08 January 2013

double plays from the hot corner?

i don't know that i have seen a card featuring a double play turn at third base.  it's possible, of course, to force a runner at third and then complete the double play with a throw to second or first.  or, one could just receive some cards in the mail from pat at hot corner cards.  like this 1992 pinnacle carlos garcia card
not quite jose lind-ish, but garcia does a nice job.  another 1993 pinnacle card that was included was this jeff blauser card.
my first inclination was that this was not a dp turn, and my second thought was why did chico walker have both the american and canadian flags on his helmet?  i know gary carter used to do this, but he spent most of his career in montreal so it made sense to me that he would display both flags.  walker, who was born in mississippi, did spend the 1989 season in the blue jays' system, but he played for their aaa team in syracuse.  curious.  in researching the flags, i was further confounded as walker spent only a short amount of time with the cubs in 1992, and was not involved in the type of play shown on the card during that season.  in fact, the last two games in which he appeared as a cub came against the braves in chicago, but blauser did not have a play on him in either of those games.  so, i figured it was a play from 1991, and determined that it is actually the same play as shown on his 1992 pinnacle card (his meaning blauser's).  it looks like it occurred on july 26, 1991 when walker was picked off of first base and retired on the old 1-3-6 play in the bottom of the first.  whew.

similarly, i received this 2008 upper deck first edition card of richie sexson
who appears to have tried to break up two and is looking to the umpire for some guidance.  however, the body language of the white sox's shortstop/second baseman looks to be off to me, so i'm going to do some digging on this.  ok, i'm back.  looking at baseball reference (as i do for all of my sleuthing), i think this play may have taken place on august 18, 2007 when sexson doubled to left field in the sixth inning.  he also doubled to center the night before, and in the game on the 19th of august, he reached second on a fielder's choice/e-6.  the 19th was a day game, and this appears to be a night card, so i'll stick with the 18th.  that means that the white sox player featured is either juan uribe or danny richar.  uribe sometimes wore his socks high, so i'll go with him, although the shortstop would usually go out to be the cutoff on a hit to left.  maybe it's from the 17th.  still probably not a dp card.

these next two are, however.  a 2008 upper deck first edition omar vizquel
and a miguel tejada from the same set
i had both of these cards from the flagship set, but not from first edition, so thanks pat!

of course, there were also a bunch of dodgers in the package, including a couple of double play cards for my dp binder.  here's a 2006 fleer rafael furcal card
with eddie mathews looking on.

and then there were just some plain ol' dodgers, like nomar garciaparra and this 2007 upper deck future stars card
and this 1993 pinnacle jody reed card
and this 2009 upper deck spectrum russell martin card
and this 2006 fleer jeff kent top 40 insert card
and many others.  that kent card, by the way, is a double play card too.  the player sliding in is mostly obscured by the '0' in '40', but he's there.  which means that i now have one card of kent turning two as a dodger - and to think a few days ago i thought that there were none.

thanks for the trade pat! i enjoyed going through all the cards.

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