Andruw Jones and 'The Catch'

Thursday night the Braves gave away an Andruw Jones 'The Catch' bobblehead, referencing an off the wall catch Andruw made against Astros in 1999. He robbed Bill Spiers with this grab. 

Here's the bobblehead, and even though I couldn't make it to the game, I may try to pick one of these up on ebay. Too cool.

Sadly I've shown off my only Andruw Jones at the wall cards in a previous post, and my Andruw Jones wall relic card in another. I'm sure no one minds seeing them again.

Maybe my favorite Andruw Jones card, from 1999 Ultra. What a shot there with Andruw on top of the wall.

Piece of the wall. Can't beat unique relics like this. You could definitely argue for Andruw being in the Hall of Fame, in addition to the Wall of Fame.

And now for some cards I haven't shown before on this blog. 1998 Collector's Choice was the first full box of baseball cards I opened. I've still got a ton of these in a box somewhere, along with many of the Starquest inserts. 

I never played MLB Showdown, but seems like something I would have enjoyed. I am definitely a stats guy and I also enjoy card and board games. 

There's a Sports Illustrated Kids card of Jones jumping at the wall which would have fit perfectly into this post. I'll have to add that one to my wantlist.

I have several Braves from this Upper Deck Vintage set. Need to see how else I am missing so I can complete a team set.

I've talked about how much I like 2005 Ultra baseball before. This Andruw is one of my favorites. Great sliding shot here. He had four straight seasons of stealing 20+ bases early in his career but didn't accomplish this past his fifth major league season. 2004 was the lone year in a five year stretch where he wasn't an all-star. He followed it up with his best offensive season in 2005 though, with 51 home runs and 128 RBIs, finishing as the runner-up for the NL MVP, behind Albert Pujols.

Watching the Braves and Nationals last night, Chip Carey and Joe Simpson talked about how they might have underappreciated Andruw Jones during his time in Atlanta. He provided gold glove level defense for most of his career and averaged 30+ home runs a year for a ten year period. They mentioned this stat in particular, and that he was overlooked because hitting 30 home runs wasn't as big a deal during that stretch. I would have to agree.