Monster (Trade) Of the Midway

Jeff of 2X3 Heroes is alive! Lately he's been sending out awesome trade packages all over, and I was the lucky recipient of a MONSTER flat rate box. I ended up with stacks of stacks of Twins to sort through!

Stack one featured the Soul Patrol, some of the best pitchers in team history, and the underrated Justin Morneau. What would his career have been had he avoided that concussion? It was really good even with it.

My scanner was a little harsh on it, but my favorite card from stack # 1 was this cloth sticker reproduction of Rod Carew.

The second stack had a ton of young talent - Jose Berrios, maximum Max Kepler, Brusdar Graterol and Alex Kiriloff!

It was a more traditional Hall of Fame face that was my favorite of that stack. That's a new to me Puckett!

Stack # 3 was a Heritage bonanza!

Stack # 4 was packed with rookies!

Just so you don't get burnt out on Twins, here's C.C. Sabathia, still in his minor league days with Cleveland.

There were lots and lots of Kirbys, I think these were all versions that were new to me as well!

And goodness gracious, so many parallels!

And this is only half way through the stacks that were in the box. Thanks very much Jeff, these Twins are much appreciated!

NOW That's What I Call A Milestone

I am pretty good at keeping up with the Twins' new cards from Topps NOW, but every once in a while I make an exception for other teams or players. To be honest, I've never been a fan of C.C., since he's been with Cleveland and after a brief stint in Milwaukee with the Yankees. Tough position for a Twins fan to be in - but I have to say I have great respect for Sabathia, as much as I have wanted him to have a bad night when he's pitching against my favorite team.

3,000 strikeouts is quite the feat. More exclusive than 3,000 hits, with Sabathia being just the 17th pitcher in MLB history to reach the milestone. Even more exclusive, he's just the 3rd lefty - Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton being the others.

Speaking of 3rd - Albert Pujols is now ranked 3rd* on the RBI list. He's not exactly the Machine he once was, but 2,000 RBI is nothing to sneeze at. I really like this photo, which captures Albert flipping his bat in ... relief? Having blasted a home run to pass 2,000.

The list of course is missing Babe Ruth - (and Cap Anson), who also drove in more than 2,000 runs in his career. Before 1920, the Runs Batted In statistic was not counted in a consistent way from game to game, so the RBI the Sultan of Swat accumulated prior to 1920 are not included on this list. Pujols is likely going to pass A-Rod for 2nd overall some time next season (if he doesn't retire first). Pujols is another guy, like Sabathia, that I've never been a big fan of the teams he's played for. But, 2,000 RBI is great, and not likely to be repeated.