Card of the Week:

1992 Stadium Club Carlos Quintana

Ok, Jere. When and where was this picture taken?

I doubt I’m alone in my love of Stadium Club cards. I love the full bleed photos. I love the unobtrusive details. I love the fact that the photo is allowed to be the main, perhaps only, focus.

Tat said, there are a couple issues I have with the card. I like my cards to have the team name somewhere on the front. In this case, it’s not such a big deal. The “Red Sox” on Quintana’s jersey does that pretty well on its own. But, if I’m sorting cards into team piles, I don’t like to have to rely on the picture. The photo itself isn’t exactly an instant classic either. While it’s not a terrible shot, Quintana’s face isn’t in the perfect pose.

I like the blue sky in the background, though. It really allows the white uniform to pop out of the picture. It’s a well-composed shot that’s fits well with the other cards popping up in that set.

I smile wouldn’t have been out of the question. 

Red Sox 1-36: 17 is for…

Red Sox record 17 runs scored in a single inning.

Yup. 17 runs in one inning. That is a ton of runs, isn’t it? I can’t even imagine.

I don’t know what the all-time record is for any team. I’m guessing that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t diminish the fact that the Red Sox put up their seventeen.

It was the seventh inning of the game on June 18, 1953. That game actually holds a lot of records for the Sox, as you might imagine. The major league record for most times facing a pitcher in an inning is three. If you remember, Johnny Damon actually tied the record against the Marlins in 2003. Five Red Sox players tied that record during that seventh inning in 1953. Five! A record 23 Red Sox came to the plate that inning, delivering an AL record fourteen hits, eleven of which were singles. In all, a record 20 batters reached base that inning. What was it like to witness that?

I’ve been at games where there have been big rallies. Watching single after single just beat the pitcher senseless. But, eleven of them? Dice-K can be maddening sometimes, but nothing like that. How can fans of the losing team handle listening to that onslaught? Can fans of the Sox even take that kind of an inning? I think even I would grow tired after the fifteenth run crossed the plate.

What about the other team? The guys in the stands who had to watch his pitchers get picked apart. And, really, it’s the singles that would drive me nuts. I can almost see a couple walks, and a three-run homer. I can understand getting shelled with homers and doubles. But, eleven singles? Talk about frustrating! A grounder in the hole, a liner over short, a liner over second, a grounder up the middle…then do that again three more times. My goodness.

What an inning.

17 is for 17 runs scored by the Sox in one inning.

Thank Goodness for Night Owl

It is dead in Red Sox land at the moment. I’m having a hard time getting excited about the rumors surrounding a .230 hitting catcher, who can play a really bad first base. There is just nothing to care about, and even less to write about. That was why I was so excited to recently receive a package from Night Owl.

Not too long ago, I sent him a few cards he needed. He responded my sending a few Red Sox cards my way. It was my favorite type of trade. I’ll send you a bunch of stuff. If you have a bunch of stuff to return, that’s cool too. It makes it a surprise to receive, and to look through the package when it arrives. Here is a selection of some of what NO sent over.

Right away you can see a major flaw with being a 2012 Red Sox fan. You can see a great Topps Chrome card of former Red Sox Mike Aviles. That’s next to a great Chrome card of former Red Sox Kevin Youkilis. Don’t forget the Bowman card on the bottom of former Red Sox Josh Beckett. This must be what it feels like to be a Marlins collector.

The Chrome cards are very much appreciated. I didn’t get much Chrome this year, so those are key additions. Any time you can add a Yaz card unexpectedly, it’s a good day. The Jim Rice Archives card makes a second Hall-of-Famer. Nice! Granted, neither Rice nor Yaz play for the Sox anymore either…but at least neither of them ever played anywhere else.

How about Active Sox? Got plenty of those too. David Ortiz makes a couple appearances. Dustin Pedroia makes one…which means there are three MVP in the picture. I love the Jon Lester Archives too. That face is just perfect for that design.

There’s even a future Sox included in Jose Vinicio. I have no idea who that is. I know that I hear about two shortstop prospects endlessly. But, this isn’t Jose Iglesias or Xander Bogaerts. So, Vinicio is at least the third best shortstop prospect in the system. But, he’s only 19, so that could always change.

Overall, a fantastic package to have show up in my mailbox. It’s the perfect way to get through the off-season blahs. Especially this year.

Thanks Night Owl!

Collecting the Sox: Magnet Schedules

I have a confession right off the bat. I don’t really know all that much about the magnet schedule industry. I don’t know how many people make them. I don’t know how long people have been making them. I don’t know how many of them are out there. Nor, frankly, do I care. I know that they’re out there. I know you can collect them. I know that’s they’re pretty cool.

For at least a decade or two, the Red Sox have been giving away magnet schedules as a promotion at games. As long as I can remember, they have been handed out at Opening Day as a way to start the season fresh. Jere has also talked about getting them on the last day of the season for the following year. He even showed a video earlier of him getting one this season along with his ticket renewal letter. I don’t know if these are all the same schedules, or if there are different versions of them out there. I assume, but don’t know, that other people also produce magnet schedules that aren’t part of a giveaway. Much like bobbleheads that are made for retail purposes, I assume there are similar types of magnet schedules out there. But, how do magnet schedules measure up as a collectable? Pretty well, actually.

On the plus side, they’re pretty colorful. They display nicely, with lots of visual interest. As with any collectable, there’s a definite difference between the older ones and more recent creations. They often are designed with special events in mind. The 2012 schedule, of course, mentioned the 100^th birthday of Fenway Park. Similarly, they 2005 and 2008 schedules mentioned the World Championships the previous years. (Which would imply that if they did hand out magnets on the last games of the 2004 and 2007 seasons, they were different.) I also like the historical record they provide. Sure you could pop onto the internet if you wanted to know if the Sox played the Rangers in May of 2009. But, you could also grab the 2009 magnet schedule. You can see the evolution of team names as FLA gave way to MIA and ANA changed to LAA. History sits right there in front of you. They’re also pretty cheap. OK, really cheap. All the ones that I have in my collection were given to me free at games. That’s the kind of cost I can handle.

The problems? They’re a tad bit awkward. The smaller ones I have are about 5x7. Some get up to around 8 or nine niches square. They’re also, obviously, magnets. If you want to display your growing collection, you’ll be covering up your refrigerator pretty quickly. Or, you’ll need a large sheet of metal in your museum room to accommodate them all. Of course, just because they’re magnets doesn’t mean you have to treat them as such. You can put them in a binder using page protectors. You can pin them to a wall. You can stick them in a box. For some reason, though, not using them as a magnet just seems wrong to me.

No matter how you store them, they make for an easy collectable to have in an ever-growing collection.

How do you display your magnet schedules?

List of 36

Things the Red Sox made me thankful for in 2012

1. The excitement of Opening Day

2. Bases-loaded strikeouts

3. Youk saying goodbye

4. Pedro Ciriaco dominating the Yankees

5. 3-run homers

6. Topps team set

7. Getting a good draft pick

8. The emergence of Will Middlebrooks

9. Sitting in the Moster Seats

10. Jose Iglesias flashing leather

11. Many blog topics

12. The All-Fenway Team

13. Walk-off victories

14. The last season of Bobby Jenks

15. Baseball in the Sunshine

16. Refillable souvenir cups

17. Cody Ross hitting at Fenway

18. Scoring a game in the stands

19. Remembering Pedro Martinez

20. Seeing Bryce Harper come to town

21. Catching a bag of peanuts

22. Throwback uniforms

23. Crawford’s return

24. Pitching duels

25. Four months of Adrian Gonzalez

26. Fries in a helmet

27. Remembering Manny-Ortiz

28. Joe and Dave

29. Batting practice

30. The 100^th Anniversary celebration

31. Fun people in the next seats

32. Day games in April

33. Sunday night Yankees games

34. Ice cream in a helmet

35. The final game

36. The start of 2013

Card of the Week

1988 Topps Traded Rick Cerone #27T

If last week’s card of Bill Hall was a wonderful card, this one is not so much. It’s simply a filler card to make sure everyone was represented in the set.

I’ve said before that I’ve always liked the design of 1988 Topps. I love that the player’s picture overlaps the team name at the top. In this case, both Cerone’s head and bat cover up the name. (Although, that looks to be Dwight Evans’s bat, not Cerone’s?) I also love the ribbon effect for the player’s name. It makes the picture seem bigger than it is.

Once you get by the design elements, there’s not much to talk about. Cerone is looking off towards something in the distance. He looks like he couldn’t be less interested in taking pictures. He just grabbed the first bat he found, ran into an empty stadium, and waited for the session to be over. This is the kind of picture that makes you wonder what the other pictures from the session that they threw out looked like.

The card filled its purpose, though. People could get a card of Cerone to add to their Red Sox collection. It’s interesting, though, that if Topps put this card out today, people would while forever about how the Topps monopoly made them just mail it in. Of course, in 1988 there were three other companies making cards for the first time ever. If this is the card they put out when facing their most competition ever, maybe the exclusive license isn’t make them lackadaisical.

Maybe, sometimes, you just toss a dud up there.

“Seen Live” Updates and Additions

With the announcements of the major awards for the 2012 season, it’s time for me to update my list of stars that I have been lucky enough to see play live. I keep a slightly informal list, just for yuk-yuks so I can relive all the great players I’ve seen at Fenway. For this list, I don’t include exhibitions for reasons I’m a bit unsure of. But, it’s not like this list really matters. If I feel the need to include Tony Gwynn and Barry Larkin at some point since I saw them both play at the 1999 ASG, it’s not going to ruin the world or anything. In addition to the list, I have a Top 36 list to single out the best of the best. I base this list mostly on major awards and accomplishments, like Hall of Fame election or MVP awards. I do this not because I think winning an MVP makes you a better player than someone who didn’t. But, I’m using the grandchild check. My grandkids are more likely to be looking at a baseball encyclopedia at some point in the distant future and ask if I had seen any of the people on the ROY list play. It also means I can make the list without including Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera. That’s a nice added benefit. I also don’t care when I saw the player play. I saw both Eric Gagne and Dennis Eckersley play when they were with the Sox (Eck’s second stint). Even though both were well past their Cy Young days by that point, I count them on the list. I saw them play. Once again, it’s my list. Enough with the boring stuff. Let’s get started.

Of the six major award winners this season, I have seen two of them play live. I saw Bryce Harper when the Nationals visited Fenway this season. I’ve also seen Miguel Cabrera twice, once with the Marlins and once with the Tigers. I was surprised that I haven’t seen David Price yet. I seem to hit a lot of Rays games, but must have somehow missed him. Same goes for Dickey, since he spent some time in the AL. I imagine I’ll see Mike Trout at some point, just not yet. So, I get to add a Rookie of the Year winner, and a Triple-Crown winning MVP to the list. That means two people would need to be dropped from the Top 36.

A look at the previous list shows that I still have two players on there without a major award. Mike Lowell probably should have been tossed previously. He has only a WS MVP on his tally sheet. A single ROY by Harper is enough to knock him off. I also see that Josh Beckett is also on my list without a major award. His two playoff MVPs combined with his Cy Young runner up had been serving him well up to now. But, Cabrera has to take that spot from him.

How does the list look after the changes? I’m glad you asked.

Roberto Alomar

Wade Boggs

Barry Bonds

Ryan Braun

Miguel Cabrera

Jose Canseco

Roger Clemens

Bartolo Colon

Dennis Eckersley

Eric Gagne

Nomar Garciaparra

Jason Giambi

Tom Glavine

Juan Gonzalez

Ken Griffey, Jr

Vladimir Guerrero

Roy Halladay

Josh Hamilton

Bryce Harper

Rickey Henderson

Randy Johnson

Chipper Jones

Greg Maddux

Pedro Martinez

Dustin Pedroia

Albert Pujols

Cal Ripken

Alex Rodriguez

Ivan Rodriguez

CC Sabathia

Bret Saberhagen

John Smoltz

Sammy Sosa

Ichiro Suzuki

Miguel Tejada

Frank Thomas

Mo Vaughn

Not a bad list at all. Lots of Hall-of-Famers. Also, unfortunately, a lot of PED questions. But, they’re still on the awards lists, so they’re still on my list.

Who’s on your list?

Card of the Week

2010 Topps Update Bill Hall #US-28

Wow. What a card!

Let’s just jump right to the picture. That picture should be blown up and handed to every kid playing baseball in the country. Arms straight. Front leg straight. Back leg bent. Eyes right on the ball at the moment of impact. All of that captured wonderfully in the shot. Balls in the pictures on baseball cards aren’t anything new. But, to have it right there in that shot really adds something. The picture is perfectly cropped to allow us to give full attention to Hall. Fantastic.

The Design of the card works well with the photo too. The red jersey on Hall is complimented by the red sweep of the border. I really like how some of the picture is covered, but not hidden, by the border. The team name is a bit too large. But, this was the first year of the Topps monopoly. So, they were bragging a bit that their cards had logos on them. At least the team logo is also red, so it really blends into the overall look of the card. The foil player name drives me nuts. But, all the information is there. Team, name, and position. The few problems with the look of the card don’t detract enough from the overall appeal.

This is a great, well-done, card.

It’s Official!

So, yesterday the Red Sox posted a picture to their Facebook page of new acquisition David Ross. The caption exclaimed, it’s "official” that Ross was the newest member of the Sox. The picture showed a beaming Ross posing in front of Dustin Pedroia’s locker as he checked out the clubhouse. Really? Were we all waiting for word that this deal was official? Were we checking our phones every fine minutes to finally get word that the deal was done? Do they not know what transaction their division rivals were waiting to become official? We’re over here trumpeting a new back-up catcher?

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the idea of posting random pictures to Facebook. A quick look at the Section 36 page shows that I do the same thing. There are pictures people have submitted posted for no logical reason other than to have something pretty to look at every day on the page. I get it. I think it would be a fine use of social media to share a picture of Ross looking around his new locker. But to have the fanfare blaring?

When are Sox going to do something worth promoting on Facebook? Soon? Other teams are making move and improving themselves. The Sox need a shortstop, but someone else just added the best one in their division. (Speaking of the big trade, I find it interesting that the Marlins are being completely slammed here. They’re a disgrace to baseball. They spit on their fans. They’re involved in a conspiracy to destroy baseball in Miami. The commissioner should void the deal. It’s interesting because they traded away one $100 million player after only one full season with the team. Last year, the Sox traded away two of them.)

It’s not even that I think the Sox should have gotten Reyes. I mean, they should have. But, dumping Gonzalez and Crawford to get Reyes would make that first trade even more foolish. I’m not swearing at them for not signing Torii Hunter either. He would have been a nice addition. But, there are several other players who would be just as good. (Please, God, not Swisher) At some point, though, the Sox are actually going to need to have a full roster of players.

Are they working on a million things behind the scenes? Of course they are. Do they have a plan? I hope so. Would I love to see them add another player who will crack their starting line-up? Yuppers. Are they working on Josh Hamilton? Hopefully. A big trade? Hopefully. Any news whatsoever? I sure hope so.

Even if it’s just to give me something to blog about.

Red Sox 1-36: 16 is for…

16 games pitched for the Red Sox by Tom Seaver

If you’re looking to put together an all-time team of players who wore the Red Sox uniform at some point in their careers, Tom Terrific is probably in that rotation. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t say “probably” with a player elected to the Hall of Fame with the highest percentage ever. But, a ton of great pitchers wore the Sox uniform at some point. So, I’m giving myself some leeway.

That’s really not the point. (Although, it would be fun to make it the point at some later date.) The point is that for the stretch run in 1986, the Sox added one of the best pitchers ever to put on a uniform. Sure, they weren’t getting the Tom Seaver of the seventies. Sure, those sixteen games with Boston would be the last sixteen he’d ever pitch. But, it was still a great pick-up. His record with the Sox was a bit misleading, standing at 5-7. But, his ERA and WHIP with the Sox (3.80/1.38) almost match those of Oil Can Boyd in 1986 (3.78/1.25), and are better than Al Nipper (5.38/1.47). Boyd and Nipper ended up starting World Series games for the Sox that year. With all the talk of Bill Bucker’s error, and Roger Clemens asking out of the game, Seaver gets lost a bit in the shuffle. What if he was healthy? (Are you allowed to ask “what if” when you’re talking about the health of a 43 year-old pitcher?) Would game six have even mattered?

You can wonder about things like that until the cows come home. Every team can do it, every season. But, it’s still interesting. For half a season, the Sox grabbed an all-time great to bolster their staff. What a great idea.

16 is for 16 games pitched by Tom Seaver for Boston.

I Scored!

April 13, 1999

The Home Opener. It’s a magical time. We get our first chance to see the team in their whites. What can we expect from them during the season? It’s all looking up on Opening Day.

The Sox were playing the Sox on this day. Bret Saberhagen got the start for the Sox. He was coming off a 15-8 season the year before. It was hoped that he could provide just enough help for Pedro Martinez to lead the Sox back to the playoffs. Things looked pretty good in this start. Almost seven innings of shutout ball, on the way to the win. Saberhagen finally handed the ball to Derek Lowe after giving up a two-out hit in the seventh. Lowe made a but of a jam, but teamed with Mark Guthrie to close it out. There was minimal pressure with a three-run lead at the time.

That lead was extended to a six-run victory by the time it was all over. And just look at that offense. Buford, Frye, Varitek, Sadler finishing off the line-up. There wasn’t even Nomar in the line-up to help things out. But, it was that bottom of the order that got things rolling for the Sox when Varitek and Sadler both walked in the third. I always though Donnie Sadler was the faster player I had ever seen…at least until Ellsbury sprinted into view. Watching him score from first on a triple is just pure joy.

Another set of back-to-back walks led to another big inning for the Sox in the eighth. In this case, Troy O’Leary foreshadowed his October performance with a three-run homer.

The star of the game? Troy only went 1-4 in the game, but I have to give it to O’Leary and his 3 RBI. The team’s goat? Damon Buford was the only player not to reach base for the Sox. Since he was batting sixth, that problem was magnified.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The also-rans in the line-up got the job done. Saberhagen gave it everything he had, and the Red Sox cruised to a victory over the pale hose.

And the scorecard shows how it happened.

Card of the Week

2000 Ultimate Victory Tomokazu Ohka

Wow, there’s a lot going on with this card. The most overpowering feature is the blue. It doesn’t show as well in the scan, but the whole thing has a blue tint to it. Talk about distracting. This was part of the wave of cards that assumed “high end” meant shiny and hard to read.” In it’s basic parts, this card is well done. It has the nice action shot cropped to make Ohka stand out. It has the player name, team name, and position clearly shown. Even the player’s number makes an appearance. If I made a list of things I need to have on a card, this would get them all. It even throws in an extra headshot of the player. I even like the border, giving the appeal of a painting.

So, I can understand in a production meeting, everything going well. But, once they threw it all together, it went crazy. Especially in this card, the fact that the headshot is a crop of the larger image is awkward. Maybe if Ohka weren’t making such a weird face, it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s really the blue sheen that ruins the card. It makes everything almost impossible to read unless you constantly tilt the card in different direction to catch the light. Otherwise, this would be a pretty nice card.

Instead of a mess.

Forward!

What exactly are the plans for the Red Sox moving forward? I have no idea. I have a sense I keep writing about this feeling of confusion. But, normally during the off-season there would be discussions of moves, or potential moves. There would be a list of needs, and a list of players that might just fit those needs. This year? Not so much.

So, I have to keep wondering what the plan is. There are holes all over the place. There are any number of players who could fill those holes, to about the same degree. More troubling, there are no favorites, or dream acquisitions out there. There’s nothing to focus all my attention on. So, I’m finding myself a little bit scattered.

The Red Sox signed David Ortiz. Great. I definitely think that the Sox needed to sign him. After you ship away all your talent to get flexibility, you need to use that flexibility to sign the face of your franchise. So, the Sox have a power hitter in the middle of the line-up. What’s next?

Cody Ross is still out there. Should the Sox sign him? Probably. He’s nothing I’m drooling over. But, he’s at least as good as any of the other options out there. And, he’s at least a known entity. That should give him a little bit of an edge.

I hear rumors that Torii Hunter wants to come play with his good friend, Ortiz. Sure. Why not? Is he a superstar? Nope. Is he at least as good as anything else out there? Yup. What about the kids? What about Kalish? Is he better than Hunter? Ross? Dunno. Maybe. Would I scream at the Sox if they passed on Ross and stuck with Kalish? Not at all. Would I scream if they signed Hunter and left Kalish in AAA? Nope.

Who’s playing short? Is it Iglesias? Bogaerts? Scutaro? Does it matter? Do you just hand the job to Iglesias? Give him a half-season to sink or swim. If he swims, trade Bogaerts? If he sinks, swap him with Bogaerts at the break? Do you sign a Scutaro-type and sit both the kids for another year? Does it affect the line-up no matter what you pick?

Which is really the problem with this off-season. Every hole can be filled by any number of players. Every hole that needs filling probably depends on the hole next to it. There are, what, five certain members of the line-up. The other four can be picks from a grab bag. All the Sox need is to throw something in the bag.

It really makes it impossible to get excited. I’m not checking the rumor mill to see if the Sox are mentioned along with a stud free agent. There aren’t any. If the Sox miss on Ross, Hunter will do. If they miss on both, Kalish will do. There’s no sense of urgency at all.

Which is quite unsettling.

Red Sox 1-36: 15 is for…

Red Sox record 15-game winning streak (4/25/46-5/10/46)

I’ve said before that streaks don’t excite me. Why do I keep posting about them then? Because they’re interesting. They’re statistical anomalies, which are fun. And, in some cases, they can be an example of greatness. This is one of those cases. The 1946 Red Sox won the second most games in team history, giving them the second best record as well. (Both titles, incidentally, are held by the amazing 1912 team.) If you’re talking about great Red Sox teams, that ’46 offering has to be in the discussion. This streak is an example of that greatness.

The streak didn’t make them great. If the 2012 Red Sox had managed to win 15 games in a row this season, it wouldn’t make them as great as the 1946 team. But, if you’re talking about the 1946 team, it’s interesting that they won so many games, they even went 15 games in a row without losing.

That’s a pretty long streak. They went just over two weeks without losing a game. That must have been a fun stretch to be a Red Sox fan. Especially coming so early in the season. Just when you’re wondering what the team will be like that year, they win 15 in a row. That led to a 21-win month of May. The mood was definitely set.

Of course, the season didn’t end that well for the Red Sox that year. The Sox lost the World Series in seven games. From there the team, anchored by the four young Teammates returning from the war, was supposed to run off a string of pennants. Obviously, that wasn’t quite the case.

But, they sure had a good run in 1946. Especially in late April and early May.

15 is for the Red Sox record 15-game winning streak. 

2012 Scavenger Hunt

Submitted by Ruben

Thankfully, we’ve reached the end of another baseball season. You know what that means. It’s time for the Fifth Annual Section 36 Scavenger Hunt! You remember how it works. Below, you’ll find a list of 36 items for you to try and find. When you find an item, take a picture of it and send it along to me in an e-mail. Whoever sends me pictures of the most items wins. Pretty simple, eh? We’ll make the end of the hunt be 12:36 PM eastern time on February 5, 2013. This both gives enough time to find the stuff, and fills the time right up to pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training. Sound like fun? What do you win if you find the most items? Worldwide fame and admiration! I will post the winner’s name (and picture if one is provided) on this very site and hail them as the 2012 Scavenger Hunt Champion! I’m sure that Jere has found his worldwide fame to be quite an honor this past year. If you actually want a prize you can hold in your hand, I’ll award a hardcover copy of Mark Frost’s fabulous book Game Six. I’m also including 200 different Red Sox baseball cards for the winner. Not too bad, right? Ready to get started? Here is this year’s list of items to get pictures of:

1. Cy Young Statue

2. Ticket to World Series game played by the Red Sox

3. Tris Speaker Hall of Fame plaque postcard

4. Official Program from 1999 All-Star game

5. “Sporting News” magazine with Red Sox player on cover

6. Homemade “Section 36” t-shirt

7. Red Sox rug

8. Wine bottle featuring Red Sox player

9. Red Sox Coca-Cola item

10. Red Sox ice-cream carton

11. Red Sox player

12. Cody Ross baseball card

13. Used official Section 36 scorecard

14. 2004 World Series baseball

15. Red Sox thermometer

16. Adrian Gonzalez replica jersey

17. 2012 Red Sox Media Guide

18. Hallmark Ornament of Red Sox player

19. Autograph of member of 2011 Red Sox

20. Red Sox bikini

21. “Fenway Park 100 Seasons” baseball

22. Will Middlebrooks t-shirt

23. Drawing of Wally

24. Red Sox lamp

25. Red Sox bear

26. Ticket stub from Section 36

27. Condiment with a picture of Red Sox player on it

28. Red Sox pen

29. Yawkey Way

30. 2004 World Championship banner

31. Red Sox license plate holder

32. Biography of Red Sox player

33. Non-Red Sox baseball card using a picture taken in Fenway Park

34. Red Sox paperweight

35. Female Red Sox fan

36. Male Red Sox fan

A quick clarification. Unless it says otherwise, “Red Sox Player” refers to anyone who ever played for the Sox in a regular season game. That counts even if the player isn’t depicted as a Red Sox player in the picture. So, Jim would be able to use anything from his Phillies Room depicting players like Curt Schilling and Jonathan Papelbon, even if they’re in their Phillies garb.

Now, since I want this to be a scavenger hunt, and not a google search, I’ll need a way to make sure you actually find these items yourself. So, in order to qualify any picture must have any one of these three things in it.

1. You. This might be the easiest way. If you’re in the picture, I can be pretty sure you actually found the item. This has one advantage in that it doesn’t have to be a new picture. If you went to Fenway last summer and took a picture on Yawkey Way, that would work. Or,
2. The Section 36 logo. Just have it showing somewhere in the picture. Or,
3. The address of this blog, “www.section-36.blogspot.com” , written somewhere in the picture. Either write it out on a piece of paper, on a sidewalk with chalk, on someone’s leg, whatever. (Just don’t vandalize anything).

That make sense? So, send in your pictures to me, section36 at gmail dot com (I bet you know which parts to replace with symbols) It would be nice if you told me which items you thought were in each picture. If there’s a tie between people who have the same number of found items, the tiebreaker will be the person who did it with the fewest number of pictures. If you get a picture of a Female Red Sox fan, wearing a Will Middlebrooks t-shirt, while holding a Red Sox pen, it would be 3 items in one picture. That’s a great start, although I’m sure you can do better. One year, Jere had over 20 items in a single photo! (If I need a second tiebreaker, I’ll have a vote to decide the best pictures.)

I think that covers everything! It’s now up to you to start sending me your pictures. I’ll keep reminding you as the months go by.

Good Luck!

Card of the Week

1987 Topps Dwight Evans RB

When people talk about baseball records that will never be broken, they often bring up Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game witting streak of the gold standard. Nobody ever mentions Dwight Evans and his record, honored by this card. Evans set the record by homering on the first pitch of the season. Let’s just see somebody break that record!

When I first saw this card, I was unaware of Evans’ feat from the year before. So, I was initially confused by the record, as stated on the front. The word “earliest” threw me. I always associate “early” with “time.” So, I would expect the earliest home run to be the one that comes first chronologically. So, I wondered why Evans had hit his home run earlier in the year than anyone else. Did the Red Sox happen to play a game on an early day on the calendar? Or, was it time? Since it was in Detroit, did the time zones help make it early in the day? Was 12:05 ET really early in the day for a home run? But, no. The card is referring to the number of pitches into the season. Even that begged questions. Was it the first pitch thrown that year by anyone in major league baseball? Was it just the first pitch thrown in that game? If the Red Sox were the home team, would it still have been the first pitch? So many questions.

But, the actual record is fairly irrelevant. It’s a card made to honor a specific feat from the year before. In that, it does a good job. The card is clear, other than the vocabulary. It nicely says that it’s a ’86 record breaker. It gives the name of the player, his team, and the accomplishment. And, it does all that without detracting from the picture on the card. It would have been fantastic if the picture were of the actual record breaker. But, that doesn’t look like Tiger Stadium to me. (What do you say, Jere?) At least Evans is in his road grays. And, he appears to be making pretty good contact with his swing. So, it’s a decent representation.

All of that makes for a great card.