Wrapping it up

Sorry for the long absence.

We have two contests to wrap up:

First, MMayes won the MLB Network hat by virtue of his guess of 138 runs scored on July 26th. There were actually 142 runs scored, so that's a good guess.

Also, Night Owl won the 1990 Upper Deck High # tournament, thanks to Nolan Ryan winning best card in the set. He wins the set.

I'm done with card blogging. I will be focusing on stat-based baseball blogging, primarily on the Baseball-Reference Blog. I will also be starting a personal stat blog and I'll let you know when that's up and running.

When is this card? 2008 Upper Deck Tim Lincecum #362

This Tim Lincecum card is easy to date. He's starting at home and there are ample matchups visible on the scoreboard. Here's the game in question, occurring on May 6th 2007.

Interesting notes on this:

• Second baseman Ray Durham is visible.
• The rightfielder, just slightly visible, is Randy Winn.
• The All-Star logo from 2007 in San Francisco is visible.
• This game was the 4th-worst start of Lincecum's career to date, as measured by game score. He went just 4.1 innings while giving up 5 earned runs, 5 hits, and 5 walks. The damage included homers by Ryan Howard and Shane Victorino.
  

ANAGRAM CONVERSATION

Tim Lincecum talking to Milt Pappas:

Milt Pappas = Slap Pap, Tim!
Tim Lincecum = Nice cum, Milt!


STAT

Lincecum is having a historically excellent start to his career. Among pitchers with at least 400 IP over their first 3 seasons, Lincecum ranks in the top 10 for best winning percentage, and that comes for playing for a middling Giants team.

Poll: The best card of 1990 Upper Deck High # Series

Here it is...the final poll to determine the best card of this set, as well as the winner of the set.

I'm skeptical about how Oil Can Boyd won his semifinal. If you are the reader attached to one of these final 5 cards, you might want to encourage all your friends to hit up this post and vote for your card, otherwise I fear that Boyd is going to win. (And I think we can all agree that his card is actually the worst of these 5...)

Online Surveys & Market Research

When is this card? 2007 Upper Deck Albert Pujols #443

I can't be entirely sure about the date of this photo, but it's almost certainly from this game on June 23, 2006. That's the only time that Pujols faced Justin Verlander (the pictured pitcher) that year and it came in Detroit. In the top of the 5th of that game, Pujols doubled to deep right field and was thrown out, I assume either trying to advance to third base or oversliding at second.

ANAGRAMS

Albert Pujols = Jabs polluters
Justin Verlander = Turns javelin red

BEST STAT

Total bases over the first eight years of a career--Number 1: Phat Albert

When is this card? 2007 Upper Deck David Dellucci #394

This one is easy to date. The top score is Oakland at San Francisco. Delluci played with the Phillies only in 2006. Dan Haren (#24) pitched just one game at the Giants that year (thanks to interleague play being so limited.) It was this game on June 24, 2006. The other game on the scoreboard is the Nationals (WAS) at the Orioles (BAL.)

Incidentally, the Jason Varitek card from the same set is from the same game, when Chris Coste was thrown out at home in the 9th inning.

ANAGRAM

David Delluci = Add lucid evil

(corrected)

David Dellucci = Civil clad dude

STAT

Ince 1969, Delluci has the fewest stolen bases in a season with at least 12 triples. That happened in his 1998 season with the Diamondbacks.

When is this card? 2007 Upper Deck Marcus Thames #114

This one was a little tough to figure out, mainly because even though this is a 2007 card, it turns out that the photo was from 2005. Thames himself would probably remember this himself since this looks like a pretty awesome catch. (At least, I assume he's about to catch the ball.)

My starting point for this card was the bottom right portion of the photo that features a game with a team starting with "H", which can only be "HOU" for the Astros. Roy Oswalt is #44 for them. The home team in that game starts with a letter that also has a leading vertical, and the name must take up less space than "HOU" since it starts further to the right. The only NL teams that fit this category are MIL, FLA, PIT, and PHI (and possibly LA if they used LA instead of LAD.)

So I looked through Roy Oswalt's starts, and then tried to match up to a #35 pitcher on one of those other teams. I found a 2006 game where he faced the Marlins' #35 Dontrelle Willis, but then I ran into a problem with the top part of the scoreboard. That game features either the Orioles ("BAL") or the Red Sox ("BOS") at home. On the day of that Oswalt/Willis game in 2006, there wasn't a #30 pitching for Baltimore or Boston.

So then I went back to 2005, and it was pretty easy to find the date: May 11th 2005. Hmm, but that's a Wednesday...unusual since the game featured on the Thames card is a day game. But the Tigers game that day (at the Rangers) was a day game, as was the Red Sox game.

ANAGRAMS

Marcus Thames = Rams mustache = Muscat harems

STAT

At the moment, Thames has by far the fewest career at-bats of any player with 100+ career homers. Of course, that's a bogus stat since he just hit his 100th career homer. But, he also has the fewest at-bats of any player with 95 to 105 career homers.

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.