Curly W Cards: Pirates

Showing posts with label Pirates. Show all posts

29 September 2016

Nats Win 3rd Division Title Within 5 Years: With 3 Different Managers

The Nats are going back to the playoffs!

On Saturday 24 September 2016 The Washington Nationals notched their 90 win of the season by beating the Pittsburgh Pirates. They were not quite in the playoffs yet, their magic number was down to 1, but only for about a half-hour. The 2nd place team the New York Mets last year's NL East Division Champs were still playing their game with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Mets were behind but were rallying for a comeback. They didn't succeed and so the Nationals celebrated their Division Championship Clinch, in the visitors locker room at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

Hard to believe someone got them to stand still long enough for a group photo.

One again Bryce Harper wears interesting headgear for the celebrating. This year it was a Katie Ledecky USA Olympics Swim cap.

Sort of a repeat of the 2014 Division Clinch in Atlanta.

Harper's Headgear of choice was a Fire Fighter's Helmet.

The 2012 Celebration started an odd even year tradition in the Nation's Capital. Harper went with the standard backwards commemorative "Playoffs" hat like the rest of the team. He hadn't started his unique stylized trend yet.

When they won the division in 2012 it was the first time since 1933 a Washington Baseball team had been to the playoffs. The Nationals have won the NL East Division three times in the last five years.That is a mighty impressive achievement, although what makes it even more impressive is that they have done it with three different skippers at the helm. Davey Johnson, Matt Williams and Dusty Baker. Both Johnson and Williams won NL Manager of the Year the year they took the Nats into the Playoffs.

2012 the salty dog Davey Johnson led the Nats to the stromy NLDS seas:

1975 Topps Baseball 57 Dave Johnson Braves

2014 saw the good ship Nationals sail into the rough seas of the playoffs with Matt Williams:

1995 Fleer Ultra Baseball 247 Matt Williams Giants

This year 2016 the Captain at the helm is Dusty Baker:

1981 Fleer Baseball 115 Dusty Baker Dodgers

The Nats need to start playing like they want to go deep into the playoffs. As of this posting there are four games left in the regular season and the Nats are only at 92-66. In 2012 they went 98-64 in the regular season and lost the NLDS 3-2 vs The Cardinals. 2014 they went 96-66 regular season and fell in the NLDS 3-1 vs The Giants.

This year even though they have the division they seem to have spun around and are backing into the playoffs. NOT GOOD. At least the other two times they seemed to be going forward into the post season.

Related Links:
CSN MidAtlantic - WASHINGTON NATIONALS CELEBRATE NL EAST TITLE

ESPN - Nationals clinch NL East -- now comes the hard part

ESPN (another blog post) - Another even year, another NL East title for Nationals
MLB - Nats jump on Bucs, wait out Mets, clinch NL East

USA Today - Nationals clinch NL East title with win and Mets loss

Washington Post - Nationals clinch third NL East title with win over Pirates, Mets’ loss to Phillies

22 June 2013

The Amazing Schneider-Man: Brian Schneider

BRIAN SCHNEIDER - (39) 23

Expos to Nationals transition catcher
Expos 2000 - 2004 / Nationals 2005 - 2007

photo by Getty Images - 29 April 2004 Expos in San Diego.

I'm trying to get this semi-regular player scheme going again. The biggest problem I've had with it is deciding which 5 (or 6 maybe) cards of an individual SeNator to feature, make sure I have the backs scanned (I didn't use to scan card backs for the longest time) and to hunt for photos to decide which if any to show along with the cards, and then to plan who will be featured next. The basic criteria for me to feature a player is for me to hopefully have more than just one or two of a player's cards; the player must have been on one of the DC Club incarnations so guys like Gary Carter and Vladimir Guerrero will not be mentioned in this series. I may blog about them from time to time since they were Expos, but neither actually played in DC on the home team. The closest Vlad got was playing in Baltimore for the Orioles.

OK so onto this post's Curly W Player Brian "Schneider-man" Schneider. Brian was the Expos main catcher when the team moved over to DC to become The Nationals. He caught the inaugural first pitch President Bush tossed in 2005. At the time he was my fave currently playing catcher. During his tenure as a National, Brian was an Amazing catcher (at least to me) and had a pretty decent arm for catching base stealers. He was one of the "take the lead" team mentors for younger players and worked well with the pitchers as their "quarterback".

Photo by Getty Images?

During the off season in the winter of 2007 News of him being traded to the New York Mets along with Outfielder Ryan Church (another fave Nat) for Lastings Milledge really ticked me. Probably because it was the first trade I recall that involved some of my faves that I heard about when it happened. I blogged my Gut Reaction to it on my regular blog in a post titled Nats + Mets Trade = UH OH. At the time I didn't have a card blog yet so all my card posts and sports-news posts were made there. It took me a couple of years to get over the trade, by that time Lastings Milledge was traded to the Pirates and Brian was still with the Mets about to move to the Phillies. Brian's last playing season was 2012 with the Phillies he announced his retirement on 29 January 2013 a day after, fellow Expo to National, Nick Johnson (last with the Orioles) announced his retirement.

Lookie what I found. "Final?" Play at the Plate between Ex-Teammates.

Photo via Associated Press from 09 June 2012 Game Phillies at Baltimore

Baseball Historian fans may recall that Brian was the Catcher at the plate in the 2007 "Chasing the Record" Circus game vs. The Giants in San Fran. where Barry Bonds hit homer number 756 off of Mike Bacsik - freezing the game for an hour or two.

photo via Getty Images - 7 August 2007 Bonds his #756 at home vs. Nationals.

OK it was only about 35-45 minutes but it seemed about an hour too long. Yes I know it was baseball history and it was a big thing at the time, but halting the game for more than 10 minutes was uncalled for. 15 minutes tops would be acceptable for anything of this nature.

Now lets get on with the Card Show:

2002 Fleer Baseball 84 Brian Schneider Expos

2004 MLB Showdown Card Game 014 Brian Schneider Expos

(Front and Back)

2005 Topps Total Baseball 17 (WAS7) Brian Schneider Nationals

(Front and Back)

2006 Topps Heritage Baseball 357 Brian Schneider Nationals

(Front and Back)

2007 Topps Heritage Baseball 114 Brian Schneider Nationals

(Front and Back)

2008 Topps Heritage Baseball 616 Brian Schneider Mets

(Front and Back)

Oddly Brian sort of bears a slight resemblance to this 1960s Senators Catcher. I noticed the resemblance when I first got this card from sportlots (I think).

1963 Topps Baseball 94 Bob Schmidt Senators

Senators/Nationals mentioned in this post:
Mike Bacsik
Ryan Church
Nick Johnson
Lastings Milledge
Bob Schmidt
Brian Schneider

Other Noteable "Franchise" players mentioned in this post:
Gary Carter
Vladimir Guerrero

Brian Schneider Baseball Reference

On Deck: Ed Brinkman - (2, 38) 11

In The Hole: Ryan Church - (38), 19

30 August 2012

Its Fun Being At Number One!

To paraphrase Mel Brooks' movie "History of the World: Part I" - "It's Good to be number one!"

Something that has been absent from baseball's return to the Nation's Capital has been a Winning Season. Being number one in the division is something that hasn't happened for the Nationals except in the first half of the inaugural 2005 season, and maybe for one or two games at the beginning of some of the other seasons.

The 2012 MLB Season has been a very good one for the Washington Nationals. They have been first in the NL East for most of it. Since sometime in early August they have somehow managed to top most of the many internet "Power Ranking" lists, even when in a losing streak. On some of the lists they are still at number one but on a couple of them they have slipped down to number two or lower. The end of the season will tell all though. Many teams have enjoyed being on top all season long only to take a nosedive at the end of the season.

The current Montreal Expos franchise as the Washington Nationals has not had a winning season. The closest they have gotten was in the inaugural 2005 season when they went .500 with 81 wins 81 loses and last season 2011 when they had 80 wins and 81 loses with one postponed game that was never made up. Had that game been played and they won, which at that time of the season they were hot enough to win, they would have matched the 2005 season. The last winning season for the Franchise was 2003 (83 wins 79 loses .512 avg). As for Washington baseball history the Senators were in three World Series 1924, 1925, and 1933 but only won it in the 1924 Series beating the Then NEW YORK Giants, they would lose to those very same Giants in the '33 series and the Pittsburgh Pirates in '25. In all the rich history of DC Baseball there has been more losing than winning. You have to go back to 1969 for the Senators last winning season of 86 wins 76 loses.

From a Washington Post article earlier this year: "Even losing baseball was better than no baseball. This year marks the 79th year of major league baseball in Washington. In that time, area fans have been treated to just 18 seasons of above-.500 ball but only once in the past half-century"

So you can see that a winning baseball team in DC is a VERY BIG DEAL to the longtime area fans who went many years without ANY baseball. Forgive us if we are not very humble this season and remind you of Philadelphia Phillies Fans. Those fans are frustrated this year and should be humble because they are used to a winning team that is currently losing. They (The Phillies) have a slight chance of having another winning season so I guess that humility of theirs won't be around very long if they have it at all. The Nats on the other hand are almost guaranteed to have a winning season with only needing to win 4 of the next 33 games. So even if the Nats fail to make the playoffs, which is another subject completely, fans like me will be very very happy and proud of our team this season.

UPDATE: D'oh! I forgot to mention the biggest reason for this is that the Nats pitching this season has been phenomenal. The individual starters might not be the best five pitchers in all the league but the whole combination apparently is getting the job done. All season long the team has had the lowest runs allowed against them in the league, even with a few games getting away from them and being blown out.

GO NATS GO!

Yahoo Sports Power Rankings (first power ranking list to have the Nats in first place this season): http://sports.yahoo.com/news/power-rankings-nationals-yankees-rangers-bryce-harper-manny-machado-roy-oswalt.html
ESPN Power Rankings Week 22: http://espn.go.com/mlb/powerrankings/_/season/2012/week/22

Related Links:
http://www.citizensofnatstown.com/home/2012/8/10/riding-that-train.html
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1305776-washington-nationals-are-approaching-some-truly-magic-numbers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/veteran-nats-fans-enjoying-rare-winning-season/2012/06/17/gJQAup1zjV_story.html

Images appearing in the photo collage are by Getty Images, AP, or Reuters except for image of Manager Davey Johnson by USPresswire, and the team photo marked DistrictSportsPage.

17 March 2012

Last of the Expos: Nick Johnson

NICK JOHNSON - 24

Last transitional Expo/Inaugural Nat to be traded away.

Expos 2004 / Nationals 2005 - 2009

Nick as a "Damn Yankee"

Nick Johnson started his Major League career with the New York Yankees. Post-Nationals he would return to the Yankees after his brief stint with the Florida Marlins, and due to the Yanks super-star roster be sent back down to the Minors). Nick was the last of the transitional Expos/Inaugural Nationals players to be traded away. He was traded for a Minor League pitcher Aaron Thompson plus some cash on the 31 July 2009 trade deadline. Thompson has yet to be brought up permanently from the Minors and has since been traded away. He had been put on waivers by the Nationals and picked up by the Pittsburgh Pirates he made his Major League debut with them. Last December he signed a minor league contract with the Minnesota Twins and was invited to their spring training.

Nick was traded to the Marlins for this guy Aaron Thompson who is still in the Minors

Aaron Thompson in Nationals uniform 2010 (photo via wikipedia)

I was really upset with that trade as I have been with all the trades that involved a fave player. This one like most of the others I feel were not really worth it and the player the Nats traded for has since moved to another team, usually within a year or two.

As for the Ex-Montreal coaching staff most of them were fired when the club cleaned house while getting rid of Manny Acta in September of 2008 pitching coach Randy St. Claire was the lone exception who would last until June 2009 the last of the old Expos Coaching Staff.

Nick may not have been the best first baseman but he was the current Nationals "First" 1st baseman. When the Nationals started up in 2005 he was one of my fast first favorites along with Brian Schneider, Ryan Church and Brad Wilkerson. Part of his charm is his old-school way of wearing the high socks over the shorter pants, all he needs are the stirrups and he is the retro king. His on base percentage I thought was exceptional. He would often get to a full count and then after 10 pitches or so either draw a walk or force the pitcher to get him out. So yeah he struck out a lot.

23 September 2006 Shea Stadium vs New York Mets - Aftermath of collision between Nick and Austin Kearns

Unfortunately Nick has had a string of injuries over his career and set-backs due to those injuries. He never had much speed, and after his big leg injury at Shea Stadium in 2006 vs the Mets (a result of a collision with Austin Kearns) he was never the same running the bases, but he was still a decent first baseman.

Nick Johnson slides home to score vs the Boston Red Sox during spring training game 06 March 2012 Tho Orioles lost 5-4. - Associated Press photo

Currently Nick is trying to reboot his career with the Baltimore Orioles. He signed a Minor League contract (on 08 February 2012) with them and has been at spring training with them. I'm hoping for good things for both the B'More team and Nick. Now onto the cards.

I love vintage and I love these Retro sets. Ironically when I first saw one of the first Topps Heritage card packs for sale at a 7-Eleven (Football I think) back in 2001 or so I thought it was a terrible idea. I now think it is because football doesn't retro as well as baseball does. Now I really enjoy them.