But I recently had the opportunity to purchase the Baseball Tarot Cards and Book set as a Christmas present to me, and am I glad I did. There is a mystical element to baseball that dovetails perfectly with Tarot, and the authors took full advantage of that.

A little background on Tarot Cards for the uninitiated: There are 78 Cards in a Deck, consisting of 22 Major Arcana, and 56 Minor Arcana Cards.

The Minor Arcana or the “Lesser Deck” as it is also known, is most like the 52 deck normal playing cards, with cards ranging from Ace to 10, and your Face cards of King and Queen. A Difference in this Deck is that the jack is called a knight (or the Prince in some decks), and there is an additional suit card, called the page (or the Princess)

These cards also come in suits such as Cups (Hearts) Pentacles (Diamonds), Swords (Spades) and Wands (Clubs)

The Minor portion of the deck deals with the little, often quickly changing, day to day things in our lives.

The Major Arcana cards (or the “Trump Cards” are the heavy hitters (no pun intended) of the Tarot World. Starting with #0 – The Fool, as in the beginning of life, or a change and ending with #21 – The World, which is the end of culmination. The Majors deal with the slow moving, often drastic life events that occur.

The Baseball Tarot work the same way insofar as you have the “Majors” and the Minors”, and the 78 Card Deck.

But what makes them uniquely baseball also makes them pretty unique to Tarot Cards in General. Most Decks follow the Tarot suits of Hearts, Wants, Swords, and Pents, and the Major Arcana usually follow the same naming structure.

In the Baseball Tarot Deck, instead of Cups you have Mitts, instead of Swords, you have Balls, instead of Wands, there are bats, and instead of Pentacles, you have Bases…The Suit Cards correspond like this: Eleven (Page), Twelve (Knight), Coach (Queen), and MVP (King)

And the Major Arcana follow the same course through life or event, but with baseball, starting with #0 -The Rookie, and going all the way through to #21 The World Series.

And the artwork on the cards is stunning, giving that “old-tyme” baseball feel to the deck…

Have not decided if I want to read with this deck, or select the cards I like most and have them framed as artwork–but in either event, this was definitely the perfect purchase…

Happy Hannukah
Merry Solstice
Blessed Yule
Merry Christmas                                                                                         Feliz Navidad
Happy Boxing Day and
Happy Qwanzaa

May the Red Sox 2012 campaign be filled with wonderful pitching, great defense, big bats, a 3rd World Series Ring–and not a bucket o’chicken in sight…

Personally, I would be glad for a season without an epic September collapse…:-D

102 Days to Opening Day!

Be well…

Christine E.

And may you have eaten enough L-Tryptophan to knock you on your sorry Thanksgiving day ass!

Happy Turkey Day!!

Go Sox!

And, from all of us here at Boston Red Thoughts, Happy New Year!

10 Reasons Baseball is a Weird Sport. Courtesy of by Microsoft Encarta 2000…

1. If a batter fails two-thirds of the time, they’re still considered an excellent batter. It’s too bad this standard isn’t applied to everything else in life.

2. It is legal to “steal” in this game. This is, perhaps, a questionable example for children.

3. If you aren’t such a good hitter, you can have a pinch hitter bat for you. If you aren’t such a fast runner, you can have someone—a pinch runner—come in and run for you. At what point, you might wonder, is a team entirely comprised of “pinch” players?

4. There’s a rule preventing pitchers from spitting on the ball. They can spit anywhere else they like, apparently.

5. If a batter walks with the bases loaded, he is credited with an RBI (Run Batted In). That’s right: even though he didn’t hit the ball.

6. The game is played on dirt and grass, but if the ball gets dirty, it is replaced with a new clean ball.

7. If a batter accidentally hits the catcher when swinging, it’s the catcher’s fault, even if the catcher gets injured. The batter is awarded a base. The catcher gets an apology, if he’s lucky.

8. The coaches and managers wear the same uniforms as the players.

9. When a pitcher walks a batter, the batter jogs to first base. Incongruous, but it is a nice show of effort.

10. The 7th-inning stretch makes baseball the only sport where spectators must take part in calisthenics.

And you better believe that it was on my head from the moment I unwrapped it until Christmas was over. Tons of Coolness!

Coming up next week, on Wednesday, January 5th, the BBWAA will announce the class of 2011 Hall of Fame Selections. Will Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar, who missed my the tiniest of margins (74.2% and 73.7% respectively) get enough votes to get them into the Hall? Let’s hope so. In addition to Alomar and Blyleven, the rest of the eligible are below:

Carlos Baerga
Jeff Bagwell
Harold Baines
Bret Boone
Kevin Brown
John Franco
Juan Gonzalez
Marquis Grissom
Lenny Harris
Bobby Higginson
Charles Johnson
Barry Larkin
Al Leiter
Edgar Martinez
Tino Martinez
Don Mattingly
Fred McGriff
Mark McGwire
Raul Mondesi
Jack Morris
Dale Murphy
John Olerud
Rafael Palmeiro
Dave Parker
Tim Raines
Kirk Rueter
Benito Santiago
Lee Smith
B.J. Surhoff
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker

Ya know, no one happier than I am about how the off-season has been shaping up for the Sox, specifically the acquisition of Adrian Gonzales, but do we really need a contest to give him some lame-o nickname? Unfortunately, it appears we do. NESN had a poll earlier in the week, and these were the choices, submitted by readers:

Gonzilla
El Niño
Gonner
El Padre

Really? I always thought a nickname is something that should come organically over time–not some media contrivance (read: A-Rod…UGH) So I think I will pass on the whole voting thing…

Finally, for those of you who have been waiting: The Baseball Bloggers Alliance Android App is now available! And if you are still looking for the i-Phone App, you can get that here…Check it out!

Recently, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA), of which Boston Red Thoughts is a proud member, made its selections with regard to the 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame Class.

Now, BBA is in no way associated or affiliated with the Baseball Writers of America nor do we have any say in the selection of Hall of Fame inductees–We just did this for fun.

That being said, of the 115 member group, 47 (including Boston Red Thoughts) voiced its preferences for the Hall. And it was a close one, folks. Thanks to the rounding rules, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven scraped by to gain entrance to the Hall.

Alomar, a 1st time candidate, and Blyleven, on his lucky 13th attempt, each received 35 of the 47 votes, which worked out to 74.468%. With rounding, both just reached the 75% threshold that would be needed for induction under the BBWAA rules. Barry Larkin fell just shy of the 35 votes needed with 34, making it 72.340%.

The rest of the voting:

According to the rules of the Baseball Writers of America, the following candidates garnered less than 5% of the vote and would be dropped from the ballot forevermore (Bummer for Ellis…)

Overall, its pretty much in line with where I thought things would fall, with the exception on Mark McGwire–I am surprised he did as well as he did…

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally.

The BBA currently consists of 115 blogs spanning 29 of the 30 major league squads as well as those that focus on general baseball writing.

Coming up: Look for the Hot Stove to move from the back burner, now that the holidays are over (The Holidays are over…and so is vacation…UGH)