After seeing some tweets about R.A. Dickey stealing Daniel Norris' VW van and driving it around on the infield, I decided I needed to feature a Dickey card on my blog so I could talk about it. Norris is one of the Blue Jays' hot prospects, and he actually lives in the van behind a Wal-Mart store. It's his way of balancing out the millions of dollars and the fame. I hope he is able to keep whatever balance he needs to be successful. With Marcus Stroman's season-ending injury, their rotation will probably need the help.
Stole Daniel norris' van and drove it on the infield.... Smooth ride but I need some power steering. #vwvansaresweet pic.twitter.com/9Xn7NjIhhg
— R.A. Dickey (@RADickey43) March 12, 2015
Yes. That's @RADickey43 whippin' the VW. pic.twitter.com/aCKt9kYKef
— Daniel Norris (@DanielNorris18) March 12, 2015
I feel like kind of a bandwagon guy, jumping on the Daniel Norris train now that he's got an ESPN article and a bunch of publicity. I guess every fandom has a start somewhere. He's got a few cards out there, mostly in the Bowman and Elite Extra Edition sets of the world. I imagine right now is the worst possible time to jump in on the guy, since the publicity is likely to have all the card-flippers coming out of the woodwork with their prospecting hats on.
At the other end of the career scale from Norris is R.A. Dickey, who has probably already had his best career year, a Cy Young-winning campaign in 2012. With him declining a bit since then and other players on his team rising, he hasn't been getting many slots in insert sets lately. From a budget standpoint that is good, but it certainly cuts down on the variety of Dickey cards out there to collect. I hadn't picked up one of these Silver Framed parallels yet when I snagged this one for a pretty decent price a while back. Then I pulled another one from a pack I bought at the LCS, so I went from 0 to 2 in a matter of weeks. This parallel from 2015 Topps Series 1 is numbered 15 / 20 and features what appears to be the front and back of a base card with the edges cut off and then glued into each side of a heavy silver frame. I like this photo because you can clearly see Dickey's grip on the pitch.
I usually run out of stuff to say by the time I get to this point. I root for a number of teams and the Blue Jays are one of them, along with the Astros and Athletics and a few others. I guess the Astros are my default favorite team, but I probably like more of the roster on the Blue Jays from an individual player perspective. I hope I am able to catch a few Dickey and Norris outings on TV this season. I am going to end up with that MLB.tv subscription. The only question is when I will break down and sign up.
Better a van behind the Walmart than a van down by the river I suppose!
ReplyDeleteHe actually started out parked on/near the beach, but the police told him it was illegal and gave him directions to the Wal-Mart, where apparently living in your car is okay? I know the bigger Wal-Mart in our area usually has a few transients in vans or RVs parked out in the lot. Some of them seem to stick around for a while before moving on.
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