Apparently, semi-fearsome facial hair is the order of the day for the Reds this season. I know I'm scared.


I kid because the Reds have not had a good time of it in California. They damn near got swept by the Giants, in humiliating fashion, no less. But one thing remains true - I will never get tired of seeing Scott Rolen in a Reds uniform. He just looks like he was born to play for the Reds. And honestly, he's been the secret weapon for the team this year. Long may it continue.


This is Todd Van Poppel. You may remember him. Twenty years ago, he used to be Stephen Strasburg.

Look, I'm not here to bash on Strasburg. I wish him all the best and hope that he is successful and has a happy life. But Strasburgmania (and yes, I'm guilty of it, too, if you look at my Twitter account during his first game) is premature and quite silly. I hope that his injuries aren't serious, and he does become a great, dominant pitcher. Baseball needs those - pitchers who you make a point to watch whenever they start because there's always a chance they could pitch a game for the ages. Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson - anything was possible with those guys whenever they took the mound. I hope Strasburg does turn out like them, because it makes the game fun. But to quote Bill Simmons paraphrasing Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction, let's not go sucking each other's popsicles just yet.


From the same Score set, here's a card of Darrin Jackson. Two things:

a) from the look of things, this picture was taken on a Negro League commemorative day because I'm pretty sure those are Chicago American Giants caps the players are wearing

b) maybe I should do a "Cards of Baseball Announcers" series like Night Owl and his Great Night Cards.


Sometimes I hate my scanner. Here's a nice shiny silver mini of Bobby Crosby, and thanks to my scanner, it looks dull, lifeless and dark. You can't even read the name on the card.

By the way, that's two different metallic parallel cards of Bobby Crosby that I have (the other is a gold Topps parallel) and he doesn't even play for the A's anymore.


Dear U.S. Playing Card Company - I have a bone to pick with you. I think your set of baseball player playing cards is pretty cool - but the three of hearts? How hard would it have been to make this guy the jack of spades, or even the jack of clubs?


By the way, this guy should have been the joker.


Finally, there's this card, and it requires a bit of explanation. You see, it came sandwiched in amongst the following other cards - a 2010 Barry Zito, the Buster Posey rookie card I mentioned in the other post, and a Tim Lincecum ToppsTown card. I flipped through them and thought "well, Greg knows I collect Lincecum cards, so maybe he thinks I'm a Giants fan, and he's just trying to unload some of his unwanted random Giants cards on me." I'm not a Giants fan, of course, but Cepeda is a Hall-of-Famer so it's a nice card to have. I must have looked at this card at least five different times before actually flipping the damn thing over and realising what kind of card it actually was:


It's a Cards Your Mom Threw Out original back card! You know, the insert set that I'm foolishly trying to collect to completion. What a generous card to include in the trade package. Thanks Night Owl - you're still my favourite nocturnal trading partner. Even if you did steal that kid's Tootsie Pop.