Binder Page Heroes - Nolan Ryan

Aloha readers and trade partners,

I was recently privileged to be profiled by Nachos Grande in his most excellent series Better Know A Blogger. In the profile I mentioned the favorite articles in my collection to be my main baseball card binders - one for the Dodgers and one for players from all the other teams. 

The cards in those binders are my current favorites, which means they are updated and reorganized whenever new favorites join my collection. 

Answering that profile question reminded me of a series that's been dormant here on ATBATT for a while now, Binder Page Heroes. In the series I show off a random binder page and the cards currently residing there. 

I figure it's time to revisit that series, so let's begin with my Nolan Ryan page. 

Leading off is a miiiiiiinnnnnnnnniiiiii Express...

When I restarted my collecting back around 1994, Ryan was one of the first players that I collected. His legend was still pretty fresh to baseball fans, and we share the same birthday, which I felt connected us somehow...
 

 I've gotta give Ryan extra credit for pitching so well in such an ugly uniform. 

Gotta love the old (now gone) Houston Astrodome in the logo. My only personal memory of the Astrodome is driving past it once and marveling at it from the freeway.

 Seven no-hitters. Simply amazing. 

  
As you can see, I'm a sucker for these "No hitter" tribute cards. 

 And now, a Ryan card with a lurking Dodger Stadium...

 Some folks liked to take Ryan down a notch and say it's inevitable that he's attained all those no-hitter and strike out stats "just because he pitched forever".  

Well, you don't get to pitch forever if you're not any good. 

Remember when pretty much everyone's mitts were made by Rawlings?

Finally, a card where Ryan shares the spotlight with another couple of pitching legends...

Aloha!

Let's try A Reboot...

Aloha everybody,

I originally wrote the article below about 17 hours ago. The problem is, the post didn't show up on folks' blogrolls until 12 hours after I posted it. 

I suspect many of you all aren't even aware I posted this. 

Since the goal of every writer is to share their thoughts with the most sets of eyes, I'm reposting in the hopes the blogrolls will update in a reasonable amount of time. I invite you to read on...

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As every baseball fan knows by now, the Dodgers traded Matt Kemp to the Padres. 

Matt Kemp fans and detractors alike did a double take when photos of Kemp in Padres gear started showing up. 

 When Kemp updated his Twitter photo to show himself in his new Padre digs, I'm sure a few heads of Bison super-fans exploded. 

Greg from Plashke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle is the biggest Matt Kemp fan I know. He's still blogging, so I'm presuming his head is still intact, thankfully.

 In a further reaction to Kemp as a Padre, Roberto from the Dodger-centric blog Vin Scully Is My Homeboy sent out this tweet: 

Seeing Matt Kemp in a Padres uniform feels weird. So this how you old folks felt when you saw Steve Garvey in a Padres uni?
— Roberto Baly (@rbaly79) December 19, 2014

 Since I lived through Steve Garvey's Dodger career, I know first-hand what an earthquake it was for Dodger fans back in the day to see Garvey in Padres brown and gold. Therefore, I consider myself qualified to answer Roberto's question. 

The short answer is heck no, there is NO comparison. 

That's like comparing my income to Donald Trump's, or the richness of my warmth and charm to D. Trump's. 

Garvey was THE Dodgers, where Kemp is The Bison. 

Garvey was Los Angeles, where Kemp is Rihanna and the Gap. 

Garvey still leads the NL in his iron-man 1,201 consecutive games streak. He won the NL and NLCS MVP awards. He won back to back All-Star Game MVP awards. 

The Garv hit .417 and led the Dodgers over the Yankees in the 1981 World Series. 

In 2012 and 2013 Kemp hardly played, and when he did play, he often led the team in strike outs. 

Garvey led the team in being a nice guy, where Kemp often came off as pouty and demanding to be treated appropriate to his "star status".  

Sure Kemp is (was?) a great athlete. Sure, Matt Kemp should have won the MVP award over cheater Ryan Braun, and he was in full Beast mode during the final few weeks of the 2014 season, but Garvey was a rock solid, exceptional athlete in LA for 14 years straight.  

That's just shy of a generation's time.

It may seem like it, but I'm not trying to pull Kemp down. What I'm illustrating here is what Kemp and Garvey represented and meant to the team and the city, and not just their hard core followers.

The world flipped upside-down when Dodger fans saw Garvey's All-American smile beaming out from a Padre uniform. It still seems surreal even now.

If you'd like to read a bit more about why the impact of Kemp as a Padre pales in comparison to what LA fans felt when Garvey switched teams, I invite you to head over to Lasorda's Lair, and read my article Five Reasons Padre Matt Kemp Cannot Compare To Padre Steve Garvey .  Go on, indulge. 

Aloha!