CHICKEN SCRATCH: Who in the world signed my card?

Welcome to another edition of "Chicken Scratch". This is where we take a look at an athlete's signature and give it a sharpie rating based on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being a lazy signature (a horse could sign better with a pen in it's mouth) and then a 5 being a signature of a nice crisp clean legible signature. On very rare occasions we also have a special reserved 6 sharpie salute for perfect signatures.

Today's star athlete signature is brought to you courtesy of Gabriel Arias who's the shortstop of the Cleveland Guardians. This card below I pulled from a blaster of Absolute baseball (from gamestop of all places - it was in the bargain bin) and I was rather most surprised to pull an actual autograph 3 piece jersey card and not just a single piece jersey card as my luck with blasters is not that great.

Let's take a look at some of his signature across other cards (not mine) since the Absolute autograph was on a sticker.

 

So it would seem that he really has to cram his signature style together when he's signing on small areas as opposed to larger signing areas. Some folks do that and some do not while others just make a straight line at times. Look at those loops in his signature when he has the space to write.

His "G" is very consistent and his "A" is as well across the signatures.

It would appear the "G" and "A" in his signature is consistent on a baseball as well.

The ball player appears to take a little time to make his signature appear legible with at least 2 letters. I could see the "G" but I would never guess that his name was Gabriel or his last name was Arias from the "A". Some athletes will take the time to make a nice crisp signature and others will just write out their signature in letters. IMO......Gabriel makes an effort in his signatures with emphasis in the first letters of his first and last name and then scribbles out the rest of his name For this reason....the Big Kahuna and the tribe feel that he will be the receiver of 2 sharpies for his efforts.

The Big Kahuna gets honest

Ok......I was wrong. I admit it. Cleveland looked like it was locked in to win it all when they had the series lead at 3-1 and I thought, "Holy Moses my prediction is about to become true." But then Cleveland choked up and Chicago got hot and Eddie Vedder sang songs to the children and then Kris Bryant ate a Gyro and then Bill Murray showed up and loved everyone and then Steve Bartman prayed for a redeeming miracle.

Despite all of that happening supposedly, the Chicago Cubs have finally won the World Series which this series itself is going to go in the record books as one of the best MLB World Series ever and while Cleveland unfortunately lost, they still need to hold their heads up high. Besides we can blame the NFL! The last time the NFL had two teams with ties in their win/loss records, the Cleveland Indians were in the world series and lost the world series. What happened this year...........2 teams in the NFL had ties in their records and Cleveland was in the world series......go figure........the goat perhaps has now become a Cleveland fan.

Congrats Chicago Cubs! Enjoy your spoils and victories! At least you didn't buy your world series like the NY Yankees have done.........................................................or did you?

ALL HAIL THE GOAT!!!

The Big Kahuna has come down from the mountain to spread the word across the land and to share thoughts on the upcoming 2016 MLB World Series and will now finish up sacrificing virgins to address the masses:

 The Big Kahuna Speaks now.......(silence you fools):

"For I have had a dream....and in this dream there was a vision.....a vision of Babe Ruth. He stood there (while eating a hot dog with one hand and holding a 40oz in the other) and spoke so firmly at me these following words (while chunks of hot dog buns were being spewed upon me from him speaking)":

"Here in the afterlife Big Kahuna we know how things will turn out. Ty Cobb was going to tell you these words but unfortunately he's still stuck in hell reliving every day that he beat up the one arm fan in the bleachers by being beaten up by a pack of one arm horned demons with barb-wired baseball bats so they sent me instead to share these words of wisdom with you.":

Babe pulls a paper out of his pants pocket and the paper has scribble on it. Babe puts his hand into his other pocket and pulls out 2 hot dogs and begins to chow down.

"Sorry but these hot dogs are so good and I was hungry."

"Wait a minute Big Kahuna. Before I share these words with you I need another hot dog and a rub down."

(Big Kahuna waiting patiently)

 "Just a minute Big Kahuna.....Oh this is soooooooogood. I gotta have dessert too you know."

TMZ BREAKING NEWS STORY: The Big Kahuna grows impatient and decides to shave the top portion of his head while he's waiting on Babe Ruth's spirit to finish eating!

"For crying out loud RUTH....your balls are foul so get on with it!"

"Ok Big Kahuna. I've got my milk and a "cookie" for later (gotta feed the crabs too you know). Ok where was I....oh yeah....the message. This is what I am to share with you:

Babe shows me a picture that is on the paper:

"The great and powerful Chicago Cubs goat will sit back in silence and watch as the world series unfolds. He had been tasked with the job of keeping the Chicago Cubs baseball team unbalanced and sad for many years and was ultimately created to deprive the Cubs of ever winning another World Series championship. But the goat is puzzled. He is bothered by how well the team is playing this year. He wonders if he should let them get so far and then pop up like a big surprise in one of the many forms he likes to present himself in.......in a form of a...... say oh I dunno..... like when he popped up in the form of Steve Bartman perhaps. The goat was pondering and pondering and thinking and the goat thought perhaps this year he will take a vacation instead and allow the team to share in the joy of winning a championship because he knows that the people of Chicago deserve a champion team. But then the goat looks at how Cleveland is playing this year and is impressed with how they are on fire right now and knows that they are worthy of a World Championship as well. The goat takes a deeper look into his feelings and has sympathy for the people of Cleveland because he knows that the Cleveland Browns will NEVER EVER win a championship and bring glory to the masses. The goat then realizes that the Cleveland Cavaliers won a championship this year and it has already brought some happiness to the people of Cleveland. Then the goat realizes that the people of Chicago are still suffering from the White Sox failing to bring a championship to the windy city and the Blackhawks failing to win the Stanley Cup and this makes the goat think, "perhaps this year will finally be the year that the Chicago Cubs shall be allowed to win a world series."

The question at hand Big Kahuna is will the goat be turned into a sandwich specialty at Slyman's restuarant by the Indians so that they can end their amazing season on a feast of World Championship champagne and BBQ goat or will the Cubs finally be freed from this everlasting curse of World Series Championship denial and proudly drink from their highly hoisted bottles of championship champagne and serve the Indians up like a specialty sandwich from Au Cheval and end the years of misery and finally put the "goat" in the pasture for good."

The Babe folds up his piece of paper and puts it back into his pocket and then snaps his fingers and in the blink of an eye, the Babe and myself are staring at a kitchen table with cereal on it. The Babe sits down and begins........AGAIN..........EATING!

It is at this moment I awaken from my dream and I come to realize that in my hand was a spoon and the paper from which the Babe had spoken from.

SO, it is now on this very day in the year of YOUR LORD (that's me), I will decree to you......the people (my peeps), the followers of mine (my worshipers), to the masses among us..............IT IS ON THIS VERY DAY THAT I WILL DECLARE the winner of the 2016 MLB World Championship series (In 5 games) is going to be ............................................................................................................................................................

 "OH MY GOD......he did not say that"

 

"Yep.....the Chicago Cubs hope and dreams of a world series title for this year .............. and it's gone"

Because here's your winner folks

RICKY "Wild Thing" Vaughn and the Tribe will be the winners.

The "TRIBE" has spoken and the word is decreed (funny we just noticed that we're the tribe too-see it's predestined to happen!).

Big Kahuna

Weird things on NFL Sunday

This past Sunday was very interesting for the NFL. Here are the thoughts:

People are chanting, "The Raiders are back, the Raiders are back"!

Yes, the Raiders did play another good game. Yes, they have a 3 game winning streak which is their best since at least the 2002 season. Yes, Darren Mcfadden is proving that when he's healthy and not making kids or videos or fighting at night clubs that he can produce. Yes, Jason Campbell had another nice passing game with help from Jacoby Ford and McFadden. NO this does not constitute them "being back". Wait until week 14 and then if they make the playoffs then belt the tune out. And just because an offensive lineman scores does not mean they'll make the playoffs.

Did anyone notice that the Cleveland Browns has defeated the New Orleans Saints and now the New England Patriots? They beat the Saints on the road and they beat the Patriots at home this week. It was the Peyton Hillis show again that contributed. Colt McCoy had another start with success. Could this be a new formula?

Did anyone notice that the Houston Texans have now fallen to 4-4 after such a hot start?

New York CB Darrelle Revis: Calvin.....your butt is mine.
Detroit WR Calvin Johnson: Your so slow I could have sex with your mom twice and then
rollover twice and still be on her and then get off and still have time to outrun you.
New York CB Darrelle Revis: Your momma so stupid she tripped over a cordless phone!
Calvin had one catch for 13 yards

BREAKING NEWS: Matthew Stafford was hurt AGAIN. That's right folks....hopefully you chose to double down on the same injured shoulder that kept him out for 5 weeks. ALWAYS double down on the Detroit Quarterbacks in the injury pool because you'll be stinking rich when they go down!

Did you know that the Buffalo Bills had the lead only to blow it again and lose the game? Buffalo has yet to win this year.

The Eagles beat the colts!!! Michael Vick still has no interceptions on the season.

BREAKING NEWS: There is job openings available for a Quarterback position in the Carolina Organization. None of ours seems to work.


So........who's gonna lose money this week's episode of "NFL: HARD HITTING LAWMAN"?