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To avoid any confusion, Mr. Trout is not actually a giant white paper fish.
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To avoid any confusion, Mr. Trout is not actually a giant white paper fish.
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Order of business #1: You can cover that umbrella hat in Budweiser cans all you want, but that doesn’t detract from the nerdiness of wearing it in the first place.*
Order of business #2: We need more “Jay Johnsones” in Major League Baseball. From Wikipedia:
[Johnstone] pulled off a number of infamous pranks during his playing days, including placing a soggy brownie inside Steve Garvey’s first base mitt, setting teammate’s cleats on fire (known as “hot-footing”), cutting out the crotch area of Rick Sutcliffe’s underwear, locking Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda in his office during spring training, dressing up as a groundskeeper and sweeping the Dodger Stadium infield in between innings, nailing teammate’s cleats to the floor, and replacing the celebrity photos in manager Lasorda’s office with pictures of himself, Jerry Reuss and Don Stanhouse. He also once dressed up in Lasorda’s uniform (with padding underneath) and ran out to the mound to talk to the pitcher while carrying Lasorda’s book and a can of Slim Fast.
As a baseball announcer, he once covered a microphone with a scent of stale eggs then proceeded to interview Dave Stewart, Mickey Hatcher and other players.
Johnstone struck out looking against Dave Spiwack in the top of the first inning in the movie Naked Gun.
*Let it be noted that I’m anticipating a return of the “nerd vs. dork” controversy in reference to the umbrella hat.
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And don’t forget to vote for the 2009 Nerd All-Star Team.

Not to be confused with Bruce Bochy, the manager of the San Francisco Giants. In researching the nerds that I post, I rarely find a player whose career takes more than a few minutes to digest. However, in the case of Mr. Bochte, there is a LOT going on. He made the all-star team in 1979. His career OPS+ is 113, over the course of almost 6000 plate appearances. However, Mr. Bochte off the field seems to be a fascinating character.
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Mr. Davis broke a New York Yankees record by striking out eight consecutive batters in a single relief appearance. He also co-owns the record for most blown saves in a single season, with 14. He actually had 5 seasons throughout his career (’79, ’80, ’81, ’83, ’85) that I wouuld categorize between “good” and “great.” In two of these he actually averaged over 10 K’s per 9 innings. For a nerd, this is the eqivalent of hall-of-fame level production.
Another example of Fleer just not giving a shit.
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Mendoza as in "The Mendoza Line" fame...You see that look on his face? Either he just got look at his own batting stats (a career .245 OBP and .262 slugging pct), or someone just farted.
The only way the quality of the 1982 Fleer set makes sense is if they somehow got in a time machine and commissioned my high school basic photography class to take their photos. Even then, I’m pretty sure Mr. Carter gave us the f-stop and framing lessons within the first week. Take away the red border and this shabby baseball card becomes a post-modern work of art…The white of Mr. Mendoza’s jersey fading seamlessly into the bright white of the sky illustrating the fine line between existence and nothingness…OK, no more drinking on weeknights…
Watching Sunday Night Baseball, I was lamenting the state of the modern nerd. Then Craig Counsell came up to bat. In this day and age, I think this guy and his goofy stance is the closest we’re going to get. Someone get this man some glasses.

(The Onion also wrote a pretty good article about Counsell).
We here at Nerd Baseball were torn about whether or not to add any Chirs Sabo cards to the Nerd Archive. On the one hand, he single handedly brought Rec-Specs into the public consciousness. On the other hand, those things never really took off, and he ended up being one of the only guys to wear them. On the one hand, among casual baseball fans, he ranks extraordinarily high on the name-recognition scale (for a nerd). On the other hand, finding Chris Sabo nerd cards is almost too easy. There’s no sense of wonder, or discovery, when you find one.
In the end, we found a couple that we decided were keepers.
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Happy Opening Week everybody. Regular nerd schedule resumes on Monday.