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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Kershaw is Signed

The Dodgers announced on twitter that they just signed Clayton Kershaw to a two year deal. This contract only takes up a couple of Clayton's arbitration years, but looks reasonably priced. Dylan Hernandez has the details:As Chad Moriyama points out, this deal is less than the two year deal Tim Lincecum received at this time of his career. I say that this alone makes this contract a big win for the Dodgers.

Blog Kiosk: 2/7/2012

Here are the Dodgers at their first stop on the 2012 Dodgers Caravan tour this morning at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. (Pic via @Dodgers Twitter)
  • Newest Dodger Todd Coffey is a twitterer. Go ahead and follow him.
  • The Dodgers had a fruitful year when it came to helping out the community. Check out the Dodgers 2011 Community Report featuring all of the good deeds by the organization in 2011.
  • Check out Left Field Pavilions great graphic called "Wheel of Misfortune."
  • Bill Shaikin of the LA Times unveils another Dodger bidder, Jared Kushner, who happens to be the son-in-law to Donald Trump. I agree with Mike at Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness assessment that we do not want "the Trump" to be anywhere near the Dodgers.
  • Josh Macciello made a $2.2Billion offer for the Dodgers. What? Via Mike Szymanski at Studio City Patch.
  • David Laurila at FanGraphs has a great interview with Dodgers scouting guru Logan White.
    “Looking at the [biomechanical] factors, I felt that Kershaw had the best delivery, the best mechanics, the best arm action, of the four. There are obviously other factors when you‘re looking at someone. A guy can have great mechanics and a terrible makeup, or he may simply not have the arm speed. There are different variables that come into play, but biomechanics are certainly a big factor for us and we liked Kershaw’s mechanics.
  • Beckett talks about a new hobby related reality show called "Ball Boys." Think pawn stars meet Baseball cards.
  • Zach Hample was at the Hall of Fame and has plenty of photos to prove it.
  • Check out Part 2 of the video featuring Cheech Marin and Rev Halofan talking Baseball at Halos Heaven.
  • Bob Lemke writes about 19th Century ballplayer Phenomenal Smith.
  • REA Auctions shares an item that will be on auction later this year that is just fascinating. It's a book that once belonged to Baseball pioneer Alexander Cartwright, and it may have played a large part in the creation of organized Baseball.

Hunt Auctions: Old Packs- Really Old Packs

Hunt's monthly auction is currently running and it consist of an incredible collection of vintage tobacco related memorabilia. Heck, it's one of the largest groupings of tobacco unopened packs, advertising displays, and other tobacco related collectibles I've ever seen. I kind of find the collection breathtaking.

On the other hand, I understand that this part of the hobby isn't PC in todays world- tobacco and all. Nevertheless, I still find it fascinating to see the packaging and the artwork that once contained collectible cards at the turn of the last century. These items ushered in a new hobby that would be followed throughout the country, and would eventually spawn a industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the auction, several of the lots pair up a vintage pack with an example of the vintage Baseball card that could be found within it. There are various 1909-11 T206 packs:They even have more obscure packs like Mecca Cigarettes that had T201's, OBAK pack with held T212 cards, Old Judge pack with N172's, a Dog's Head pack that had non-sports cards in it, and a Allen & Ginter pack with a N28.Like I said, it's an incredible array of collectibles pointing to the origins of the card hobby.

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There were some items in the auction that I though would be of interest to Dodger fans. Below are a couple of unopened packs of Red Man Tobacco from 1954. As vintage card collectors will know, Red Man produced a set of cards that season that were much larger than the typical Baseball card made by Topps and featured a colored drawing of 54 different Major League ballplayers. As you can see they cellophane wrapped the packs with the Baseball card visible on the outside.

In the pack below it features Brooklyn Dodger infielder Billy Cox. This pack looks a little rough around the edges as it appears to be toned and peeling a little bit.

Here is one of the nicest one's I've ever seen. This pack has World Series hero Jim Gilliam. It looks brand new.

A Koufax 2012 Topps Coin Promo?

With it almost a week into the 2012 Topps Baseball madness, I am sure many of you have already seen this card, or others like it. It is a limited insert card found in packs that feature 15 different Golden Greats along with a golden colored coin embedded with it. This is the Sandy Koufax coin insert card and, as you can see, is numbered to only 32 copies.

I show this particular card from the set (I plan on featuring most of the Dodgers cards from the Topps set in a future post) because I ran into a similar item on eBay. Check out the picture below.

The seller states that it is a promotional coin that was sent to dealers. It looks like it's 4 or 5 inches wide, is still sealed in plastic, and features Sandy Koufax. In fact, it look exactly like the Koufax coin in the above insert card. Unfortunately, the seller doesn't provide very many details. Anyone out there have any familiarity with these. Were all dealers sent a Koufax, or were other players also available? Anyone?