Congrats to the Rangers and Ron Washington

I've had my running tally of CMC cards since starting this blog. Tonight's card actually will mark the one-third point, with 33.3 percent of the set completed.

The tally includes cards reviewed, number of total players, then the number who made the majors or not. Then came rough figurings of time spent in the majors and minors.

Those categories have stayed pretty much constant since the start. Now I'm thinking about adding another:

World Series Managers: 1

That, of course, is thanks to Ron Washington, manager of the 2010 American League Champion Texas Rangers and infielder on the 1990 Oklahoma City 89ers.

I just checked to make sure. Washington is the first member of the 1990 CMC set to helm a team to the World Series. Eric Wedge, new manager of the Mariners, previously came the closest, managing the Indians to within one win of the classic in 2007.

So that is pretty cool. Washington's card came up back in the spring, back when he was having his troubles related to substance abuse. I may have to do an updated version when this whole thing is done.

In honor of the Rangers' first-ever birth into the World Series, here are a few of the individual cards I picked up on our recent trip to Cooperstown: A CMC guy, a stealth CMC guy and a card I picked up for my wife.

There are the CMC guy and the card I got for my wife. Juan Gonzalez was perhaps one of the more well known players from the CMC set, two MVPs will do that. Then, of course, he disappeared.

The 1992 Leaf Pudge Rodriguez is the one for my wife. She finds him hansom. I figured she would enjoy this shot, as well.
Then there's this card of new Rangers owner Nolan Ryan. It's a card honoring his sixth no-hitter. When I was thumbing through the card box, I wasn't sure that this was the one I wanted. I couldn't recall for sure. But I got it anyway.

Well, it was. The catcher that Ryan is throwing to (assuming this photo is actually from that game) is Ranger catcher and former 89er John Russell. Russell's reaction lead-off his write-up back in August.

Russell, of course, also managed in the majors this past season, with the Pirates, narrowly missing a chance to meet his fellow CMC set member Washington in an all-CMC set member manager World Series.

By "narrowly" I mean he missed it by about 34 games, not to mention a couple series wins. But close enough.