Al Martin 1989 Durham Bulls
Background-
The Atlanta Braves drafted Al Martin out of high school in 1985, he then spent 5 years playing in Rookie and A Ball. In 1991 he played for the Braves Double A and Triple A teams. After 1991 he spent one more season in the Minors with the Pirates. I looked up his biography on Baseball Reference and half way expected to see him in sort of trade between the Pirates and Braves, but he was actually a six year Minor League free agent. It's not rare to see players who are Minor League free agents reach the Majors, but I am guessing that Martin had one of the better careers of a player who reached that mark. He made his Major League debut in 1992 with the Pirates and went on to play a total of 8 years in Pittsburgh. Al Martin had some nice years playing with the Pirates, but was on some really bad teams. His best season was probably 1993 when he hit .281/.338/.481 with 18 homers, 64 RBIs, and 16 stolen bases. The Pirates traded him to the Padres for John Vander Wal where he spent a year playing, the Padres traded him to the Mariners for John Mabry where he played two years, and he ended his career with the Devil Rays in 2003.
Card-
Martin is also in the 1996 Leaf Signature set, but I kind of liked this Donruss Signature card a little bit better. The main thing I was looking for in picking up a Martin card was that he was a Pirate on the card, which was not really a problem since his only two certified autos were in a Pittsburgh uniform. Further, in working on this project of finding Durham Bulls autographs it is a little bit trickier to find cards of players from the years the team was a Braves affiliate. Currently the Bulls are a Triple A team, so percentage of players reaching the Majors is pretty high. During their time as Braves affiliate the team was a high A team. The percentage of players which much smaller, much tougher to find autographs of the players. While it's not a great signature, it's nice to finally add a Braves era player to my Project Durham Bulls posts.
The Donruss Signature series autos are a really fantastic set-no frills autos with a popping back ground Luis Ordaz anyone?
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