By Popular Demand

I never really know what to expect when I check in on the list of Google keywords that lead people to this blog. This month, almost 40% of all searchers came looking for photos of Drew Brees's baby. An additional four or five people were just looking for "sports children." Well, okay. Here's a baseball child and here's Cool Breez-y Jr. at last year's Superbowl:



Joe let me steal this card from him this summer. I keep it on my desk even though I rooted for Peyton Manning, because like everyone else on the internet, I find this baby cute.

While we're on the subject, I'd like to publicly welcome the very first friend-baby to enter my life. I can't believe it. Congratulations, guys.

Refractors

It's Sunday, so I spent the morning half-listening to The BS Report and looking at baseball cards on the internet. I don't know anything about the baseball card market-- I just appreciate that they're uniformly rectangular objects with images on them. Some cards look SO good. I love nostalgia cards and cards that resemble paintings, like this Chase Utley National Chicle card I got out of a pack I bought while in Door County, Wisconsin with my parents this summer (note: this is not an image of my card). Someday, I'm going to curate a show of my favorite baseball cards and write a really pretentious press release and have an opening with lukewarm white wine in clear plastic Solo cups. Maybe Kei and Mordecai will consider hosting a similar exhibition in their beautiful new house.

Anyway, I looked at a lot of refractor cards today:





Cool, right?

Celestial Stars

Allen & Ginter made astrology cards for their 2010 baseball series. This Jeter card costs $60 on eBay!

You can bid on this set of minis for $379.99 or buy it now for $439.99. Alternatively, you could read and re-read and re-re-read this post about Barry Zito on the outdated but official MLB Astrology blog. Is the MLB looking for a new astrologer? If so, I could be a couple of online courses away from a career change....

When They Were Young

Topps 2010 "When They Were Young" is my new favorite series of baseball cards. I'm not sure how the players were chosen, but it almost doesn't matter because all of them look so heart-meltingly adorable.

This card is by far the best of the lot. I love that Lil Papi is wearing tall socks and belted shorts. Not even baby Jeter looked that cool.

Nick Adenhart Tribute

I have been casually collecting baseball cards for a few weeks now, and it’s exciting to use these cards to recognize live players in action on TV and on the Fantasy Stat Tracker. But it is quite the feeling to also recognize death based on my slowly growing collection. I was basically half asleep as I was checking the news online late this morning when I came across the headline that said something like, "Angels Pitcher Nick Adenhart Killed in Traffic Accident." A drunk driver reportedly ran a red light, smashing into Adenhart's car with his friends, and he died in surgery. The name and the note that he was a rookie pitcher rung a bell, and I immediately checked my 2008 Topps Stadium Club rookies. If it weren’t for Stadium Club’s mysterious serially numbered-and-different-photo-parallels of rookies, I probably would have forgotten about Adenhart and his cards. But in one of those $11.99/$14.99 packs from Meijer, I pulled one of his serially numbered parallels that had a different photo of him from the regulard base card (of which I have two—getting doubles undoubtedly contributed to my remembering him as well). Adenhart was only 22 years old! Baseball is about love, not real tragedy! Why must there be this occasional moment of insanity?

2009 is off to a dramatic start. I hope I don't have to make any more of these kinds of recognitions again.