When is this card? 2009 Upper Deck Raul Ibanez #335

Here's another card we can date. Although there's very little into on the scoreboard in the background, it's pretty easy to determine that the matchups are the Rangers (TEX) hosting the White Sox (CHW) and the Athletics (OAK) hosting the Angels (LAA).

Based on the game start times, we can narrow the date down to July 13, 2008. The Mariners were visiting the Royals that day, meaning that the scoreboard would show games in Central Time. The LAA/Oakland game was scheduled for 1:08 PM, which is Pacific Time. That would be 3:08 CT, matching what we see on the scoreboard.

Ibanez fielded ground balls in the 1st inning, 6th inning, 7th inning, and 8th inning, not to mention other times he might have made such a pose (such as throwing the ball around the infield after a strikeout.)

ANAGRAM

Ruin ablaze

STAT

Ibanez is having a great 2009 to the surprise of many people. Those folks haven't been paying attention, though, because Ibanez is in the top 15 for OPS+ among outfielders with 4000 PAs from 2001 to 2008. That doesn't even include his awesome 2009.

When is this 2009 OPC card? #501 Orioles team checklist

Here's a nice photo of Camden Yards. That looks like an Angels player at first base. On the out-of-town scoreboard, we can easily see two different games of the Pirates at the Phillies.
Here's a close-up:



See the two PIT-PHI games on the right? We've got the following games as well: Reds at Cubs, Dodgers and Rockies, Braves at Marlins, Padres at Astros, Rangers at Rays, Mariners at Twins, and a few other ones that I can't quite read.

Check out this list of the Phillies-Pirates games from the last bunch of years. They played a double-header in 2004 and one earlier than that in 2001. Surely the photo couldn't be so old? But in fact, it is from 2001. May 23, 2001 is the date of this game, as it's the only one that has all the right matchups.

The Orioles did host the Angels that day.

So, this is an 8-year-old photo on a 2009 baseball card. Wow. I wonder how old the other team stadium photos are? (Unfortunately, most of the others cannot be dated in this fashion.)

But here's one cool thing. Guess who that first base coach is? It's #33 Eddie Murray. Bonus Hall of Famer card! The Angels' first baseman that day was--guess who?--Wally Joyner. I bet you didn't think you'd be seeing Wally Joyner on a 2009 baseball card, but there he is. The rightfielder, also visible in the photo, is another retired star: Tim Salmon.

Overall all, this card is totally bizarre and totally cool.

ANAGRAM

Baltimore Orioles = A toilsome broiler

When is this 2009 OPC card? #371 Carlos Lee

First off, this is an interesting photo of Carlos Lee. While it's great to see him about to catch a fly ball, there are two problems: 1) it's a routine fly ball, making it less than totally exciting and 2) his glove is obscuring his face. If it were a more unusual catch, I could forgive the blocked face.

I plan on showing a series of the best and worst cards from this set coming up, and this will be among the worst cards.

Anyway, let's see if we can date the photo.

Here's what we know:

• That's the left-field scoreboard at Minute Maid Park so this is an Astros home game.
• Other games that day include the Padres visiting the Marlins, the Mets visiting the Diamondbacks, and the Cubs visiting the Cardinals.
• The scoreboard at this stadium doesn't just show basic totals, though. It shows full linescores for each game, meaning that, for example, the Padres scored 1 run in the 2nd inning and 1 run in the 3rd inning of their game. This should make it pretty easy to identify the date.

Turns out that the Padres visited the Marlins for just one 3-game serious in 2008. By clicking on the 3 box scores, it's easy to figure out that the day in question was May 4th, 2008, based on this box score. We can also see the NYM/ARI and CHI/STL matchups from that day. Turns out that the Astros hosted the Brewers that day and won in the 12th inning.

Interestingly, Lee was taken out of this game after he made the last out in the 9th inning. I'm not sure why that would happen unless he had a minor injury of some sort. He played in the next series of games so he couldn't have gotten very badly injured, if at all. Checking out the box score, Lee had two outfield assists in the first two innings!

As for outs that Lee recorded in the game, he caught a Ryan Bruan fly ball in the 4th inning and a Prince Fielder fly ball in the 7th inning. This photo has got to be one of those two balls. With a game start time of 1:06 PM central, this photo was taken sometime roughly around 3:00 to 4:00 PM eastern on 5/4/2008.

ANAGRAMS

Carlos Lee =

Carol's eel
Real close

STAT

Lee is often overlooked as being one of the best players in the game, but among guys with at least 4500 plate appearances since 2002, he's in the top 15 for OPS+.

When is this 2009 OPC card? #330 Jake Peavy

It's sweet to show pitchers doing something other than pitching and this is a nice photo of Peavy digging in as he approaches 3rd base. That ass probably belongs to 2008 Padres third base coach Glenn Hoffman.

So, can we find the date for this card?

For starters, we know that it's a Padres home game since they're wearing white uniforms. We can also see that the Dodgers visited the Rockies that day, and either the Braves (ATL) or the Cardinals (STL) visited a team with a short abbreviation, probably the SF Giants. Plus to Nationals played at home.

This one was very difficult to figure out. Turns out that there are no 2008 games that fit all the above criteria. However, this game in 2007 fits just fine.

On that day (April 19, 2007) all of the following happened:

• The Rockies (COL) hosted the Dodgers (LAD)
  
• The Giants (SF) hosted the Cardinals (STL)
• The Nationals (WSN) hosted the Phillies (PHI)
• The Padres hosted the Diamondbacks

How, the one thing that doesn't quite fit is that the team visiting the Nationals seems to have only 2 letters in its team abbreviation (which the Phillies do not.) However, other than the Padres, the only other NL team that ever uses a 2-letter abbreviations is the Padres (SD) themselves and since they are the home team in the game featured in the photo, their score would not be shown on the out-of-town scoreboard. Furthermore, the Phillies beat the Nationals that day by the score of 4-2, which is the score shown in the photo.

Finally, in the Padres game, Peavy hit a triple in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Since it's somewhat rare for pitchers to be running between second and third, I think we can safely assume that this card is indeed from the 4/19/2007 game.

That game started at 12:36 PM (west coast time) so this photo was probably taken between 4:30 and 5:00 eastern time.

Incidentally, Glenn Hoffman was also third base coach in 2007, so I still think that's his ass.

ANAGRAMS

Jake Peavy + Hoffman's ass = Pajamas off! Sky heavens!

STAT

Since 1901, only 22 times has a pitcher struck out at least 200 batters in a season but finished with an ERA+ below 100. Peavy did it in 2006, and is just 1 of 2 guys to do it in the last 12 seasons. Nolan Ryan did it 5 times and the vast majority of the pitchers who did it were very good.

When is this 2009 OPC card? #470 Prince Fielder

Other blogs have already posted this card. I found it alarming because of just how large Fielder looks. That's number 12 Freddy Sanchez taking his lead.

So when was this photo taken?

Let's see. We need to start with 2008 games of the Brewers visiting the Pirates. Based on the team matchups visible on the scoreboard, we can easily narrow the game down to August 29, 30 or 31.

The August 29th game was a night game and the photo was clearly taken during the day. The August 30th game was also a night game, despite it coming on a Saturday.

So this photo was clearly taken on August 31st, 2008. But we can tell a little more, even. Sanchez got to first base only once in the game, walking to lead off the 4th against C. C. Sabathia. This game was part of Sabathia's excellent streak for the Brewers last season. Since the game started at 1:35 PM, this photo was probably taken sometime around 2:15-2:30 PM on the last day of August.


ANAGRAM

Brewers / Pirates = Wet raspberries

STAT

Over his Age 23 and Age 24 seasons, Fielder cracked the top 20 for most total bases. A few other recent players make the top 20, including Albert Pujols, Vladimir Guerrero, Nomar Garciaparra, Hanley Ramirez, and Troy Glaus.

What the heck??

Hubie Brooks is getting roundly trounced by Oil Can Boyd in semifinal #3. That's not right. If you haven't voted yet, please go over there and vote for Brooks.

Also let me take this opportunity to comment on the future of this blog. For the time being, I'm going to concentrate on the 2009 O-Pee-Chee set. I'll be posting a "When is this card?" post each day this week (Friday's is AWESOME!) and also we'll look at some of the best and worst photos in the set next week.

After that, I'm not sure what will happen. Things have been incredibly busy for me at both work and home lately although I expect that to settle down some. I was looking at getting my hands on one of those early 1990s Stadium Club sets that came in the Skydome model, but now I don't think I want to spend the cash needlessly. I may look for another set to write up--but if anybody has any ideas, or even a set you want to donate to the cause, just let me know.

When is this 2009 OPC card? #173 Adrian Beltre

There is a handful of 2009 O-Pee-Chee cards with photos that can be dated.

Let's start with an easy one, this Adrian Beltre card.

On the scoreboard in the background, we can see that the Angels were playing at the Tigers that day. Checking out the Angels' 2008 schedule, we see they played two series at Detroit. One was over April 25 to April 27 and the other was Sept 2 to Sept 4. We can also see in the photo background that the Yankees were visiting the Rays on this day. Over the April dates, though, the Yankees were at the Indians. However, the Rays did host the Yankees Sept 2, 3, and 4.

In the photo, the pitcher for the Angels was #20, which was Jon Garland. He pitched for the Angels on September 3rd. Zach Miner was the Tigers' starter in that game and he wore #31, jiving with what we see in the photo above. Lastly, the Rays' starter that day was Edwin Jackson, and he wore #36, also matching up with what we see in the photo.

So, clearly, this photo is from September 3rd, 2008.

On that day, the Mariners were visiting the Rangers and they lost 1-0. Beltre did manage 2 hits, though.

ANAGRAMS

Adrian Beltre =

Radiant rebel
Ran liberated
Alert brained

STAT

I just wrote recently about Adrian Beltre over at the Baseball-Reference.com Blog where I pointed out how overrated he is and how bad his 2009 has been.