The Real Life Crash Davis

Most baseball fans are familiar with the baseball classic movie, Bull Durham. It stars Kevin Costner as Crash Davis, an aging minor league catcher who sets the minor league home run record. Yesterday (Monday August 3rd) the Toledo Mud Hens Mike Hessman put his name in the history books.

In the 7th inning against Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Hessman stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and the Mud hens trailing 4-6. With one swing of the bat Hessman put the Mud Hens in the lead and also set the minor league home run record at 433 career long balls. He passed Buzz Arlett who starred for the Phillies farm team in the 1920s and 30s. I purchased this bobblehead last year. It was for setting the home run record for just the International league that he did on June 30th, 2014.

It is a pretty cool bobblehead featuring Hessman wearing a crown on top of his helmet. Congrats on this amazing feat in your career and good luck to you in the future Mr. Hessman!

#MyCardMonday Thank you Yoenis Cespedes

I guess you could say this is a second part of my last blog post about David Price being traded away from Detroit. I will save my ramblings about why this was for the good of the team, because you can just go back to the last post to read that.

Yoenis Cespedes spent a half season with the Detroit Tigers before he was traded to the New York Mets for two prospects, Mike Fulmer and Luis Cessa. In the half season he spent in Detroit, Cespedes put of some of his best numbers yet as a major leaguer. He posted .293/.323/.506 with 18 home runs and 61 RBIs while having an OPS+ of 126. He was on pace to have his best season yet. I hope he finishes the season out strong for the Mets and maybe from the rumors (he has been telling friends and family that he would like to come back to Detroit) he will re-sign with the Tigers in the off-season. Either way thank you Cespedes for the exciting half season we were able to watch you play.

Thank You David Price

As a fan of baseball (or any sport) it can be hard to understand that sports are not just for our entertainment, but it is a business for the people who are directly involved with the game. We can get attached to players and not want to see them leave the team if is from free agency or via trade. For Detroit Tigers fans seeing star players such as David Price being traded away from Detroit can be especially hard with knowing that the team is (as Dave Dombrowksi stated) rebooting. In other words we are going from winning four straight Central Divisions title to missing the playoffs to build for the future.

David Price was only with us for half of last season and half of this season. I loved Price before he came to Detroit and I will continue to follow what he does afterwards. In his short period in Detroit he went 13-8 with a 2.90 ERA and 220 strikeouts. He posted a 136 ERA+ in the 32 starts he made for Detroit. With the Tigers trading Price to the Toronto Blue Jays they were able to get three prospects in returning, including a top 25 prospect, Daniel Norris. From the sounds of the trade, it was a win win for both sides. Thank you David Price for the great year that you spent in Detroit and good luck with your future.

Collecting Detroit Tigers: Victor Martinez

Out of everyone on the Detroit Tigers since 2011, Victor Martinez has been my favorite player. I really love how he is a fighter at the plate and rarely strikes out. He has came up clutch for the Tigers and has added much needed protection to Miguel Cabrera. One of my favorite cards of V-Mart's to collect is from the Topps Museum Collection. This card here is the quad relic from the 2015 series. I believe I added 3 or 4 of them from last year as well. Sometimes it is just white uniform pieces, but other times it has a pinstripe or part of the Old English D or the Detroit logo from an away jersey. All in all I tend to try to added a card or two now from this series.

I am glad to see V-Mart back in the lineup and producing. After coming back from the DL he has really swung the bat well for the Tigers. They need his bat while Miggy is on the DL. For the past month he has put up .285/.338/.455 with 4 home runs and 13 RBIs.

Joining the Legends

This past Sunday was the baseball Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown, NY. Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Randy Johnson were inducted into the Hall of Fame. In honor of my favorite childhood pitcher, Randy Johnson I thought I would shared my favorite my Johnson card that I own.

Being left handed I have always tended to like left handed pitchers. Well the Big Unit was the best one of my generation. I grew up a Detroit Tigers fan, but being 25 years old now I was in the generation that watch Ken Griffey Jr. and the Seattle Mariners. I was never really a Mariners fan, but I loved Griffey and Johnson.

In his 22 year career Johnson would win 303 games with an ERA of 3.29 and 4,875 strikeouts which is good for second all time behind Nolan Ryan. He would win 5 Cy Young awards including four straight from 1999-2002. An amazing stat from his career is that his lowest finish in strikeouts was 8th which was during his final season in 2006 and his rookie season in 1990 when finished 6th. Every other season he would finished no worse then 3rd.

Collecting Detroit Tigers: Kevin Ziomek

Kevin Ziomek was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2013 First Year Player Draft out of Vanderbilt. In his first full season in professional baseball he would post a 10-6 record with a 2.27 ERA while striking out 152 batters and only walking 53. Going into this season according to mlb.com he is ranked 4th in the Tigers farm system.

Ziomek is a deceptive left hander with three solid pitches. His ceiling is as high as a 4th starter and could reach the majors by 2017. This season his ERA is up (4.17) but his strikeout to walk ratio is also up (91 strikeouts 24 walks) which shows good signs for the future.

All around good guy

On Saturday Minnesota Twins outfielder, Torii Hunter celebrated his 40th birthday. I was going to use one his cards for #mycardmonday, but being busy yesterday I didn't get around to it and I have some time today and thought I would share it.

Hunter seems like an all around good guy. He played two seasons in Detroit before heading back to the Twins where he started his career. He always seemed to have a smile on his face and is a good team leader in the clubhouse. It was fun watching him play in the Old English D. I don't know if any baseball fan can really hate him.

I really like this card that I picked up also. I first I thought cool it has a pinstripe on the jersey piece. Then thinking about it the Tigers don't have any uniforms with pinstripes that close to each other as you can see in the uniform in the picture on the card. Maybe it was part of an old Twins uniform? I did some research on what it could be from.

Detroit Tigers Negro League uniform is the only jersey that has pinstripes that I found. Makes the card even more cool to me.