MLB Showdown Obsession

 And now for the single greatest pitching performance in baseball history. And fitting to baseball, of all men to pitch this game, it wasn't someone you'd ever expect. As the newspapers would say the next day, the imperfect man pitched a perfect game. Don Larsen in 1956 was pretty solid with an 11-5 record, but only 20 of his 38 games that year were starts and only featured a single shutout. He was far from the ace of the Yankees. But as we've covered before, you don't need to be the best to be perfect on a particular day. This day however was more important than all the other perfect games that occurred both in the past and in the future. The others were regular season perfect games, Don Larsen pitched his in the World Series, with the series tied 2-2 and facing the defending champions. Larsen got the ball in Game 2, but the Brooklyn Dodgers knocked him around and he looked far from perfect. After the Yankees came back from a 0-2 deficit to tie the series, Larsen was s...

  The 1999 Yankees were your champions, so it stands that not many of their cards need improving. Here, Martinez is an example of a better card. His 97 season featured MVP caliber numbers at the plate, and his chart reflects that. Hard to pass on any player with 16+ homer potential. 1997 Brosius was abysmal, making him an easy player to shed for the A's. Unfortunately, that gave the 98 Yankees their World Series MVP and Brosius his lone All Star year. His 98 card is covered earlier here , but it's worth noting how good his 96 season was with Oakland, with the better than perfect +4 defense at third base and some 1B eligibility. Davis called it a career after his 99 efforts, so his Showdown card is yet another example of a player who wasn't done justice because of the time he played in. Turn back the clock to the early 90s and you'll see the true force this DH really was. Knoblauch was a 9 On-Base in 99, which was fine for a leadoff hitter, but there was a time where he ...

  Hershiser had an ok Showdown card, but the knowledgeable will recall that he had a pretty decent season a decade earlier when he won the Cy Young award and was all around unhittable for the Dodgers. An absolute unit of a card that could anchor any pitching staff. Shane Andrews was a low On-base, high homer kind of all or nothing card. Here, he remains a low On-base and slow player, but the homers get even better and he sports a perfect +3 defense at the hot corner. Telford had a 0 Control and was an easy avoid in his 2000 set. Here, he brings in a great 5 Control and is much harder to ignore. The *other* Guerrero in Montreal was never a big On-base guy, but now he can hit homers and play way more positions so you can have a better chance to find him a role for your team. That chart can do damage if he can get the advantage. Shortstops back in the days before Rodriguez and Jeter were not big on power, or offense for that matter. Back then Dunston still played SS and had that speed...

 Too many crazy names to fit in the initial post, so it's high time we revisit some of baseballs most interesting identities... If you're a lousy pitcher who only exists as a mop-up reliever, it helps to have a unique name. Bamberger probably got his name because BAM is exactly what the opposing hitters would do to his offerings, but based on his chart, he'd need to find the strike zone. Black Eyed Peas fans can take a moment to get the song out of their head. Boom-Boom won't overpower anyone with his chart, but he brought solid Control. It's late in the game, opponents heart of the order is due up and the game is close. Can your starter handle the pressure? Does he have ice in his veins? Ice Box sure does. Someone's parents hated him. Ever have a name so impossible that people just skipped over it and referred to you with just one letter? Billy G knows your pain. It's the dead-ball era and home runs are a premium. You know what kind of superhero you gotta b...

  Hundley had a wonderful chart in the 2000 set, but my God, his on-base was hard to swallow. Back in1996, however, he had his career year that makes for a much better card. I've said it before, and here it continues, reduce the homers on a chart (14-20 on the Showdown card vs the 16-20 on this card) in exchange for a better on-base (6 vs 8) will always lead to more homers for a player. Also helps that his defense gets a touch better here. Speed sucks here, but he is a Catcher after all... Hansen had a great on-base in Showdown (a perfect 10) but absolutely no chart to go with it. He had nice infield coverage (1B/3B) but no defense to go with it (+0 for both positions). Speed was also poor at a C. Hansen wasn't a terrible card, but only for a pinch-hit situation where you need to get on base and don't care how, then immediately get him out of there for a defensive replacement. *This* version of Hansen is still slow (but a C11 speed is a touch better than a standard C10) and...

 The 2023 HoF vote gave us one regular addition and one addition from the new "Contemporary Era" selection. Scott Rolen took 7 tries to get that phone call while the Crime Dog McGriff needed to wait beyond the standard time, feel rejected, then get a 2nd look over his fellow overlook peers and finally get the nod for himself. Enjoy their special HoF cards with a choice selection of their seasons...

 Baseball history contains some perfect games pitched by some pretty incredible individuals. And then there are some far less accomplished men who have retired 27 straight men in a game. Charlie Robertson ranks as one of those lesser known men. On April 30, 1922, Robertson was given the ball in his fourth ever start in the big leagues, and took to the hill against the Tigers in Detroit. The White Sox rookie had the highlight of his life that afternoon as he baffled the Tigers hitters, so much so that manager Ty Cobb, ever the gracious loser, was constantly crying that Charlie was cheating. It was the first true perfect game pitched by someone on the road. Robertson's season was pretty pedestrian after that, going 14-15. 1922 turned out to be his best year, as he would never get that close to a winning record again, going 49-80 for his career. In the Michael Coffey book "27 Men Out" he was referred to as "Hands down, Robertson is the least-accomplished pitcher to have...

  Dennis Springer's last year as a relevant player was 1999, and his 0 Control Showdown card showed why. He was bad that year with the Marlins and he was just as bad if not worse the year before with the expansion Devil Rays. But just one year before he was drafted by Tampa, he had a fairly average type card with the Angels, and that is as good as a guy like Dennis could hope for. Eusebio was your typical bench catcher for Showdown, no power, ok on-base, no speed but a pretty good bet for defense. Here though he sacrifices a bit of that on-base and gets a much more attractive chart while the defense and speed remain unchanged. Heck, you gotta love it when a C speed in Showdown has triple potential. Stan Javier still offers that desirable speed, but here he brings the ability to ramp up that speed and have a very nice on-base to go with it. And yes, the man can go deep on this chart. Jose Lima's 2000 Showdown card wasn't half bad and in a future set he had a decent card as w...

 Babe Ruth has a lot of feathers in his cap when it comes to accomplishments in baseball. He also has a lot of foolish moments. One of the most famous has to be the part he played in a combined no-hitter. But wait, that sounds like a proud accomplishment! Well, the part Babe played was on June 23, 1917 he started the game and walked the first batter...then got ejected for arguing the walk call with the umpire...and because this is Babe Ruth, he also punched the umpire and was escorted away by police. Enter Ernie Shore. His contribution was to finish the game out. The runner on first was thrown out trying to steal, then Shore sat down the next 26 batters in order. For decades after that game it was considered a perfect game, but in the 1990s it was reclassified as a combined no-hitter since a perfect game can not allow a baserunner even if the pitcher in question retired 27 men in a row. Though this game wasn't a perfect game, it was pretty cool all things considered. Shore set a re...