@JRSIV 81: As a legit pitcher, I want the photo on my baseball card to show me running the bases w my warmups

Thanks @JRSIV81.
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You’ve got to hand it to the Studio sets.  They had a vision, and that vision was realized.

Mr. Thompson was in the National League’s top 7 in WAR twice in his career.  According to Wikipedia, he used the same glove for almost his entire career, and was offended when the San Francisco Chronicle published a story titled “Thompson’s Ugly, Pathetic Glove is a Gem.”

Another “repeat nerd,” Mr. Garrelts has become eligible for the lifetime achievement award.  You can check out his first appearance here.

Mr. Garrelts had several good-to-great seasons for the Giants, including 1989, in which he led the National League in ERA.

I like how the glare on his glasses makes his eyes look as if he’s “powering-up” Teen Wolf style.

Mr. Bradley was the person who gave Hall-of-Famer Rich Gossage his nickname, “Goose.”

She quotes infield coach and noted baseball strategist Shawon Dunston, who elegantly articulated the evils and selfishness of talking walks when discussing the Giant slugger:

“I’m sorry, but you walk 80 times a year, and you don’t hit .300 ever in your career, you’re not that good,” he said. “But he’s up there, putting it on the line. Guys who walk a lot, they say they have a good eye. Maybe they’re just protecting their average. They’re protecting their average, cheating the game.”

Clearly, taking a walk – and not making an out – exemplifies the unwholesome influence of Ayn Rand in baseball. As a lifelong Giants fan, I’m glad that neither Sandoval nor Bengie Molina (who at one point this season had an OBP lower than his BA!) selfishly take walks and don’t cheat the game.

After all, what’s the point of getting on base when Fred Lewis and Rich Aurilia are behind you in the lineup anyway? Walking would just pump up those useless OBP numbers at the expense of F-Lew’s GIDP numbers. That, my fellow nerds, is not what baseball is about.

On August 24, 1975, Mr. Halicki threw a no-hitter against the New York Mets. So far, this is the first documented nerd-thrown-no-hitter.

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Seriously.  What is going on here?

1) According to wikipedia and baseball-reference, Fleer misspelled Mr. Riles first name (Ernest, not Earnest).

2) He was obviously posing in his batting stance.  Whose decision was it to let his head overlap the border, but let the bat get cut off so it looks like he’s in some strange yoga pose?

3) Really?  You can’t show his whole body?  Is there a precedent for this type of photo cropping?

4) Did someone take a landscape shot of the outfield grass, and then photoshop Mr. Riles into it, except they didn’t know how to resize the second image?

I demand answers.  And despite having a career OPS+ of 89, Mr. Riles deserves better.

Was the photographer given a strict limit of one frame per player? Did they just roll down the window and wave the camera in Mr. Minton’s direction as they zoomed by in their car? Was the picture taken through a wet paper towel? Did the editors at Fleer think that the blurriness of the text would distract collectors from the blurriness of the picture?  I demand answers…

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Does anyone else get the feeling this guy should be wearing one of those painters' cap Pirates uniforms?