Where There's a Will, There's a Chuck: A Trade Post

I came home yesterday to a bubble mailer and a PWE which resulted in a great many "woo-hoos" around the Junior Junkie household.  Each contained cards of Louisiana natives Will Clark and Chuck Finley, both among my very few player collections.

First, Dustin over at Coot Veal and the Vealtones found time out of his busy new-daddy schedule (congrats, y'all!) to send me a sweet stack of down home loosiana goodness.



Triple exposure Chuck




Dustin sent lots of Chuck Finleys - this is just a few of my favorites.  That '88 Topps card single-handedly gave us the word "Chuckstachioed"



Also a few of the many Will Clarks he sent.  I make fun of Score caricatures, but these two aren't bad.  I think it's because we NOLA boys are so good-lookin'.



He also threw in some great silly names and goofy facial expressions.  This one took the goofiness cake.



Just a Jay Buhner card - just a regular old Jay Buhner card.  Nothing to see here.

This reminds me - I'm going to have to put together a post of Jay Buhner cards that have Griffey in them.  There are more than you might think....

And finally, a very personal card:

 

Panini's struggle to not show team logos has played right into my hands....and my heart.


Will is wearing the uniform of my high school baseball team, the Jesuit Blue Jays, our shared Alma Mater.  When I saw this card on Coot's blog I knew it had to be mine.  Super appreciative to him for trading this with me.  Cannot express how much I love it!


Next up, Marcus from All the Way to the Backstop single-stamped me some unexpected cardboard coolness:
 

I have to wonder if Chuck and Griffey ever faced each other (is there a way to look that up?).  Hopefully not on this day as Chuck looks hella-focused.

Holy crap, Google, are you kidding me?  I love the Internet!  From Chad over at The Hardball Times, here's this scary-appropriate chunk of information I didn't know existed when I typed the above caption:


#34. Ken Griffey Jr. vs. Chuck Finley (10.2 RC, 78 PAs, 1990-2002)   View match-up

Actual:    4.2 RC | 12-73 | .164/.218/.301 | 0.519 OPS | 18 K, 5 BB, 0 HBP
Expected: 14.3 RC | 20-67 | .298/.384/.565 | 0.949 OPS | 11 K 9 BB, 1 HBP

After an extremely slow start to this match-up, Ken Griffey Jr. went on a tear to nearly bring his actual RC in line with his expected in 1993. Ultimately, Finley got the better of Griffey, who closed out this match-up with a less-than-stellar 1-for-29.



Ken Griffey Jr. also struggled against Kevin Appier (6.9 RC) and Mike Mussina (6.6 RC).
Chuck Finley also dominated NONE.

Yikes.  Looks like Finley frickin' pwned the Kid.  They were division rivals, after all.  I don't understand most of the terminology or abbreviations used in the above segment, but I did understand "1-for-29."

And have I mentioned I love funny names?  How I have never seen Haverbush I'll never know, but he is going into my "porn names" binder tonight.

I'm not showing all the goofiness cards at once because I plan on doing another blog featuring only those cards that achieve optimal laughability.  Wheels are in motion....

Thanks a bunch, guys!  It's a pleasure to come home to new cardboard, especially on days when I get home in time to intercept the mail.