Rickey Henderson Wallpaper

I know that you can easily make any image your desktop wallpaper, but it's nice to sometimes find art that is specifically made for that purpose.



The A's just released the above wallpaper image, which you can find on their website here. They've used a similar image many times this year, on everything from pocket schedules, game-day giveaways, and giant banners hanging from the side of the Coliseum.



Here's a full-version of the logo that the A's created for Rickey's Hall of Fame induction, which could also easily be used as wallpaper. When I first noticed this logo, I commented on the fact that I couldn't find a full uncropped version anywhere. Thanks to a comment from a fellow collector, and an e-mail to the A's media department, they very quickly send me over the full image.

Recent Rickey's: First A's Patch and Shoe Cards

With all of the focus on Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame, I've neglected some of the more recent card additions to the collection. I just got a package in the mail yesterday, with a lot of 16 Rickey cards, which is definitely the most of acquired at the same time in quite awhile. Below are some of my favorites:



2005 Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade Swatch Double Prime Black A's B-J/25 #94

I believe this has to hold the award for longest official card name of any in my collection. That name is ridiculous! But, as I mentioned awhile ago when I got my first patch card, this is the first A's patch that I've been able to add to the collection. Although it looks black in the scan, it's actually a nice 3-color green/white/yellow patch.



2005 Prime Patches Portraits Triple Swatch B-J-SH/150 #72

Another nice game-used card, this one features the first piece of game used shoe I've added. It's crazy what they'll cut up and put on a card!



1997 Select Company R #50

I can't believe that it's taken me so long to acquire this card. I have three versions already (base, registered gold, and select company sample), but for some reason I never picked up this one.



2001 Fleer Futures Black Gold/499 #45

Although serial numbered to a rather high 499 copies, these cards are not the easiest to come by. It's always nice to knock of some of the earlier parallels of my checklist, especially those that only had one variation.



2002 Diamond Kings Heritage Collection #HC23

A pretty nice stand-alone insert card of Rickey. I was always surprised that he was only included in the 1984 set of the original Diamond Kings. I never could figure out why he was left out of the sets in the late 1980's.



2004 Timeless Treasures Game Day Materials Bat/50 #16





2004 Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade Green M's/150 #123
2005 Donruss Classics Classic Singles/400 #13

I've included these cards together, since although they come from different years, and different sets, they both use the same picture of Rickey on the Mariners. This has become all too common, but it's definitely not a new phenomenon. At some point in time I'll put together a post of quite a few late 1980's cards, all of which recycle the same picture many times over.

Hall of Fame Weekend: Commemorative Bat

I've written two entire posts filled with Hall of Fame merchandise, but I haven't included the only item that I went to Cooperstown knowing that I had to have.

About 15 years ago I was visiting the house of a family friend, and noticed a framed brown bat on the wall. It was a Hall of Fame Commemorative bat from the year Tony Lazzari was inducted, who was actually a relative of the family friend. He was telling me how he had to get in line early in the morning to purchase the bat, and I knew right then that I had to get one whenever Rickey finally went into the Hall.



I got in line in front of the Hall of Fame at around 6:45am on Saturday morning, and was given the above ticket, indicating that I would indeed get a bat! I was about 20th in line, and was glad that they were handing out the tickets, so that I wouldn't have to stress out about them running out.





The bats are official full-size Louisville Sluggers, and include the incoming Hall of Famers signatures along with the Hall of Fame Logo.



The bats are limited to only 1,000, but there are much less than that actually available. The first 500 are sold via subscription to the same people every year, and from what I was told, there's a waiting list to become one of the subscribers, similar to those wanting Packers season tickets.



The remaining 500 bats are usually sold on induction weekend, but that was not the case this year. The Hall created a $1,000 induction weekend package which included premium seats to the induction ceremony, and one of the commemorative bats, among other perks. As a result, there were only 58 bats available for sale that morning. I'm glad I got there early!

Hall of Fame Weekend: Merchandise and Memorabilia Part II

You'd think that after the length of my first merchandise post that I would have exhausted the supply, but I've got just as many items to show you this time around. Some came from the Hall of Fame shop, others were sold by vendors on Main Street, while still others were free items that I collected throughout the weekend.

After posting the first round of merchandise, I updated the post with information about how to purchase some of the items, but not everyone might have seen it. You can go to the Hall of Fame's new online store, which for some reason can not be accessed through the Hall of Fame's website. If you don't see what you want, you can also call the Hall directly at 1-888-425-5633, and they'll try and help you out.





I meant to include these in the first post, but forgot, so I'll put them here instead. These were both taken inside the main Hall of Fame gift shop, where I ended up spending way too much time (and money).



We'll start the merchandise with some of the official Hall of Fame items that I mentioned previously. This is the Rickey Henderson acrylic plaque, which wasn't specifically included in the catalog, since the plaque image isn’t released until after the induction ceremony.



This is a better picture of the front and back of the Hall of Fame cache, which also couldn't be released until induction day, since it's cancelled by the post office on the day of induction.



Here's Rickey's official Hall of Fame plaque postcard, which at only $0.50, was quite a bargain. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I'm guessing that these postcards, which are available for all Hall of Famers, are some of the more popular Hall of Fame souvenirs.



The last of the official merchandise is this pennant, which also features an image of Rickey's plaque. I never did see the pennant that was included in my previous post (an in the catalog), but this one definitely looks a lot nicer. It's possible that the design for the other pennant was basically just a placeholder image, since they couldn't show much of this one due to the prominent image of the plaque.



This is the Hall of Fame Induction Day Card, which I actually mentioned previously. I was able to get this cancelled at the post office after returning from the ceremony. According to the owner of TCMA Covers, who put out the cards, all 2,000 of the Jim Rice cards were sold, as well as 1,807 of the Rickey versions. At around $5.00 a piece they were a great souvenir at a great price.



When arriving at the post office to get the cards cancelled, I was actually surprised to see that they had produced a pretty nice cache of their own to commemorate the event. At only $8.00, it was much more reasonable than the $24.95 for the official one from the Hall of Fame.



The streets of Cooperstown are packed with tables and vendors during induction weekend, selling baseball cards, collectibles, t-shirt, food, and even their own "bootleg" souvenirs.





Postal caches seemed to be pretty popular, with quite a few vendors making their own, all of varying degrees of quality. I liked the design on the two shown above, and since they were fairly reasonably priced, I couldn't pass them up. I also had these cancelled on Sunday, along with the induction day card.



This bat was produced by the Cooperstown Bat Company, who also produced a bat for the Hall of Fame. This one, however, was produced as a fundraiser for the local Rotary Club, hence the logo on the right side of the bat.



This button was another purchase from a vendor off the street, and is a unique little souvenir.



Like the button above, this t-shirt also declares "I Was There" for Induction Weekend in 2009. For a shirt that was not professionally designed, I actually liked the way that it looked. Plus, for only $5.00, I couldn't pass it up.



Returning to the official merchandise, this is a copy of the Hall of Fame's quarterly member magazine, "Memories & Dreams," which I found at the Hall of Fame Bookstore. I became a member a few months ago, but my first issue was the one released after this, so it was nice to be able to pick up the one that I missed.



The Hall of Fame Museum produced a special version of their brochure guide just for induction weekend. Although you had to pay to get into the museum, the guide itself was a nice free souvenir.



Another free souvenir, which was actually a welcome surprise, was this special edition of "Memories and Dreams" that served as a program for the induction ceremony. The Hall was giving away programs, and even free bottles of chilled water, to anyone in attendance at the induction.



They were also giving away free baseball hat shaped paper fans. At the start of the ceremony, everyone was hoping that they were umbrellas, but as the day went on, the heat picked up, and I'm sure the fans were appreciated.



This was a free magazine that I ran across while browsing the local grocery store. I liked the baseball card designs on the front, and there's actually a pretty good article on Rickey inside as well.



Any member visiting the Hall also got this special induction weekend button, which was not for sale anywhere. I saw them handing them out all day Friday and Saturday, but they seemed to be out when I visited on Sunday night. The free button was one of many little things that the organizers of the Hall of Fame did to help make for a very memorable weekend.

Rickey's Jersey Number Retirement Speech

When I wrote about Rickey's jersey retirement last week, I mentioned that I'd also taken some video, although it wasn't that great. It's a bit shaky at first, but it gets better fairly quickly. The camcorder I was using was a Flip, which works well, but doesn't really zoom, and also doesn't have any sort of image stabilization.

So, I basically recorded it for the audio, which is better than nothing at all.



This first clip is from A's great, and Rickey friend, Dave Stewart.



Just like in Cooperstown, Rickey gave a great speech. It was a lot of fun hearing 35,000 fans screaming "Run, Rickey, Run." I was really hoping he'd take off down the base paths, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

The Odds on Steroid Use in Baseball

In a recent interview with ESPN, Jose Canseco made another of his now all-to-common steroid declarations:

"I'll tell you this, Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who's used."

As of now, he’s declined to reveal who that individual might be. Since this came shortly after Rickey Henderson was inducted, everyone just assumed that as an ex-teammate of Canseco’s, he was the one whom he was referring to. I even read an article where the author was placing odds on who that Hall of Famer was, with Rickey landing at the top of that list. Not sure how he came up with that figure, but he seemed to have convinced himself of it.



I’m actually surprised that I haven’t seen official odds on who the next baseball star to be found guilty of using steroids will be. Most sites allow you to bet on your typical games such as black jack and bingo, but you can also bet on a lot of other things, such as who will win the World Series of Poker, and who’ll get to Host the 2016 Olympic games. It’s only a matter of times before the “steroid odds” have been created.



The problem, however, is that the initial articles on the interview did not include everything that Canseco said about the matter, as he said specifically that Rickey was not the Hall of Famer that he was referring to:

"I have no knowledge of Rickey using steroids in any manner, shape or form," Canseco said later on in the interview.

So, Rickey has been officially ruled out by Canseco, but it’s only a matter of time before the name of the actual Hall of Famer he was referring is released. The Hall of Fame needs to decide how they are going to deal with these issues and allegations, and they should probably act fairly quickly, before things really get out of hand.

Rickey Weekend: Day Two

Since the A's had declared their celebration of Rickey Henderson a "Rickey Weekend," with Rickey giveaways on both days, I obviously had to go to the game on Sunday as well.

Although the outcome was the same (the A's lost), not withstanding the number retirement ceremony, I actually had a lot more fun during the game on Sunday than I did on Saturday. We had seats directly behind home plate, in the second row towards that third base side, which put us right in the middle of the action.

But, that also put us directly behind the net, which isn't always conducive to picture taking. Fortunately, the telephoto lens was able to focus on the players most of the time, and in the shots that came out, you can barely even tell the net was there. Although I took quite a few pictures, below are some of my favorites.