed his monstrous home run. Jeter was like, “Are you serious right now?” Piazza then fell to the ground in a puddle of tears, unable to move under the weight of the moment, knowing his former Phys. Ed. teacher at Phoenixville High School, Mr. Bloofendorf, who always believed in him, was in the stands. The PA announcer, as a sarcastic gesture, began playing Mariah Carey’s “Hero,” but when Piazza heard the line, “with the strength to carry on,” he got up, wiped his nose, and continued his emotional trot around the bases. In his head, he imagined the crowd was wildly cheering him on, but everyone was standing in stunned silence.

And with that, it is true: The major highlight of the 1996 baseball season occurred when Mike Piazza hit a home run during a game that didn’t count.

Ninety-six seeeeaason hiiiiiiiiighliiiiiights …

Did you know?
I will know that I have "made it" if, and only if, a huge golden statue of me blogging sits in the front yard of my parent's house in East Brunswick, New Jersey.