Player Memorabilia and Auto's I really want Part 1.

Most of you know that I collect memorabilia. I have bobble heads, seats from Old Busch, scoreboard cards from Old Busch, certified autographs, autographed insert cards, and memorabilia cards. I have a pretty good collection, almost exclusively Cardinals stuff. I used to have a ton of stuff from other Hall of Famers, but I liquidated a good bit of it to pay for this and that. My collection ranges from Mike Gallego, to Johnny Hopp, but there have always been a few guys that I have always wanted that I have just never been able to obtain. Of course the prized crown jewel of my collection is an autographed photo containing the signature or Willie Mays, Stan Musial, and Ted Williams. Of course the names on this list are a list of signatures that I consider obtainable. Some signatures truly aren't obtainable such as Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, or the like. The true legends from the early period of baseball are really hard to even find, much less pay for when you do, autographs just weren't as prevalent back then. So I am putting no signature on my list that would cost more than 1,000 dollars to buy. That excludes Rogers Hornsby, even though he could be found, and bought, but he barely misses the cut with his signature going in the 1000-1500 dollar range for an average sample.

1. Branch Rickey - The GM who put together the Gas House Gang. He is a legend, and few people realize just how big an effect he had on the game. Mr. Rickey (as Diz called him when he really wanted something) was the sole inventer of the modern Minor League Baseball system. Before him and his vision, all minor league teams were indenpendenly owned, with all of their players being independently contracted. Not only that he was the GM responsible for bring Jackie Robinson to the big show. He barely makes my criteria as his signatures at the bottom end are just below the 1000 dollar mark.

2. Dizzy Dean - An absolute legend. Not just for his playing, more so for his antics and personality. He won 30 games in 1934 and maybe might have been the most confident player to play the game. Its amazing that I don't have one of these auto's yet, since they are easily obtained, and always available on ebay in PSA certified variety. They are actually fairly affordable for a player of his stature due to his staying in baseball as a broadcaster until his death. He had a good look period of fan exposure and he signed a ton, so you can find this one in a good example for around 300 dollars.

3. Peyton Manning - Probably my favorite football player, and I have just recently decided that I would pursue non-baseball auto's for some of my favorite players. He isn't hard to obtain, although his can be pricey.

4. Tim Duncan - See above.

5. Tony LaRussa and Whitey Herzog - Career managers are hard auto's to get especially if you are looking for a released baseball card with a certified auto. These are two very different but very important managers in Cardinals history. The price isn't an issue so much here, as just finding a good one on a medium that you like.

There will be a part 2 to this.

Draft Pick Salary Demands

I thought about this for a while this morning. Most people are quick to say that baseball draft picks should shut up and take very little, and not demand a lot of money since, unlike the NFL and NBA they will not be contributing on the field for their team for at least a year or two. I decided to think about it by putting myself in their shoes and try to come up with what I would do if faced with the same decisions they were. First of all, I was as big a fan of baseball when I was playing high school ball as I am now, and I am sure some of the players drafted are the same. I was a student of the history of the game, and I had allegiances and ideas about teams. I would find it impossible to just go where I was drafted and not say anything, or not to tell certain teams that frankly I am just not playing for your club. I am honestly amazed there is not more of this. If I were good enough to be drafted in the first round I would have had teams that I would play for, and teams that I would not play for. If I were going to drafted out of high school by say the Cubs, Yankees, Giants, or Braves, then they would have very limited options. They would either have to make me the highest paid draft pick ever, or I would be going to college, or playing in the frontier league for a year. But I would be honest with their scouts before the draft, so as not to surprise them, I would just have to say, I hate your team, I have always hated your team, and I can't really be honest with myself and say I want to take your money. Secondly, I can't fall these guys for trying to get as much as they can in their first contract. Many of them are foregoing college, and this might be the only big contract that get. Its got to last for a while, and give them something to fall back on if say, they have a catastrophic injury, or can't hit a professional slider.

Transformers Ramblings

Normally when I do a movie review I try to give the movie a fair and honest rating on a scale of 1 to 10. I see a lot of movies, probably more than anybody I know and even when I don't enjoy the movie and think I have a fair eye for what is good, well-made and quality, and try to rate movies accordingly. I cannot in any fairness give this movie a rating. If I did it wouldn't be accurate, because I would give this movie a full 10/10 and obviously its not a great work of film making. Normally, I am a big fan of Rotten Tomatoes, and I think its generally a good way to get an honest representation of the quality of a film. However, it misses the boat with films like this. Most of the reviewers just don't understand what this film needed to do, and what they were trying to accomplish. Most of the reviewers said that this film was to thin on plot, to much action, and was to violent and adult for a film that is marketing a line of toys that Hasbro is trying to sell. This reviewers obviously don't understand the purpose here. This movie is marketed towards people like me. To mostly males, who are in their late 20's to early 30's who grew up loving the Transformers, not so much as a toy (which most of us did love) but the cartoon. We don't need much of a plot, and we don't need much character build up. We already had a built in attachment to the primary characters, because for many of us Optimus Prime's fight in the movie was our first real taste of learning that sometimes the good guys die. This film accomplishes a lot. The only real emotion this movie is trying to stir is that same feeling most of us had when watching the end of the animated Transformers movie back in the day, and to be honest, I would say for many of us that movie resulted in tears, not as a result of being scared by a movie, but at the loss of an honorable character. The movie did accomplish that goal, and the mid movie fight scene with Optimus is truly epic. As for the rest, what more would you want from a Transformer movie. Lots of robots, and lots of explosions. You don't need an Oscar winning script to make this work. Very few times I would advocate this, but in a series like this the more explosions the better. One of the other things about this movie that people seem to want to make into an issue is the racial typecasting of the twins. Critics said this was inappropriate and that this characters only played the fool and contributed nothing. Those people really need to shut up. They aren't making fun of race, its more like a Malibu's most wanted thing making fun of posers, or people trying to imitate what they think is "gangster." And as for them doing nothing they are perhaps two of the bravest autobots in the movie. Being the smallest combat robots, they took on the largest combat robot with no fear, and those saying that they showed nothing and were a bad representation are idiotic and just looking for something to stir up something contraversial. One thing that made me laugh was Dr. Claw, I mean Soundwave. He is voice by Frank Welker, who of course is a legend in cartoon voicing. He also voiced Dr. Claw in the Inspector Gadget cartoon and for Soundwave its the EXACT same voice he used for Dr. Claw. The first time he said anything I laughed so hard I think the people in the row in front of me thought I was crazy.

Odds and Ends so far this season.

You know verbal mess ups, mispronunciations, and unusual sayings by announcers are always fodder for being repeated over and over again. Some have become legendary like one by a particularly departed Cubs announce "hey Steve, Did you know that Piazza spelled backwards is pronounced AZAP." This is not a new phenomenon, and Dizzy Dean was famous for it for years. Cardinals announcer Mike Shannon is building his own senile reputation for saying some incredibly silly things. One man however, which you don't here much about is Tim McCarver, which is weird, because one would think that he has a plethora of malpropisms, as he can tend to be redundant at best and downright idiotic at worst. My personal favorite ingame flub was by this man when he was going a Yankee's/White Sox game some years ago. I believe this was during Marcus Thames rookie season for the Yankees. Thames name is actually the same as the river in England and is pronounced "Tim's." Joe Buck was calling with him then as well calls Thames by the appropriate pronounciation, and McCarver interrupts with his great wisdom and says your saying his name wrong its Thames (he says it with the TH like the way it looks) and then says "just like the river in Eurupe." Both making himself looking silly by mispronouncing both and then looking even sillier by trying to correct Buck who was, in fact, correct.

Alex Rodriguez is not my favorite player. Ok, if i were to make a list of every Major League player and organize it from favorite to least favorite he would probably be in the bottom two. However, even I will say that he seems to be getting a raw deal by Yankees manager Joe Girardi. For the first time in his career he is getting the chance to play Major League baseball in his hometown of Miami this weekend. He had given out nearly one hundred tickets to friends and family including his mother, who still lives in Miami. However, apparently Girardi decided to bench Rodriguez for the first two games in the series due to fatigue. It is true that Rodriguez is struggily mightily, but given his reaction it seems that perhaps Arod himself didn't know he was having fatigue problems. When you do have a superstar of the caliber of Arod (once again, not a huge fan) even if he is struggling and recovering from an injury its not really fair to him to bench him when he is coming home to play for the very first time. He has done enough in his career to get a little bit of a pass on starting slow and why bench him right now? Why not next week? Let him play at home, especially when the replacement is going to be Angel Berroa. Pretty busch league stunt by Girardi, most managers wouldn't do it, not this series anyway.

NEWSFLASH Albert Pujols is good. He isn't quite getting the Bonds treatment, but I truthfully I don't think Major League pitchers will ever embarrass themselves to the point they did with Bonds again. It is true that his average is down a little bit, for him anyway, .320 would be good for most people. Even it wasn't for him the Cardinals wouldn't be anywhere near where they are right now. With the All-Star game in St. Louis I guess its hard to hope that he won't enter the home run derby. The Cardinals will really suffer if he loses his swing for even a little bit while trying to put on a show for the home town Cardinals fans, or even worse, if he injures himself like Jim Edmonds did when he was in the Home Run Derby.

The Skip Schumaker move to 2nd hasn't been as big a problem as I thought it would be. He might not be a gold glover, but he doesn't seem to be a glaring weakness either. What he lacks in nimbeness turning the double play at second he makes up for by having a seriously plus arm for a second sacker.

Dave Duncan is a very good coach, maybe the best ever as far a pitching coaches go. A question I have been thinking about is does he deserve to be a Hall of Famer. I am not for certain if he does, but there aren't any coaches in the Hall of Fame. Tony LaRussa is going to be a Hall of Famer, and perhaps Duncan deserves to be, since he has been with TLR every bit of his Hall of Fame managerial career.

Is anxiety in Major League Baseball an epidemic? I am not one for belittling issues, but Joey Votto (he was slugging when he went on the DL not struggling like the other guys) Khalil Green (he does look like a guy who has never had fun on the DL) Zack Grienke, and Dontrelle Willis. Is it just that guys are using this as a way of working through slumps without getting dumped? Or are Major League teams just more sensitive to problems like this.

Speaking of Khalil Green, the Cardinals have been playing him at third, partially because they have a hole there, are partly because they think it will help with the anxiety. They think that its a less cerebral position, and that at third he will do more reacting and less thinking about the play. Interesting take, and we shall see how he responds to bunt coverages.

Sammy Sosa and steroids.

BREAKING NEWS: SAMMY SOSA TESTED POSITIVE FOR A PED IN 2003. Ok, so its true that apparently Sosa did test positive for a performance enhancing drug and it made headlines in the sports world yesterday. But lets be honest about this, is anybody actually surprised anymore when a name like Sosa's pops up testing positive? I for one am not shocked by any name that comes up from the late 90's and early 2000's anymore. And frankly did we need confirmation to know that Sosa was on them? Anybody that watched him play had to have him on their top 2 or 3 list of players most likely to be taking a shot in the butt. My top 4 list was Big Mac, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens. I have been screaming for a while now that Roger Clemens was the one pitcher I was certain of to hitting the juice, and truthfully he is the only player other than Bonds that I have felt a certain vindication and satisfaction in seeing the news come out. The question though that I feel needs to be asked is was it worth what Big Mac and Sosa did to themselves and the game? I would have to say yes. Those of you who know me well know that I am a rules nazi. I am fair to the rules to a fault, when I play softball I have actually called myself out when an umpire was umping that didn't know all the rules. I hate it when my team gets the benefit of a bad call and I tell an umpire when I think he missed a call, even if it is one that helped my team. But at the same time, 1998 was a magical season for baseball fans. Outside of hard core baseball fans, baseball was not doing well after the 1994 strike and 1995 lock out ( I do believe the owners were more at fault than the players, and they get a bum rap on this, but thats a blog for another day) and he game was struggling mightily to get butts in the seats. Sosa and McGwire's home run chase changed that. It created interest in the game on a national level that baseball had not enjoyed in a long time. That interest did not go away, it maintained through the 2000's and even though baseball can't compete with football for television ratings (this mostly has to do with the number of games) people were going to game at a great rate in most cities, Florida and Montreal of course were exceptions. Montreal baseball was destroyed by the strike, and never recovered. They had a hell of a team in 1994 and had real chances of going places that year, and their fans got their hearts ripped out. But for most teams 1998 was magical. Not only was it home runs in numbers never seen before, but it was a rivalry between two players in the same division, and each on teams that historically have one of the best rivalries in baseball. Everbody was watching, everybody wanted to know what was going to happen next, and everybody was enchanted by the fact Sosa and McGwire were pushing each other to play better via encouragment rather than animosity. Sure the steriods make the season seem a bit hollow now, but you can't take away what it did for baseball, even now baseball is doing all right and its in part due to that season. And you can take away some of the gloss on what they accomplished on the field with their numbers, but you can't take away the grace they handled themselves with during that chase and embracing what they were to baseball. And lets keep in mind that in 1998 they weren't technically even breaking any baseball rules, which means that perhaps baseball administration is far more on the hook for steroids than the individual players are. Was it worth it, yea, it probably was, without 1998 contraction was a very real and ugly possiblity, and the face of baseball could have been drastically different. Would baseball have been better if the owners and administration had been more responsible in their drug testing? Absolutely, but us and the players have to play with the hand they were dealt, and we still have to look for a silver lining in a cloudy sky.

Thoughts on Literature

Recently one of those literary survey doohickies came around on facebook, and I being the listless literary geek that I am, I felt compelled to fill out its questions, and pass it around to my friends. While I was reading it, the inevitable question came up as to what what your favorite novel is and as usual, I without thought filled in "The Sun Also Rises." This is as most of my friends know, my absolute favorite work of literature. When I typed it in I thought to myself that this was the first thing in my life that I read that made me realize that there is in fact great literature in the world. The first time that I had a real experience where what I was reading made me think, deeply and introspectively about life and it was the first work I had read that made me realize literature as a true art form. I have a feeling that all great lovers of literature have a similar transcendental moment as this. The type of moment that just can't be delivered by your general run of the mill authors (i.e. The Twilight Series, Dean Koontz, etc) and can only be delivered by a true master of the written word. I am curious as to what some of those written works may be for the rest of you.

Best Five Movies About Baseball!!

Well as many of you know I am both obssessed with movies and with baseball.  So a logical step would be to release  a best five blog rating the best baseball movies of all time.  

5.  Major League-  This movie is no Oscar winner, and its not exactly the dramatic stuff of legends, however it does have a lot going for it.  It has lines and scenes that are repeatedly quoted and easy to remember, and its just darn fun.  Bob Uecker is an absolute riot, and although no best actor nominees will come from this movie it is perfectly cast.  

4.  Bang the Drum Slowly-This is for some reason an oft forgotten film.  Its a great bit of work with a good script, heart wrenching story, and good acting.  It features a very young Robert De Niro as Bruce Pearson, a role that is often considered to be one of his most tragic and emotional roles.  This is not a feel good movie about baseball but what it is, is a movie that puts professional baseball in perspective with the realities of life.  

3.  Bull Durham- I am sure this is number 1 on a lot of people's lists.  I do enjoy this film, but I think that it is a hair over rated.  It is very well acted and it does have some very quotoble scenes, and it gives a perspective on minor league baseball as opposed to the big show.  

2.  The Natural- This was actually the first baseball movie that I am watched.  It is as good to me now as it was back then.  It has a great cast with Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger and the perfect cast Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth as the coaches.

1.  The Pride of the Yankee's-  This is hands down the best movie about baseball.  Gary Cooper is legendary in portraying Lou Gehrig.  Gehrig's heart wrenching speech upon his retirement is enough to bring tears, and made even sadder by the fact that this speech really happened (more or less, lines are slightly different) and that Lou Gehrig truly meant what he was saying and is one of the greatest men to ever suit up and play a professional sport.  

A little touchy about Arkansas

I have realized that even though I have left Arkansas, and probably plan on leaving Arkansas to live somewhere else after Law, I am incredibly defensive about it as my home. This is not a new tendency for me, I think I have always been like that, I just think I am not starting to come to terms with it. I remember back in August of 1999 when I was at music camp for Harding. Back then there was daily kitchen duty and certain people each day would go around getting people refills and the like. There was a girl named Rachel Cooper from New Jersey who came to our table, a very cute girl, so being the flirt that I am I paid attention. She was talking to the person across the table from me (Jeff this might have been you, I can't remember, I know we met at this music camp, and hung out at it a lot. It was either you or Adam Sullivan) and she said "I can't believe I ended up in Arkansas, I hate it here, it such a backwards pitiful state." I was infuriated, although I didn't really show anger. I politely told her that this was my home and that she was welcome to leave at any time. But I was really seething on the inside. I think at that point was the first time in my life that I had seen someone outside of Arkansas, an outsider so to speak, come into my home turf and blatantly bad mouth my home. Before it had only been grumbling by people who actually lived there, and people always have the right to grumble about their home. It definitely set up an immediate defensiveness towards those that back fun of Arkansas. My family has been farming here for near two hundred years, and I am the first of my fathers line since coming from Holland in the 17th century not to be a farmer. I feel a sense of pride in that, I come from people that understand what hard work is, and what battling the natural landscape of the South is like. I guess that is why it is ingrained in me to protect the integrity of this area, and people that wish to speak ill of it front of me are going to be in for some fighting words. And those that know me, know that when that happens you will know you have been in a fight, that is for sure.

Best Five Starting Pitchers Pitching today.

I was thinking about baseball, as I normally do, and I was wondering to myself who are the best five starting pitchers in today's game? I am not going to base this purely on numbers, because with pitchers more than hitters a lot of their numbers are deceptive, and with pitchers more than hitters injury concerns are also always more of a risk. But still, I came up with this list.

5. Roy Oswalt- Undeniably he is losing his stuff a bit, and he may not have the stuff of a number 1 any more. But he also hasn't really had the benefit of a very good team behind him. But I want him for one reason. This guy will battle you each and every pitch. He is a bulldog, and his attitude towards pitching will spread to all on the staff. As a long term investment I don't like him as pitchers under six feet that are right handed do not have a very good history of having long careers.

4A.Tim Lincecum- Yea I cheat, 4A and 4B. This guy is young, and has lights out stuff and he is just purely hard to hit. There is no question he has the potential to be great for many years to come. On the other side he is very short and as a short right handed power pitcher the odds say he will have some injury troubles.

4B. David Pryce-Not much of a track record yet, but many I don't know if there is a left handed pitcher who looks harder to hit than David Pryce. 97 with movement and a slingshot wide up, if he can stay healthy and keep it in the strikezone he will have some Cy Young type seasons.

3. Johan Santana-Best changeup in baseball + knowing how to pitch= lots of unhappy NL East batters.

2. Roy Halliday- Consistently he is one of the best pitchers each year. He has a killer slider and pin point control with his 94-95 fastball. I wouldn't want to be in the box against him.

1. Chris Carpenter- I would not have put him in until this year. There is something about this guy, he can be out for a year and half and then just show up and throw a shutout. He has given up two earned runs this year in his 28 innings, and both of those shouldn't have been, since they were Chris Duncan missplays. This tells me that he has something beyond stuff. This man knows how to pitch. Even if he goes out there and has his D grade stuff he is going to get guys out. And when he has his A grade, or even B grade stuff, teams don't score runs, period.

Top Five Movies with Kurt Russell !!!

Now for a very special Top five blog honoring the greatest actor of our time, Kurt Russell.  ( A bit tongue in cheek)

5.  Deathproof-  Only a actor of his talent could make a middle aged man disgustingly eating a greasy pile of nachos interesting.

4.  The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes- Gotta love a very young Kurt getting the a computer put into his brain due to a little electric shock. Pfft, and all he got out of it was a photographic memory.

3.  Escape from New York- A legitimate classic, and one of the coolest movies of the 80's.  Women wanted to be with Snake Pliskin, and the men just dreamed of being him.  

2B.  Captain Ron-  One of the greatest action heroes in movie history.

2A.  Tombstone-  Actually a very good movie, and a good performance by Kirk, no joke here.  And Val Kilmer got to utter some of the most quotable lines in movie history.

1.  Big Trouble in Little China-  My favorite movie of all time, I could watch this movie daily when I was a kid, and probably did for large stretches of time.  This should have one best picture, and Kurt Russell should have won best actor, because "its all in the reflexes."