Sammy Sosa, 2005 Leaf Legends #77

Odd, but true: Sammy Sosa had a pair of two-homer games during his forgettable 102-game tenure as an Oriole in 2005. Considering that he only went deep 14 times in 424 trips to the plate with Baltimore, I wouldn't have expected him to have enjoyed more than one multi-homer contest. (There was an April 24 7-1 win over the Jays, and a June 12 10-6 loss to the Reds.) But such an effort puts him in league with the likes of current Oriole utilityman Ryan Flaherty, whose 10 home runs in 85 games in 2013 also included two two-fer games. Now you know at least one thing that Sammy and "Flash" have in common.

Sammy Sosa, 2006 Topps Heritage #60

Crappy Anniversary to the Orioles, who made a desperate stab at relevance on Groundhog Day in 2005 by acquiring Sammy Sosa from the Cubs just thiiiis much past his expiration date. As it turned out, the path back to the postseason was to focus on top-to-bottom roster depth: strong defenders, strike-throwing mid-rotation pitchers, and fungible power hitters. It had little to do with tossing millions of dollars at whichever mid-to-late career "name players" were willing to go slumming at the bottom of the American League East. Who'd have thunk it?

This is as good a time as any to share a photo of a true oddball item that my friend Mike picked up at a recent garage sale. For a dollar (or maybe even less), he brought home this Sammy Sosa "CelebriDuck":

Because I don't know what's good for me, that abomination is now sitting on a shelf above my TV. So share in my pain.

Sammy Sosa, 2005 Topps Total Silver #110

We've still got something like four and a half months until Opening Day. It seems like an eternity, especially after suffering through a Ravens game yesterday. Football is a bloated spectacle, and I can tolerate the endless commercial breaks and the empty announcing cliches and the blatant corporatism a little less each year. When my home team is taking their lumps as much as they are this season, I just don't have the patience to endure those three-to-four hours every Sunday. It leaves me about as empty as a 2005 swing off the bat of Sammy Sosa.

Sammy Sosa, 2006 Topps Triple Threads #38

Sammy Sosa played 102 games for the Orioles in 2005. He batted .221, reached base at a .295 clip, and slugged .376. These are unfortunate truths. Another unfortunate truth: because of his status as a formerly great player, and because of the proliferation of specialized baseball card sets at that time, there are a lot of Sammy Sosa O's cards. Seven to eight years later, at least I can laugh.

Sammy Sosa, 2005 Upper Deck #468

As I alluded to yesterday, the Orioles traded two low-level minor leaguers to the Phillies for designated hitter Jim Thome, who will turn 42 in late August. I'm going to silence the nagging voices in my head that are telling me that the last thing the O's need is another guy who can't play defense, because Jim Thome is one of the most delightful human beings currently playing baseball. He's just a big, gregarious slugger who always seems to have a smile on his face. Since making his major league debut with the Indians in September 1991, he's hit 609 home runs. The first time he clears the fence in an Orioles uniform, he will pass Sammy Sosa for sole possession of seventh place on the all-time list; that's just the icing on the cake.

Oh, and did I mention that he once dressed as Paul Bunyan for a ticket ad for the Twins?

Sammy Sosa, 2005 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH1

Sammy Sosa was renowned for his on-field theatrics, from his double-hop out of the batter's box on well-struck balls to his dead sprint out to right field on defense. I'm engaging in some theatrics myself this weekend, and I've been a nervous wreck about it all week. For the fourth consecutive year, I and my friends at Zero Hour Theatre have produced a play as part of the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C. However, this year I wrote the play that is being performed. It's called Apocalypse Story, and it's a one-act dark comedy about a pair of wayward twentysomethings coping with the aftermath of a nuclear strike and fighting for the affection of an attractive young woman. I'm dealing with all of the usual nagging worries:

-What if nobody comes to see the show?
-What if the audience and/or the critics hate the show?
-What if the actors forget their lines and/or blocking?

That's pretty much it, but those are really big Whats. I'm feeling even more anxiety than usual because this is the first full-length play I've written that has made it to the stage. Should it fall flat, I'll feel a lot more personal responsibility than I would under normal circumstances. I realize that I'm probably overblowing things, but knowing that everything is out of my hands now is a bit scary. As Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.

All that being said, if you're going to be in the D.C. area during either of the next two weekends and you're curious to see what all this fuss is about, drop on by the Wonderbox theatre and say hello. You can get more information and buy tickets here.

Sammy Sosa, 2005 Upper Deck MVP #79

Here's my makeup post for yesterday. It features a player who accomplished many great things in his career, regardless of the questionable means he used to do so. Sammy Sosa was a seven-time All-Star, an MVP, and the second man to ever to hit 62 home runs. He topped Roger Maris' former single-season record three times in four years and only six players all-time have exceeded his total of 609 home runs. But I feel that I accomplished something even greater yesterday: I finally painted my bathroom.

It took most of my Saturday, required the help of a more ambitious friend, and left me feeling like I could use some of Slammin' Sammy's pharmaceuticals, but at long last all of the walls in my inner sanctum are one color...and that color is no longer a frightening bright institutional mint green. Eat your heart out, Sosa.

Sammy Sosa, 2005 Topps Cracker Jack #105

Since I didn't post early enough in the day to have an honest shot at making an April Fool of anyone, instead I give you Sammy Sosa. After all, he was baseball's cruel joke on the Baltimore Orioles and their fans. This card is something of a bad joke in itself. With Sammy being traded to the Birds in February, Topps put their finest Photoshoppers to work on an accurate facsimile of the Dominican slugger in his new uniform.

Then, Topps apparently found out that their finest Photoshoppers were on vacation that week, and passed the task along to some overmatched intern. That's the only explanation for this laughable picture. The bird logo on the helmet is too small. The "Fun Bird" sleeve patch was not worn after 2003 (sloppy research, guys). But the most glaring inconsistency is the rounded numerical font that has never been used by the O's, but just happened to be the Cubs' style.

I vacillate back and forth on the question of how to depict players who changed teams in the offseason. I always thought it was a cop-out to have a player pictured in his old team's uniform but identified as a member of the new team. But I'd certainly prefer that to a hack-job piece of faux art like this one.

Sammy Sosa, 2005 Fleer Platinum #91

This card arrived in the mail yesterday, part of a stack of Orioles traded to me by reader Adam. It's a great card, despite the massive failure that was Sammy Sosa's single injury-marred, malcontented season in Baltimore. I find Slammin' Sammy to be such a caricature of a human being that his insincere enthusiasm in that photo made me laugh the moment I saw it. In an unusual choice, the picture chosen was taken from the press conference at the B & O Warehouse that introduced the former Cubs slugger as the newest member of the O's: February 2, 2005. Although I retained enough optimism at the time to pencil Sosa in for 30-plus home runs, deep down I knew it was an eleventh-hour move of desperation by a front office that had failed to acquire an impact player in the offseason. Still, it's a snazzy-looking card, and all the more entertaining because the design makes Sosa appear artificial, as though he were cast in wax, or maybe stuffed with a cork center.

This card is a colorful, glossy reminder that I need to be a better trading partner. While my real-world distractions haven't kept me from regular blog updates, I've fallen way behind on my end of a handful of trades. When I finish posting this entry, I firmly resolve to make a beeline for my bedroom closet and to start rooting through boxes. Those who have been generous enough to send me some of the great cards that I've featured in recent weeks are also unfailingly patient, and they deserve to be rewarded. Another reason to get these trades finished once and for all is that I have some contest ideas in the works...I want to start with a clean slate.

Sammy says, "Talk is cheap! Hop to it!"

At least that's what he'd say if he hadn't "forgotten" how to speak English.