A rare find: a pre-1974 nerd card. Also, it looks like Mr. Grba is missing a vowel in his last name.

We may be witnessing Nerd Baseball history here. Could Danny MacFayden, pictured here on his 1933 Goudey baseball card, be the very first nerdy baseball player? There’s no way to know for sure, but the biographical information on the back of the card gives us a little insight: “First pitcher in the American League to wear spectacles.” MacFayden’s glasses definitely mark him as a Nerd Baseball trailblazer, as does his professor-like appearance. His nickname was “Deacon Danny.”

A question remains: The description of MacFayden as the first American League pitcher to wear glasses implies that a National League pitcher or non-pitcher from either league wore glasses before MacFayden did. If so, who was it and was he as nerdy as MacFayden?

MacFayden had a long and decent career, pitching for 17 seasons (1926-43) with a career 101 ERA+ and a 132-159 record. Among other teams, he pitched for both the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and was a member of the Yankees’ 1932 World Series championship team, although he didn’t pitch in the postseason. His best season came in 1936 with the Boston Bees, when he went 17-13 with a 2.87 ERA (134 ERA+) and finished 9th in the MVP voting.

According to the back of the card, MacFayden was a pitcher for Somerville High School in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he went undefeated. In a high school game that went 12 innings, MacFayden struck out 33 batters and allowed only 4 hits.

From the back of the card: “He used to be the ball maker for his baseball team as a boy, but used to lose most of the balls by hitting home runs.”

Known as “The Kentucky Colonel,” Earle Combs (Goudey incorrectly spells his first name “Earl” – such errors were common in old-timey baseball cards and are not considered error cards) is the first Hall of Famer card that I have acquired from the 1933 Goudey set. He really shouldn’t be in the HOF, though. But that’s not a knock on Combs, who was an excellent player over 12 seasons with the New York Yankees.

As the Yankees center fielder from 1924-1935, Combs compiled a career line of .325/.397/.462, which equates to a career OPS+ of 126. These are great numbers, but not really HOF-worthy, in my opinion, especially when compiled over less than 150o career games. He was elected to the HOF in 1970 by the Veteran’s Committee, which is notorious for having elected many very good, but not great, players from the pre-war era.

Over his career, Combs played in four World Series, of which the Yankees won three; Combs hit .350/.444/.450 in 16 career World Series games.

At age 28, Combs batted leadoff and played center field for the famous “Murderer’s Row” 1927 Yankees team that went 110-44 and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. That season, he batted .356, led the league with 231 hits and scored 137 runs. That tends to happen when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are batting behind you.

He retired at age 36 after suffering a near-death injury crashing into the outfield wall in 1934, in which he fractured his skull. His 1935 attempted comeback season was cut short by another injury and he retired, paving the way for Joe DiMaggio, who would take over center field duties in 1936. He remained a coach in the major leagues for the next 18 years.

From the back of the card: “Eddie is a registered dentist, besides being a high grade major league baseball player.”

I’ll give Goudey a pass on the “high grade” player thing because it is pretty impressive that Doc Farrell was a dentist. One of the fascinating things about reading about old-timey players is how many of them had professions other than baseball. I’ve read about two that were lawyers (including Moe Berg, who was a lawyer and spy for the U.S. during World War II).

Farrell probably should have stuck with dentistry, though. Over nine seasons in the major leagues, he got into just under 600 games and posted a career OPS+ of 66 as an infielder for the New York Giants, Boston Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox. In 1927, he placed 18th in the MVP voting by hitting .316 and driving in 92 runs, though he only slugged .389 that season.

Following the 1934 season, Farrell was traded by the Yankees, along with 4 other players, to San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League for Joe DiMaggio and players to be named later. Farrell refused to report to his new team and was eventually traded back to the Yankees as one of the players to be named later.

From the back of the card: “Is elongated young man, towering 6 feet, 1 1/2 inches and weighing 170 pounds.”

Brother of Slick Coffman, who had a short career in the late 1930s as a pitcher, Dick Coffman played for 15 seasons for the Washington Senators (twice), the St. Louis Browns (twice), the New York Giants, the Boston Bees, and the Philadelphia Phillies. He was thoroughly mediocre, posting a career 72-95 record with a 96 ERA+ over 1460 innings. He pitched for the 1936 and 1937 New York Giants teams that lost to the New York Yankees in consecutive World Series. Coffman didn’t help his team much in those efforts, posting a 12.00 ERA in 6 World Series innings.

Incredibly, he was traded twice for the same player – within six months! On June 9, 1932, Coffman was traded by the Browns to the Senators for pitcher Carl Fischer. On December 13, 1932, the Senators traded him back to the Browns for Carl Fischer.

“You can’t pitch a perfect game. No one can.” (Awkward silence) “Except Don Larsen.”

And a bunch of other guys. It’s weird that he used Larsen as his example, when Mark Buehrle pitched a perfect game three weeks ago.

There was nothing particularly savvy or skillful about it, of course. They were dealing with Scott Boras, so they knew that honor and integrity would play no part in the process.

Just money. Lots and lots of money.

I hate to break it to Callahan, but we’re not talking about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, so cut the “honor and integrity” moral high ground crap. We’re talking about baseball and free agency. It’s a business, players are commodities, and the name of the game is to maximize earnings and profit. Why is he talking about “honor?” I’m so sick of the phony outrage over Scott Boras. It’s been done to death and it’s just so boring.

In other words, it was a New York Yankees kind of deal right from the start, a chance for them to buy the biggest house on the block and act like they built it with their bare hands.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman didn’t even have to travel to Mark Teixiera’s [sic] home to grovel. All he had to do was sit back, checkbook in hand, and let Boras do his thing. In the end, the slimy superagent did not let him down.

What does this even mean? The Yankees offered Teixeira a ton of money and he took it. That’s how free agency works. If you’re Teixeira and the Yankees, Orioles, and Nationals all offer you $180M, why wouldn’t you go to the Yankees?

Also, is there now something wrong with just buying a house? I didn’t realize that the classy move was to build your house personally (and hope that everything passes inspection). And this metaphor is strange: what exactly would building it with their bare hands entail? Drafting Teixeira out of high school and developing him into a star? Nobody did that (the Red Sox did draft him, but he didn’t sign) and I don’t remember the Yankees pretending that the Teixeira signing was anything more than a free agent signing.

Also, I know Teixeira’s name is hard to spell, but you work for a newspaper, or at least a tabloid. Get it right.

Boras used the Orioles and Nationals and Angels until he used them up, as Bill Withers would say, and then he played your Boston Red Sox like they were his new Guitar Hero game.

Nice cultural reference – it’s only a few years old. Also, is there some documentation that Boras plays Guitar Hero? If not, this line doesn’t make any sense.

The Sox desperately wanted to bring Teixeira to Boston, and for a while, actually thought they had a shot at the switch-hitting first baseman. Even though they already had a pretty good first baseman and third baseman, the Sox didn’t try to hide their affection for the best free agent on the market. They pounced on Teixeira like Brian Williams on Barack Obama. They made a bold offer of about $170 million over eight years.

Well, at least, Theo Epstein thought it was an offer. In truth, it was a signal from Boras to Cashman, who might as well have been sitting outside in a white van. Their scheme was coming together. Those rubes up in Boston played their part and drove up the price. Now it was time for the Yanks to pony up and close the deal.

Cashman did as he was told. He topped the Sox by a sizable margin. Final number: $180 million over eight years with a full no-trade clause.

So let me get this straight: There was a conspiracy between Boras and Cashman, whereby Boras would let the other teams drive up the price on Teixeira and then, when the price was maxed out, signal Cashman that it was time for the Yanks to sign him. Why would Cashman be complicit in a scheme that resulted in Teixeira’s price going up? That doesn’t make any sense and wouldn’t require Cashman’s involvement at all. Callahan: in order for there to be a conspiracy, there has to be more than one party involved.

Also, you can’t posit a hypothetical scheme by using the phrase “in truth.” That would only make sense if you were actually saying something that was true. This guy is really lazy.

Recession? What recession? The taxpayers of New York helped the Yankees build their new revenue-generating palace, and the Yanks turned around and shared the wealth with Teixeira.

Callahan says this as if Yankees fans didn’t want the Yankees to sign Teixeira.

It is easy to say the Red Sox should have known better, but after lavishing outrageous contracts on other Boras clients, including J.D. Drew and Daisuke Matsuzaka, maybe the Sox thought Boras would give them a fair shake. They thought wrong, and they got burned. The Red Sox ended up with a miffed Mike Lowell, which hasn’t been a problem for them, while New York ended up with one of the best all-around players in the American League, which, as it turns out, has been a big, big problem for the Sox.

How exactly did the Red Sox get burned? If they wanted Teixeira, they could have just offered more than the Yankees. How about $200M? That would not have been a good idea, but it would have gotten the deal done. I fail to see how the Red Sox didn’t get a “fair shake.” In Callahan’s world, every team that misses out on a free agent somehow got ripped off and taken for a ride.

We don’t know yet if the Yankees finally bought themselves a World Series, but we know this: As they take the field against the Red Sox tonight, the Yankees bought themselves first place (or a piece of it, at least), and they did it primarily with one move. After years of foolish free agent signings from Kevin Brown to Carl Pavano to Jason Giambi to Kei Igawa, Cashman and the Yankees got one very right this year.

Does Callahan really not know that Kevin Brown was acquired in a trade with the Dodgers (for Jeff Weaver) and not as a free agent? And does he honestly think it was solely Teixeira’s signing that has improved the Yankees and not Sabathia?

Also, the Red Sox offered Pavano an identical contract to the one he signed with the Yankees. There was good reason to believe that Pavano was going to be overpaid and not great, but no one could have predicted the colossal cluster-F that would be Pavano’s four years in New York.

Finally, I’m sick of everyone claiming that the Giambi contract was a disaster. It certainly didn’t work out as planned for the Yankees. Giambi was overpaid, had the steroid situation, some bizarre injuries, couldn’t play defense, and declined as he stopped using steroids and got older. He was, however, pretty damned productive with the bat over his seven years in New York. He actually posted a .925 OPS (143 OPS+) over the term of the contract.

[Boring section of column deleted]

Teixeira and the Yankees, meanwhile, have won 18 of their last 24 and look nothing like the team that lost all five games to the Sox in April and May. For the last decade, they have spent more than a billion dollars in pursuit of a World Series title and come up empty. Books have been written. Inside stories have been told. Like Jon and Kate, the Yankees’ poor planning has become legendary.

Again, Callahan nails the cultural reference. Did he pick up that Jon and Kate zinger on the checkout line at Shaw’s?

And, really, the Yankees poor planning has become legendary? This is a non-sequitir. The Yankees have made many bad personnel decisions over the last decade. The Red Sox are a smarter organization. But 2008 was the first time the Yankees failed to reach the postseason since 1993 (no postseason in 1994). If you think that’s “poor planning,” speak with fans in Pittsburgh and Washington/Montreal.

But the Yankees, who were a mess only a month ago, come to Boston tonight in first place, and we can’t help but wonder if they finally got one right. This time the blind squirrel didn’t find a nut. Just the opposite. Cashman got himself a real pro, as close to a sure thing as there is in baseball.

Again, this is so goofy. How do you honestly describe a perennial postseason team as a “blind squirrel” that may have “finally got one right?”

Callahan should not be allowed within 200 feet of a newspaper or radio microphone. I sincerely hope that this guy does not have a Hall of Fame vote.

I did want to note something that I heard Cowherd say this afternoon, however. While running some errands during lunch today, I had the misfortune of catching a few minutes of Cowherd’s radio show (by the way, ESPN Radio really screwed the pooch when they sent Max Kellerman packing; he used to have a show for the New York market during Cowherd’s time slot and he was surprisingly funny, interesting, and well-informed).

Anyway, Cowherd was discussing how important Curt Schilling and Manny were to the 2004 Red Sox because they “changed the culture” of the team. Their attitudes, Cowherd argued, made the Red Sox no longer fear the Yankees and gave them the confidence to beat them and become champions. He then said (and I’m paraphrasing): “To me, that’s what makes Schilling a Hall of Famer, even more than his 11-2 postseason record. He changed the culture of the Red Sox.”

So let me get this straight. Here is Cowherd’s list of Schilling’s Hall of Fame credentials, in order of importance:

1. Changed culture of 2004 Red Sox.
2. 11-2 postseason record.
3. Everything else he ever did (127 career ERA+, 3116 Ks, 216 wins, 1.137 career WHIP, etc.)

That makes sense, right?

I was driving to Home Depot at the time and was listening to the game on WCBS radio. What followed was five irritating minutes from Suzyn Waldman during which she harped nonstop on the fact that the umpires should use instant replay to review the play, even though it was obvious to everyone that they were going to use replay given the ambiguity involved. After the umpires finished their on-field conference, they indicated that they would use instant replay, prompting Waldman to exclaim smugly: “Thank you very much.” Congratulations to Waldman for pointing out the obvious.

John Sterling, however, took the edge off my frustration with Waldman by strangely dropping an Akira Kurosawa reference. Sterling, discussing the fact that, even after watching the replay, it was hard to figure out what exactly happened, said (I’m paraphrasing): “This is like Rashomon – show this replay to three different people and you might get three different interpretations of what happened.” Even though I think there were four different perspectives in Rashomon, I’ll cut Sterling a break because it was a great reference. Now if I could only get him to stop all of his goofy home run calls (incidentally, once Posada’s hit was ruled a home run, Sterling said: “Jorgie, as they say, juiced one,” even though Sterling is the only one that says that).

Another irritating moment during the broadcast occurred when Sterling and Waldman were discussing the strangely high number of home runs hit during the first few games at the new Yankee Stadium. Sterling said he would be perfectly happy if the new stadium turned out to be a bandbox because he likes seeing home runs and enjoys high scoring games. Waldman disagreed, stating in her best “in awe of Yankee history voice” (I’m paraphrasing again):  “But that’s never what the Yankees have been about.”

It’s hard to overstate the silliness and inaccuracy of Waldman’s comment. From 1996 – 2007, the Yankees averaged 896 runs scored per season, which works out to approximately 5.5 runs per game over twelve seasons. This includes the so-called “dynasty” of 1996 – 2001. All of Waldman’s handwringing over the recent Yankee championship teams being built on pitching and defense overlooks the huge numbers of runs that these teams scored.

Again, Sterling to the rescue. He was spot-on in his response to Waldman’s comment: “Well, uh, they didn’t call them the Bronx Bombers for nothing.”

Nick Swisher is awesome.

Anyone catch the highlights from the 15-5 beating the Rays gave the Yankees last night? The only highlight for the Yankees was Nick Swisher, who hit a home run off Scott Kazmir and then pitched a scoreless eighth inning. Of the five pitchers used by the Yankees, Swisher was the only one to toss a scoreless inning.

So how did Swisher’s inning go? B.J. Upton walked, Willy Aybar singled, Gabe Kapler struck out swinging, Carlos Pena flied out, Pat Burrell flied out. Boy, I’d hate to be Gape Kapler right now.

Apparently, Swisher shook off catcher Jose Molina, even though Molina wasn’t putting down any signs.

I’ve already posted about the Swisher/Nady situation. This is just more proof that Swisher is awesome.