6/15/11 RSS Feed Favorites, with 1982 Joakim Soria Topps Card

Today's pick o' the RSS Feed, featuring a great find from the internets…

Greg Schaum of Pine Tar Press tweeted about A Hair Off Square and I had to check it out…the site features the work of Clint Wiederholt who among other things, is whipping up some ultra-fantastic ‘custom cards’ of mostly current Kansas City Royals players with klassic collectors cards borders, designs, and the like. Great stuff, and do check out his “Just Fair” series as well. What you see leading off above is part of Clint’s “History of Joakim Soria” series, this entry being based on the 1982 Topps design. Clint does a great job of tying in the current players with the design being used and some ‘what was up then’ and personal analysis of the card design and related elements, all in just a few paragraphs. Awesome stuff, I’m really happy to add A Hair Off Square to my feed.

Clint’s also done some nifty custom cards for the St. Joseph (Missouri) Mustangs, of the MINK Collegiate Baseball League (Missouri Iowa Nebraska Kansas). What is MINK? Maybe I should write about it sometime, for now you can check out their website for more info…

So, without further ado, the rest of my ramble for today…

B3: Big, Bald and Beautiful:
Top 50 update by Jonathan Mayo
Mayo’s back after a brief hiatus (he’s probably been sleeping for 3 days plus after being awake for 3 days plus) with the return of the Monday Top 50 Update. By the way, did you know you can check on the status, signings, etc of this year’s draft and other drafts, all the way back to 19-hundred-and-65 on MLB.com’s MLB Draft History?? You didn’t? Consider it now known…

Kings of Kauffman:
Don’t Put Billy In A Corner by Kevin Scobee
HEAR HEAR…it’s good to hear (and read) such positive notes about Billy Butler. I almost want to write “Remember him? He was your favorite Royal last year!” but that’s just not funny. I love the Hosmer and Moose callups, I am enjoying the pitching this year more than I was told that I would, and I really love that Alex Gordon is doing better…but I still think Billy is a total baseball stud. And yes, Kevin, you are correct. Wanna complain? Call on Chris Getz!!

The Greatest 21 Days: 1990 CMC: by Steve78
The “CMC Error: Fox for a Diamond” Trilogy
First of all…if you aren’t reading this blog every day, why not? The best baseball blog EVER, hands down…I just can’t get enough of this, better (and bigger) than a book…this series of posts is just another reason why!!
My words and puny dissertation could never fully explain this series of posts, so I’ll do my best to provide a TV-Guide synopsis and outline and trust that you will find out for yourself…First, you must read CMC Error: Fox for a Diamond where the randomizer selects a Kerwin Moore (Appleton Foxes) card from the CMC set at and, as “the picture didn’t look right,” the author began to investigate and finds an error in the set…next in the Trilogy, Steve78 writes about Kerwin Moore, Away From Home - 873…and finally, Steve Martin, Strong Character - 878…as always, baseball stories just don’t get better than this stuff. No spoilers, but it is written: “The tipoff was the hat.”

I want to leave you with my favorite Manager Ejection of the year so far, as Gary Allenson of the Norfolk Tides is ejected for arguing a Home Run call reversed to a Ground Rule Double. The clip is over 7 minutes long, but be sure you watch all the way to the end as Allenson gets thrown out and then gets a little bit cantankerous. You go, brother…you don’t need to take that crap!

Be sure you have Tug Haines : Casual Fan in your feed…Tug has started to add game notes, and they are awesome. He really keeps building up his daily adventures to a point where I have a feeling we will end the summer with a countdown of “when is the book coming out?”

I should add that today is the 47th anniversary of the 1964 Lou Brock/Ernie Broglio Transaction. How you celebrate is up to you.

The current 2-game winning streak against the Brewers has been some very, very exciting Cubs baseball. I just love it. Go CUBS.

Eien no tomodachi,
Stevo-sama

Can't Get Enough of Darwin Barney?

Maybe you’ve had it with the CUBS this year, but just can’t get enough of the scrappy rookie All-Star write-in candidate second baseman Darwin Barney…


Fear not, Cubs fans…here’s something that will put a smile on your face! Forgive me if you’ve heard this before, but our little buddy Darwin has been in a movie!!

The movie is the 2009 “indie” sports baseball comedy Calvin Marshall, directed by Gary Lundgren and starring Steve Zahn, Diedrich Bader, Alex Frost, and none other than Darwin Barney as “Murphy,” a small role but a role nonetheless! If you already knew this…good for you! If you didn’t know this, well now you can Google it and find out more, even see a few trailers, etc.

You don’t have to wait long to see him, immediately following the title sequence is the big ‘baseball team tryout’ in which Barney gets a decent amount of camera “face time”…

Steve Zahn as ‘Coach Little’ speaking to the folks trying out for the team…the title character Calvin Marshall is seen at the lower right corner…do you see Darwin Barney?


OK, zooming in a little…and using my magic red circle, do you see him NOW?!?


The camera pans across the faces of the prospective players, here’s a closer shot of Darwin, right before the camera stops on the face of the character Calvin Marshall listening to Coach Little’s typical ‘you aren’t good enough to play on my team’ baseball movie speech…


Oh, yes…because you demand ACTION in your baseball movies, here’s a shot of Darwin Barney as “Murphy,” in the batting cage!


As far as “baseball” movies go, this one really isn’t as bad as most. Do check it out, if for no other reason than to get MORE Darwin Barney in your life!

So this movie has been out since 2009, and lots of people know about it, so why am I bringing this up now?

First reason: It’s currently on Netfilx streaming…and recently so…
This is nice because if you’re one of those whose movie-watching habits have changed at least a little bit since Netflix and the advent of their massive and ever-expanding streaming library, this means you can actually watch just enough of the movie to determine whether or not it’s worth watching the whole thing.

Let’s level-set real quick…it's the truth that most “baseball” movies are nothing but crap. The only thing that I find “good” about any handful of the plus/minus 3 sigma “baseball” movies are the cameo appearances and/or the occasional baseball pop culture references that usually appear in these movies…otherwise, they are usually nothing but junk. It’s nice when new “baseball” movies appear in my queue, because I can flip through enough scenes to find out the difference between the near-gems and the junk. This movie qualifies first because of the cameo appearance (Barney)…but, this was not meant to be a movie review, as I don’t want to start getting into reviewing movies on a baseball blog…

Second reason: It’s DRAFT DAY today…
So fire up MLB Network, enjoy a draft or two of your own, and let’s celebrate the seasonal reoccurrence of the pageant which is the potential future of professional baseball, on parade with agents and former players galore!!

…and hey…”Calvin Marshall” even has a Twitter account!!


Go CUBS!!

HAPPY DRAFT DAY!!!