MLB Showdown Obsession

 The Chicago White Sox have dealt with their fair share of problems, yet suffered mostly in silence. In Chicago, their title drought was overshadowed by the longer drought of the Cubs. They can't even get attention as the most tortured item of laundry, for even though the White and Red Sox both had pretty much the same inability to win the World Series after their respective 1917 and 1918 titles, the Red Sox got the attention. It's all about branding, I guess. Blaming your failures on a goat or the single worst trade in baseball history is good for marketing, while Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox scandal...not so much. So while the South Siders couldn't bank on victory for the better part of 90 years between titles, they still had a solid assortment of men to represent them. 11 players in total, which is a surprising number for some, were deemed legendary enough to be remembered by the team that actually wears black socks (and red for a while) as their uniform... #2

 1947 brought in 4 new entries to the hallowed hall. Two elite pitchers, a catcher and a player/manager. Philadelphia and Giants fans will be pleased with the entries. First set of HoF cards an update to the bot  (but not the most recent update), so if you were hoping for continuity between all my sets, I've got bad news for you...

The Texas Rangers began life in 1961 as the Washington Senators. In 11 years in the nations capital, they had exactly 0 jerseys to retire. The Senators weren't exactly known for being good. For that matter, the Rangers before the late 1990's were pretty bad too. The franchise finally won a World Series in 2023, so there's no one here that was apart of that accomplishment. The aforementioned 90's, however, have a couple notable names. #7 - Ivan Rodriguez Pudge debuted in 1991 where he made a run at the Rookie of the Year award. He came up short, but that wasn't a trend for his Rangers career. From 1992-2001 he went to every all star game and won every Gold Glove award. From '94-'99 he won every Silver Slugger. In 1999 (covered by the original Showdown set) he was the MVP. If there was one guy you absolutely NEEDED behind the plate to throw out the fastest runners trying to steal, it was Rodriguez and no one else compared. 7 times in his Rangers career he led

 The official 2025 Hall of Fame ballot is dropping soon, but by time the vote happens, we'll already know who the initial members of the 20205 class might be. When the winter meetings go down, there will be a vote from the Classic Baseball Committee. 8 names were put forth for consideration, with 6 of them playing Major League Baseball and the other 2 (Vic Harris and John Donaldson) featured from the Negro Leagues.

 The Philadelphia Phillies have been around for quite a long time. In that time, however, despite numerous pennants, they only have 2 World Series titles to their name. And despite how old they are, it wasn't until 1980 that they finally got it done for the first time. The fact is, the Phillies were generally never very good. When the A's called Philly home, they brought some titles home, but once they left for Kansas City, the Phillies couldn't pick up the slack.. That being said, the Phillies had their fair share of forever players in the Phillie-red uniform. #1 - Richie Ashburn A 4 time all star, Richie Ashburn had the unenviable task of competing in the National League in the same position as Willie Mays and Duke Snider. Despite the challenge, Richie found a way to lead the league in hitting in '55 and '58 and still make a bit of a name for himself. In an era where the Dodgers and Giants were constantly trading the pennant between each other, Ashburn managed to

 Darryl Kile has a dubious distinction. He is the first player depicted in the MLB Showdown series to have died. I remember when I heard about his passing, I immediately retired his card from use out of respect. He had a pretty solid 2001 Showdown card, too, so it wasn't like I was looking for an excuse to ignore him. Kile is far from the only Showdown player to have passed on, and as we pass a quarter century since the game debuted that list will only get longer (not to mention all the Cooperstown Collection throwback players depicted along with the other active players at the time). But there was something crazy about turning on SportsCenter and learning that an active MLB player was gone. It's one thing to find out that a former player died, it's another thing entirely to see how much more disruptive it is to their current teammates losing a brother. So as today is All Souls Day, let us take the time to reflect on the career of Darryl Kile (1968-2002) Rookie Darryl. Not

 Another of the relatively young franchises in baseball, the Rockies have recently been realizing the greatness of their earliest stars. Todd Helton and Larry Walker, stars of their first decade, have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. And while we wait for the first great forever-Rockies pitcher to emerge, the franchise isn't shying away from a couple of greats who took advantage of playing in the thin mountain air. #17 - Todd Helton The tragedy for me when it come to Todd Helton is all of his elite years happened in the OG Showdown era, and thus there are official cards for most of his seasons of 5 all stars, 3 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Sluggers. Most of those years he garnered MVP consideration as well, but 2009 was one more year of top tier numbers. He is the greatest offensive player in Rockies history, with his 369 Home Runs, 1,401 RBI, 2,519 Hits and 1,401 Runs among other stats all being the top all time for Colorado. In 2007, he lead the Rockies to their only World Series.

 As baseballs postseason screams to it's finale, and we await to find out who is gonna raise the trophy in victory, let us look back at one of the greatest collection of players to be a winner. Of course I'm talking about the ringers for the Nuclear Power Plant team during the 1992 Springfield Softball season. Springfield bullied their way through the regular season, mostly on the power of Homer Simpson and his Wonder Bat. But when it came to the championship game, Mr Burns entered into a wager with the rival Shelbyville Power Plant. With $1,000,000 on the line, Burns decided to "cheat" and hire 9 ringers to help ensure victory. He gave Smithers 24 hours to recruit the best the baseball world had to offer... The ace of the staff was Roger Clemens, one of the most prolific strikeout pitchers of all time (questionable tactics notwithstanding). His fastball at the time was so potent, that he destroyed Wonder Bat with one pitch. Behind the plate was Mike Scioscia. People