Hey, Paul!

What some call a throwaway oddball, I call the perfect opportunity to sneak my brother's favorite player onto my stupid Padres blog...

Give This Guy One, Too.

This card is almost as much of a flop as Jim Ed's tenure at PETCO. First off, lousy photo: warming up being framed as action- very weak. Secondly- and this is much, much worse- THIS IS THE TEAM CHECKLIST!!! I just called Amy Poehler to tell her about this and she said "REALLY?!?!?" I could hear her husband Will Arnett in the background yelling "COME ON!!!" Seriously, Upper Deck; has your staff even watched baseball the last few years? It's like one of their guys took a nap in 2002 and woke up to this photo. "Whoa! The Padres scored the best centerfielder in baseball! Better just automatically throw him on their checklist." That's where his secretary should have entered to say "Um, excuse me sir, but Edmonds is far beyond his prime; that aside, they had the Cy Young winner last year. Their firstbaseman is kind of a badass too..."

Somebody Give This Guy A Job!

I wasn't as surprised when Shakespeare got released today as I was when the Red Sox signed him this offseason. It's common knowledge that we got him and Cla for Mirabelli because he was thoroughly incapable of catching Wakefield's knuckler. What the hell would have changed, Theo? It's not like he had a whole lot of any opportunities to hone his knuckler-corralling skills since he left. The only theory that makes any sense to me is that they snagged him up to be their starter in case they couldn't bring Varitek back. I doubt Bardo will be unemployed for long; no other teams have the same set of all-or-nothing circumstances that forced him out of the Boston organization twice in three years.

'92 Leaf vs. The San Diego Padres

Since I called myself out in my last entry for failing to do so, now seems like a good time to feature some cardboard from way back when. As I was flipping through a stack trying to settle on eight to scan, each of these two jumped out at me as a perfectly poetic summary of forty years of Friar futility.










Ironically, these poignant portraits of hopelessness in action were snapped during a rare stretch of mild success. During my research process for this particular project (Doesn't that sound so much more credible than "While I was googling shit for my stupid blog that nobody reads..."?), I was somewhat stunned to find that the Padres of my youth weren't as bad as I 'misremembered'. I really had no idea that in the eleven seasons of 1982 (best year ever) through 1992 we had only three losing seasons:
'86, '87 and '90. The one thing that I found fascinating about 1990 is that Trader Jack McKeon and Greg Riddoch each managed half of the season and ended with identical .463 records. This is the point where I'm practically obligated to say "But I digress..."
Nonetheless, what the hell, Leaf? What possessed your people to believe that kids want to rip a pack of primos just to see their heroes looking like total asses?

See Why

First off, I'd like to apologize to my readers (both of you) for my week-long absence. Yeah, I know I threw that Antonelli up on Monday but I'll be the first to admit that was total BS. Things have been hectic abut I should have been prepared- that's why I'm churning out a few tonight to keep in the queue for days I'm swamped or just lazy. Anyway, on to the card...

It's crazy; I have exponentially more late 80s to mid/ late 90s cards (Pads and otherwise) than anything else but for some reason I'm constantly featuring and blathering about current ones. Maybe it's because they're still novel to me as opposed to the stacks of Padres past which I've perused repeatedly to the point that they're only slightly less weathered than my first copy of Ball Four (if, for some strange reason, you haven't read the greatest book ever written by anybody about anything, come back later to see what I've written about CY- right now it's much more imperative that you go straight to amazon.com or your friendly local bookstore) or possibly it could be that these players are fresher in my mind therefore easier to come up with cohesive thoughts about. I mean, seriously, what the hell am I gonna say about Roberto Friggin Petagine?

At any rate, here's my favorite of five Pads I scored the other day from a half-off ten pack box of 08 Topps. This particular quadrilateral commemorates the five shutouts occurring around the league on May 30, 2007. I'm equal parts amazed and pleased that CY got front billing amidst a cast including Zito, Lowe, Bedard and Sergio Mitre. None of the starters pitched an actual shutout, all bowing out to their respective bullpens.

On a side note, I went to the game the day before this one and it was definitely not the sort of affair worth printing a card about. Boomer Wells started, Li'l Giles got tossed early and, yeah, we lost.

Another '86 Oddball

Commenter "Anonymous" (sweet user name, dude! It sounds all mysterious and shit) thought the oddball Rollie card was "a nice looking card", adding that "good design and the sweet 'stache gives it an old timey feel" and I wholeheartedly concur. While this promo (also from '86) features another sweet 'stache, it falls short in all other areas. I don't know which is more apparent- the two corporate logos or the logoless hat?

'86 Fingers

(not to be confused with 88 Fingers)

Kevin over at Card "O" The Day posted an oddball card today which, in turn, triggered me to dig up and dust off this bad mofo. I don't have a cool story or any old photos taken by a relative to go along with it but I'm sure we can all agree that it's still one pretty sweet card. I've never seen another card like this- it was printed in 1986 by TCMA and numbered "11 - PAD" which makes me curious who the other ten or so guys were...

'08 UD Adrian

Speaking of Team Mexico and guys named Gonzalez, here's a card I've had sitting around for awhile of the Gold Glover himself. I know that a lot of people don't like the camo but I dig it. I think it's kinda weak that other teams who do not hail from America's Official Military City have taken it upon themselves to bite our style. We did it first; eff you Cincy and eff you White Sox. Also, I find it interesting that they went all out with green helmets, belts and socks but he's rockin' the standard blue sleeves. Paging Dr. Paul Lukas!

Edgar!

Here's the other one I pulled a few days ago and without a doubt the one I was most stoked about. How can you not love this guy? I mean, even if he wasn't a 30 year old rookie playing alongside his superstar younger brother on their hometown team they grew up dreaming of playing for, he's still got that unsung, not all that great, utility guy quality that I look for in a favorite player. I really hope he doesn't get squeezed out this year with the glut of infielders we brought to camp.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... Go Team Mexico!

First Win of Spring!

The Pads picked up their first win today, thanks in part to the offensive acumen of The Savior. In four at bats, Chase picked up two hits and a run in addition to driving a guy in. Yay, future! Now, if only we could do something about him being a Steelers fan...