See ya in Hellderman

As much as Roger Cormier loved Colin Holderman when he was on the Mets, once you get traded, well, it's nothing personal, but... this is now a Daniel Vogelbach house

Project ShaqBox Trivia: Hi, Jesse here, pulling back the curtain a little bit. As you may have guessed, I’m responsible for the trivia questions around here, and today it’s going to change a little bit. The trivia will also come with some kind of baseball card content, as Project ShaqBox, once a podcast I did, then a short-lived Deadspin feature, and long a dormant Twitter feed… finds a forever home here at Willets Pen. The decision to do this now — and there’s gonna be other ShaqBox content on the site — was inspired by the opening of Roger Cormier’s piece, and the fact that I’ve wanted to showcase this Edwin Díaz card for a while, the beautiful 2020 Topps Heritage with its incredible sky and Díaz showing off his grip. I haven’t bought a lot of cards in recent years, but pulling this one from a pack was the old kind of magic, and it’s a rare one that I’m gonna hold on to.

2020 Topps Heritage #323 Edwin Díaz

The other reason this is happening today is that Díaz made it happen, as he recorded the final four outs of the Mets’ 6-3 win in the Subway Series opener in Queens. Who are the four other Mets pitchers to record a save of more than one inning against the Yankees in the 25 years of interleague play?

Win Every Trade

By Roger Cormier

It feels like a false memory, something that I had read about in a book set in an earlier time or had seen in a period piece. I'm pretty sure I did in fact bring my binder full of baseball cards to school a couple of times. I'm almost certain because I could see myself not actually using my book bag to carry textbooks or anything education related and lugging my big card binder instead. What I don't remember is who I traded cards with and how much I kicked their ass. Which is unfortunate, because that would easily rank in the top three childhood memories of mine.