Ed McCaffrey

Ed McCaffrey was a wide receiver in the NFL, spending most of his playing years with the Denver Broncos. He was a Pro Bowler in 1998 and played in three Super Bowls.

I don't have his card. I lifted this one from an ebay auction. I'm blogging about him this morning because he's now an entrepreneur. He is a speaker, runs football camps and sells mustard. Yes, mustard.

He's sold a lot of this stuff. If you want some, go to PLBSports.com. They'll hook you up.

Back to the football camps. A lot of players lend their name to a camp. They'll show up, pass a few balls, pal around with the kids and head home. I hope that Ed does a bit more than that. Towards the end of June his camp is having a mini camp. It is the Dare to Play Football Camp for children and young adults with Down syndrome. Two days. He's also hosting a cheer leading camp for children and young adults with Down syndrome

I wish that Caroline was older and I wish that we were closer to Colorado. She'd enjoy participating in that. Either the football camp or the cheer leading camp. I'm not sure which one.

Milestone Contest

I'm going to have a contest in honor of a blogging milestone. Mr. Night Owl himself recently crested the thousandth entry mark for his wonderful blog, Night Owl Cards.

I've been blogging about cards for about 17 months or so. I've got about 40 % of the posts that Greg does. But this isn't about numbers. Well, okay, it is. When I say I've got about 40 %, that means I have 401 entries. I took a moment and looked back to from where I started. January 10, 2009. By the end of that month, I posted 26 times. I received just six comments. One was from my dad and one was from someone trying offer me something in exchange for some advertising space.

But I carried on, slugging my way through what I thought was a meaningless pathway of drivel, ready to toss in the towel. Along the way there were some blogs that spoke to me. Greg was one of them. Perhaps because we used to live a few hours from each other. Perhaps because we're about the same age. Perhaps because he's just a good writer. We'll go with that last one. Greg's writing makes me smile. Oh, other bloggers elicit a similar response. You know who you are. This is Greg's post. Get a life.

So, in honor of Greg wasting hours of his life behind the keyboard and hovering over the scanner, I present a contest. But since this is my blog and I hit a much smaller milestone and I'm feeling rather vain this evening, I would like you to let me know which post of mine made you smile. If you want to let Greg know which post of his you enjoyed, you can as well.

Yes, that means you actually have to go back through some of my posts and do a bit of homework. Really, it won't be so terribly awful.

What? You want to know about the prizes? Like this isn't about me? Hah!

Well, before the prizes comes the rules.

• Comment below with a post or a phrase from my 400 or so entries that made you smile like Willie is smiling in the above photo.
• The contest will end on Friday, June 18th. Saturday, June 19th is right out.
• I will select the answer that I like the best. The rest I'll toss into the randomizer for other prizes.
• I'll ship the prizes out after July 1st. Yeah, I'm slow like that.

Now, the prizes...

• A computer (Windows) version of Strat-O-Matic's Baseball game.
• A few baseball books. Semi-decent ones, too.
• A mess of cards of my choosing. Not your favorite player, not your favorite team. Unless you're lucky.

There. No bonus entries for spreading the word. No guessing the players in a photo. No trying to bribe me. Save that for Gint-A-Cuffs II.

Smokies Game Tonight

Tonight I took the kids to Smokies Park. The Smokies were playing the Huntsville Stars. We were guests of Knoxville Pediatric Cardiology's Heart to Heart support group.

In the first, outfielder Tony Campana made it to third. Manager Bill Dancy coaches. Campana went 2 for 3 tonight.

Outfielder Ty Wright takes a big cut. Ty went 1 for 4. The Smokies got two runs in the first inning.

Tennessee's Craig Muschko drills one in. Muschko pitched 6 innings, gave up 1 earned run, 6 hits, 1 walk, and got 8 Ks. After six innings the score stood 3-2 in favor of the Smokies.

It was late and loud so we left at the bottom of the fifth.

In 1957 and 1958 the Smokies were part of the Oriole's farm system. This one's for Beardy.

From 1959 to 1964 they switched allegiance to the Tigers. This one's for Kevin and sons (Louis and Alex (who doesn't blog so much anymore)).

At many minor league games they have a player signing before the games. Not near the dugout, but right up near the Dippin' Dots stand. Tonight was Luke Sommer.



Quoting from tonight's Smokies' game notes insert sheet:

Luke Sommer hasn't allowed a run in his first three Tennessee appearances. Sommer, who joined the Smokies from Daytona last week, has pitched in three and two-thirds innings, allowing only three hits while walking one batter and striking out two. Yesterday, Sommer pitched a scoreless ninth against the 2-3-4 hitters for the Stars, inducing three groundouts.

He was kind enough, after signing two tickets, to take a photo with Caroline.

Bonus image... Luke Sommer's 2009 Choice Single A card.

Other people that are important in tonight's game. Dr. Jennings and his lovely wife, Marianne.

Dr. Jennings, Caroline, Jackson, Bryan Cox, and Smokies' General Manager, Brian Cox.

The Smokies fell to the Stars, 6-4. The Smokies are just a half game ahead of the West Tennessee DiamondJaxx. I have faith in them. They'll do well.

Thanks, Dr. Jennings (and yes, I know that I can call him Jeff, but this is a public forum and I'd like to show some public respect) and Marianne for hosting this fun event.

Heatin' Up The Summer

1992 was the last year for the Knoxville team to be called the Knoxville Blue Jays. Before becoming the Blue Jays in 1980 they were the Knoxville Sox, starting in 1972, the AA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. They later became the Knoxville Smokies and are now the Tennessee Smokies.

I found this year book and ticket for a whopping 25¢. Yearbooks are always nice, because they give stats, photos and sometimes a bit of history. I hit the bonus on this one, for it had three signatures.

On page 37 they stand out against the scorecard and a Paramount U-li-ka cleaner ad.

First up is Garth Iorg. Garth was the manager in 1992. He spent nine seasons in the majors, all with Toronto.

Nigel Wilson. #30. Nigel was the #2 pick in the 1992 Expansion Draft. The Marlins kept him for a few years, then off to Cincy and then off to Cleveland.

Mike McAlpin was a scout and then a coach. Don't know what happened to him.

Maybe I should make my own cut auto cards.

Where Jim Joyce erred

You've all seen it. It has been the talk around the water cooler. First base umpire Jim Joyce made a call in the ninth inning of the Detroit-Cleveland game Wednesday night. He called the batter, Jason Donald, safe on what seemed to be a simple put-out. The fans booed, the players screamed, Twitter was ablaze.

So, what did Jim Joyce do that was so wrong?

When in doubt, look to the rules.


Official Rules of Major League Baseball

9.02 (b)

If there is reasonable doubt that any umpire’s decision may be in conflict with the rules, the manager may appeal the decision and ask that a correct ruling be made. Such appeal shall be made only to the umpire who made the protested decision.

The Tigers' manager, Jim Leyland, made such an appeal to Joyce. The way that I read the rules, the manager and the players have no more recourse. The call stands. The game continues.

Joyce did the right thing. He called it as he saw (or heard) it. At that moment. Without the help of video replay.

Let's review the timeline.

Two outs in the ninth inning. A perfect game is on the line. It has only been about an hour and forty minutes. A quick game. Things are moving along at a good clip. Joyce knows that there are two outs. Donald pokes the ball up between first and second. Cabrera shifts, handles the ball. Armando Galarraga moves toward first. Donald is running at full speed towards first. Joyce turns his attention from Cabrera to first base. The throw comes in to Galarraga. Donald's foot hits the bag. Did Galarraga's foot hit it as well? Did the pitcher have the ball securely in his glove? Which came first, Donald touching the bag, or the ball in to the glove? Joyce wondered for a split second and declared the runner safe. He made the call that he thought was correct.

But he had to have seen the look on Galarraga's face. He must have heard the crowd's reaction. Miguel Cabrera had to have started his tirade just after adjusting himself. And he listened to Leyland talk for a few seconds.

Then, from what I understand, the game continued.

Here's where Jim Joyce erred. He made another decision. He ignored rule 9.02 (c)...

9.02 (c)

If a decision is appealed, the umpire making the decision may ask another umpire for information before making a final decision. No umpire shall criticize, seek to reverse or interfere with another umpire’s decision unless asked to do so by the umpire making it.

He could have taken a few minutes to confer with the rest of the officiating crew.

Hey, Marvin. Jim. Derryl. Come over here. I got a question. Can we mill around a bit? The call I just made, the bang-bang one? I kicked the [beep] out of it. I take pride in this job, and I kicked the [beep] out of that and I took a perfect game away from that kid over there who worked his [beep] off all night. What do you say, guys? I made the wrong call, didn't I? I thought so. Thanks.

He walks back towards first, puts his thumb up and shouts, "Out!"

Game over. Joyce only loses face for a few moments. Players and fans forget it in the midst of celebration. There's a beer shower in the clubhouse. The ball is tagged and sent to Cooperstown.

But that's not the way it happened. You saw it. You talked about it. It didn't happen that way.

Postscript: Joyce and Galarraga hugged. Things are good between them. Galarraga got a Vette. In the grand scheme of things the call really doesn't matter.

Photo credit: Paul Sancya at KansasCity.com

Coins Beat Us Out

My wife asked if I'd start using Swag Bucks as my search engine. Swag Bucks is a search engine, but I think that they place ads above what you're really looking for. I prefer Google. But, as you search you can earn Swag Bucks. Think of them like points that you get playing SkeeBall and then you can redeem them for stuff when you have enough of them.

What can one do with Swag Bucks? One can trade them in for magazines, books, electronics, baseball cards. Yep, baseball cards.

You can also get Swag Bucks for taking part in their daily poll. The other day's poll was interesting.

I guess we're better than Salt Shakers or Comic Book collectors.

There's some sort of Mid Level Marketing going on. I signed up "under" Angie. When I get points, she gets points. She has enough points that she's converted into Amazon gift cards that she's going to make a serious dent into the new sewing machine that's on the very near horizon.

I don't get it, but it seems to be working for them.

UPDATE:
Since at least one of you has signed up for this already, why don't I get a piece of the pie? If you'd like to sign up, click the banner below. I'll get in on this pyramid scheme Mid Level Marketing promotion.

Winnings from Rain of Error

Some time back, Jon, over at the always enticing Rain of Error blog, hosted a custom card contest. The subject was Damon Rutherford. Here's my entry (and the story of its creation) ...

I was a winner. Along with Matt, of the also enticing, Number 5 Type Collection blog. I think that Matt had the better entry but Jon didn't want to hurt my feelings.

Anyhow, on to the haul.

A book. Not surprising, since Jon seems to obsessed with them.

This tied in rather nicely, I thought. I like mysteries. I like baseball. There's an owl in the title and on the cover. That made me think of Greg. The author's name is Wolff. Reminded me of Kevin. They share the surname. Already, about 120 words in, I've named four of my favorite bloggers. That's got to be worth some suck-up points for any upcoming contests.

I'm currently juggling about four books right now. I've already told Jon that I need to finish a few before starting this one.

A postcard of Satchel Paige. You didn't know that Satchel collected antiques, did you?

Neither did I until this postcard from NoirTech Research came in the mail. Larry Lester is helping to put on the 13th Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference in the middle of July in Birmingham, Alabama. I'm planning on being there.

Then, to put a nail in the coffin of the 1989 Topps cards, Jon provided me with the last two that I needed for that set.

1989 Topps, Gregg Olson (card #161)

1989 Topps, Rock Raines (card #560)

1991 Fleer, Orel Herhsier (card #208)

Three packs of wax. Rather, three packs of plastic enclosed cards. I'll open them later.

Thanks, Jon, for the winnings. Enjoy your time in Cooperstown.