I expect this post to receive an ungodly number of hits.
It's not because I'm showing a photo of the gold medal-winning Netherlands field hockey team, the consensus "best-looking team in the Olympics," as determined last July by about 462 different online publications, all of whose employees are apparently not getting their -- ahem -- needs met.
It's because I included the words "Netherlands" and "field hockey team" together with the words "trade" and "post" in the blog title. The web bots love the word "post," and I'm suspicious that they like the word "trade," too. Throw in guys who love gals in tight outfits and sports bras, as well as those who have a thing about mismatched shoes, and, well, I can kiss the November readership blahs goodbye.
I'm going for the record here.
Welcome to another post where content is meaningless in the eyes of blogging stats.
The real reason I trotted out the Swedish bikini ... er, Netherlands field hockey team photo is because, quite honestly, it's the first thing I now think of when the topic of the country comes up. I tried to pretend it was Bert Blyleven. I wish it could be Bert. Or Dutch painters, or the countryside, or windmills. But it's not. I'm in my 40s and it's still about girls.
This is even after two trades with The Dutch Card Guy. Make no mistake, multiple trades with a guy who lives across the Atlantic in a country that I will probably never see outside of a relief map is right up there in terms of the Netherlands' contribution to my welfare.
In fact, I should give him top billing now. Really. It's the decent thing to do. The Olympics come around only every four years. You don't expect me to follow field hockey every year do you?
Besides, look at these cards:
An Xponentially gross ManRam card (look at that helmet) that also works as an optical illusion. Doesn't that card look wider than your average 2 1/2-by-3 1/2 cardboard? But it's not.
A red-bordered card of a guy that I don't believe anyone can explain why he was on the Dodgers last season.
Two sleek Bowman Platinum specimens of a youngster who is now a member of the Red Sox as Dodger fans wait for the other spike to drop.
Two goldies of two guys actually still with the Dodgers and probably very necessary to the bullpen and rotation next year. No matter how much Brandon League and Greinke/Sanchez get paid.
Two Topps Pro Debut cards of two minor league players who may or may not be in the Dodgers' organization right now. Given the current ownership, I have a feeling paying attention to this kind of stuff is going to be meaningless. So I'm not going to try.
An Indiana Blue Sox Broder card of Mike Marshall from 1987. I don't know what the Indiana Blue Sox are, but the card is pretty cool.
One of the nicer versions of the 4,000 Shawn Green relic cards that were produced about 10 years ago. I wonder how many jerseys had to die for all those Green relic cards.
And a card of Jeff Weaver but featuring a dastardly Giant in the background, which instantly makes this an ugly, ugly card.
This card reminds me that, unfortunately, when it comes to baseball, orange is not a good look.
Which is another reason why the Netherlands is to be admired.
They make orange cool.
Ummmm ... what were we talking about again?
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Just wondering...