My most memorable Opening Night with the Durham Bulls took place in 2006 when top prospect B.J. Upton hit a walk off grand slam against the Toledo Mud Hens. I have looked high and low for video, or photographic proof of the home run, and have only found a grainy video from the Durham Bulls MySpace page.
Got to love MySpace.
The home run propelled me into giving B.J. Upton cards a spot in my collection. Even to this day I still dabble a little bit with his cards as long as I can find them on the cheap. Sometimes you run into people who insist that his cards were pretty valuable in the past, so they still have quite a bit of value today.
No.
One of the greatest of all B.J. Upton rookie cards is his 2002 Upper Deck Prospect Premiers card. These were really popular in the early 2000s and ran for several years. At the time of their release, several of the rookie autographs in these sets were quite pricy including the Upton card. B.J., or Melvin as he is now known, never quite panned out, and his cards have become very affordable.
I am not sure what this card cost at its peak, but today it can be yours for a few dollars....
There are some great names in this set if you ever feel like reliving the "top" prospects from this era. Khalil Greene, Prince Fielder, Jeremy Hermida, Jeff Francis, and Zach Greinke are some of the highlights. Some of those are actually cool....
The Upton card, the other card in the set do too, has one of those weird Upper Deck signed index card looking things. I like to think of it as the forerunner to the sticker autograph, but I think it actually looks a lot better than some foiling sticker with a bunch of holograms in the background.
Overall, a great card. Frankly, it's hard to believe that this is now 15 years old. I feel old now.
Digging for content on MySpace? That's blogging dedication right there. As for the Upton card, any card with a blue sky-filled background appeases my eyes. Have fun at the ballgame!
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