Blog Kiosk: 7/19/2009

How did I miss posting this on Sunday?

• I hear that Matt Kemp was a little tipsy at the ESPY's. Of course, it appears that truth is more boring than fiction.
  
• Free Andy LaRoche finds some great toys here. So are you gonna crack them open?
• Erin Andrew's was cornered at LAX and spoke about getting whacked in the face with a ball at Dodger Stadium (Hat Tip: Diamond Leung)
  
• Ichiro paid his respects to George Sisler at his grave. He had broken Sisler's single season hits record in 2004.
  
• I don't know if this is real or not, but I got a good laugh about it. Mickey Mantle was quite the player- if you know what I mean? NSFW (Hat Tip: Memories of Kevin Malone)
  
• Upper Deck is trying to cash in on the Michael Jackson's gravy train. They will be inserting 4 different limited edition cards of him in their upcoming 2009 UDx Baseball set. See one below. See them all at Wax Heaven. So are these cards a cheap gimmick or a worthy tribute? (Hat Tip: Wax Heaven)
• This is a great Dodger collection.

Hat Tip: SOSG:

Card of the Week: Swallowed by Ivy

What is great about this card is how distinctive it is. I'm not talking about the player (who had a 12 year career that ended in infamy), but a location that any Baseball novice can immediately tell you about. This 1993 Upper Deck card of Denny Neagle features a pic of him being engulfed by the outfield ivy at Wrigley Field before an afternoon game. He looks carefree as he is probably just hanging out before the game snagging batting practice balls. Well, he's hanging out since running after Baseballs seems to be the furthest thing on his mind. I would do anything to just have a moment to lay back on that ivy wall for just a second.

2009 Obak Previews

Modern cards borrowing their design from vintage sets is all the rage today. Topps has the Allen & Ginter set, Upper Deck will be releasing their inaugural Goodwin Champions set and now TriStar (maker of minor league cards) has Obak.

As indicated above, TriStar has become the preeminent producer of Minor League Baseball cards for the hobby, so it only makes sense that their throwback set take its design from a vintage minor league set. Obak tobacco cards were produced from 1909 to 1911 and featured only West Coast minor league teams and players. They are very rare and complete sets are scarce in the hobby. VG examples of common cards will set you back about $65 to $85 a piece. The vintage set has been designated as T212 and are of the same size as other tobacco issues from the period. Go to this link for some more info about it.

Anyway, the only card released so far that interest us Dodger fans is the below Duke Snider autographed card with him in his Texas League Fort Worth Cats uniform. When this photo was originally taken he could only dream of the Hall of Fame career he would eventually have.

Hat Tip: Sports Card Info:

Video: Ethier in Beverly Hills