Repack Haiku #358 (Don Larsen)

Pitched World Series gem

Involved in the trade that sent

Maris to Yankees

 

2019 Topps Archives #64 Don Larsen

 

Most people know Larsen from his perfect game during the 1956 World Series, but even his departure from New York was noteworthy.  On December 11, 1959 Larsen was traded by the Yankees (along with Hank Bauer, Norm Siebern and Marv Throneberry) to the Kansas City Athletics for Roger Maris and two other players. Maris of course would go on a rather historic run with the Yankees.

6 Degrees Of Raffy: The Jeremy Hazelbaker Connection

It's time for another installment ("aka filler post") of 6 Degrees Of Raffy, where I connect a beloved card from my collection and connect the player depicted on it to current Red Sox superstar Rafael Devers.

We start with a randomly generated card from my collection:

 

Random TCDB Card: 

2016 Topps Update
#US99 Jeremy Hazelbaker (RC)

 

 

Who? I do not recall this guy at all. Turns out he was originally drafted by the Red Sox in 2009, toiled in the minors for 7 years before finally debuting for the Cardinals in 2016. He spent the next year with Arizona, finishing up his time in the Majors with 155 games played.

Having this card pop up will be interesting for two reasons. This is the first time since I've done these that I've randomly been given a card from the same time period that Rafael Devers played. I'm curious to see if this will make it easier or harder to make connections. Also, I don't exactly have a lot of options in the Topps Update set:

 

 

Only 9 players, and none of them exactly were household names. I knew Brandon Moss was a former Red Sox player, but that was back in 2007-08. I didn't want to go backwards that far just to get to the Red Sox. Besides, I at least try to make connections outside of the stalwarts like David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia. Fortunately, I found a nice chain to Raffy thanks to former All-Star Zach Duke.

 

Teammates in the 2016 Topps Update set
#US99 Jeremy Hazelbaker (RC)	#US153 Zach Duke

Duke was an All-Star for the Pirates in 2009.  By the time he made his way to St. Louis, he was well into his career as a journeyman reliever, having played for 5 other teams in between.

Teammates in the 2019 Topps Now Road to Opening Day Cincinnati Reds set
#OD-329 Zach Duke	#OD-318 Jose Peraza

Duke's last stop was in 2019 with Cincinati. The off-season free agent signing made it onto this Reds Topps Now set, but was released midway through the season, making this his only commercially available card with the team. Good enough to pair him their infielder Jose Peraza.

Teammates in the 2021 Topps Heritage set
#238 Jose Peraza	#645 Rafael Devers

 

Peraza joined the Red Sox for the COVID-shortened 2020 season as one of the many hopeful 2nd base replacements for the injured Dustin Pedroia. he only appeared in 34 games for Boston, but that all that was needed for him to get a card in the same set as Raffy!

 

Degrees of Raffy:3

Payday Pack - A Faceful Of Dirt

Spoiler Alert: This edition of Payday Pack doesn't hold a candle to the last one. Still, there are some great cards in this pack. The more I see of this set, the more I like it.

 

3rd Place

#184 Anthony Rizzo

 

Hey Rizzo, how much space do you have inside that card border?

2nd Place

#254 Bobby Witt Jr.

 

I love the angle on this stolen base attempt, and the tongue sticking out makes the shot so much better.

1st Place

#285 Willi Castro

 

Now this is a stolen base attempt card! Give me that dirt cloud, helmet flying, cool shades level of awesomeness any day! This has to be one of the best photos in the set, hands down!

Contestants Not Appearing On Stage:

#26 Freddy Peralta

#47 Cavan Biggio

#222 Zach Remillard (RC)

#137 Reid Detmers

#140 Brad Keller

#256 Harold Ramirez

#130 Grant Hartwig (RC)

#44 Julio Rodriguez

#151 Seiya Suzuki

#57 AL Wins Leaders (Bassitt/Elfin/Cole) (LL)

#154 Atlanta Braves (TC)

#251 Tyler Wells

#148 Alex Kirilloff

#236 Patrick Corbin

#189 Davis Schneider (RC)

#304 Evan Longoria

#170 Aaron Civale

#172 Spencer Horwitz (RC)

#99 Aaron Judge

#203 Chas McCormick

#287 Miles Mikolas

#83 Keaton Winn

#255 Andrew Vaughn

#266 Alec Bohm

#ATT-5 Corey Seager (All-Topps Team insert)

#SMLB-2 Mike Trout (Superstars of MLB insert)

#SMLB-26 Freddie Freeman (Superstars of MLB insert)

#284 Randy Arozarena

#144 Jacob Amaya (RC)

#158 Yennier Cano (ASR)

#346 Patrick Bailey

#313 Ceddanne Rafaela (RC)

#177 Jonathan India

Repack Haiku #357 (Mark Lemke)

Once referred to as

"Home star runner of the Braves" 

Led to cartoon's name

 

1989 Topps
#327 Mark Lemke (RC)

 

In the early Wild West days of the internet, when Flash animation was becoming popular, one of the most famous internet cartoons was the amazingly entertaining Homestar Runner. I was among it's many fans, but it wasn't until researching for this haiku that I learned that Mark Lemke was the unintended inspiration for the name. According to an interview by the creators The Brothers Chap:

It actually comes from a friend of ours [James]. There was an old local grocery store commercial, and we live in Atlanta, and it advertised the Atlanta Braves. It was like, "the Atlanta Braves hit home runs, and you can hit a home run with savings here!" And so there was this player named Mark Lemke, and they said something like "All star second baseman for the Braves". And our friend [James] knows nothing about sports, and so he would always do his old-timey radio impression of this guy, and not knowing any positions in baseball or whatever, he would just be like, "homestar runner for the Braves". And we were just like, "Homestar Runner? That's the best thing we've ever heard!" - from Wikipedia

Now I have the urge to re-watch the episodes, especially the Strong Bad Emails. Of course, I had to see if there was anything baseball card related....

Homestar Runner...it's dot com!

Top 5 Tribute: Whitey Herzog

Sometime I can't help but feel slightly guilty for not being more timely with posts. After almost 3 weeks after the announcement that Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog passed away at the age of 92, I am just now paying tribute. I'll admit that outside of a not all that amusing personal anecdote, I don't have much to say about Mr. Herzog. And yet, as I have done with Hall of Famers in the past, I offer my personal tribute to the man with the Top 5 cards of his in my collection.

 

1978 Topps #299

 

I don't own any cards of his as a player, which is fine because it's as a manager where he made his mark. After brief stints managing the Rangers and Angels, Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog took over the Royals in the middle of the 1975 season. He then led the Royals to 3 straight AL West titles (1976-78).

 

1986 Topps #441

 

Herzog joined the Cardinals in 1980 and over the next 11 years, he led St. Louis to 3 NL pennants (1982, 1985, 1987) and a Word Series victory (1982).

 

1987 Topps #243

 

Herzog's Cardinals were focused on speed, pitching and defense. This style of play became known as "Whiteyball". That 1982 Championship team had almost 3 times as many stolen bases (200) as home runs (67)!

 

1987 Topps

Glossy All-Stars #1

 

About that personal anecdote...a long time ago I worked part time at Radio Shack. For a short while, I had a manager who shared the same last name as Whitey, and claimed that they were in fact related and that he would get me his autograph. This guy was a known pathological liar, shady, and easily the worst boss I ever had, so needless to say, I wasn't holding my breath on that offer...

 

1990 Topps #261

 

Herzog's last managerial stint ended when he resigned during the 1990 baseball season. He was quoted as saying "I came here in last place and I leave here in last place. I left them right where I started."

 

RIP to the great Whitey Herzog!

TCDB Trade Recap: Cards From Portland, OR

I think I'm done buying packs of 2024 Series 1. I have enough of the cards (and enough doubles) that if I wanted to I could probably complete it through trades. When a TCDB member named Erick posted he was looking for some as well, I looked through what I had and we ended up making a trade.

 

As of now, I'm not going to add the cards I need to my want lists (except for the 5 Red Sox cards I still need!) I'll just pick up what I can casually and maybe I'll motivate myself into finishing it before Series 2 comes out.

Favorite Card: While it's always good to have a Red Sox player posed in front of the Fenway scoreboard, I can't help but appreciate the dirt and emotion on the card of Yaz's grandson.

Thanks for the trade Erick!

Repack Haiku #356 (Casey Kotchman)

Fielding percentage

At first tops in history

Never won Gold Glove

 

2006 Topps Allen & Ginter
#96 Casey Kotchman

 

Kotchman's .9975 fielding percentage as a first baseman is the best all-time. He set a record for consecutive chances without an error with 2,379 (June 20, 2008, through August 21, 2010). He played for 4 teams during that streak, which may have contributed to his lack of fielding hardware.