And the nominees are... Now is the time of year when we take a look back and pick out everyhing that we liked about the year that was. That's right, it's time for the 2009 Gummie Awards and you can make your nominations over at Stale Gum right now. Oh, and why not vote for the best of the whole decade while you're at it?
But that's not all. This year there is a bit of competition on the card-based award front. Drew's Cards is hosting some card awards as well with some help from some other bloggers. The Collective Troll is the one that brought this to my attention:
One of the awards is the Blogger Rookie of the Year. The perquisite is that your blog was started on January 1, 2009 or later. The voting isn’t opened up for this just yet, but I am going to ask you all to start thinking about it. I hope to be able to “host” this particular award (that has yet to be decided) but I am interested in getting some talk going on it.
I personally started my blog in May of 2009 (so I believe that I would qualify…) and most all of you were here when I got here. What I am asking for right now is some suggestions or at the very least some names of blogs that would qualify. Feel free to comment with your own blog, or suggest some others that you know were started in 2009. I think this is a pretty great award idea, but again I am ignorant as to when everyone started their blogs, so PLEASE comment here with the names of some blogs that were born in 2009.
Crap. My first post was written on December 30, 2008, making this blog two days too old to qualify for the award. Not to say that I would win--or even be nominated--but sigh all the same. I may enlist your help in petitioning the Award commissioner to add a provision for "late season call up" blogs.
The Granddaddy of Them All Speaking of awards, the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot is out and discussions are heating up. I may do something more extensive on this down the line, but for my thoughts on this let me point you back to Rob Neyer, who's opinion I hold in high esteem (Bold Empahsis Mine):
First-timers Roberto Alomar and Barry Larkin both are among the top dozen or so players at their positions, ever. That seems to me an automatic qualifier. Holdovers Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines seem to me obvious choices, too (in case you've missed them, here's a case for Blyleven and the case for Raines). I've also advocated for Alan Trammell in the past, and I'll continue to; if he's not one of the 12 greatest shortstops, he's close enough (and if you think Trammell didn't play enough, there are eight Hall of Fame shortstops who played less than he did).
Here's what I've said about it for the last two years, ever since it became apparent that Barry Larkin was gaining traction as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It is criminal that Larkin could get in on the first ballot while Trammell languishes below 20% support. Look the two of them up and tell me otherwise. Trammell and Larkin via Baseball Reference for your convenience.
Why Hello, Magglio I just started using saved searches on eBay and the dividends have been paid. This popped up this afternoon:
Last month when I posted my Allen & Ginter checklist gallery that was just an empty space. No more! This card popped up, picture snapped, card preserved for all to see. Huzzah!
More Exclusives Topps has been granted an exclusive license to produce cards for minor league baseball which, eh. I don't particularly care about minor league cards, although I do find them to be entertaining from time to time. What I'm not thrilled about is the whole "Pro Debut" logo that will be put on cards, which I find to be essentially meaningless. If nothing else, it will confuse people about Rookie Cards and non-rookie cards etc. Why even bother with the logo? Just have a minor league card(s) and then when they hit the show, slap the Rookie Card logo on them. Now that they're a few years in on it it finally makes sense--why muddy up the waters by adding something new?
Sign Me Up Yes, that is a horrible play on words to a post on Sports Cards Uncensored mostly about ways to refresh autographs in the industry. My favorite:
Building on the previous, it would be really cool to get as many MVPs (super bowl, season, and pro-bowl) into one set as possible. Just have them design the card as part of a product that has a lot of signatures. Get duals, quads, whatever, just build on the fact that all of them were MVPs of something.
It would be ridiculous to be able to pull a card where the Offensive MVP, the Defensive POY and the ROY all sign the same card. Without exclusives in football, that should be possible.
To make it even more interesting, have the ROYs do it as well. Have every ROY that is alive sign on to one set of cards designated for their award. You have a good number of players because it is Offensive and Defensive as well.
Think about it: Topps Gold Glove (e.g.)--a high end set featuring on-card autographs of all of baseball's Gold Glove winners. Big Checklist, lots of stars, multi-player autos and inscriptions like 10xGG or GG 1994 etc. All the stuff they cut into Triple Threads could just be put on an autograph with an inscription. That would be sweet.
Misc. Sparty No! Ernie spends the night, kickin’ it old school. The Ultimate gift for an O’s fan. Wrigley Wax shows off the classics. Baseball will get a new Commish…Probably. The BCS is the best thing EVER! Just take it from the BCS.
