2014 Spirit Base: 491 - 500

#491 - Collin McHugh
He's been a pleasant surprise for the Astros this year. 25 games started with an ERA under 3. His ERA+ is 143. His previous season high was 51, as a reliever.

#492 - Norichika Aoki
Even though it was difficult, I found a normal-ish action shot of Aoki. As an aside, if you're on Twitter and you don't follow Grant Brisbee, you need to rectify that. Unless you prefer the dull "humor" you get from me.

#493 - Joe Smith
I thought the blurred out scoreboard in the back was kinda neat, along with the angle of his delivery.

#494 - Clayton Kershaw
Man, I'm really sick of Kershaw. I don't mean I'm sick of hearing about him or think he's overrated or anything stupid like that. He's so damn good. What I mean is I'm tired of the Giants having to face him every series (or so it seems.) It's not fair, I tell ya.

#495 - Derek Dietrich
They need to start incorporating those sound device things from greeting cards into baseball cards. This one would be perfect with a nice "BOING" sound effect.

#496 - Mark Reynolds
Something feels wrong about showing Reynolds with a glove instead of a bat but I liked this photo.

#497 - Jason Kubel
Kubel didn't have a lot of photo options for this current stint with the Twins. I figured the undershirt, hood and empty bleachers was the most Minnesotan I could get.

#498 - Chris Young
I wish there was more of his face showing here but I liked this pic a lot. Plus he'll have a Yankees card in the next series where I can hopefully find a more personal shot.

#499 - Kelly Johnson
Johnson had a nomadic 2014, playing on three different teams, most of it with the Yankees. He, too, will make another appearance as well.

#500 - Scott Kazmir
It's hard to believe Kazmir's only 30. He's been decent this year but will probably only get a postseason start if Oakland makes it to the ALCS.

To the Moon and back

Oh, hi there. It's nice to be back. I sure was gone a looooong time, huh? Well, the vacation was had and spring has sprung. I figured it was time to poke my head out and say 'hello.' Opening Day is a few short days away so let's get this thing back on the rails.

In thinking for another insert idea for Clubhouse, I figured I'd go with something simple like 'guys who hit a bunch of homeruns.' That seemed easy enough. But then came the hard part of coming up with a name & concept. I passed over stuff like 'Home Run Kings' since they have been in recent products and thought that the Clubhouse brand could use something a little more fun. So I started thinking of different slang terms for homers. Unfortunately, most were either semi-perverted (dingers, dongs, goin' deep) or had also been used elsewhere (going yard, touch'em all.) So I was back at square one.

But during my research, I kept coming back to the term 'moonshot,' thinking it really lends itself to something fun and interesting design-wise. Even though Ultra ran an insert in 2003 with the same basic premise, I figured I could update and improve upon it.

Looking at these cards, the first thing that pops out is either the UGE moon image or the absence of edges on the top. Yep, these are my first die-cuts. Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that die-cuts can be really cool but I always prefer the ones with at least 2 true corners. They need to be able to sit level in a sleeve or toploader, which usually means the bottom corners. I have a feeling that if some other card companies tried to die-cut this, they'd jump for the completely round die-cut and obliviously annoy collectors.

With the full moon image taking up a lot of real estate, it makes a nice backdrop to the player images. The photos here are of the batters directly following their 'moonshot' swings. With the Howard and Reynolds cards, they're stoicly staring down their long balls (or fly outs) while Teixeira is starting his trot towards first. The dark blue color complements the gold moon while adding a little bit of subtlety you wouldn't get from black. The names are below in a 'space' font to extend the lunar motif going on here.

On the back side, the symmetry of the die-cut really helps keep things clean. Instead of the moon, we get a circular close-up of the players, which fades out towards the bottom to make room for the text. I also found space for the team logos somewhere within the photo frame (these all happen to be in about the same spot but that was just a happy accident with these particular photos.) The checklist totals 20 though I didn't really put it together completely. I thought it would be nice to include some guys like Reynolds here who have better numbers in the HR category while not really nearing the leaderboards elsewhere. Adam Dunn would be another candidate but would probably need to get off to a good start in 2012 to justify a spot here. Anyway, 17 of the 20 spots are still open.

Alright, thanks for checking in with me again after the long lay off. I promise the posts will keep coming semi-regularly like they used to. See ya soon!