MLB The Show 09 All Time Teams Project – Chicago Cubs

Ok, I actually have quite a few teams already done but I wanted to post one full team up here and see what people thought of what I have done.

I’m going to start with the Cubs. Just to clarify, each team consists of 25 players. In an effort to make each team able to be played on their own, I had to make the roster realistic. So that means each team needs a backup catcher and depth around the diamond. That also meant trying my hardest to get each team a lefty in the bullpen. That’s been hard for some teams. Anyway…here is my Cubs team.

C – Gabby Hartnett
1B – Cap Anson
2B – Ryne Sandberg
SS – Ernie Banks
3B – Ron Santo
LF – Billy Williams
CF – Hack Wilson
RF – Sammy Sosa

BN – Mark Grace (1B)
BN - Billy Herman (2B)
BN – Kiki Cuyler (OF)
BN – Jody Davis (C)
BN – Jimmy Ryan (OF)
BN – Aramis Ramirez (3B)

SP – Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown
SP – Fergie Jenkins
SP – Charley Root
SP – John Clarkson
SP – Rick Sutcliffe

RP – Kerry Wood
RP – Rick Reuschel
RP – Hippo Vaughn
RP – “Big” Bill Lee
RP – Claude Passeau

CL – Lee Smith

So you might be asking yourself….who the hell is John Clarkson? I didn’t even know myself and I consider myself a big baseball fan. Clarkson was a pitcher for the Chicago franchise before the turn of the century and has the second highest win total (53) in one season in ML history. Oh, and that same season, he had 68 complete games.

The last bench spot I gave to Aramis Ramirez. Honestly, I could have given it to a few guys including Derrek Lee, Frank Chance, and King Kelly. I went with Ramirez since he plays 3B and I wanted a good backup there.

So there is one team. How did I do? Anyone on there you disagree with? Let me know.

My MLB The Show 09 Project: All Time Teams (HELP!)

Yup, I’m back to not updating this regularly. Shocked, aren’t you?

What I have been doing in my rare spare time is playing a lot of The Show 09 on the PS3. The other night I downloaded someone’s roster set that had what they called “All Time Teams” for each team. I assumed this would consist of 25 of the best of all time for each team. That’s about half right. Most teams had their best players but also had a smattering of current scrubs taking up roster spots. Plus, the ratings were all WAY too high.

So I’ve decided to take it upon myself to take this roster file and actually make it correct. What I plan on doing is going through for each team and setting a roster that I consider to be their actual All Time Team. Pretty ambitious, huh?

The hardest part for me is coming up with each team’s 25 man roster. You would think there would be somewhere on the internet where some place like TSN, ESPN, or SI has actually surveyed people and posted each team’s best. But I can’t find it. So I’m openly asking if any of you would like to help contribute. After you pick a team to do, here is what I would need…

• 25 man roster for your chosen team
• Players eligible for your team should have played more years for that team than any other. For example, Frank Robinson played 10 years for the Reds and 6 years with the Orioles. So in my roster set, Frank ends up in Cincinnati.
• At least one player from each position
• Bench players should make sense (don’t make every bench player an OF)
• Five starting pitchers
• One closer
• Bullpen can be made up of left over starters or actual relief pitchers

Seems simple enough, right? If I get some interest from here, I will plan on documenting my progress and giving credit where credit is due.

If you’re interested, email me at djw1207 (at) live.com

No Hobby Love for Dan Haren

This morning I woke up and read a post that Mario over at Wax Heaven had posted yesterday. In it, he spoke of collectors’ fascination with prospects and the future. That got me thinking of players in today’s game that are often overlooked by collector’s because they aren’t a highly touted new prospect.

That brings me to Dan Haren. If you aren’t familiar with Haren then I’m guessing you live under a rock. The guy is nails on the mound and sports a ridiculous ML-leading .893 WHIP this year for Arizona. In the history of Major League Baseball, there have only been 32 pitchers who have had WHIPs lower than what Haren is putting up this season. In a nutshell, the guy is good….real good. Yet the hobby world just hasn’t caught on. It could be due to the fact that Haren’s best seasons have come during his stints in Oakland and for an Arizona team that hasn’t made the playoffs.

Haren’s most popular rookie card has always been this 2003 Bowman’s Best card featuring an on card autograph. I’ve seen this card in the past top out around $30 or so but you can now pick one up for under $10. The last one sold on ebay for a whopping $9.49. There are other rookie card variations that are also selling for under $10. For a pitcher that is as dominant as he is and still only 27 years old, that is pretty ridiculous.

If you’re into patches, Haren has patch cards in 2007 Ultimate Collection, 2007 Exquisite Rookies, and 2008 Premier. All of those patches are courtesy of his days with Oakland so you can find some great green and gold patches if you’re like me and you like that sort of thing.

So what’s the deal? Why aren’t collectors all over this guy? He’s in the prime of his career and he’s putting up great numbers. Does where a guy plays have that much of an effect on his perceived value to collectors? Let’s hear what you think.

Strasburg NEEDS to sign today

Hopefully you’re as sick of this soap opera as I am. Ever since the spring of 2008, all I’ve heard or read about was the second coming of Cy Young, or you may know him as Stephen Strasburg. I’ve touched on him in a post back in March and every media outlet in the world has had something on him since the draft. He is the arm that is supposed to set the world on fire.

There’s just one problem….he’s not signed yet.

Here we are now with less than 11 hours before the deadline for draft picks to be signed. Stephen has chosen Scott Boras to be his agent, which means that we all knew it would come down to the last day and probably the last couple of minutes before we know if he signs or not. Boras is a love/hate kind of guy. His players love him because he gets them top dollars. Fans hate him because he seems to be the epitome of greed and what is wrong with American sports.

Boras has floated numbers upwards of $30 million all the way up to $50 million. The Nationals have reportedly offered as much as $17 million, which would blow away the previous high water mark of Mark Prior ($10.5 million).

So there is the background and here are my thoughts…

Strasburg needs to take his $17M, sign the contract, and get himself on a team and pitching. Don’t be greedy….just play ball. Listen, I know that a player should get what he feels he is worth, but let’s remember that this is a kid who pitched against college kids last year. This isn’t an established Major League player gunning for a free agency windfall.

If they don’t come to an agreement, this absolutely cannot end well at all for Strasburg. Look at past pitchers who have turned down big contracts because they felt like they were worth more. Luke Hochevar isn’t tearing up anything. And what about Matt Harrington?? Don’t you think he wished he had done it differently? Turning down $17+ million (if that is indeed the offer) won’t doom Strasburg to baseball failure, but would make him the poster boy of greed in baseball.

Ultimately, it comes down to Strasburg and not Scott Boras. If the kid wants to play, he’ll tell Boras that the offer is good enough and he just wants to play baseball. But if he is more concerned with setting salary records, this could end up with no contract by midnight tonight. I am hoping for the former and not the latter.

Throwing beer on a player makes you a douchebag!

For the second time this year, I’m forced to publicly say “I’m embarrassed to be a Cub fan”. Earlier this year I said that after watching Cub fans cheer when Jose Oquendo was tagged with a line drive during a Cubs/Cards game.

Last night I watched an idiot fan in the bleachers throw his beer on Shane Victorino during a game that was already 12-1 and out of hand at that point. That was bad enough, but the fact that the dude got away with it is even worse.

Above you’ll see a picture of the aftermath of the beer tossing event. I wish I had a link to a video of it but I don’t….but if you watch the video or you watched the game live last night, you could clearly see the douchebag on the left was the guy who flipped his cup onto the field. Sadly for the guy on the right in the jersey, he successfully made a complete ass out of himself and drew too much attention and the security whisked him away to “Cubbie Jail”.

As of now, the actual perpetrator hasn’t been found but the matter has been turned over to the Chicago police. The Cubs also made a formal apology to Victorino on the event and it sounds like Victorino is being a good guy about it and not placing blame on the Cubs organization as a whole.

Personally for me, I’m embarrassed by this. I’m embarrassed to get myself lumped into a group with ass-hats like this kid and people assume I’m a drunken idiot who’s only there to drink because I’m a Cubs fan. If you’re someone like this…someone who is more interested in getting tanked and sitting in the sun than watching a Major League game, do us all a favor and sit on your porch and do that while listening to the game on the radio or watching on TV. I know, when a fan pays his money for a ticket, he is entitled to make his experience anything he wants, but not when it interferes with the game or someone else’s viewing of the game.

Ultimately, nothing is going to change because of this. Stupid kids are going to continue to go to games, get drunk on Old Style, and give the rest of us a bad name. But what I want to happen is for this kid to get busted! I know it’s a snowball’s chance, but if you know this kid or know his name, report it to the Cubs and let’s at least have one less bozo in the bleachers!

TPP: Training Camp Edition

If you remember back to the spring, I started something I called The Patchworks Project. I love patch cards and I started to grab some whenever I found a good deal. Since we’re now getting near the start of NFL Pre-Season games*, I figured I should get into a football state of mind.

I’ve made it well known that I graduated from Indiana University so when IU produced a high round football draft pick in 2008 (James Hardy), I knew I wanted to go out and grab a few of his cards. Since he didn’t really make a splash last year, finding some of his good cards at a good price wasn’t real difficult.

The first card I picked up was Hardy’s Rookie Auto Patch from the 2008 SP Authentic product. I picked this up not long after SPA was released last year so I’m sure I overpaid for it. I would imagine I could get the same card now for 30% less than I what I spent for it back then. The patch is so-so but the card features on on card signature which is something that I’m getting pretty big on so that was a definite plus.

The second Hardy card in my collection is this Dual Patch card from the 2008 Exquisite product. The patch pieces in this card are really good and feature a lot of colors so I’m real happy with the way the card looks. I got this card for a song due to a seller deciding to end his listing at 1:00 in the afternoon. (Here’s a helpful tip…don’t be a moron when listing things on ebay. The majority of ebay traffic and bidding occurs at night, not in the middle of the afternoon) This particular card is numbered #6/15. There was another card like this numbered to 15 that featured bits of the Reebok logo from the jersey. I bid pretty aggresively on it when it was on ebay but I missed out.

The last card in my mini James Hardy collection is the Rookie Signature Patch from Exquisite numbered #64/75. Again, I bid on this card right after the product was released and I’m pretty damn sure I overpaid on this one. But, I don’t regret the purchase at all since the card looks great. Again, the on card signature is clean and flawless and really looks good on the card. The patch looks like it could be part of the “A” from his name across the back.  

I give people a lot of grief when they decide to open up boxes or cases of Upper Deck because I feel like you never really get your money’s worth. But I do admit that they do some products exactly right and I think Exquisite Football and SPA Football are two of their better products. If you have a player you like, chase down these cards. You won’t be sorry.

* Mini-Rant - How damn ridiculous is it that the NFL charges people full price on tickets to pre-season games?!? Now that I’m a season ticket holder, I have to admit that I’m pretty pissed about having to shell out $200+ for a pre-season game next Friday night against the Vikings where I won’t even see the guys I pay the money to see. Bah!!

Twins/Cubs Pictures

Yeah, these are two months past due but I guess getting them up late is better than not at all.

These pictures are from the June 12th Twins/Cubs game at Wrigley. These were taken from our season ticket seats in the Upper Deck Box along the 3B line. This was before I upgraded my camera so I tried to zoom in as much as I could.

Ok, doesn’t this just sum up the Milton Bradley experience this year? I mentioned earlier that this was the game where he tossed the ball into the stands with 2 outs.     

             

The first picture is Joe Mauer before his first AB against Randy Wells. The second picture is Mauer taking Wells deep for an opposite field homer in said at-bat. The third is him getting congratulated by Morneau.

Here is Lou calling for the next schlub from the bullpen…

Here is Mauer and Morneau on deck during the pitching change hoping they get inside pitches so they can hit it to Milty since he’s already lost a ball in the sun twice this day…

And this one here is my favorite Morneau shot that I got from the day.

I’m pretty confident this was just a fly ball to RF (I think he went 0-4 on the day) but the picture is still cool. I really wish that Morneau would actually sign through the mail since I would love to get this printed and actually have him sign it.

So there you go. The next time I post my own game shots, they should be a lot better. My wife and I splurged on a really nice camera a few weeks back and I’m still learning all about it.

Morneau’s Arthritis Foundation fundraiser

Not sure how many of the readers of this blog live in or around Minneapolis, but I wanted to give Morneau’s fundraiser event a little extra pub today. Justin Morneau’s Casino Night will be held this Thursday night (August 13th) at International Market Square in Minneapolis.

If you’re not aware, Justin’s niece was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis at the age of 2 and Morneau and his wife have organized this fundraiser event to raise money for the Arthritis Foundation North Central chapter. Money will go toward funding research as well as helping to send kids to a camp where they can bond with other children suffering from the same ailment.

The casino night will give fans a chance to play against Twins players like Morneau, Joe Mauer, Michael Cuddyer, and many others. In addition, there will be prizes, autographed memorabilia, and silent auctions. But the thing to remember is that the money will go to help kids dealing with this condition. As someone who runs his own event to raise money for kids, any extra publicity can do nothing but help.

You can check out the event’s website HERE and read an article on the Twins’ site HERE. If any of you happen to go or know someone who is going, I would love to see pictures or hear about how it went.

So what have I been doing?

If you actually follow this blog and my ramblings, then you know I have really not posted a whole lot over the last few months. Spring and summer are usually a really busy time for me with stuff outside of work and then there was actually work-work that kept me busy. Add in there that I spend a lot of time chasing a 2-year old around the house and you get the point.

I have been keeping up with things though. Morneau is having another great season and the Twins are hanging in there. My Cubs are crap. I did attend the Twins/Cubs game on June 12th and that was a lot of fun (I got some good pictures that I’ll post on here). That was the game where Uncle Milty threw the ball into the stands with 2 outs. Good times.

As for the hobby itself, I have been following all the blogs and the small collector board that I frequesnt. I watched guys bust a ton of Allen & Ginter and Sport Kings over there and that has taken care of my box busting fix. And I think I found a niche in the hobby that will sustain my interest.

One of the things that I have been focusing on lately (in addition to patches) are the On Card autographs. Right now my favorite products with the on card autos are the 2005 Artifacts product and the 2005 Ultimate Signature Edition (both Upper Deck products). Both have some great looking autograph cards and I’ll start to highlight some of the additions I have accumulated.

This is a soul sucker

I know my wife doesn’t read this blog (mainly because she doesn’t know it exists) so I have no problem making the following confession.

Honey, I sold our Blu-Ray player and used the Best Buy gift card you got me for Father’s Day and I bought a Playstation 3. I know, I know…I already own an XBox 360 so why would I need a PS3? This is why…

MLB The Show 09 is probably the sole reason that I made this decision and I have to say I have ZERO regrets!

I’ve played a ton of baseball video games in my time and this one is up there in the top 3 of all time. Yeah, it has a pretty steep learning curve and you’re not going to win every game by double digits but that’s how baseball is in real life.  You’re not supossed to just roll over each team offensively and pitch a near no-hitter each time out.

Right now I’m playing a fantasy season where I picked a random team (Rockies) and then drafted my team and I’m having a blast. My team is hovering around the .500 mark but I am getting better. Hitting on this game is a real challenge and you have to have some concept of how pitchers work batters in real life.

Trust me, if you own a PS3 and you’re a fan of baseball this is a MUST own title.