Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Zito Effect

The girls over at Dinged Corners held a contest not long ago (and actually, I think there are new questions, so it may still be going on), and I was the lucky winner of a selection of cards by answering the 'unlucky' question number 13 - which actually turns out to be about a very LUCKY situation, now that i stop and do the math...

You see, they have come up with "The Barry Zito" effect - the effect whereby a collector receives many, many cards of one particular player and yet at the same time, receives very few duplicates of that player. I'm sure it also has something to do with a 'fallen star' effect, but I haven't figured out how to tie the two together, or if in fact the two ARE tied together (kind of Lincoln/Kennedy thing, if you will). I am not sure if I have any "Zito Effect" players myself, mainly because I hadn't thought to stop and think about it - a natural shortcoming of mine.

My correct answer scored me some very cool Indians cards!


The top card in the envelope is Kerry Wood in a Triber's uniform! Wahoo! It's funny, I've always been a closet fan of Wood's and now that he sports an Indians uniform, I can freely shout WAHOO! Mike Rouse, whom I admit I know very little about, is next, sporting what appears to be Oakland Green. In fact, the back of the card shows him wearing an A's hat - so there ya go. Franklin Gutierrez is up next, and his card number is 404 - which in terms of the Internet means 'cannot be found.' Unfortunately for the Tribe, that's kinds his legacy in Cleveland - he bounced around a lot between the bigs and the minors during his stint.

Next Scott Lewis, a Classic Best Gold Ken Ramos (VERY cool!), Kenny Lofton, and a Pinnacle checklist. The Pinnacle checklist features the Indians at Jacobs Field! Excellent! Travis Hafner on a Masterpieces, a classic Topps Cory Snyder, and a Fleer Tradition Rafael Betancourt finish out this group.

The second group of scanned cards features Pronk and more!! V-Mart leads things off on a Masterpieces card. That's followed by Pronk on a UD Timelines and a UD Future Stars - very cool looking cards. Lampkin appears ready to take part in a play at the plate. Hafner comes in on a Baseball Heroes card for his latest appearance in the deck! Dennis Martinez shows us his smiling face - though it is paired with a maniacal look in his eye... Pat Corrales looks a bit dazed and confused, which makes a lot of sense given the 80's-era Indians... Julian Tavarez is catching something in his mouth. It's way too uniform to be popcorn, I think. To me, they appear to be jelly beans. But, who eats the white ones!? C.C. comes in on a BLACK Baseball Heroes card - very slick! The last picture is of Terry Pendleton, doing his best "Where is your mother" Bill Cosby impression.



There was one more card in the envelope, but it was stuck to the bottom of Pendleton's card. Yes, I realize this means I should have noticed right away, being the last card and all. Alas, my skills of blatant observation took a vacation this weekend.

The last card in the package was a Stadium club Jim Thome - caught in the middle of catching a fly ball.

Thank you so much, Dinged Corners, for another WONDERFUL package and a great prize!

2 comments:

  1. Your "Zito Effect" may be "The Wood Effect". I was just getting ready to send you my duplicate of that Wood card! Now I'll save it for someone else who needs it.I'm sure I can find somthing else for you !

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  2. Good point about the possible effect crossover. Now we must know if there is a Zito effect for any non-fallen star collector out there.

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