Elizardo Ramirez, or the return of video game guys

So most of you know that my Seneca Wallace, Rod Smart, and Shyrone Stith collections spawned heavily from my play of Madden 2004 back in the day.  With baseball, however, I never really had a video game that made me collect guys.  I mean I played a lot of Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for Super Nintendo growing up, but the only true name in the game was Ken Griffey Jr., so I didn't end up an Ellis Burks collector even though I knew that Bela Lugosi, CF for the Rockies, was really Burks.  For shame.

Well anyways, all that is fixed now.  A few years ago a buddy of mine showed me MLB Power Pros 2007, and I was instantly addicted.  I got my own copy this past Christmas (for the Wii) and I'm right back at it with the Reds.  In season one I traded away a lot of my starters and, since the trading system is a bit broken, needed to fill in starts with someone from my AAA team.  That guy ended up being Elizardo Ramirez, and the rest is history.

Here he is pitching to Baseball Card Breakdown classmate Marcus Giles:

I started the game on normal mode, which is pretty easy.  Elizardo proceeded, once he was brought up, to outpitch every single SP in the friggin game with 100% quality starts and a 26-0 record.  I lost maybe 12 games all year, including 3 in the playoffs, but Ramirez basically always showed up - he even hit over .300 at the dish!  Obviously this was too easy for me, so in season 2 I upped the difficulty, and I'm currently something like 10 games under .500 at the 40 game mark.  Somehow, someway, Elizardo is still a team leader contender in W-L record, ERA, and strikeouts.  The kid is just magic, and that was good enough reason for me to grab some of his cards.

The first card doesn't seem like much...a simple little Gold Parallel Team Heroes card from Donruss:

That numbering tho...

That's right - this baby is numbered 7/10, making it an ultra rare addition to my collection.  It's interesting that Elizardo went from A ball to the majors, as that is fairly rare, but he didn't perform terribly in that first 2004 majors stint.  So he was at least a little ready.

The other card I picked up was Elizardo before he was traded to the Reds...here's a nice on-card auto from his Phillies days:

This set is kinda nuts - giant name on top and then a lot of white space below.  But I like that it gives the player so much room to sign while also featuring a nifty little picture...not a bad set at all.  And not a bad start to my Elizardo Ramirez collection either!