Required Reading, Listening and Viewing

I wanted to pass on a few great things I stumbled upon in the past couple of days (mostly today).

• In light of the collection of Eric Hosmer, Johnny Giavotella, Alcides Escobar and Mike Moustakas in the Royals current infield, Jeff Parker at Royally Speaking set out to determine the best overall Royals infield in history.  It’s a nice piece of work, and Jeff is as solid as they come among Royals bloggers.
• I hope you saw Jeff Francoeur‘s throw to third to nail Jhonny Peralta in the Detroit series.  If not, great news! ESPN’s Sports Science named it the play of the week.  If you were amazed at the perfect strike from right field to the glove of Mike Moustakas while watching live, when Sports Science breaks it down, it’s even more amazing of just how perfect of a throw it was.
• Monday at 11 p.m. marks the deadline to sign draft picks from the June amateur draft and Bubba Starling still hasn’t signed.  But don’t panic.  Dayton Moore expects negotiations will go down to the “final hour” - and that’s the norm, according to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus.*
• Finally, the custom card above was made by Aaron Stilley of I-70 Baseball and Royal Heritage.  I think the 1986 Topps design, while awful, is also remarkably simple, and, as a bonus, my first George Brett baseball card was a 1986 Topps.  So it will always be a special set to me.

*Incidentally, Goldstein has agreed to join us on an episode of The Royalman Report in the near future. AND the show has picked up an official sponsor, so if you happen to be in Westport, stop by Kelly’s  Westport Inn and tell them Royalman sent you.