in the words of john doe, 'hey baby, it's the 4th of july!' and, in the chants of fans who are either patriotic or nationalistic, 'usa! usa!' i'll be at target field booing the yankees like any respectable citizen today. i'll probably have a hot dog, but no apple pie for me. that covers baseball and the food items, now what about the reggie that i rooted for as a kid?
i picked up a pack of 2013 usa baseball champions at target a couple of weeks ago out of curiosity. i could not have picked a better pack for myself. the only thing i could compare this to was back in 1978 when i bought a single pack of 1977-78 topps basketball cards. in that pack were kareem abdul-jabbar, darryl dawkins, rick barry, and pete maravich. seriously. why ever buy another pack of basketball cards after that? i didn't, until 1992 or so. anyway, here are some of the cards that came in my lone pack of this year's usa baseball release.
reggie smith
reggie joined team usa in 1999 as a hitting coach for the panamerican games, and later served in that same role on the 2008 bronze medal winning olympic team. this card, however, seems to highlight his 2006 stint as part team usa's coaching staff during the world baseball classic. it is simply awesome to pull a card featuring a member of the team of my youth from a modern day pack.
shawn green
green was on the 1990 18u national team, along with scott spiezio and brooks kieshnick. i felt a certain kinship to green, as i was attending college in orange county during the last year or two of his high school career, and even bumped into his dad at an lcs in 1992. i also later learned that he had been in attendance, as i had, at game 1 of the 1988 world series. except i didn't leave early like he did. i was also in milwaukee in 2002 to see him hit 4 home runs in a game. it's no wonder that his team usa card would be in the pack that i picked up.
ok, non-dodger time. here's a gerrit cole card
cole also has oc ties - he's from newport beach - but he wasn't born until 1990. it looks like the pirates are getting it right - to date, cole has made four starts, and he is 4-0.
there was also a hit in my pack - a game used bat card of kyle farmer, member of the collegiate national team that won bronze in the netherlands during a 2012 tournament
better than that, however, is that farmer was an 8th round draft pick by the dodgers in last month's draft. he signed and has been playing in the rookie level pioneer league for the past couple of weeks. after 8 games, he was hitting .355 as a catcher.
there were some other cards in the pack, but they were inconsequential. i guess the only way this pack could have been better would have been if tommy lasorda and zach lee were in it. still, usa! usa!
