Opening Day

Yesterday was a good day! I was contacted about two job interviews. The first is a lunch interview this coming Monday with the CFO of the company I interviewed at last Friday. The second will be Tuesday morning at a local manufacturing site of a Fortune 50 corporation. But, even better, I got to go to the Oklahoma Redhawks home opener.

I had that going for me. Which is nice.

So, let's talk baseball. The Redhawks lost 4-3 to the Memphis Redbirds. Not much of a surprise that the top farm club of the World Series champs beat the top farm club of the worst team in the NL. We had fun nonetheless.


A statue of an Oklahoma adopted son, Warren Spahn. Those of you who read the Cardboard Junkie will recognize that he showed a photo of a similar statue at Turner Field the other day.


I didn't get many action shots. It was a cloudy evening and despite cranking up the ISO, I still wasn't able to get a fast enough shutter speed for decent action shots. I'd love to get one of those large aperture professional lenses, but they are way too expensive ($5000 and up), so I'll just have to live with what I have.


Cooper, one of the two mascots, the other being Ruby, a distaff version of Cooper. There is a little upset here in OKC. Yesterday, the Redhawks, owned by Mandalay Sports, announced that they awarded the naming rights to the stadium (built by the taxpayers and owned by the city) to Newcastle Casino. Most of the upset is that it was named after Newcastle, which is a backwater of a town within commuter distance of OKC. But, there is another dimension of this that my wife pointed out. Last year, Mandalay retired the previous mascot, Rowdy, in favor of Cooper and Ruby, which they felt were more family friendly. And what do they do to maintain the family atmosphere? That's right name the stadium after a casino. *eye roll*

Now, I couldn't really care less. I have no place in my life for moral scolds. If the city politicos are upset about this development then they probably never should have given the team the ability to sell the naming rights. And, frankly, I also remember when the stadium opened in 1997. Everyone was upset because the team had sold the naming rights to the ballbark to Southwestern Bell (now AT&T). But, no one ever called it the Southwestern Bell Ballpark at Bricktown. It was always The Bricktown Ballpark. It won't be any different now. All the folks that are strutting around in high dudgeon will get over this and move on to something else to be offended at.

Now this being minor league baseball, there was, of course, cheesy entertainment. Including baby races. They dress up toddlers as jungle animals and set them down on a mat with race lanes on it and then........pretty much nothing except cute overload.


Elephant just looked around.


Giraffe played with the grass.


So, by virtue of actually moving, Lion was our winner.


I think they are taking the curse of his glove.


Force play at the plate. The Redbirds backstop actually did a good job of snagging a high throw and getting back down on the plate for the out.

I Got An Idea

I've been foreseeing a bad winter. Not weather wise as it were, although it may be. Mainly, I see it being a bad winter for collecting. The drought this year has driven up the cost of feeding our horses precipitously. Plus, we are going to have an electrician in next month to do some improvements to help us manage the farm better during bad weather. In short, my budget is going to be tight heading into the holiday season. Complicating matters, there is going to be another card show in October where I wanted to start working on my 1971 set. I was unsure how I was going to manage my adult obligations while still indulging my inner 9 year old. Then I had a brilliant idea.



I have a 3 foot tall change bank that looks like a coke bottle. I have had it for a while and about every 3 or 4 years I cash the change in. So, yesterday, I dumped all the coins into a smaller, easier-to-handle box, threw in some foreign currency I had lying around unused after past business trips, and headed off to the bank. I figured I would clear around 2 c-notes. Boy, was I in for a surprise. What you are looking at above is a bit over $450 in coins. The bank wanted to charge me a $35 fee to exchange the currency. Given that you are looking at about the equivalent of $34.20 US in foreign currency, I just stuffed the bills back into my pocket.

Now, I have no intent of spending all that at the October show, but it should get me through the lean winter months. So, I am mapping out a few goals:

1. Add a few more cards to my Paul Blair player collection.


2. Complete my 1977 set. With pending trades and a few pick-ups at a new card shop I discovered, I am down to needing 7 cards to finish.


3. Finish that 2004 Fleer Greats of the Game set for once and for all. I have also been mulling over starting the equivalent set from 2006.


4. Start working in earnest on my 1971 set. Since I mainly need the higher number cards, this will probably be a fairly long process where I only add a few cards every month.


5. Knock off some more short prints for 2011 Topps Heritage. I haven't looked at COMC to see if the prices are coming down yet. Last time I looked, the SP were in the $3 to $6 range. They'll need to be alot lower than that before I pull the trigger.


6. Start 2011 Topps Heritage Minor League. As I approach the conclusion of my first year of being back in the hobby, I am reflecting on how to focus my second year. I have come to the conclusion that the only modern set that really interests me is Heritage and, in 2012, it may be the only modern set I collect. The minor league set seems interesting


7. 2011 Topps Update. Given my above comment, it would seem odd to even bother with Update. But, as a set collector, I do have a touch of OCD, so I may just go ahead and put it together, so I have the entire 990 card run. Besides, I want to see if Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, and David Robertson made the set.

So, that is about it for the moment. I don't think I can do all of what I have listed above, so I may just drop the last two.

Into the Off-Season

Jose Valdez throws the final pitch of the last game of the Oklahoma Redhawks 2011 season.

Mid-June Miscellany

Another week out of town for work ended Friday. On Saturday, I stopped at the card shop to work on my 1977 set. I had pretty much pulled all the decent commons from his inventory, so I went through the star box and managed to get 22 cards knocked off the want list. Arriving home, I had two packages in the mail. One was the last card I needed to complete my 1974 set and the other was the four series (180 cards) of the Renata Galasso set I needed to complete that set. Later that evening, I went to see the OKC Redhawks lose to the NOLA Zephyr's 4-3.

There were a few linkages between my various highlights of the day. To wit: One of the 1977 cards I picked up, which links up with the following tribute to one OKC's favorite sons:




One of the Galasso cards, which ties to a statue outside the Bricktown Ballpark of that Oklahoma favorite:





Though Spahn was born in Buffalo, NY (not far from my birthplace of Rochester), he retired to a ranch near McAlester and died in Broken Arrow (a suburb of Tulsa). And in a semi-related note, the Spahns were friends of the Prichard family, who owned Pete's Place restaurant in Krebs. You can read about the restaurant, and it's bootlegging history (the 21st Amendment didn't make it to Indian Territory until 1959), at the link. Long story short, the family eventually opened a craft brewery and one of there recent offerings is the Spahnie 363 Beer, honoring the great pitcher.

The final card I needed for my 1974 set:


And finally, a few shots from the ball game:

Home Opener

Last night was the Oklahoma Redhawks 2011 home opener. It was also their first home game as the Houston Astros AAA franchise and their first under the ownership of Mandalay Baseball Properties, which was obvious by the number of suits walking around the stadium concourse (SRLSY). With temperatures dropping into the low 50s and a high winds, it was a chilly night and my wife prevailed on me to leave after 5 innings. But, it was an enjoyable game nonetheless with a Redhawks win over the visiting Albuquerque Isotopes.


OKC starter Fernando Nieve got off to a rough start, tagged for three runs in the top of the first. The first run was scored by hot Dodger prospect Dee Gordon, who looks to me, at 5'11" and a scant 150 pounds, to have made the jump to AAA right from the high school junior varsity. But, you can't argue with his hitting (.298 through the start of his now fourth minor league season) and speed. The top of the first also featured invocation of the infield fly rule. It was so windy (gusting up to 40 mph) that pop ups were extremely difficult to judge. When the wind took a Isotopes pop up and it dropped in, the runner on first ended up being forced out at second. The umpires gave him the bag and sent the hitter, now at first, back to the bench.


The Redhawks came back in the bottom of the frame, scoring three runs capped by the Koby Clemens home run seen above.

Things settled in after that, with Nieve keeping the Isotopes off the board and mostly off base in the remainder of his 5 1/3 inning outing. Isotopes starter John Ely, down on a rehab stint from the Dodgers also shut down the Redhawks until the fifth inning when a J.B Shuck double, a Brian Bogusevic triple, and a Clemens double brought the score to 5-3 and gave the home team the lead for good. At that point, we baled out in search of warmth and missed the rest of the 7-4 Redhawks win.

The next game in our 7 game mini-season tickets package will by the Friday, May 13 contest against the Round Rock Express. That game will be something of a homecoming, as Round Rock replaced the Redhawks as the top Rangers farm club this season. The Express coaches, and some of the players, were here last year. It will also be somewhat interesting for me, as well. The previous Sunday (May 8) I have tickets for the Rangers-Yankees game down in Arlington. After the game, my wife will need to drop me off at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, so I can fly out for a 3 day business meeting being held at a company facility in France. My return flight from Paris leaves Friday morning local time and I get back to OKC at 7:50 PM, in time to go right from the airport to the ballpark and catch the last few innings. Can't think of a better way to sandwich a trip to a furrin land than with two baseball games.

Note added later: Koby Clemens is the son of the now-disgraced pitching great, Roger Clemens.

Any of the pictures can be clicked for larger versions

Spring Has Sprung

It must be spring. The daffodils have bloomed, the horses are more interested in searching for green grass than coming to the fence in the morning for hay, and.........AND......the tickets and food coupons came today for the seven game package I bought for the Oklahoma City Redhawks.


Click for full size image

God As My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly

From the annals of odd minor league baseball game promotions, I give you: Chewbacca Night (May 1, 2010 - Oklahoma Redhawks vs. New Orleans Zephyrs). Okay it was actually Star Wars Night and you had the opportunity to meet Chewbacca, but it sounds more "minor league promotions" my way. So sue me.

Marketing isn't my thing. I am, by training, an engineer. I have an MBA, but marketing wasn't my strong subject. I just never got it. But, sometimes I wish I could sit in on marketing meetings. More specifically, I wish I could have sat in on the marketing meeting for the Oklahoma Redhawks when they decided to have a Star Wars Night. I have to presume it was a joint promotion with a local Science Fiction club. The night featured an appearance by Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in the Star Wars films. We missed the autograph signing, but did get to seem him throw out the first pitch. Additionally, the night also featured members of the (presumed) Sci-Fi club appearing in costume. Here are a few highlights from the night.

An appearance by Darth Vader. In the first picture, he is walking down the stairs into the box seats directly behind home plate. I imagine him saying, in his best Bob Uecker voice, "I must be in the front row!"


Though I am a little confused why he was being escorted by a Rebel X-wing pilot. (On a tangentially related note, is it just me or does the guy in the rebel flight suit bear a striking resemblance to the actual character in the movie?"



I am not a huge Star Wars fan. In fact, it was well over a year after it's theatrical release before I finally saw the original movie. My wife, on the other hand....HUGE fan (that is her Chewbacca trading card up above). So, I may be wrong here, but I though that Imperial storm troopers were clones and, thus, were all supposed be identical. You wouldn't know from these two fellows, who seem to be of slightly different size and shape.





Promotions got into the act with Light Saber Limbo:



Even the ground crew was in the spirit:





So, there you have it. Chewbacca Night at the Brick. For this season, we bought a mini-season ticket package (7 games, all Fridays or Saturdays), but we can occasionally get free tickets from my wife's employer. I am looking forward to seeing what crazy promotions there will be this year and trying to go to those games.


Update: Our 7 game ticket package for this year includes a promotion with Purina. They are bringing their Incredible Dog Team to The Brick.

Additional Update: In case, anyone is wondering about the genesis of this blog's title click here. Take the time to watch the whole thing. You'll thank me. It is one of the classic TV sitcom moments.

He Hit the F**kin' Bull

Another recent pickup, the 2011 Topps Nelson Cruz



We go to about three to six Oklahoma Redhawks games a year. On July 19, 2008 we were at the Bricktown Ballpark to see the Redhawks play the Memphis Redbirds. What a show we got to see. OKC beat Memphis 9 to 5 on the strength of 3 home runs and 5 RBIs from Nelson Cruz, including one that (if memory serves) cleared the billboards in left field and left the ballpark.

While trying to track down the actual date of that game, it became obvious that it came near the beginning of a 10 game tear for Nelson. Coming off the Pacific Coast League All-Star break, from July 18 to 27, Cruz went 20 for 49 with 11 home runs and 21 RBIs in 10 outings. During that period, he hit 0.408 with an amazing 1.082 slugging percentage. Not too long after that, Cruz got called up by the Rangers for good. The rest, as they say, is history.

Announcing His Presence With Authority

I pulled this card out of a pack of 2011 Topps today. It is 2010 AL Rookie of the Year, Neftali Feliz of the Texas Rangers.



I am posting this because, in 2009, I was in the stands for Feliz's AAA debut. It was April 10, 2009 and the Oklahoma Redhawks were hosting the Memphis Redbirds in the second game of the season opening series. Off the top of my head, I really don't remember much of the game, except that Feliz was throwing pitches that topped 100 MPH, which pretty much got the crowd buzzing. Looking at the box score for the game, I can see that Feliz was the starting pitcher for OKC. In four innings of work, Feliz struck out four, gave up 4 hits and 6 base on balls, but allowed no earned runs. I can't help but think that, it was something of a Nuke LaLoosh performance. Although, to his credit, he didn't hit Rowdy.

On a marginally related note, Rowdy is the Redhawk's mascot. Here is a picture I took of him signing autographs at a game on May 1, 2010 (click the image for a larger version.)

That game was also, believe it or not, Chewbacca Night. You read that right, Chewbacca Night at the Bricktown Ballpark. But, I will save that for another blog post in the next few days. Suffice it to say that I love minor league baseball.