Blog Bat Around and a Big Trade

I'm going to try and cover as much as I can on this blog until the end of the month (when I officially start my 9 to 5 schedule) so get ready for some multi-topic posts of various length. 

 

Night Owl started a thought exercise that became a Blog Bat Around topic, prompting bloggers to write down the first player that comes to mind for every team in the league. I've only seen baseball done so far, so I did three lists: baseball, hockey, and football. (I'm saving my basketball list for an NBA-only post.) 

I did this Sporcle style, writing my answer as quickly as possible without more than three seconds of thought. Here are the results:

baseball
arizona - l gonzalez
atlanta - maddux
baltimore - ripken
boston - betts
chi cubs - sandberg
chi sox - f thomas
cleveland - thome
cincinnati - joe morgan
colorado - helton
detroit - kaline
houston - bagwell
kansas city - brett
la angels - trout
la dodgers - kershaw
miami - yelich
milwaukee - yelich*, yount
minnesota - puckett
montreal - walker
ny mets - g carter**
ny yankees - jeter
oakland - eckersley
philly - utley
pittsburgh - mccutchen
st. louis - musial
san diego - gwynn
san fran - bonds
seattle - griffey
tampa - price
texas - will clark
toronto - joe carter
washington - harper

*It's kind of a cheat that Yelich played for Miami and Milwaukee, so he was still on my mind when I tried to think of a Brewer. The next Brewer that came to mind was Robin Yount, so I added both names.

**A similar thing happened with Gary Carter; I purposely didn't use "The Kid" as my Expo because Night Owl did so..but then I got to the Mets and his name was still in my head.

Dennis Eckersley and David Price both came to mind because the MLB Network's documentary on Eck aired today. I credit/blame Brian for the McCutchen influence. 

I cannot explain Will Clark. 

Here's my hockey list:

anaheim - Getzlaf
arizona - oel
atlanta - kovalchuk
boston - chara
buffalo - eichel
calgary - macinnis, iginla*
carolina - francis
chicago - roenick
colorado - sakic
columbus - bobrovsky
dallas - seguin
detroit - chelios
edmonton - gretzky
florida - luongo
los angeles - kopitar
minnesota - koivu
montreal - price
nashville - subban
new jersey - brodeur
ny islanders - trottier
ny rangers - messier
ottawa - karlsson
philly - clarke
pittsburgh - crosby
san jose - marleau
st. louis - pronger
tampa - stamkos
toronto - sundin
vancouver - bure
vegas - w karlsson
washington - ovechkin
winnipeg - laine
winnipeg - hawerchuk
quebec - sakic
hartford - burke

Arizona's "oel" is Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Ottawa's Karlsson is Erik; Vegas's is William.

Al MacInnis and Jarome Iginla entered my brain at almost the exact same second.

So many great players in Red Wings history and Chris Chelios popped into my head first. Shrug..at least he's a Hall of Famer. 

Minnesota's Mikko Koivu beat Zach Parise by a split second. I didn't want that jerkface in my head anyhow.  

Here's my NFL list. It's... not good. Too quarterback-heavy. And then after about ten teams I consciously tried not to think of a QB - which skewed the results. Regardless, here they are:

arizona - palmer
atlanta - ryan
baltimore - flacco
buffalo - flutie
carolina - newton
chicago - singletary
cincinnati - esiason
cleveland - jim brown*
dallas - aikman
denver - von miller**
detroit - b sanders
green bay - favre
houston - watt
houston - campbell
indy - manning
jacksonville - fournette**
kansas city - okoye***
la rams - dickerson
la chargers - brees
miami - marino
minnesota - cunningham
new orleans - brees
new england - brady
ny giants - e manning
ny jets - adams
oakland - lynch
philly - kelce
pittsburgh - big ben
san fran - montana
seattle - russ wilson
tampa - nickerson
tennesee - e george
washington - kerrigan

*Exhibit A. The actual first Brown in my head was Bernie Kosar. But it's embarrassing to slight the great Mr. Brown.

**John Elway was the first Bronco that came to mind. And Blake Bortles was the first Jaguar (I blame The Good Place)

***All this QB bias and the Chiefs are in the AFC title game and yet Patrick Mahomes was not the first Chief I thought of. Travis Kelce is in a McDonald's commercial FFS. But no, I thought of a guy who hasn't played in 25 years. I told you this list was a joke. 


Now..let's discuss some cards, shall we? I've been working on a blockbuster trade with Gavin since he pulled a Dustin Pedroia patch card out of his Christmas/Birthday box break.

Initially I didn't think I had enough to offer him for such a high-end hit. I'd just sent him some cards two months ago in exchange for a custom card project and I don't have the cash to gamble on high-end products like Museum Collection. But I couldn't let this Dustin Pedroia patch go without making an offer of three vintage cards. Gavin passed...kinda.

I made him an offer of a more modern trade stack, and he accepted that. But he wanted to keep (two of) the vintage cards in play. So I added them to the trade..and he added this:

Gavin had pulled this Jason Varitek auto from a previous Christmas/Birthday break. I tried to acquire it at the time, but was unsuccessful. To Gav's credit he remembered my interest in the 'Tek auto and offered it up for the vintage cards. I quickly accepted. 

Additionally, I won a Luis Tiant Topps Retired auto in his Christmas Day contest. It was quite a fluke; I had only checked into Blogger to see if Wes had started his Megabreak.

Here's "El Tiante" side-by-side with a 2004 Topps Retired auto I already had (possibly from a trade with Gavin?) I did not have a Jason Varitek autograph in my collection; it's only the third autographed card of a 2004 Red Sox player in my collection (joining David Ortiz and Nomar Garciaparra - who obviously didn't finish the season with the Sox.)

he also added a hand-drawn Pedey

Gavin, thanks for another fantastic trade! 


Enjoy the NFL games everyone. Go Chiefs! Go...Christian Okoye, lol.

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