MLB Showdown Obsession

 There were two perfect games during the official Showdown era, and while David Cone's accomplishment earned him a place of honor in the original starter set, Randy Johnson's wasn't quite as easy to get in the 2005 Showdown collection. Johnson had a typical Johnson season in 2004, leading the majors with 290 Strikeouts and nabbing his 10th all star nomination, but something atypical was on May 18th when he rolled up to Turner Field to face the Atlanta Braves and pitched a perfect game where he struck out 13 men, the 2nd most total at the time for a perfect game and just one short of Sandy Koufax's masterpiece . Typical of the Diamondbacks of that time, they gave him minimal run support in the 2-0 win, but perfection never requires much. At 40 years old, Johnson became the oldest perfect game pitcher in history, displacing the legendary Cy Young from the mark. It was also the 1st no hitter in Diamondbacks history, a great accomplishment for Johnson along with his 1990 n...

Most teams retire numbers and simply display the number somewhere along the upper deck. Other teams make it part of the stadium wall with a decal on the padding. The Cubs fly their retired numbers as flags attached to their foul poles. And while their first couple of World Series titles happened before numbers were a thing in baseball, and their recent title isn't quite in the past enough for those men to qualify for the honor, the 108 years in between have given us a few choices... #10 - Ron Santo At 18, Ron Santo was diagnosed with diabetes and wasn't given that many years to live, something he kept to himself as he began his baseball career. Just making it to the big leagues while dealing with diabetes would be an accomplishment, but Santo didn't stop there and became an all time great. The 3rd Baseman was without peer defensively as he set, broke, and broke again numerous defensive records at the hot corner. The nine time all star won the Gold Glove every year between 1...

 Anyone else remember the movie Mr. 3000 ? It's Bernie Mac film about a cocky hitter retiring with exactly 3000 Hits, only to be snubbed from the Hall of Fame because the writers didn't like his attitude. Then when a stat correction put him down to 2997 Hits, he completely falls off the ballot. He then suits up again long after his prime to try to get those Hits back, only to fall 1 Hit shy, but then he appears on the next possible ballot and gets the votes he needs because he learned his lesson about teamwork or something. If you're wondering "How did they let him back on the ballot if he was already disqualified?" then I have an answer for you: because he officially played again, it reset his ballot qualifications. That brings us to Minnie Minoso. Minnie Minoso had a distinguished career that had ended in 1964. On his first attempt on the 1969 Hall of Fame ballot, he only garnered 1.8% of the vote. And that was that. ...But then he came back for 3 games in 1976...