Thursday, May 28, 2009

Just when is that Esteban German card?

Lots of bloggers have already commented on this fairly unusual Esteban German Topps Series II card:


(Image stolen without permission from Night Owl Cards)

I got curious about when this photo was taken. Let's see if we can figure it out from the scoreboard.

Looking at the top left game, the visiting team appears to end in "L", which can be STL, COL, ATL, MIL, or BAL. The bottom team ends in "R", which can TOR, TBR, or KCR. We can eliminate KCR, since that game wouldn't be shown on the outfield scoreboard since it's the game German is playing in. So we know that game is either a Blue Jays or Rays home game, 1-0 home team leading in the top of the 7th inning.

It took a lot of sleuthing, but I eventually figured out that this photo was taken on Sunday June 29th, 2008.

The game on the top left of the scoreboard is ATL visiting TOR. The game on the lower left of the scoreboard is MIL visiting MIN. On the upper right, we have ARI visiting FLA, which featured Dan Haren (#15) against Scott Olsen (then #34 with the Marlins.) On the lower right, we have NYY visiting NYM, which featured Darrell Rasner (#43) against Oliver Perez (#46.)

Another thing that helped narrow this down was that the Royals are wearing home whites. Also German is obviously playing LF. It so happens if you read the recap, German came in to take over for David DeJesus, who was injured in a play at the plate.

3 comments:

  1. Nice detective work.

    I still want someone to play 1-7-15-34-43-46 on a lottery ticket.

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  2. Not only that, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's Brendan Ryan flying out to end the top of the fifth.

    Figuring the Toronto game started at 1:00 Eastern, it makes sense that a game in the midwest would be an inning or two behind... and that was the best match I could find on the play-by-play recap.

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