Orioles Card "O" the Day

An intersection of two of my passions: baseball cards and the Baltimore Orioles. Updated daily?

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Jim Palmer, 2006 Topps Turkey Red #587

Yesterday we looked at Jim Palmer's delivery at the midway point. Today we see the famous high leg kick, so high that it hurts just to watch. This Hall of Famer pitched 3,948 innings in the major leagues, meaning that he repeated his outsized motion tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of times in his career. While he had his share of elbow troubles, it's kind of remarkable that he never had any hip or knee maladies. The dude had pretty strong legs, I would say.

3 comments:

jacobmrley said...

And some sweet BVDs. and he never got around to giving up a grand slam. and earl weaver still hated his guts, lord knows why. Gotta love Jim Palmer.

Kevin said...

Max - Earl had a love/hate relationship with most of his players. He rode them hard, knowing that their dislike for him would fuel the competitive fires. At least, that's what I've heard. I think he knew how talented Palmer was, and rode him even harder because of it. Of course, Palmer wasn't afraid to give an earful back to him!

FreeTheBirds said...

My favorite Earl/Jim story is when Jim was on the mound and the umpire was calling everything a ball. Earl goes out to the mound and purposefully waits for the ump to come out to the mound. Earl then "introduces" Palmer to the ump, saying that he is a future HOFer and that if the ump will just tell them where the strike zone is Palmer will be happy to throw it there. Good stuff, I never get tired of Earl Weaver stories.