Card Of the Week 3/10/08

I'm going easy on myself again this week and giving you one of the all time great managers as this week's Card of the Week.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a Bobby Cox guy all the way, but you have to appreciate the Genius of Earl Weaver. Good pitching, sound fundamentals, using platoons to get a favorable matchup and sitting back and waiting for someone to mash a homer. Sabermetrics it ain't but it worked. Oh, I almost forgot , hassling the crap out of umpires. Hey, the guy won a World Series, went to a few more and won games like crazy. Hell, I could be talking about Bobby Cox... The only thing Earl didn't have was good timing, as he stepped down as manager of the Orioles in 1982 only to watch Joe Altobelli lead his squad to a title in '83.

I'm not posting this card because he was a great manager, oh no... I'm posting this card because he was a great, crazy, funny, filthy old bastard of a manager. The guy who fought umpires tooth and nail and dropped f-bombs in radio interviews. This 1983 card epitomizes the crazy old dude persona of Earl. This is the first card I ever had of 'ol Earl and I've always liked it. Earl's kicking back in the dugout, hair flying everywhere, probably telling a dirty joke to a coach. It's a really fun card from a great set. It also has his full managerial record on the back, assuming you don't count his ill fated return in '85 and '86 when he posted his only losing season.

So why this card? Why now? Well, I was tooling around YouTube, looking for Hal McRae's blowup for a pack ripping post, and that led to the Lee Elia rant, a couple of videos on Bobby Cox's record breaking ejection and finally to the epic battle between Earl and an ump at a Tigers game. All of these videos are horrifically filthy other than Bobby's record on TBS, but I kept clicking and found something even more horribly filthy and depraved. It's also the funniest thing I've seen in years, if not ever. Some dude took Earl's "Manager's Corner" outtake reel (which I hadn't heard in years, if ever) and created a surreal 16 millimeter animation to the track. The thing is complete and total genius. Enjoy, but BE VERY CAREFUL WHERE YOU WATCH IT. At the very least put some damn headphones on!




best video ever