And the hits (and runs) keep on coming......

Dee Gordon walked.
Dee Gordon stole second.
Yasiel Puig flied out to right, Dee Gordon to third.
Adrián González singled to shallow right, Dee Gordon scored.

Zig,

Just remember, with me and my computer work issues, that I might be giving you lesser feedback here.  That said, I see something there.  It looks like a few original content posts, but comes across to me VERY differently than anything else does here.  And, the only picture I see is the one Pickle did of Jimmy Rollins.

If I can remember, I will try to check this from home, to see how and what I see there.

lol yeah I know your work blocks a lot of stuff, that's why I asked you specifically about this...did you at least see a link to the forums or no?

Yep.  There are links to all 3 things placed there.  As long as you know to click on the thing that is the link.  Again, probably my F'ed up view is making this weirder and harder to read than most, but, it does work.

How The Biggest Baseball Card Scam In History Could Cost You $13,000
Posted by: ahametals in Auction & Collectibles 2 hours ago

Aug 14 (Forbes) — In my hand I am holding an example of one of the most notorious marketing and merchandising scams in American history that still reverberates through the sports collecting industry today. The card, being auctioned by Huggins and Scott, sold a week later for $13035, including the buyer’s premium.
This past week I attended my first, annual National Sports Card Collectors Convention, in Cleveland, Oho. This Super Bowl of sports collectibles shows has run for almost three decades.
In 1933 Goudey, a Boston-based chewing gum company, issued what many experts consider the first modern baseball card set. While the popular tobacco cards sold from 1909 through 1911 came with cigarettes, Goudey cards were primarily aimed at boys, and a few girls, and included bubble gum in each pack. About two decades later Topps Chewing Gum followed suit with its exciting line of baseball cards that are still the industry standard.
In 1933 kids bought jillions of penny packs of Goudeys to complete the 240-card set. The good news is that the beautifully illustrated edition featured many of the day’s top stars, including four different Babe Ruths that remain, by far, his most attractive cards ever. The bad news is that no matter how many packs kids purchased, no one obtained a #106. That’s because Goudey never issued one; betting, correctly, that kids, like easy marks at casino slot machines, would keep spending their money in a futile quest. The tears of frustration spilling across American candy stores must have amounted to a tsunami.
david right e1407248018714 How The Biggest Baseball Card Scam In History Could Cost You $13,000
At the convention I held two of the rarest baseball cards, a Lajoie and a Honus Wagner. I never considered making a run for it because security was fairly tight. (Huggins & Scott)
“I think it was an honest mistake that just blew up in their faces” says Bill Huggins, the president ofHuggins and Scott. “I could be totally wrong, but I don’t think so.” Based on my discussions with other dealers at the convention and accounts I’ve read in books and on the web, his view is in the distinct minority. “Of course, they knew what they were doing,” says veteran hobbyist Ron Vitro, E.R. Galleries. “It was manufactured rarity.”
Today no company in its right mind would risk the violent P.R. backlash from angry parents on Twitter TWTR +2.02% and Facebook. The government might even step in to investigate the company for consumer fraud.
In 1933 parents and kids protested the old-fashioned way by writing letters of complaint. Goudey, finally bowed to public pressure, and printed a card of Napoleon Lajoie the following year, but sent it only to those who requested it by mail. As a result, the Lajoie is almost as rare and as iconic as the world’s most valuable card, the 1910 Honus Wagner tobacco issue that has sold for up to $2.8 million. Production was drastically curtailed because the outstanding Pittsburgh Pirates’ shortstop either objected to being associated with tobacco or for not being reimbursed for his image.
The Lajoie numbers only about 100, compared to about 60 for the Wagner. Last year Robert Edwards sold an example graded mint for $118,500.Huggins and Scott’s example is graded “authentic” because it was trimmed, so it’s estimated to bring about $30,000.
Sports cards still fuel collectible crazes. On one end of the convention floor, periodic cheers erupted whenever cases were opened and found to have rare, randomly inserted and very valuable sports cards being produced today. “It’s a form of adult gambling,” a dealer told me. In the 1990s there were limited edition “chase cards” which Cal Ripken and others autographed. Bill Huggins reminded me that in 1981 Fleer created a feeding frenzy, printing cards containing errors. The repetition of errors the following year raised suspicions that the company was doing so on purpose and the cards sank.
lajoie resized How The Biggest Baseball Card Scam In History Could Cost You $13,000
In the 1960s and 1970s baby boomers like me pestered their parents to buy them pack after pack to acquire their favorite player; in my case, the New York Mets’ Tom Seaver. I must have ripped open hundreds of packs. Cards have always been sold in some form of tamper-proof wrappers for a reason.
In fact, card makers have exploited collectors’ addictions practically since cards were invented. “The Wagner card was actually first mentioned in the Charlotte-Observer in August of 1909, just as the cards were showing up in packs of Piedmont Cigarettes in the South,” writes Peter Nash. “The article claimed that the cards were ‘more sought after than gold’ by young boys who purchased packs of cigarettes for the pictures of baseball men’ and then “peddled the smokeables to passers on the streets. The report noted that the cards of Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner were especially desired but that ‘only a few pictures of Cobb had been found until a shipment arrived at the Wilson Drug Store and 13 more Cobb’s surfaced. No mention was made of a Wagner card being discovered.”
This positively Dickensian description of pint-sized card junkies buying packs of cigarettes and then hawking the “smokeables” to “passers on the street” for another fix reminds us how much the world changed for the better. The young boys chasing number 106 in 1933 may have developed cavities from all the extra bubble gum they chewed, but at least they were never tempted to start smoking.
www.ahametals.com/biggest-baseball-card-scam-history-cost-13000/

I figured you'd like it

BALTIMORE -- Major League Baseball chief operating officer Rob Manfred and Boston Red Sox chairman Tom Werner were left as the remaining candidates to succeed Bud Selig as commissioner after MLB executive vice president Tim Brosnan withdrew before the start of voting Thursday.

Agreed.  However, I guess they just don't make them like they used to......

Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips has been cleared to begin a minor-league rehab assignment Friday at Triple-A after missing the past five weeks following surgery to repair a torn thumb ligament.

Phillips is right on schedule for what was initially expected to be a six-week recovery process.

I guess we will continue to wait for the black smoke

Hmmmm. I wonder if this deal will pay dividens or not?

Looking to add more bullpen help after the Jason Grilli-for-Ernesto Frieri swap worked out so horribly the Pirates have acquired right-hander John Axford from the Indians, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com.

Axford signed a one-year, $4.5 million deal to be the Indians’ closer, but instead was quickly stripped of ninth-inning duties and has spent most of the season in a setup role without being particularly effective with a 3.91 ERA and 30 walks in 44 innings.

Axford still throws really hard and still misses plenty of bats with 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings, but between his poor control and problems keeping the ball in the ballpark he’s posted a combined 4.25 ERA in 200 appearances since 2012.

In what proved to be his final Indians appearance Axford walked three batters and allowed four runs while recording two outs last week, which inflated his ERA from 3.14 to 3.91. He’ll work in a setup role in front of closer Mark Melancon.

UPDATE: It’s a straight-up waiver claim, so the Indians basically said “OK, take him” to the Pirates, who’re now responsible for the $1.1 million left on Axford’s deal.

The Mets just can't quit Bobby Abreu

Designated for assignment and then released by the Mets last week, Bobby Abreu has signed a minor-league deal with … the Mets.

Abreu will report to Triple-A, where he hit .395 in 15 games earlier this season before being called up to the majors. He got off to a decent start as a bench bat and occasional starter for the Mets, but Abreu hit .151 from mid-June until he was let go.

Presumably the Mets have indicated to Abreu that he has a good shot of returning to the big leagues as a September call-up and, not surprisingly, the 40-year-old’s other options were limited.

It sucks that great players like Tulo get injured while I have to endure idiots who never get hurt like BJ Upton & Dan Uggla. Life just isn't fair, I tell you. BUt

"There's no crying in baseball."