Bat Blog Around - word association

I feel like this is just an exercise in reciting the most prominent player for each MLB team - where most collectors' lists would likely mirror each other in one way or the other.

Still, it's nice to be participate and get my own mind churning - as is, I had to do some thinking because for each of the 30 MLB teams, there maybe different types of players that stood out and I just had to pick one dude.

I wanted some rule where it could be only active players or at least players from the last 30 years - in some instances, I gave myself an 'out' as far as picking a different player than I'd originally thought, but for transparency, the name of the replaced player is crossed out.

Inspired by Fuji and Night Owl Cards - here is my list of the players that pop into my mind whenever I think about each MLB team

Angels - Mike Trout

Houston Astros - Nolan Ryan; someone like a Craig Biggio or Jeff Bagwell were the other choices that made more sense, but I always liked the Ryan card with the Nike Air cleats cameo.

Oakland Athletics - Rickey Henderson

Seattle Mariners - Ichiro

Texas Rangers - Juan Gonzalez Josh Hamilton; the original pick was Gonzalez, though Ivan Rodriguez ended up in the Hall of Fame and would have been my first choice.

However, Hamilton was the guy who was the biggest superstar for about a 5-year period before he crashed and burned - for better or for worse, Hamilton ends up being the first guy that pops into my head, when thinking about the Rangers.

Minnesota Twins - Kirby Puckett

Kansas City Royals - George Brett

Chicago White Sox - Frank Thomas

Detroit Tigers - Cecil Fielder Miguel Cabrera; Fielder may have been an 'old school' nod back to the junk wax era early 1990s. Maybe Justin Verlander would have been the first player on my mind after Cabrera.

Cleveland Indians - Albert Belle Jim Thome; I thought Belle was the ultimate bad ass and guy you certainly most thought about on the Cleveland Indians of the 1990s, but Thome had that lasting power even as he moved on.

New York Yankees - Mariano Rivera Derek Jeter; the question here is whether Jeter will match Rivera's feat as far as 100 percent votes for the Hall of Fame.

Boston Red Sox - Dustin Pedroia

Baltimore Orioles - Cal Ripken Jr. Adam Jones; Ripken Jr. is the obvious choice, but I liked Jones as a guy in the past 10-15 years, established himself as a team star, even if he was only a minor star at best as far as the numbers go.

Tampa Bay Rays - Evan Longoria

Toronto Blue Jays - Roy Halladay

Los Angeles Dodgers - Sandy Koufax Andre Ethier; I went from Koufax to Ethier, but like Jones from the Orioles, he was a prominent team star, even if he was only a minor star at best as far as the numbers go.

San Francisco Giants - Buster Posey

Arizona Diamondbacks - Paul Goldschmidt

Colorado Rockies - Todd Helton

San Diego Padres - Tony Gwynn

St. Louis Cardinals - Albert Pujols

Milwaukee Brewers - Robin Yount

Chicago Cubs - Ernie Banks Ryne Sandberg; as far as current players, Kris Bryant or Anthony Rizzo would probably be the first I'd think about, but I'll give the nod to the Hall of Fame second baseman.

Pittsburgh Pirates - Andrew McCutchen

Cincinnati Reds - Brandon Phillips

Atlanta Braves - Chipper Jones Ronald Acuna Jr.; Freddie Freeman had a case here, though [to his credit I guess], he is a little boring and regardless of the numbers he puts up, just doesn't stick out for me when I think about the Atlanta Braves.

Washington Nationals - Bryce Harper

New York Mets - David Wright Jacob deGrom; I definitely think deGrom whenever the New York Mets were mentioned; Wright was the franchise player for the longest time, but it's like he couldn't get onto the field the past four years and finally had to call it quits.

Miami Marlins - Jose Fernandez

Philadelphia Phillies - Chase Utley

Featured autograph - Satchel Paige

I wanted an autograph of Paige for my personal collection because it's pretty neat to own an autograph of a larger than life personality from the history of professional baseball - I picked up this yellow HOF postcard signed by Paige and while they don't exactly 'pop,' there was some familiarity with the postcards once being mainstream items to get signed longtime HOF autograph collectors.

There was a 15% promo [POPUPSAVINGS] on eBay and I decided to pool together some Christmas money and some funds out of my pocket - to grab this one up in December, in case something came up past the new year that complicated things [knock on wood].

Featured autograph - Jonathan Lucroy

The Angels just signed Lucroy to be the catcher who presumably gets most of the playing time next season - he had some nice years in his prime, though his production with the bat has bottomed out the past few years.

The signing is only for one year and if Lucroy can bounce back just a bit, he probably helps the Angels - though many catchers tend to run into a wall, once they are on the wrong side of 30.

I guess he was a decent signer between his time in the Arizona Fall League and maybe in spring training his first couple of years in the big leagues - I found some signed cards of his, so I can add him to my all-time autograph collection once he plays in a regular season game for the Angels.

FWIW, I remember Lucroy was going from field to field during a spring training Texas Rangers workout I went to in 2017 - presumably he was done for the day, but still wouldn't stop for just about anyone.

When more borderline HOF guys get their call

As a baseball fan, I'd probably be more of a big hall kind of guy - but I thought it was a joke when I found out through scrolling through a social media post that apparently Smith and Baines were elected to the Hall of Fame through the 2019 Today's Game Era Ballot.

Baines' election to the Hall of Fame will probably cause just about every numbers oriented analysts' heads to explode - I won't begrudge or bemoan his induction to the Hall since there are too many writers messing around with someone's actual accomplishments in the guise of being objective.

Personally, I consider Baines in the middle of the pack as far as a Hall of Very Good guy, but in a roundabout way - Baines probably got some extra consideration for the 134 hits he didn't get towards that 3,000th hit club he missed out on.

The last card I touched featuring Baines was his 1991 Upper Deck [#562] - it went in my awesome action collection as a game face card; I like the image of him on the on-deck circle, about to swing while doing his high leg kick.

As far as Smith, though he once held the all-time saves record, I've always thought of him as mostly a junk wax era journeyman reliever - however, with Trevor Hoffman getting into the Hall of Fame recently and with Mariano Rivera on the way, someone had to fit Smith in-between the two in order to have a little run of modern era closers.

Maybe an obvious non-Rivera candidate in the next several years will likely be Billy Wagner - depending on who is on the ballot.

My favorite Smith card was his 1996 Upper Deck card [#266] because while it obviously shows him with the Angels - it was also a seemingly more elaborate image setup compared to a typical baseball card picture.

Favorite card of 2018 - Topps Heritage Shohei Ohtani Action Image variation #17

This is in response to Tom's contest over at Waiting 'til Next Year.

Go figure that it would be another Ohtani as my favorite card of the year but the relatively healthy half of him lived up to the hype and I wanted to showcase my best rookie year card of his - the traditionalists who have collected Topps Heritage for years may not like these short print gimmicks because it gets in the way of completing their sets.

However, the Action Image variation cards picturing prominent rookie or second year stars have gotten popular to collect - even if it wasn't autographed, in my mind an Ohtani was a definitive card to have.

A farewell to Garrett Richards

As he has moved on and signed a two-year deal with the San Diego Padres, I don't know if I had any particular attachment to Richards as a pitcher on my local big league team - he'd pitched about 138 combined innings his last three seasons with the Angels, so arm injuries really robbed him of some prime years.

Richards was Mike Trout's best friend on the Angels and it might have been nice if he could have stayed healthier - now he looks to rehab and make a comeback from Tommy John Surgery sooner than never, even if it takes a couple of years to be back on the mound.

1990 Upper Deck Randy McCament #657

Through another blogger's post, I stumbled upon a "Ugly Sweater" Ugly Baseball Card Contest at Baseball Every Night - without thinking about it too much, I was sure I could find at least one card in particular that stood out and this was the one I chose.

When I started getting interested in collecting as a kid just about 30 years ago, the last players I'd ever think about being interested in are rank and file guys like McCament - but not every card in an 800 count set could picture superstars like Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey Jr., Will Clark, Don Mattingly, Bo Jackson or Jose Canseco.

It maybe no small feat that McCament actually pitched in parts of two big league seasons - but with the images used on this junk wax era 'gem,' it would be hard to convince anyone that McCament was any sort of professional athlete.

2018 Topps Now Shohei Ohtani Topps MLB Rookie All-Star team #RC-7 and #RC-7J

I went ahead to see if I could pick up the Topps Now Shohei Ohtani cards I'd missed out on [these two cards and his Topps Now Rookie All-Star team card] - between the end of the season up through when he was honored as the American League Rookie of the Year a couple of weeks ago.

I’m still looking to build on my Ohtani Topps Now run through his rookie year but have held off picking up any one particular pack pulled card - the pitcher is out until 2020 and whenever Ohtani comes back in 2019, he'll be literally half a player at DH.

1997 Bowman’s Best Adrian Beltre RC #117

I wanted a Beltre rookie card and grabbed this as an impulsive purchase to squirrel away - the 1997 Bowman Chrome RC #182 is the one to have, but maybe I’ll wait a little bit before seeking that one out.

This maybe a condition sensitive card as chrome cards from the 1990s tend to ‘hulk’ when exposed to the weather conditions - the copy of the card I picked up doesn’t appear to be discolored, though I have to account for when it happens.

Admittedly for the longest time, up through when the retiring Beltre was gunning for his 3,000th hit - I didn’t think much of him as having the numbers to merit any sort of serious consideration for the Hall of Fame.

I’ve always thought he was a minor star at best who lucked into a flukish season in 2004 - after collecting his 3,000 hits in 2017 and passing Rod Carew in 2018 as the all-time Latin American hits leader, Beltre's baseball playing accomplishments have the substance as he looks to become a first ballot Hall of Famer in five years.

Accounting for his all-world defense, the hitting numbers and the quirkiness he’s occasionally exhibited, Beltre has become a fan favorite to be goofed on in good fun - he didn't he like his head touched by his teammates and he had one of the most exaggerated follow throughs on his swing.

He and Texas Rangers teammate Elvis Andrus never get tired of messing around with each other - Andrus seems to be Beltre’s best friend on the field, but also his main antangonist.

Featured autograph - Odrisamer Despaigne

Despaigne wasn't ever going to be a star, but the Cuban righthander had a promising rookie season in 2014 with the San Diego Padres - after leaving the Padres, Despaigne has hung onto professional baseball as a journeyman and had an ugly 8-game stint with the Angels this past year.

In 18 2/3 innings pitched, Despaigne allowed 17 earned runs, walked 11 hitters and was battered around for 30 hits - he elected to be a free agent and will probably be pitching in Mexico, Japan or Korea sooner than never.

Whatever he does with the rest of his pro career, he'll always be an Angel to me and was nice enough to sign back in the day - at the very least, the autograph of his I already had on some sort of Padres game day scorecard, can be listed as part of my all-time Angels autograph collection.

1995 Topps Traded Carlos Beltran RC #18T

This rookie card was on my ‘holes to fill’ list and I randomly decided to finally pick a copy up for my PC - even though Beltran’s rookie card is messed up because it isn't his picture on the card.

The card pictures Juan LeBron, who was the Kansas City Royals' first round pick [19th overall] in 1995, but failed to reach the major leagues - Beltran, who was the Royals’ second round pick [49th overall] from the same draft class is pictured on LeBron’s card, though the card listed with Beltran’s name / bio should still be the one that commands any interest [regardless of the goof].

After a player retires like Beltran did in 2017, there maybe an extended period of time where you are just out of sight, out of mind - though as a borderline Hall of Fame player, Beltran may gain support for his eventual induction in Cooperstown.

Featured autograph - Steve Pearce

When Pearce was named the 2018 World Series MVP, I had to dig this card from somewhere and was glad to find it relatively quickly among a brick of cards I'd organized for players involved in transactions in a particular year - I may remember watching an at-bat of his once in-person when he was with the Pittsburgh Pirates [in 2008 perhaps].

I thought he had a nice batting stance and perhaps the look of a guy who can put up some decent numbers - though didn't seem like a top prospect and hadn't really established himself at all in the major leagues.

He has bounced around in his big league career and I guess the best thing I could say before this postseason - was he was a role player who had some pop in his bat and performed well at times in a platoon situation.

I got this card from an autograph forum that once had these listings where you could use points you collected from commenting or otherwise helping someone out - the autograph [I assume it was from TTM request] isn't too bold and maybe exposure to the natural elements made it fade a bit faster.

Awesome action collection subsets

Probably influenced by other uber specific theme collectors, I want to see if I can classify certain cards within a main collecting topic subset - in the Google Sheets file where I list my ‘AA’ collection, I added a new ‘classification’ column, where I’ll tag each card listed with one of the following ‘labels.’

Actual on field game action
Dirt fetish
Fun cards and personality shots
Game face and unique perspectives
Other sports

At times, I don't want to spend time playing with my cards so maybe it is a bit tedious to go through my cards one-by-one to see which subset they belong - does this new classification 'deal' complicate things or help 'stretch things out' as far as my interests in any one particular mini-collection, forcing me to do what I might not feel like doing.

I have to worry about some overlap, but I feel like I can still play around to determine where my pulls or my finds go - I've started with my latest 'AA' adds and look to tag the cards featured on my sampler pages.

Bloodlines collection - a visual guide

The logistics in displaying sampler pages for my bloodlines collection was still up in the air - the main collection consists of miscellaneous cards of professional athletes [primarily baseball] who maybe have brothers, fathers, grandfathers, cousins, nephews play professionally as well.

There are some ‘completed’ bloodlines connections within this sampler lot - but I feel like I'm lagging when I don’t have a card of an applicable card of a family member handy.

A subject not represented among these sampler pages just means I have to go out and get the card - in my main collection, it isn’t a big deal to be missing a card that makes up part of a family chain, though for the more notable bloodlines, I need to get those missing cards in-hand.

I wanted to make it where in most cases the cards for applicable bloodlines ties were shown side-by-side [for the most part] and used up 7 pages to display the cards I had in-hand - I tried to grab cards from various pro athlete families, though these sampler pages are not comprehensive.

Acunas x2 - father Ronald Sr. and son Ronald Jr.
Alomars x2 - brothers Roberto and Sandy Alomar Jr.; missing a card for father Sandy Sr.
Bichettes x3 - father Dante and son Bo; missing a card for Dante Jr., who was once a prospect for the New York Yankees.
Bonds x2 - father Bobby and son Barry; missing a card for Bobby Jr., who was a career minor leaguer.
Canos x2 - father Jose and son Robinson [on the back of his father's card].

Alou / Rojas x2 - Moises Alou and Mel Rojas [on the back of his cousin Moises' card]; if I understand it correctly, Rojas is the paternal name, but Alou ended up the most commonly used surname for the distinguished baseball family; missing cards of Moises’ father Felipe along with uncles Jesus and Matty.
Boones x4 - grandfather Gus, father Bob, Bob’s sons Bret, Aaron and Matt [who didn't make it to the major leagues, but has a mainstream Bowman card from 2000].
Brantleys x2 - father Mickey and son Michael [on the back of his father's card]
Bretts x1 - George Brett; missing a card for brother Ken.
Cansecos x2 - brothers Jose and Ozzie [on the back of his brother's card].

Cruz x3 - father Jose Sr., son Jose Jr. and Jose Sr.’s brother Hector; missing a Tommy Cruz card.
DiMaggios x2 - brothers Dom and Joe, missing a card for their other brother Vince
Fielders x2 - father Cecil and son Prince
Gonzalez x2 - brothers Adrian and Edgar

Gooden / Sheffield x2 - uncle Dwight and nephew Gary
Gordons x3 - father Tom and half brothers Dee and Nick
Griffey x3 - father Ken Sr. and sons Ken Jr. and one-time minor leaguer Craig.
Hoffman x2 - brothers Trevor and Glenn [on the back of his brother's card].

Guerreros x4 - father Vladimir., son Vlad Jr,. Vladimir's brother Wilton, Vladimir's cousin Cristian [longtime minor leaguer] and Vlad Jr.'s cousin Gabby [who made his MLB debut in 2018].
Mahomes x2 - father Pat [MLB] and son Patrick [NFL]
Martinez x2 - father Carlos and son Jose

Martinez x1 - brothers Ramon and Pedro
McCaffreys x2 - father Ed and son Christian
Millers x2 - brothers Darrell [MLB] and Reggie [NBA], missing a card for sister Cheryl [basketball] and Darrell Jr. [Topps put him on a 2018 Topps Heritage Minors leaders subset card].
Molinas x3 - brothers Bengie, Jose and Yadier.
Rodriguez x1 - father Ivan and son Dereck [shown on dual sided insert card he shares with father].

Ripkens x4 - grandfather Cal Sr., sons Cal Jr. and Billy; Cal Jr’s son Ryan.
Uptons x2 - brothers B.J. and Justin
Smiths x2 [not pictured - 10/29 add] - father Dwight and son Dwight Jr.
Van Slykes x2 - father Andy and son Scott