Sunday, December 6, 2015

A Venerable Old Card Part 1

Switching up the format on some of my posts starting this week.  I had been using #MyCardMonday to feature a card that was already in my collection.  I generally collect modern cards, but sometimes I like to get away from that just a little bit.  Those posts tended to focus on players from the last twenty years.   Have I ever really put anything older on here?  Not really.  So, I am going to change my Monday posts up to feature some older cards.  I am going to try to stick with cards that are at least 25 years old.  Here's the first edition.......




I became a Durham Bulls fan 10 years ago.  Over time I have evolved as a collector of the team.  At first, I collected the Durham Bulls players I saw in person.  I generally found their cards in Bowman products, but also could find them in Topps and Upper Deck sets the longer they stayed in the Majors.  I also collected the team sets that the team sold in the store.  Every year I would buy one.  I have even found older Bulls teams sets for sale in the team's store.  My latest undertaking is to find cards of the team from the 1980s and 1990s.  

Sometimes I can find the older sets, but other times I have to settle for the single cards.  Recently I ended up with a 1981 TCMA Brad Komminsk card.  Some collectors may remember Komminsk as a fourth outfielder type who bounced around the Majors in the 1980s.  He mainly played for the Braves, but made appearance with a few other teams as well.  


So, what's the deal the Komminsk card?  He actually put together one of the better seasons in the history of the Durham Bulls in 1981.  His .322/.458/.606 line with 33 homers, 27 doubles, and 35 steals made Komminsk the easy choice for the Carolina League MVP that year.  I am not sure there have been many seasons, in the long history of the Durham Bulls, that have been as good as Komminsk's 1981 year.  While the card was cheap, and many might not associate the words Brad Komminsk and good player together, he was a great player for one summer in the minors.   

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