Morneau out for HR Derby

Last year’s Home Run Derby Champion has bowed out of the running for this year.  Justin Morneau declined to participate this year.  That leaves two titles up for grabs.  The guy who actually wins (Morneau), and the guy everyone remembers (Hamilton).

Perhaps the winner and the most memorable performance will come from the same person this year.  Currently, the confirmed participants are:  Albert Pujols (that’s huge), Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder and Adrian Gonzalez.

I still want to see Aaron Hill.

Josh on the ASG and Home Run Derby

Josh Hamilton is well on his way back into the lineup for the Texas Rangers.  He was selected as a starter for the All-Star Game by the fans this weekend, and plans to attend if the Rangers give him the go-ahead.  He won’t be participating in the Home Run Derby, though.

I’m going to cast my vote for Aaron Hill to get a shot at the HR Derby.  He’s got a sweet swing, and he has been hot lately.

The Newest, Youngest Met

The first overall pick in the recent 2009 NHL Entry Draft was John Tavares of the Ontario Hockey League.  The Islanders selected Tavares, and promptly brought him to New York to show him the sights.  One of the sights was a Mets game, where he threw out the first pitch.

Being hockey crazy, I believe this qualifies him for a baseball card.  So I made one.  Enjoy.

Hamilton Voted in as ASG Starter

I have been following the announcements of the starters for the 2009 All-Star Game Starters.  Josh Hamilton was voted in as a starter.  No update on whether he will be able to participate.  I would lean towards ‘no’, simply because he still hasn’t put in any MLB time, but who knows.

It illustrates the follies of fan voting, though.  I love seeing Hamilton play, and I’d be happy to see him in the mid summer classic, but I can’t say he deserves to be there.  It hurts guys who do have all-star calibre seasons, and then they get passed over.   Someone like Aaron Hill who should be there, but might not due to Pedroia being selected as a starter.

Group Break Results

A while back (I forgot to post this), I participated in a group break for 2007 Sweet Spot Baseball over at I Am Joe Collector. After a bit of wheeling and dealing, I managed to end up with the Reds, hoping for Josh Hamilton.  No Hamiltons surfaced in the break, but I did end up with this beauty Adam Dunn card.  Blue ink on a nice wood swatch.  It helps that Dunn has a very aesthetically pleasing signature as well.

2001 Upper Deck Minors Centennial Signatures

Some mail earlier this week brought in another Josh Hamilton autograph for the collection.  I have been picking up some of Hamilton’s older cards lately, especially the hard signed autographs.  Upper Deck released a few prospect oriented sets in the late 90s and early 2000s.  Upper Deck Minors was one of these.  These cards have a nice, clean design, and in addition to this autograph, and a game used bat card I featured a while ago, it features a dual memorabilia card with Hamilton and Joe Dimaggio.  I had a copy of this card lined up, but it arrived heavily creased and I reversed the transaction after consulting with the seller.  It will come up again.  I hope.  Until then, I am more than happy with this new autograph.

Some good news on the baseball front today.  Josh Hamilton played a full game yesterday, with the AAA Oklahoma Red Birds. He went 0-4, but seemed to be feeling fine.  He’ll play at least one more game in centerfield.   Hamilton is also still in position to start in the All-Star Game, holding on to third place among outfielders.  No word on whether he will partake if he is voted in.    He was also the leader as of the last time votes for the 2009 Home Run Derby were tabulated.  I’m not sure a guy coming off recent abdominal surgery needs to be taking home run cuts for an hour, but I am sure there are people more qualified than me to make that decision.

All those nice things I said about Topps’ photography?

I take them back.

Beckett posted some images of 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter today.  Ginter will go live on July 8, 2009.   There is some cool stuff in there – the Michael Phelps base card looks awesome, and while the Invisible Man card is incredibly hokey, it did make me smile.  I don’t know who Higby is, but it looks like he has something to do with yo-yos.

My issue?  The Josh Hamilton box topper.  Specifically, the fact that they are still using shots from the exact same photo shoot, that they used for last year’s A&G.  The set is incredibly airbrushed as it is, couldn’t they have updated the jersey number so that it wasn’t really, really obvious?

Hamilton only wore 52 during 2008 spring training with the Rangers.  In fact, this pose is basically identical to his base card from last year.  I’d say they were just reprinting the card for inclusion on the box topper, but the typography on the bottom has changed.

I’m not going to lie – Ginter will probably be a large part of my 2009 baseball collecting, but I just wish my favourite player’s cards had a little bit more effort put into them.

2007 Ultimate Collection: Ultimate Team Materials

After opening my mail, I decided to see how well I could integrate Twitter into my blog posting.  I’m still getting the hang of having these things integrated, but I kind of like the idea of giving a general rundown as a tweet (teehee), and then the scans and breakdown as a full blog post.

As my tweet (teehee) said, my mail today yielded an autograph, a jersey card, and a bunch of OPC (3 Hamiltons from the base set, and their respective black parallels).  The jersey card was the lowest numbered out of the bunch, so I will start with that one.  Hamilton had a ton of cards in 2007, as he was featured in all of the ‘rookie card’ subsets.  Ultimate Collection is always a good looking set, and these Ultimate Team Materials, or Ultimate Numbered are no exception.  The die-cutting is cool, even though Hamilton has shifted down a digit and wears #32 for the Rangers.

This card is 27/33, not the jersey numbered 1/1 or the first off the stamping press 1/1, just a regular card from the middle of the run.  Another low numbered card knocked of the ever-expanding want list.  Unfortunately, it seems to grow much faster than I can pick up cards.

I’m a sheep

I’m on twitter.  Yeah, I don’t really know how it works or anything like that, but I am there.  Same username:  thehamiltonian, and you can view my awesomely random tweets in the sidebar of this blog.

1999 Topps Traded Autograph

Simple put, this is a card I had put off acquiring for far too long.  When I started collecting Hamilton seriously, it was selling in the $15-30 range.  Looking back, I wish I had bought 20 copies.  It isn’t rare, but it is a true RC autograph, and that is huge.  I picked this copy up on eBay for $101 shipped.  It looks great in hand, with sharp corners and edges, as well as solid centering.  There is a slight smudge on the autograph, but I must admit, I didn’t notice it until I was looking at the enlarged version of the scan.

Hamilton seems to be making good progress on the injury front, and he is still in the running to be selected as a starter for the All-Star Game.  I don’t necessarily think that’s really legit, since most of it is carryover from last season’s HR Derby performance, but fan voting is never that reliable.  I think he would likely bow out of the HR Derby anyways, just to avoid aggravating his abdominal injury any further.