Home Run Derby

So I opened my mail last night … and there he was.

Bucky Dent.  Or if you’re from Red Sox Nation, Bucky F-ing Dent.

Well, at least a three and a half inch cardboard facsimile of him in near-Mint condition.

This is cool.  I like it.  But wait … WTF?

Dent showed up in a plain white envelope addressed with a computer-generated label … but no return address.  Postmarked from New York City on June 25th.  

Hmmmm.  NYC?  My first thought was that I had cheesed off some Yankee fan (who thought I was a Red Sox fan) in some post or another.  But that couldn’t be.  Because I haven’t written anything about the Yanks in a while – heck I haven’t posted at all in two weeks.  And besides, pissed off blog readers voice their displeasure immediately in the comments section – not via envelopes with mail-merged labels.

I bet other bloggers had Bucky Dent in their mailbox.  It had to be a publicity stunt.

I was right.

• Purple Row and Bronx Banter and Was Watching got a Dent card.  
• Dave Pinto at Baseball Musings and Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts got George Scott cards.
• Will Carroll of ESPN got a Steve Swisher card. 
• Craig Calcaterra at Shysterball also got a Dent card … and led the charge to find out who else got them and who sent them.
  And to his credit – he figured it out.

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A couple weeks ago, Home Run Derby showed you a bunch of mistaken identies on baseball cards.  Namely, errors where the name and the picture on the card didn’t match.

But that’s not the only way baseball card companies screw up their cards.  Sometimes they get the player right … but someone put the photo on there wrong.  Let’s look at some baseball players who seem to have stumbled through the looking glass or found their way to Bizarro World.

You know, Bizarro World (also known as Htrae) – the planet in the DC Comics Universe where everything is a mirror image of what’s on Earth.  

Let’s begin with one of my dad’s favorite players …

Hank Aaron
1957 Topps #20

At first glance, you might not notice that this Hall of Famer is on here backwards.  You might not know that Hammerin’ Hank wasn’t a lefty.

But Aaron was a righty … and that 4 in Aaron’s 44 is not pointing the right direction.

That card is listed at $300  in the latest Beckett.  Take that for what it’s worth.

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I ‘ve always wondered if ballplayers get excited when they see their baseball cards for the first time … or the 18th time for that matter.

When I was a kid playing little League – the biggest reason I wanted to be a Big Leaguer so I could be on a baseball card.  But with my luck, they would screw it up and put another guy’s picture on my card. 

Because it happens.  A lot.  Well, at least 10 times that I could find. 

Let’s take a look back at  some mistaken identities immortalized on cardboard …

Barry Bonds
1987 Donruss Opening Day #163A

I know that the Barry Bonds of the 1980’s didn’t look like the muscle-bound and big-headed Barry Bonds of the 21st Century …. but that ain’t Barry Bonds.  That’s Johnny Ray.

The error was corrected quickly and made this card a collectors’ item. 

It goes for about $300.

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Baseball has a long history of its players cheating.

Spitballs, corked bats, interference, sharpened spikes, stealing signs, and performance enhancing drugs among those transgressions. 

And sometimes, there’s cheating that happens off the field.  And not just marital infidelity.  There’s also the guys who try to cheat Uncle Sam out of his take.

So in honor of this April 15th – TAX DAY – here’s a look at Baseball’s biggest tax cheats.  Well, the ones who got caught anyway.

Derek Jeter

In 2001, Jeter purchased a $13 Million Apartment in Trump Towers near the World Trade Center.   Which would make you think he’s a resident of New York.  But Jeter has claimed to be a resident of Florida since 1994 … I wonder if it’s merely a coincidence that Florida has no state income tax. 

Well, the New York Department of Taxation and Finance didn’t think it was a coincidence, and in 2007 charged Jeter with evading three years worth of  Taxes from 2001-2004.   New york said that Jeter was indeed a resident of the Empire State and not the Sunshine State.

Jeter reportedly settled the case with New York in 2008.  The terms and value of the settlement are unknown.

Barry Bonds

Okay this one is totally speculative and unofficial since the Feds didn’t include any Tax Evasion charges in their indictment of Bonds back in 2007. 

But it was widely reported in 2006 that Bonds handed over at least $80,000 in ”possibly undeclared $80,000 in cash from memorabilia sales” to his mistress, Kimberly Bell.  Bell said that Bonds “instructed her to deposit the money in amounts less than $10,000.”

My guess is that the Feds dropped the Tax Evasion charges because Bell was an unreliable witness – she’s got man-hands, after all.

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The Seattle Mariners have some artwork to correct …

Here’s a photo of a wall at Safeco Field, taken a couple days ago (2/5/09). 
What’s wrong with this picture?

Yep.  That’s Aaron Heilman, who the Mariners acquired in a trade with the New York Mets back in December, 2008. 

But Heilman was traded to the Chicago Cubs two weeks ago.

Great Googly Moogly.  That is the biggest error card I have ever seen.

We’ve focused a lot lately on the top of the Hall of Fame ballot.  Well now, with the HoF results in and Jim Rice and Rickey Henderson (suck on it, Corky) elected to the Hall of Fame … let’s look at the bottom of the ballot.

Instead of wondering if someone will ever be voted into the Hall unanimously … let’s look at those who have been unanimously shut out of the Hall of Fame.   And I don’t mean players who went one-and done in their chance at the Hall.

I mean those players who couldn’t get a single vote during their chance on the ballot.  Zip.  Zilch.  Nada.  Donut.  Not a sausage.  Bugger all.

This year (2009), the no-vote dishonor fell on Ron Gant, Dan Plesac, and Greg Vaughn. Not a single writer bit on any of them. Not even Corky Simpson.

The Baseball Hall of Fame has been tracking voters who didn’t receive a vote for the past 32 ballots.   During that time, there were 189 players who couldn’t gather up a single vote between them.  As you might imagine … there’s a few names that you’ve heard of among that group. 

Here’s some notable ones.

In 1991, Oscar Gamble couldn’t get a single voter to bet on him. 

You see … this is what’s wrong with the BBWAA. 

If that fabulous afro can’t get an obligatory vote from at least one BBWAA writer … it’s time for the entire institution to lose its voting rights.

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So I was checking out some 2007 Topps baseball cards the other day … and for some reason, the Kansas City Royals’ cards caught my eye.

Well – one card in particular.  It wasn’t a Mark Grudzielanek, Mark Sweeney, or even the elusive Jimmy Gobble card that caught my eye …

It was the team card.  You know, the one with the team picture on the front and the team checklist on the back.  You usually flip right past that one …

Except this card was missing something …
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