Blog Kiosk: 4/27/2011

The McCourt saga is causing me brain damage.

• Eephus League was at a Dodger game recently and has a interesting round-up.

  In the bottom of the seventh and with Ivan DeJesus at the plate, a small child half a row away from me threw up. As his mother picked him up, trying to get him up the stairs, he projectile vomited across at least eight to ten seats.

• David Pinto at Baseball Analytics looks into Andre Ethier's hot start and finds that Andre is making better contact compared to years past. Check out his analysis to see some great graphs.

  He's not swinging more at outside pitches, except those in the upper outside corner. He's squaring up those pitches better, however. In the past, 19% of balls he put in play on outside pitches resulted in line drives. This season, 35% of those pitches turn into line drives.

• Check out this great Eddie Gaedel autograph photo highlighted by REA.
• Beckett interviews sports artist Dick Perez.
• Jabba!!!! Via Punk Rock Paint. Check out even more Star Wars vintage card creations from him here.
• Via Shorpy, a 1923 photo of the Washington DC Fire Department Baseball team.

Auto Collection: Edwin Jackson Diamond Kings

I remember when this kid first came up to the Dodgers as a 19 year old in 2003. He was tall and lanky, and had the makings of a great fastball that was sure to make us all forget about giving up too early on Pedro Martinez. Heck, I was sure he would be added to the long line of great Dodger pitchers. He started out great as he out-dueled Randy Johnson in his very first outing. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Maybe the Dodgers called him up too early and ruined his development. I dunno. All I know is that Edwin Jackson has yet to achieve the heights talent evaluators promised.

Here is a 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings autographed card of Edwin Jackson in my collection. It is numbered to 100

Gypsy Queen is Live: Check out a Koufax

Topps newest vintage themed Baseball card set is now officially live, and as you can imagine the interwebs are already filling up with photos. The set is called Gypsy Queen (which is fairly un-PC since Roma is the more preferred terminology today) and is fashioned after a 19th century set considered some of the rarest cards known in the hobby. Below is an example of one of these scarce cards.

I've yet to put together some Dodger base cards from the set (don't worry I'll get to that in a couple of days,) I did want to show one of the key finds any collector would love to grab. Above is the Sandy Koufax autograph card from the set. I had joined "A Cardboard Problem's" group case break and picked up the Dodgers, so I'm excited about what I will get in the case. I'm crossing my fingers hoping the fine ladies there pull the card above.