Sunday, October 16, 2016

A Venerable Old Card Part 30

The Durham Bulls had a new coach on their staff this year to pair with returning manager Jared Sandberg and pitching coach Kyle Snyder.  Sandberg and Snyder both have connections to the Bulls, or the area: Sandberg played in Durham during the 2000 season running through 2004.  Snyder pitched down the road from the DBAP for UNC.  

The Bulls hitting coach this previous season was former Cubs outfielder Ozzie Timmons.  I say he was a Cub, because I am sure that most people don't remember his time on the Reds (6 games), Mariners (26 games), or Devil Rays (12 games).  He did squeeze in almost 350 at bats during two seasons with the Cubs in the mid 1990s.  More importantly, he also spent a summer playing for the Durham Bulls and he was really really good that year.  

Probably means that I would have found a reason to pick up this card of Ozzie whether he spent this year coaching for the Bulls or not.......



This is a sweet card.  

Ozzie Timmons was a Durham Bull during the summer of 2000 posting a .300/.393/.540 slash line with 29 home runs, 32 doubles, and 104 RBIs.  His season was good enough to get him up to Tampa for 12 games in September, 42 plate appearances, where he hit .341/.357/.707 with 4 home runs and 3 doubles.  Sounds good, but Timmons left MLB the next year to play for the Chunichi Dragons in the Japanese Central League.  

Timmons has spent a few years coaching in the Rays system and was even promoted this September to join the Rays for the last few weeks of the season.....


I am guessing that Timmons should be back with the Bulls next season to help out as the hitting coach again.  It's nice to add another cool Durham Bulls card to the collection, coaches count too.  

1 comment:

  1. That is a pretty sharp card - gotta love Leaf Signature Series for their extremely deep auto checklist too. Glad to see that Ozzie has found his groove with Durham.

    ReplyDelete

106.

Blake Snell number 106 is just a red herring to make two other announcements.      Announcement #1- I have not written very often in this sp...