Saturday, October 31, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Theme Thursday - Halloween
These are photos from our last night trip to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! My 2nd Favorite Holiday!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Time In Between- Tenth Daughter of Memory
The fumble was forced to end the game and everyone headed to the locker rooms hanging their heads in shame, except for the victorious team that is. They packed up their bags filled with gloves, helmets, jerseys. They took their showers and changed into their everyday clothes. Knowing the road ahead would not end well they knew their season was finished. So the players went out to press conferences. Then a little glimmer of hope shined at the end of the road for this 1 loss team as their head quarterback went to the press table. He gave a speech that will last forever. I don't remember what he said exactly. I think it was something like this though. "To the fans and everybody in our nation, I'm sorry. I'm extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season, that was my goal, something that we've never done here before. I promise you one thing, alot of good will come out of this. You will never see another player play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see any player push his team as hard as I will push this team the rest of the season. You will never see a team play as hard as our team will play the rest of the season. God Bless." At the end of the season the Florida Gators were national champions. Tim Tebow kept his promise. In the time in between the seasons the Gators were ranked #1.
Theme Thursday- Traffic
Due to work by
8:00
time is ticking,
stopping at the local coffee shop for a
coffee.
Black no sugar,
ready for a good day.
Get on the highway at
7:20, sipping
coffee,
driving at
10 and 2.
Nervous however as you remember what happened last
summer.
The cars were crashing that day as the bridge
collapsed.
Now as you cross over to the city it is
7:40.
Still reminiscing about the event, your eyes
begin to wander.
As you sip the coffee the road goes out of sight.
Across the traffic jam the car goes out of sight.
Coffee spilling, glass shattering.
Scared for your life as the guardrails cave in,
tumbling down the hill, never stopping.
Finally the car comes to a stop,
8:01, late for work.
Police cars wailing, you're lying on the trunk, thrown
out of the car.
Pedestrains screaming.
Shrieking horror.
Ambulance comes to.
Rushed to the hospital,
supposedly dead.
Grieving begins.
In the emergency room trys are desperately failing
to revive you.
Flatline goes on.
Too late.
Gone.
Doctors give up.
Hope is lost.
Coffee stains the once dewy grass until one man
remembering the fatal accident of last summer
rushes into the hospital room.
Pounding on your chest.
Doctors try to stop.
You hear a slight beep.
You look at the scanner.
Small mountain-like life signals go up.
Doctors rush in.
No more flatline.
Lives are saved.
The cops stop all the traffic.
All is well.
Until the afternoon.
You hear that another man was rushed to the hospital
and has fatally died.
Not as lucky as you were that day.
R.I.P Nick Adenhart.
8:00
time is ticking,
stopping at the local coffee shop for a
coffee.
Black no sugar,
ready for a good day.
Get on the highway at
7:20, sipping
coffee,
driving at
10 and 2.
Nervous however as you remember what happened last
summer.
The cars were crashing that day as the bridge
collapsed.
Now as you cross over to the city it is
7:40.
Still reminiscing about the event, your eyes
begin to wander.
As you sip the coffee the road goes out of sight.
Across the traffic jam the car goes out of sight.
Coffee spilling, glass shattering.
Scared for your life as the guardrails cave in,
tumbling down the hill, never stopping.
Finally the car comes to a stop,
8:01, late for work.
Police cars wailing, you're lying on the trunk, thrown
out of the car.
Pedestrains screaming.
Shrieking horror.
Ambulance comes to.
Rushed to the hospital,
supposedly dead.
Grieving begins.
In the emergency room trys are desperately failing
to revive you.
Flatline goes on.
Too late.
Gone.
Doctors give up.
Hope is lost.
Coffee stains the once dewy grass until one man
remembering the fatal accident of last summer
rushes into the hospital room.
Pounding on your chest.
Doctors try to stop.
You hear a slight beep.
You look at the scanner.
Small mountain-like life signals go up.
Doctors rush in.
No more flatline.
Lives are saved.
The cops stop all the traffic.
All is well.
Until the afternoon.
You hear that another man was rushed to the hospital
and has fatally died.
Not as lucky as you were that day.
R.I.P Nick Adenhart.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Shaq-a-Claus
‘Twas right around Christmas, nearly 15 years ago When along came a champion – seven feet, head to toe. Eager to give, and to further a cause, Kids in need would soon know him as Shaq-A-Claus. With a siz...e 23 shoe, and even larger a heart, Shaq planned to help kids, but where would he start? ‘At The World’s Greatest Toy Store™ – of course!’ he thought, ‘I’ll give mountains of toys…more than anyone’s bought!’ And so he did shop at Orlando’s Toys“R”Us store, He bought basketballs, trains, dolls and much more. Meanwhile, nearby children snuggled, tucked in their beds, With dreams of unwrapping presents filling their heads; Little did they know, wishes would soon come true, Shaq-A-Claus began wrapping, and packing toys, too. Once his big truck was filled, he was ready indeed, He set off to a shelter – home to children in need. The door swung open and to the children’s surprise, Was a mighty tall man with a bag of gifts twice his size! The kids’ eyes were glowing, they had grins ear-to-ear, Joy lit their faces at the sight of such cheer; A cute doll for Lucy, a cool train for Drew, A basketball for John, and one for Phil, too. But it was more than the presents that made the kids smile, He made them feel special, extra loved, all the while; Since then, Shaq-A-Claus has visited needy kids every season, Now he’s joining Toys“R”Us to help Toys for Tots – Here’s the reason; Together, their goal is to collect millions of toys, And make the holidays merry for countless young girls and boys.Read More
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
RIP Jasper Howard
Connecticut Huskies starting cornerback Jasper Howard died Sunday morning after an on-campus stabbing, according to The Hartford Courant.
An emergency alert on the school's Web site states that the perpetrator is still at large.
Howard played in UConn's 38-25 win against Louisville on Saturday.
Thanks to ESPN.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Truth or Hot Air? Up, Up, Not in Flames! Up, Up and In the Attic! I Could Go On Forever!
A 6-year-old boy was found hiding in a cardboard box in his family's garage attic Thursday after being feared aboard a homemade helium balloon that hurtled 50 miles through the sky on live television.
The discovery marked a bizarre end to a saga that started when the giant silvery balloon floated away from the family's yard Thursday morning, sparking a frantic rescue operation that involved military helicopters and briefly shut down Denver International Airport.
But Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference and gave a thumbs up and said 6-year-old Falcon Heene is "at the house." "Apparently he's been there the whole time," he said.
The boy's father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft. He said Falcon's brother had seen him inside the compartment before it took off and that's why they thought he was in there when it launched.
But the boy fled to the attic at some point after the scolding and was never in the balloon during its two-hour, 50-mile journey through two counties. "I yelled at him. I'm really sorry I yelled at him," Heene said as he hugged his son during a news conference.
"I was in the attic and he scared me because he yelled at me," Falcon said. "That's why I went in the attic."
Richard Heene adamantly denied the notion that the whole thing was a big publicity stunt. "That's horrible after the crap we just went through. No."
The flying saucer-like craft tipped precariously at times before gliding to the ground in a field. With the child nowhere in sight, investigators searched the balloon's path. Several people reported seeing something fall from the craft while it was in the air, and yellow crime-scene tape was placed around the home.
But in the end, the boy apparently was in the garage the whole time, even as investigators scoured the house and neighborhood for any sign of him.
Neighbor Bob Licko, 65, said he was leaving home when he heard commotion in the backyard of the family. He said he saw two boys on the roof with a camera, commenting about their brother.
"One of the boys yelled to me that his brother was way up in the air," Licko said.
Licko said the boy's mother seemed distraught and that the boy's father was running around the house. The Poudre School District in Fort Collins, where the boys attend, did not have classes for elementary schools Thursday because of a teacher work day.
The boys parents are storm chasers who appeared twice in the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," most recently in March.
"When the Heene family aren't chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm," according to the show.
In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma's perimeter in 2005.
Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.
Although Richard said he has no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle.
While the balloon was airborne, Colorado Army National Guard sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and was preparing to send a Black Hawk UH-60 to try to rescue the boy, possibly by lowering someone to the balloon. They also were working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down.
It wasn't immediately clear how much the search operation cost. Capt. Troy Brown said the Black Hawk helicopter was in the air for nearly three hours, and the Kiowa helicopter was airborne for about one hour. The Black Hawk costs about $4,600 an hour to fly, and the Kiowa is $700 an hour, Brown said.
Col. Chris Petty, one of the pilots aboard the Black Hawk, said he was thrilled the boy was OK.
Asked what he would say to the 6-year-old if he saw him, Petty said: "I'm really glad you're alive, I'm very thankful, but I'd sure like to know the rest of the story."
The episode led to a brief shutdown of northbound departures from one of the nation's busiest airports, said a controller at the Federal Aviation Administration's radar center in Longmont, Colo. FAA canceled all northbound takeoffs between 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. MDT, said Lyle Burrington, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative at the center. The balloon was about 15 miles northwest of the airport at that time.
Before the departure shutdown, controllers had been vectoring planes taking off in that direction away from the balloon, Burrington said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency tracked the balloon through reports from pilots.
Neighbor Lisa Eklund described seeing the balloon pass.
"We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning," she said.
"By the time I saw it, it traveled pretty fast," she said.
The balloon landed on its own in a dirt field. Sheriff's deputies secured it to keep it in place, even tossing shovelfuls of dirt on one edge.
Jason Humbert saw the balloon land. He said he had gotten a call from his mother in Texas who told him about the balloon. He said he was in a field checking on an oil well when he found himself surrounded by police who had been chasing the balloon, which came to a rest 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport.
"It looked like an alien spaceship you see in those old, old movies. You know, those black-and-white ones. It came down softly. I asked a police officer if the boy was OK and he said there was no one in it," Humbert said.
Thanks to Yahoo! News
The discovery marked a bizarre end to a saga that started when the giant silvery balloon floated away from the family's yard Thursday morning, sparking a frantic rescue operation that involved military helicopters and briefly shut down Denver International Airport.
But Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference and gave a thumbs up and said 6-year-old Falcon Heene is "at the house." "Apparently he's been there the whole time," he said.
The boy's father, Richard Heene, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft. He said Falcon's brother had seen him inside the compartment before it took off and that's why they thought he was in there when it launched.
But the boy fled to the attic at some point after the scolding and was never in the balloon during its two-hour, 50-mile journey through two counties. "I yelled at him. I'm really sorry I yelled at him," Heene said as he hugged his son during a news conference.
"I was in the attic and he scared me because he yelled at me," Falcon said. "That's why I went in the attic."
Richard Heene adamantly denied the notion that the whole thing was a big publicity stunt. "That's horrible after the crap we just went through. No."
The flying saucer-like craft tipped precariously at times before gliding to the ground in a field. With the child nowhere in sight, investigators searched the balloon's path. Several people reported seeing something fall from the craft while it was in the air, and yellow crime-scene tape was placed around the home.
But in the end, the boy apparently was in the garage the whole time, even as investigators scoured the house and neighborhood for any sign of him.
Neighbor Bob Licko, 65, said he was leaving home when he heard commotion in the backyard of the family. He said he saw two boys on the roof with a camera, commenting about their brother.
"One of the boys yelled to me that his brother was way up in the air," Licko said.
Licko said the boy's mother seemed distraught and that the boy's father was running around the house. The Poudre School District in Fort Collins, where the boys attend, did not have classes for elementary schools Thursday because of a teacher work day.
The boys parents are storm chasers who appeared twice in the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," most recently in March.
"When the Heene family aren't chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm," according to the show.
In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma's perimeter in 2005.
Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.
Although Richard said he has no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle.
While the balloon was airborne, Colorado Army National Guard sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and was preparing to send a Black Hawk UH-60 to try to rescue the boy, possibly by lowering someone to the balloon. They also were working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down.
It wasn't immediately clear how much the search operation cost. Capt. Troy Brown said the Black Hawk helicopter was in the air for nearly three hours, and the Kiowa helicopter was airborne for about one hour. The Black Hawk costs about $4,600 an hour to fly, and the Kiowa is $700 an hour, Brown said.
Col. Chris Petty, one of the pilots aboard the Black Hawk, said he was thrilled the boy was OK.
Asked what he would say to the 6-year-old if he saw him, Petty said: "I'm really glad you're alive, I'm very thankful, but I'd sure like to know the rest of the story."
The episode led to a brief shutdown of northbound departures from one of the nation's busiest airports, said a controller at the Federal Aviation Administration's radar center in Longmont, Colo. FAA canceled all northbound takeoffs between 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. MDT, said Lyle Burrington, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative at the center. The balloon was about 15 miles northwest of the airport at that time.
Before the departure shutdown, controllers had been vectoring planes taking off in that direction away from the balloon, Burrington said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency tracked the balloon through reports from pilots.
Neighbor Lisa Eklund described seeing the balloon pass.
"We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning," she said.
"By the time I saw it, it traveled pretty fast," she said.
The balloon landed on its own in a dirt field. Sheriff's deputies secured it to keep it in place, even tossing shovelfuls of dirt on one edge.
Jason Humbert saw the balloon land. He said he had gotten a call from his mother in Texas who told him about the balloon. He said he was in a field checking on an oil well when he found himself surrounded by police who had been chasing the balloon, which came to a rest 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport.
"It looked like an alien spaceship you see in those old, old movies. You know, those black-and-white ones. It came down softly. I asked a police officer if the boy was OK and he said there was no one in it," Humbert said.
Thanks to Yahoo! News
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Theme Thursday- Climate Change
What's happening?
The world was calm when Jackie Robinson entered the MLB.
When President Kennedy was still in office.
Now what we need more than MLB change is for people to stop burning fossil fuels.
With the burning of these fuels.
The world might never be the same.
When the future comes will we have to end up ina far distant universe with a second sun?
We don't want that to happen.
It's not just people that are affected either.
Think about it.
Who else saw the Mother Nature Glacier crying?
It's polar bears, penguins and it even affects jaguars.
Too warm, too cold, too bad.
Stop burning the fuels.
There's only 3% of fresh water on Earth.
85% of that 3% are in glaciers.
We need the fresh water.
We can't just let glaciers die.
We need to do something.
Barack, economy: almost there.
Health care: inching closer.
The Fate of the world: ....
Barack, we need change not only in this nation.
But in a world over.
The world was calm when Jackie Robinson entered the MLB.
When President Kennedy was still in office.
Now what we need more than MLB change is for people to stop burning fossil fuels.
With the burning of these fuels.
The world might never be the same.
When the future comes will we have to end up ina far distant universe with a second sun?
We don't want that to happen.
It's not just people that are affected either.
Think about it.
Who else saw the Mother Nature Glacier crying?
It's polar bears, penguins and it even affects jaguars.
Too warm, too cold, too bad.
Stop burning the fuels.
There's only 3% of fresh water on Earth.
85% of that 3% are in glaciers.
We need the fresh water.
We can't just let glaciers die.
We need to do something.
Barack, economy: almost there.
Health care: inching closer.
The Fate of the world: ....
Barack, we need change not only in this nation.
But in a world over.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Remember the Good Times!
http://picasaweb.google.com/CosmoCoin21/MyPowerIsBeyondYourUnderstanding?authkey=Gv1sRgCI-isaLJ69fpLA#
Best Websites Ever
http://wiffleballusa.com/index.html
http://www.palisadeswbl.com/HOME.html
http://itwasthebestnightever.com/
http://www.palisadeswbl.com/HOME.html
http://itwasthebestnightever.com/
My 200th Post! (Just A Quick Speech)
Hey Brian. What do you think? Got 100 posts and 100 posts in a month. Do you think this is crazy? Well it might be because in the past 1 month and 12 days I have 130 posts. Well Happy 200 everyone!
Who Else Thinks Tim Tebow Looks Like Former American Idol Contestant: Michael Sarver?
Here's a photo comparison.
By the way on Desperate Housewives my favorite family is the Scavos. Share yours here.
By the way on Desperate Housewives my favorite family is the Scavos. Share yours here.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Halloween Corny Jokes
When do monsters start the weekend? Fright-y nights
What is a werewolf's favorite holiday? HOWL-oween
What kind of clothes do ghosts wear? Scaredy Pants
Where do ghosts watch their favorite shows? On big scream TVs
How do you thank a vampire? Say "fangs a lot"
How do you know when a vampire is sick? You can hear is coffin.
What is a werewolf's favorite holiday? HOWL-oween
What kind of clothes do ghosts wear? Scaredy Pants
Where do ghosts watch their favorite shows? On big scream TVs
How do you thank a vampire? Say "fangs a lot"
How do you know when a vampire is sick? You can hear is coffin.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Theme Thursday- Collection
It is mid-July, three weeks to the day before Major League Baseball will announce that, starting in 2010, it is awarding the exclusive rights to produce trading cards with MLB team logos and nicknames to Topps. I am in Carlsbad, Calif., receiving a tour of the headquarters of Upper Deck, which has produced licensed baseball cards for the past 20 years and is Topps's only remaining competitor in a cratering market. We're in a fenced-off area of the warehouse known as the Game-Worn Jersey Room. It is where memorabilia go to slaughter, cut up into hundreds of pieces that will eventually be affixed to insert (or chase) cards, which are placed in random packs in the hopes of enticing collectors.
More than 10,000 chopped-up items are stored in plastic bags on rows of metal shelves. For my visit Mark Shaunessy, the supervisor of this operation, has laid out an assortment of yet-to-be-cut artifacts on a table, including jerseys belonging to LeBron James and Grady Sizemore (with real dirt stains!), a bat of Derek Jeter's and baseballs signed by Joe DiMaggio and Walter Johnson. In the middle of this collection is something that was certainly neither worn nor used in major league baseball, let alone the NBA, NFL or NHL: a sequined, neon-green strip of fabric.
"That," Shaunessy says, "came from Miley Cyrus. It was her headband. We're going to do cuts of that too."
Would you believe that a 16-year-old's hair accessory is far from the strangest thing on display? To its left is a Baggie labeled FRAGILE: TITANIC COAL—containing actual coal pulled from the ship's wreckage. Chris Carlin, the marketing manager leading my tour, informs me that in a baseball set called Goodwin Champions, coming out in September, "there are going to be landmark insert cards: stuff like Titanic coal, the sands of Iwo Jima, Dead Sea salt." Inside perhaps the last packs of fully licensed MLB cards that Upper Deck will ever make, buyers might also find equine hair, with actual hair-sample cards of Kentucky Derby winners Funny Cide and Smarty Jones. (The human hairs of Beethoven and Che Guevara were contained in a pack earlier this year.)
Farther to our left is a briefcase. Its brass nameplate reads S.D. JR., for Sammy Davis Jr. Its leather, its lining, perhaps even the nameplate will soon be cut up and attached to cards. "Just got these in—they're Farrah Fawcett's," says Shaunessy, referring to a pair of olive cargo pants. They seem absurdly small. Carlin wonders whether he could even fit one leg in the waist.
The sports trading card industry is dealing with an uncomfortable present and an uncertain future. The sales of cards peaked in 1991 at $1.2 billion, according to estimates by Sports Collector's Digest, but slid to $400 million by the turn of the century and to $200 million last year. MLB is banking on Topps, now owned by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, to reattract kids and streamline product offerings. Upper Deck put out 16 baseball sets in 2009 and says that it will continue to make cards with its MLB Players Association license in 2010, though none of the subjects can appear bearing a team logo. A lawsuit by Upper Deck challenging Topps's exclusive deal is also a possibility, a company source told SI last week.
Even so, there's no guarantee that the existing customer base—hard-core hobbyists for whom even jersey swatches are becoming passé—will stay on board. Insert cards have been around for years. Will pop-culture ephemera be enough of a draw? When someone's pack yields a poly-cotton swatch that once hugged the backside of a Charlie's Angel, what will be the reaction? Arousal? Shock? Or, worse, indifference?
You have to go back 20 years to find a landmark baseball card: Ken Griffey Jr.'s 1989 Upper Deck Star Rookie, the number 1 card in that set. That was Upper Deck's rookie year too, and the company stormed onto the scene that March with a wildly successful premium product. Branded the Collector's Choice, it was twice as expensive as its peers' (99 cents per pack, compared with 49 cents for such top competitors as Topps, Fleer, Donruss and Score) and twice the quality (packaged in foil with color photos on both sides and a hologram on the back). But this is what mattered: Upper Deck had the undisputed Griffey rookie card. Topps and Score didn't have the foresight even to include the Mariners' 19-year-old phenom in their first-edition sets, while Donruss and Fleer were virtual afterthoughts in the hobby's frenzy over Upper Deck's premiere.
By the time, say, Derek Jeter came along in the 1990s, the market had become oversaturated with Upper Deck copycats; the Yankees shortstop had eight different rookie cards. When Albert Pujols arrived in 2001, he had 43. In '89 Griffey stood alone, and his card's value has held up reasonably well: at a high end of $40 in the most recent Beckett Baseball. But as his 21-year, surefire Hall of Fame career comes to an unremarkable end in Seattle, it appears unlikely that baseball cards will regain the cultural significance they had 20 years ago. The Kid's Upper Deck debut could very well be the last iconic rookie card ever made.
The image of Griffey that became part of collecting lore, with his blue turtleneck and 'fro-mullet tucked beneath his cap, was doctored. In his home office in Corona, Calif., 75 miles north of Upper Deck's headquarters, Tom Geideman hands me a Polaroid that had been sitting atop a binder of Griffey cards and says, "This—it's cut off a little bit—but this is the original photo." Griffey's wearing the navy-blue hat of Seattle's Class A affiliate, the San Bernardino Spirit, whose logo is a silver S over a red star. The picture was taken by the late V.J. Lovero, an Angels team photographer who shot Griffey and his father for a Sports Illustrated feature in 1988. Lovero sold one of his extras to Upper Deck, which airbrushed the hat royal blue, erased the star, made the S yellow and—ta-da!—completed the makeover.
Now it's in trouble. The once popular collection has fallen.
Thanks, to Sports Illustrated
More than 10,000 chopped-up items are stored in plastic bags on rows of metal shelves. For my visit Mark Shaunessy, the supervisor of this operation, has laid out an assortment of yet-to-be-cut artifacts on a table, including jerseys belonging to LeBron James and Grady Sizemore (with real dirt stains!), a bat of Derek Jeter's and baseballs signed by Joe DiMaggio and Walter Johnson. In the middle of this collection is something that was certainly neither worn nor used in major league baseball, let alone the NBA, NFL or NHL: a sequined, neon-green strip of fabric.
"That," Shaunessy says, "came from Miley Cyrus. It was her headband. We're going to do cuts of that too."
Would you believe that a 16-year-old's hair accessory is far from the strangest thing on display? To its left is a Baggie labeled FRAGILE: TITANIC COAL—containing actual coal pulled from the ship's wreckage. Chris Carlin, the marketing manager leading my tour, informs me that in a baseball set called Goodwin Champions, coming out in September, "there are going to be landmark insert cards: stuff like Titanic coal, the sands of Iwo Jima, Dead Sea salt." Inside perhaps the last packs of fully licensed MLB cards that Upper Deck will ever make, buyers might also find equine hair, with actual hair-sample cards of Kentucky Derby winners Funny Cide and Smarty Jones. (The human hairs of Beethoven and Che Guevara were contained in a pack earlier this year.)
Farther to our left is a briefcase. Its brass nameplate reads S.D. JR., for Sammy Davis Jr. Its leather, its lining, perhaps even the nameplate will soon be cut up and attached to cards. "Just got these in—they're Farrah Fawcett's," says Shaunessy, referring to a pair of olive cargo pants. They seem absurdly small. Carlin wonders whether he could even fit one leg in the waist.
The sports trading card industry is dealing with an uncomfortable present and an uncertain future. The sales of cards peaked in 1991 at $1.2 billion, according to estimates by Sports Collector's Digest, but slid to $400 million by the turn of the century and to $200 million last year. MLB is banking on Topps, now owned by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, to reattract kids and streamline product offerings. Upper Deck put out 16 baseball sets in 2009 and says that it will continue to make cards with its MLB Players Association license in 2010, though none of the subjects can appear bearing a team logo. A lawsuit by Upper Deck challenging Topps's exclusive deal is also a possibility, a company source told SI last week.
Even so, there's no guarantee that the existing customer base—hard-core hobbyists for whom even jersey swatches are becoming passé—will stay on board. Insert cards have been around for years. Will pop-culture ephemera be enough of a draw? When someone's pack yields a poly-cotton swatch that once hugged the backside of a Charlie's Angel, what will be the reaction? Arousal? Shock? Or, worse, indifference?
You have to go back 20 years to find a landmark baseball card: Ken Griffey Jr.'s 1989 Upper Deck Star Rookie, the number 1 card in that set. That was Upper Deck's rookie year too, and the company stormed onto the scene that March with a wildly successful premium product. Branded the Collector's Choice, it was twice as expensive as its peers' (99 cents per pack, compared with 49 cents for such top competitors as Topps, Fleer, Donruss and Score) and twice the quality (packaged in foil with color photos on both sides and a hologram on the back). But this is what mattered: Upper Deck had the undisputed Griffey rookie card. Topps and Score didn't have the foresight even to include the Mariners' 19-year-old phenom in their first-edition sets, while Donruss and Fleer were virtual afterthoughts in the hobby's frenzy over Upper Deck's premiere.
By the time, say, Derek Jeter came along in the 1990s, the market had become oversaturated with Upper Deck copycats; the Yankees shortstop had eight different rookie cards. When Albert Pujols arrived in 2001, he had 43. In '89 Griffey stood alone, and his card's value has held up reasonably well: at a high end of $40 in the most recent Beckett Baseball. But as his 21-year, surefire Hall of Fame career comes to an unremarkable end in Seattle, it appears unlikely that baseball cards will regain the cultural significance they had 20 years ago. The Kid's Upper Deck debut could very well be the last iconic rookie card ever made.
The image of Griffey that became part of collecting lore, with his blue turtleneck and 'fro-mullet tucked beneath his cap, was doctored. In his home office in Corona, Calif., 75 miles north of Upper Deck's headquarters, Tom Geideman hands me a Polaroid that had been sitting atop a binder of Griffey cards and says, "This—it's cut off a little bit—but this is the original photo." Griffey's wearing the navy-blue hat of Seattle's Class A affiliate, the San Bernardino Spirit, whose logo is a silver S over a red star. The picture was taken by the late V.J. Lovero, an Angels team photographer who shot Griffey and his father for a Sports Illustrated feature in 1988. Lovero sold one of his extras to Upper Deck, which airbrushed the hat royal blue, erased the star, made the S yellow and—ta-da!—completed the makeover.
Now it's in trouble. The once popular collection has fallen.
Thanks, to Sports Illustrated
MLB In Review
Not long after the Angels clinched the American League West division title to cap a wondrous 2009 season packed with dramatic triumph and turmoil, they listened to their hearts.
En masse, the team left the champagne-soaked home clubhouse and went back onto the field of play, jogging together until they reached the center-field wall where the image of their teammate, Nick Adenhart, has stood since the senseless death of the young pitcher and two of his friends April 9.
The Angels posed for photographs, pointing to Adenhart's uniform No. 34, poured bubbly over the picture of Adenhart's cap, and reveled in their baseball accomplishment with the memory of the friend and 22-year-old teammate they lost so early in the season and so early in Adenhart's life.
With poignancy, clarity and class, this one moment somehow managed to rise above the rest in the 162-game grind of 30 teams playing the 2009 season. It became a frozen snapshot of something that truly makes America's pastime special.
And there was a lot more to celebrate in 2009, all over the cities and ballparks of the big leagues.
The 2009 season also will be remembered for Derek Jeter's toppling of a once-Iron (Horse)-clad record, Ichiro Suzuki's singularly focused march toward history in Seattle and Randy Johnson's 300th Unit, a Giant win that all but etches his snarl into a Cooperstown bust.
When we think of 2009, we'll look back on the emergence of Zack Greinke's dominance and the power of Joe Mauer, the continuing coronation of Albert Pujols, and the new ballparks in the Big Apple and the opposite directions in which their inhabitants traveled.
We won't forget the difficult travails of Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz or Mark Buehrle's day of perfection.
But there was so much more in a unique, amazing season that won't soon be forgotten. Here are just a few of the main 2009 storylines, month by month:
It seems like much more than six months ago that Spring Training was in full swing, Japan won the World Baseball Classic, and it led up to the Major League beginning on Sunday, April 5, with the Atlanta Braves defeating the 2008 World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies, 4-1. Soon enough, however, the month belonged to Greinke, the young Royals right-hander who overcame a debilitating anxiety disorder several years ago to carve up hitters in historic fashion. Greinke went 43 innings before finally allowing an earned run, leaving the first month with a 5-0 mark and an 0.50 ERA.
But four days later, the game was immersed in grief when Adenhart and his compatriots were killed mere hours after the rookie had fashioned a brilliant season debut against the Oakland A's. And four days after that, on April 13, baseball lost two more greats: longtime broadcaster Harry Kalas, the signature voice of the Phillies, passed away after collapsing in the press box at Nationals Park, and one of the the pastime's biggest characters and goodwill ambassadors was lost when former Tigers pitcher Mark "The Bird" Fidrych was killed in an accident at his home.
April had new beginnings in the form of sparkling new stadiums in New York: the new Yankee Stadium blew peoples' minds in the Bronx and Citi Field got Mets fans dreaming of future playoff possibilities. It was there, in Queens, that the Mets and their fans got to enjoy a very special Jackie Robinson Day celebration, and it was there that Gary Sheffield hit his 500th career home run in April. And across town, in the Bronx, 26 home runs in the opening homestand got the baseball world wondering what had gotten into the new House that Ruth Built.
Also in April, one pretty rare and one ridiculously rare feat happened on the field. Toward the end of the month, one of the game's most exciting yet rare plays took place, with Boston's speedy center fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, executing a perfect straight steal of home plate at Fenway Park against the Yankees as Andy Pettitte's slow-breaking curveball arrived just a bit too late. With the help of Jacoby the Sox swept the Yankees in 3 straight games to start 8-0 against them. Youkilis hit a bomb in the first game with the help of Bay to assure Sox Nation the season will be a good one. And on April 13, White Sox teammates Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye each hit the 300th homers of their career -- in back-to-back at-bats!
As Ellsbury jetted out of the picture, May arrived, colored in a bold shade of Dodger blue, with Los Angeles strutting its stuff on the longest home winning streak to begin a season in baseball history. They didn't lose at Chavez Ravine in April and kept it going to 13 straight home wins into May. The Bums got a major bummer when it was revealed on May 7 that Ramirez would be suspended 50 games for testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance, but it didn't seem to matter as young sluggers Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp and gifted hurlers Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw and Jonathan Broxton continued to mature under Joe Torre's expert tutelage.
A day after Manny left the building for a while, A-Rod came back from right hip surgery and stepped back into the spotlight he created when he admitted in February that he took steroids while with the Texas Rangers in 2001-03. He started slowly but improved during the month as the Yankees served notice that they'd be a huge player in the American League East. Toronto, meanwhile, which led the East for the first six weeks of 2009, began to bow out of the race, which would lead to ace Roy Halladay being offered in trade talks a few months later.
Also in May, Tampa Bay's Carl Crawford tied the all-time record for stolen bases in a game with six, the season's longest hitting streak ended when Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman's skein skidded at 30 games on May 12, but Twins catcher and two-time AL batting champion Mauer began zooming toward a third hitting title, returning from back problems and batting .414 for the month.
And at the very end of the month, the struggling Colorado Rockies dismissed manager Clint Hurdle, not only closing a chapter on a story that had seen the bright lights of the World Series less than two years earlier, but paving the way for bench coach Jim Tracy to step into the skipper's seat and engineer a startling comeback that would get the club back to the playoffs. Tracy would become the first manager in the history of baseball to take over a team that was 10 games under .500 (18-28 at Hurdle's dismissal) and lead the same team to a record of more than 20 games over .500.
There was plenty of gloom in June for the highly touted Mets, who already were reeling with devastating injuries to stars Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and J.J. Putz. They'd add Carlos Beltran to that mix as their season quickly unraveled. But the Yankees and their gloves continued to excel, setting a Major League record by going errorless as a team for 18 straight games.
The rest of the first month of summer belonged to The Machine, a.k.a. Mr. Pujols, who crushed home runs and collected All-Star votes for the 80th Midsummer Classic at his house, Busch Stadium. Pujols became the fifth player to reach 30 homers before July 1 by blasting 14 in 97 at-bats in June, including four two-homer games, and not surprisingly, the Cardinals assumed first place in the National League Central and the fans gave him 5,397,374 All-Star votes, the second-highest total in history.
Other June highlights included Johnson's 300th victory in Washington, the First-Year Player Draft and its scintillating No. 1 pick from San Diego State, Stephen Strasburg, the start of Tracy's Rockies revival (beginning June 4, Colorado won 11 in a row and 17 of 18) and fantastic months for the Giants' Tim Lincecum (4-1, 1.48 ERA in six starts) and Seattle's Felix Hernandez (3-0 with an 0.94 ERA in five June starts).
More magic June moments ensued when Pudge passed Pudge when Ivan Rodriguez caught his Major League-best 2,228th game, passing the legend who shared his nickname, Carlton Fisk, and on June 28, Yankees closer Mariano Rivera tabbed the 500th save of his legendary career, getting it done in the ninth against the Subway Series rival Mets.
As July dawned, baseball was abuzz. And it wasn't just because the Red Sox and Yankees were back to their usual tradition of battling it out atop the AL East. No, it was literally abuzz when the Astros and Padres had to endure a 52-minute delay at PETCO Park because of bee infestation. A day later after weeks of Minor League rehab fanfare, Ramirez came back to his Mannywood stomping grounds, and on July 10, MLB got its first no-hitter of the year when Giants lefty Jonathan Sanchez blanked the Padres on 110 pitches, twirling the first San Francisco no-no in 33 years.
The Midsummer Classic and all its trimmings soon followed, with the Gateway City temporarily becoming Phat Albert's neighborhood. Pujols was feted night and day and exhausted himself with All-Star ambassadorship. It showed when he fell to Prince Fielder in the State Farm Home Run Derby, and it showed when he made an error in the All-Star Game, which was won, 4-3, by the AL, thanks to an Adam Jones sacrifice fly RBI and Most Valuable Player Crawford's homer-saving catch off the bat of Brad Hawpe. Even a guest appearance with clubhouse visits and a ceremonial first pitch by President Barack Obama couldn't get the NL a win, and the AL earned bragging rights and home-field advantage in the World Series.
As perfect as the All-Star Game was for the AL, though, it couldn't match true perfection, which was achieved for only the 19th time in big league history July 23 when Chicago's Mark Buehrle turned the trick -- his second career no-hitter -- against the Rays at U.S. Cellular Field. Perfect games don't happen without good defense, though, and Buehrle might have gotten the best play in perfect-game history when outfielder Dewayne Wise sprinted toward the wall, leaped, juggled and hauled in a would-be Gabe Kapler home run leading off the ninth inning. Buehrle would use the perfecto as part of his Major League record of retiring 45 straight batters over three games.
On July 27, Washington's Josh Willingham became only the 13th player in history to hit two grand slams in one game, and four days later, Boston's beloved Big Papi, David Ortiz, was revealed to have been on the 2003 list of players who had tested positive for performance-enhancers, but that spot of negativity didn't erase the excitement of the July 31 non-waiver Trade Deadline, upon which deals were made, but not the Roy Halladay megadeal everyone expected. Instead, the Phillies opted for Cleveland lefty Cliff Lee while other familiar faces heading to new places included Jake Peavy, who was dealt from the Padres to the White Sox, Victor Martinez, who went from Cleveland to Boston, Scott Rolen, who was traded from Toronto to Cincinnati, Jarrod Washburn, who left Seattle for Detroit, and Orlando Cabrera, whom the A's sent to Minnesota.
Once into the dog days of August, the top teams were well on their way to postseason placement. The Yankees were back ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East, the Angels owned the West, and in the NL, the Phillies had assumed control of the East while the Cardinals held the Central and the Dodgers continued their West dominance, with the Rockies shaping up as a serious Wild Card contender.
More milestones were achieved, with Carlos Lee hitting his 300th career homer on Aug. 8, joining Dye, Konerko, Ortiz, Adam Dunn and his teammate, Lance Berkman, in reaching that lofty number. Two days later, Angels slugger Vladimir Guerrero blasted career tater No. 400, joining Jason Giambi, who had accomplished the feat earlier in the year for Oakland. And on the same day, Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki hit for the cycle, becoming one of eight players to pull that trick in the 2009 season.
Six days later, Jeter broke a major record, passing Luis Aparicio for the most hits in baseball history by a shortstop. And on Aug. 23, Phillies reserve second baseman Eric Bruntlett made the play of a lifetime, turning a game-ending, unassisted triple play against the Mets at Citi Field. It was the 15th unassisted trifecta in Major League history and the first one that ended a game since 1927.
Just in case anyone thought teams were done dealing a month earlier, the days leading up to the Aug. 31 postseason roster deadline provided some late-season intrigue, with the Tigers acquiring slugger Aubrey Huff, Pudge Rodriguez going back home to Texas, the Dodgers landing Ronnie Belliard, Jon Garland and Jim Thome for their playoff push, the Red Sox trading for Billy Wagner and coercing Paul Byrd out of semi-retirement to join their October-bound staff, the Rockies landing Jose Contreras from the White Sox, and the Angels nabbing lefty starter Scott Kazmir from the Rays.
By the time September rolled around, the Yankees had a commanding lead over the Red Sox in the East and by far the best record in the game, taking advantage of big years from their offseason prizes, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. Detroit was still comfortably ahead in the AL Central and the Angels were on their way to their third straight AL West title and fifth in the last six years. In the NL East, the Phillies were pulling away from Atlanta and Florida while the Cardinals continued to own the Central and the Dodgers were sitting pretty in the West.
But there was still history to be made, and it started Sept. 6 in Oakland, when Ichiro doubled in the first inning of the Mariners' loss to the A's for the 2,000th hit of his Major League career, putting him well above 3,000 when you factor in the nine years he played pro ball in Japan. Ichiro reached the plateau in 1,402 Major League games, which made him the second-fastest in history to achieve the number after Al Simmons did it in 1,390 games.
On Sept. 11, while the country remembered the horrors of the terrorist attacks on American soil eight years earlier, Jeter singled in the third inning against the Baltimore Orioles at a soggy Yankee Stadium to log the 2,722nd hit of his career, which broke the club record set 70 years earlier by Lou Gehrig. The fans gave their captain a three-minute ovation.
Two days later, Ichiro made the annals of the game again, singling in the second inning of a game against the Texas Rangers to notch at least 200 hits in a season for the ninth straight year, breaking Willie Keeler's 108-year-old mark of eight.
Three nights after that, baseball once again took a back seat to life, when the Tigers' 92-year-old broadcasting icon, Ernie Harwell, bade a heartfelt and powerful goodbye to his beloved team, city and game of baseball.
Scattered among the six months of Major League baseball were other great stories, too.
There were happy returns, such as Ken Griffey Jr. signing for one year in Seattle, the place where his career started, homering in his first game, and along with veteran Mike Sweeney, galvanizing a clubhouse behind first-year manager Don Wakamatsu to improve by 24 games from 2008, the biggest turnaround in the game.
In San Francisco, Barry Zito broke out of the slump that's dogged him since he signed for big bucks three years ago, mentoring a young staff that kept the team afloat in the pennant race until the last week of the regular season.
And in St. Louis, Chris Carpenter came back from injury to dominate the NL in such a fashion that he'll probably win the Cy Young Award if his teammate, Adam Wainwright, doesn't get it.
There were breakouts, with huge years at the plate in the NL from Mark Reynolds, who hit 44 home runs and broke his own big league record for strikeouts, the Giants' sweet-swinging Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval, do-it-all Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez, Jayson Werth of the Phillies, Ethier and Kemp.
And in the AL, the Texas Rangers won 87 games, surprising everyone with pitching to match their hitting, thanks to Scott Feldman, Neftali Feliz and others, and taking skipper Ron Washington off the hot seat and straight into the conversation for Manager of the Year. Aaron Hill and Adam Lind had huge offensive years for Toronto, David Price came into his own late for Tampa Bay, and sluggers Kendry Morales (Angels) and Michael Cuddyer (Twins), super-utility man Ben Zobrist (Tampa Bay) and closer David Aardsma (Mariners) seemingly came out of nowhere to post monster numbers.
All of this and the season isn't over yet, not even after 162 games.
After all the drama, including recent clinching parties for the Yankees and Red Sox, the doing-it-for-Adenhart Angels, plus the Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers and Rockies, the Major League season went to 163 games as the Twins beat the Tigers to clinch a spot against the Yankees.
It's only fitting, because great seasons like 2009 should never end.
Thanks to MLB.com
En masse, the team left the champagne-soaked home clubhouse and went back onto the field of play, jogging together until they reached the center-field wall where the image of their teammate, Nick Adenhart, has stood since the senseless death of the young pitcher and two of his friends April 9.
The Angels posed for photographs, pointing to Adenhart's uniform No. 34, poured bubbly over the picture of Adenhart's cap, and reveled in their baseball accomplishment with the memory of the friend and 22-year-old teammate they lost so early in the season and so early in Adenhart's life.
With poignancy, clarity and class, this one moment somehow managed to rise above the rest in the 162-game grind of 30 teams playing the 2009 season. It became a frozen snapshot of something that truly makes America's pastime special.
And there was a lot more to celebrate in 2009, all over the cities and ballparks of the big leagues.
The 2009 season also will be remembered for Derek Jeter's toppling of a once-Iron (Horse)-clad record, Ichiro Suzuki's singularly focused march toward history in Seattle and Randy Johnson's 300th Unit, a Giant win that all but etches his snarl into a Cooperstown bust.
When we think of 2009, we'll look back on the emergence of Zack Greinke's dominance and the power of Joe Mauer, the continuing coronation of Albert Pujols, and the new ballparks in the Big Apple and the opposite directions in which their inhabitants traveled.
We won't forget the difficult travails of Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz or Mark Buehrle's day of perfection.
But there was so much more in a unique, amazing season that won't soon be forgotten. Here are just a few of the main 2009 storylines, month by month:
It seems like much more than six months ago that Spring Training was in full swing, Japan won the World Baseball Classic, and it led up to the Major League beginning on Sunday, April 5, with the Atlanta Braves defeating the 2008 World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies, 4-1. Soon enough, however, the month belonged to Greinke, the young Royals right-hander who overcame a debilitating anxiety disorder several years ago to carve up hitters in historic fashion. Greinke went 43 innings before finally allowing an earned run, leaving the first month with a 5-0 mark and an 0.50 ERA.
But four days later, the game was immersed in grief when Adenhart and his compatriots were killed mere hours after the rookie had fashioned a brilliant season debut against the Oakland A's. And four days after that, on April 13, baseball lost two more greats: longtime broadcaster Harry Kalas, the signature voice of the Phillies, passed away after collapsing in the press box at Nationals Park, and one of the the pastime's biggest characters and goodwill ambassadors was lost when former Tigers pitcher Mark "The Bird" Fidrych was killed in an accident at his home.
April had new beginnings in the form of sparkling new stadiums in New York: the new Yankee Stadium blew peoples' minds in the Bronx and Citi Field got Mets fans dreaming of future playoff possibilities. It was there, in Queens, that the Mets and their fans got to enjoy a very special Jackie Robinson Day celebration, and it was there that Gary Sheffield hit his 500th career home run in April. And across town, in the Bronx, 26 home runs in the opening homestand got the baseball world wondering what had gotten into the new House that Ruth Built.
Also in April, one pretty rare and one ridiculously rare feat happened on the field. Toward the end of the month, one of the game's most exciting yet rare plays took place, with Boston's speedy center fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, executing a perfect straight steal of home plate at Fenway Park against the Yankees as Andy Pettitte's slow-breaking curveball arrived just a bit too late. With the help of Jacoby the Sox swept the Yankees in 3 straight games to start 8-0 against them. Youkilis hit a bomb in the first game with the help of Bay to assure Sox Nation the season will be a good one. And on April 13, White Sox teammates Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye each hit the 300th homers of their career -- in back-to-back at-bats!
As Ellsbury jetted out of the picture, May arrived, colored in a bold shade of Dodger blue, with Los Angeles strutting its stuff on the longest home winning streak to begin a season in baseball history. They didn't lose at Chavez Ravine in April and kept it going to 13 straight home wins into May. The Bums got a major bummer when it was revealed on May 7 that Ramirez would be suspended 50 games for testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance, but it didn't seem to matter as young sluggers Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp and gifted hurlers Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw and Jonathan Broxton continued to mature under Joe Torre's expert tutelage.
A day after Manny left the building for a while, A-Rod came back from right hip surgery and stepped back into the spotlight he created when he admitted in February that he took steroids while with the Texas Rangers in 2001-03. He started slowly but improved during the month as the Yankees served notice that they'd be a huge player in the American League East. Toronto, meanwhile, which led the East for the first six weeks of 2009, began to bow out of the race, which would lead to ace Roy Halladay being offered in trade talks a few months later.
Also in May, Tampa Bay's Carl Crawford tied the all-time record for stolen bases in a game with six, the season's longest hitting streak ended when Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman's skein skidded at 30 games on May 12, but Twins catcher and two-time AL batting champion Mauer began zooming toward a third hitting title, returning from back problems and batting .414 for the month.
And at the very end of the month, the struggling Colorado Rockies dismissed manager Clint Hurdle, not only closing a chapter on a story that had seen the bright lights of the World Series less than two years earlier, but paving the way for bench coach Jim Tracy to step into the skipper's seat and engineer a startling comeback that would get the club back to the playoffs. Tracy would become the first manager in the history of baseball to take over a team that was 10 games under .500 (18-28 at Hurdle's dismissal) and lead the same team to a record of more than 20 games over .500.
There was plenty of gloom in June for the highly touted Mets, who already were reeling with devastating injuries to stars Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and J.J. Putz. They'd add Carlos Beltran to that mix as their season quickly unraveled. But the Yankees and their gloves continued to excel, setting a Major League record by going errorless as a team for 18 straight games.
The rest of the first month of summer belonged to The Machine, a.k.a. Mr. Pujols, who crushed home runs and collected All-Star votes for the 80th Midsummer Classic at his house, Busch Stadium. Pujols became the fifth player to reach 30 homers before July 1 by blasting 14 in 97 at-bats in June, including four two-homer games, and not surprisingly, the Cardinals assumed first place in the National League Central and the fans gave him 5,397,374 All-Star votes, the second-highest total in history.
Other June highlights included Johnson's 300th victory in Washington, the First-Year Player Draft and its scintillating No. 1 pick from San Diego State, Stephen Strasburg, the start of Tracy's Rockies revival (beginning June 4, Colorado won 11 in a row and 17 of 18) and fantastic months for the Giants' Tim Lincecum (4-1, 1.48 ERA in six starts) and Seattle's Felix Hernandez (3-0 with an 0.94 ERA in five June starts).
More magic June moments ensued when Pudge passed Pudge when Ivan Rodriguez caught his Major League-best 2,228th game, passing the legend who shared his nickname, Carlton Fisk, and on June 28, Yankees closer Mariano Rivera tabbed the 500th save of his legendary career, getting it done in the ninth against the Subway Series rival Mets.
As July dawned, baseball was abuzz. And it wasn't just because the Red Sox and Yankees were back to their usual tradition of battling it out atop the AL East. No, it was literally abuzz when the Astros and Padres had to endure a 52-minute delay at PETCO Park because of bee infestation. A day later after weeks of Minor League rehab fanfare, Ramirez came back to his Mannywood stomping grounds, and on July 10, MLB got its first no-hitter of the year when Giants lefty Jonathan Sanchez blanked the Padres on 110 pitches, twirling the first San Francisco no-no in 33 years.
The Midsummer Classic and all its trimmings soon followed, with the Gateway City temporarily becoming Phat Albert's neighborhood. Pujols was feted night and day and exhausted himself with All-Star ambassadorship. It showed when he fell to Prince Fielder in the State Farm Home Run Derby, and it showed when he made an error in the All-Star Game, which was won, 4-3, by the AL, thanks to an Adam Jones sacrifice fly RBI and Most Valuable Player Crawford's homer-saving catch off the bat of Brad Hawpe. Even a guest appearance with clubhouse visits and a ceremonial first pitch by President Barack Obama couldn't get the NL a win, and the AL earned bragging rights and home-field advantage in the World Series.
As perfect as the All-Star Game was for the AL, though, it couldn't match true perfection, which was achieved for only the 19th time in big league history July 23 when Chicago's Mark Buehrle turned the trick -- his second career no-hitter -- against the Rays at U.S. Cellular Field. Perfect games don't happen without good defense, though, and Buehrle might have gotten the best play in perfect-game history when outfielder Dewayne Wise sprinted toward the wall, leaped, juggled and hauled in a would-be Gabe Kapler home run leading off the ninth inning. Buehrle would use the perfecto as part of his Major League record of retiring 45 straight batters over three games.
On July 27, Washington's Josh Willingham became only the 13th player in history to hit two grand slams in one game, and four days later, Boston's beloved Big Papi, David Ortiz, was revealed to have been on the 2003 list of players who had tested positive for performance-enhancers, but that spot of negativity didn't erase the excitement of the July 31 non-waiver Trade Deadline, upon which deals were made, but not the Roy Halladay megadeal everyone expected. Instead, the Phillies opted for Cleveland lefty Cliff Lee while other familiar faces heading to new places included Jake Peavy, who was dealt from the Padres to the White Sox, Victor Martinez, who went from Cleveland to Boston, Scott Rolen, who was traded from Toronto to Cincinnati, Jarrod Washburn, who left Seattle for Detroit, and Orlando Cabrera, whom the A's sent to Minnesota.
Once into the dog days of August, the top teams were well on their way to postseason placement. The Yankees were back ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East, the Angels owned the West, and in the NL, the Phillies had assumed control of the East while the Cardinals held the Central and the Dodgers continued their West dominance, with the Rockies shaping up as a serious Wild Card contender.
More milestones were achieved, with Carlos Lee hitting his 300th career homer on Aug. 8, joining Dye, Konerko, Ortiz, Adam Dunn and his teammate, Lance Berkman, in reaching that lofty number. Two days later, Angels slugger Vladimir Guerrero blasted career tater No. 400, joining Jason Giambi, who had accomplished the feat earlier in the year for Oakland. And on the same day, Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki hit for the cycle, becoming one of eight players to pull that trick in the 2009 season.
Six days later, Jeter broke a major record, passing Luis Aparicio for the most hits in baseball history by a shortstop. And on Aug. 23, Phillies reserve second baseman Eric Bruntlett made the play of a lifetime, turning a game-ending, unassisted triple play against the Mets at Citi Field. It was the 15th unassisted trifecta in Major League history and the first one that ended a game since 1927.
Just in case anyone thought teams were done dealing a month earlier, the days leading up to the Aug. 31 postseason roster deadline provided some late-season intrigue, with the Tigers acquiring slugger Aubrey Huff, Pudge Rodriguez going back home to Texas, the Dodgers landing Ronnie Belliard, Jon Garland and Jim Thome for their playoff push, the Red Sox trading for Billy Wagner and coercing Paul Byrd out of semi-retirement to join their October-bound staff, the Rockies landing Jose Contreras from the White Sox, and the Angels nabbing lefty starter Scott Kazmir from the Rays.
By the time September rolled around, the Yankees had a commanding lead over the Red Sox in the East and by far the best record in the game, taking advantage of big years from their offseason prizes, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. Detroit was still comfortably ahead in the AL Central and the Angels were on their way to their third straight AL West title and fifth in the last six years. In the NL East, the Phillies were pulling away from Atlanta and Florida while the Cardinals continued to own the Central and the Dodgers were sitting pretty in the West.
But there was still history to be made, and it started Sept. 6 in Oakland, when Ichiro doubled in the first inning of the Mariners' loss to the A's for the 2,000th hit of his Major League career, putting him well above 3,000 when you factor in the nine years he played pro ball in Japan. Ichiro reached the plateau in 1,402 Major League games, which made him the second-fastest in history to achieve the number after Al Simmons did it in 1,390 games.
On Sept. 11, while the country remembered the horrors of the terrorist attacks on American soil eight years earlier, Jeter singled in the third inning against the Baltimore Orioles at a soggy Yankee Stadium to log the 2,722nd hit of his career, which broke the club record set 70 years earlier by Lou Gehrig. The fans gave their captain a three-minute ovation.
Two days later, Ichiro made the annals of the game again, singling in the second inning of a game against the Texas Rangers to notch at least 200 hits in a season for the ninth straight year, breaking Willie Keeler's 108-year-old mark of eight.
Three nights after that, baseball once again took a back seat to life, when the Tigers' 92-year-old broadcasting icon, Ernie Harwell, bade a heartfelt and powerful goodbye to his beloved team, city and game of baseball.
Scattered among the six months of Major League baseball were other great stories, too.
There were happy returns, such as Ken Griffey Jr. signing for one year in Seattle, the place where his career started, homering in his first game, and along with veteran Mike Sweeney, galvanizing a clubhouse behind first-year manager Don Wakamatsu to improve by 24 games from 2008, the biggest turnaround in the game.
In San Francisco, Barry Zito broke out of the slump that's dogged him since he signed for big bucks three years ago, mentoring a young staff that kept the team afloat in the pennant race until the last week of the regular season.
And in St. Louis, Chris Carpenter came back from injury to dominate the NL in such a fashion that he'll probably win the Cy Young Award if his teammate, Adam Wainwright, doesn't get it.
There were breakouts, with huge years at the plate in the NL from Mark Reynolds, who hit 44 home runs and broke his own big league record for strikeouts, the Giants' sweet-swinging Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval, do-it-all Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez, Jayson Werth of the Phillies, Ethier and Kemp.
And in the AL, the Texas Rangers won 87 games, surprising everyone with pitching to match their hitting, thanks to Scott Feldman, Neftali Feliz and others, and taking skipper Ron Washington off the hot seat and straight into the conversation for Manager of the Year. Aaron Hill and Adam Lind had huge offensive years for Toronto, David Price came into his own late for Tampa Bay, and sluggers Kendry Morales (Angels) and Michael Cuddyer (Twins), super-utility man Ben Zobrist (Tampa Bay) and closer David Aardsma (Mariners) seemingly came out of nowhere to post monster numbers.
All of this and the season isn't over yet, not even after 162 games.
After all the drama, including recent clinching parties for the Yankees and Red Sox, the doing-it-for-Adenhart Angels, plus the Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers and Rockies, the Major League season went to 163 games as the Twins beat the Tigers to clinch a spot against the Yankees.
It's only fitting, because great seasons like 2009 should never end.
Thanks to MLB.com
Halloween Month Day 7
Go to it, follow it, put it in your Google Reader, love it.
http://monsterscereal.blogspot.com/
http://monsterscereal.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Halloween Month Day 4
Spongebob Halloween Episode:
Spongebob decides to try and make a real splash at Mr. Krabs' Halloween Party, so he chooses to dress as the legendary Flying Dutchman.
This isn't working out good. I'll do halloween costumes of the day instead!
Spongebob decides to try and make a real splash at Mr. Krabs' Halloween Party, so he chooses to dress as the legendary Flying Dutchman.
This isn't working out good. I'll do halloween costumes of the day instead!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Halloween Month Day 3
Also, there is a Canobie Lake Park Screamfest. Polar Opposite of Mickey's not so scary halloween party.
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Contest
Attention! I hope this isn't stealing any ideas from Wings. But alas I need a new blog header. Send your headers to triviajoe@charter.net and you could win the happiness of knowing you won something. Deadline is October 15th. May the best header maker win!
While we're on the topic of Trivia Joe if you like trivia go to google and type in Trivia of the Day and click on the second one! :)
While we're on the topic of Trivia Joe if you like trivia go to google and type in Trivia of the Day and click on the second one! :)
Video of the Month
Yeah I know it's October 3rd but nothing tops this.
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=6939889
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=6939889
Friday, October 2, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Halloween Month Day 1
What should I be for Halloween?
Bologna
Frankenberry
Dora in a Grim Reaper Suit
Yoshi
Ms. Comer
Vampirate
Ronald McDonald
Paul Pierce
Snoopy
Bologna
Frankenberry
Dora in a Grim Reaper Suit
Yoshi
Ms. Comer
Vampirate
Ronald McDonald
Paul Pierce
Snoopy
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