Once upon a time there was a quarterback at NC State who also played on the school's baseball team. We will call him Russell. Now, while he played both sports in college, most people knew him for his football talents.
Russell had some pretty good wheels and was a really accurate passer. The NC State football team had some pretty good years with Russell under center. Most importantly they did not lose to the dreaded light blue team from Chapel Hill. Best play was the two yard Hail Mary in 2010.
As I mentioned before Russell also played baseball for three years while he was in Raleigh. He was mainly an infielder, although he pitched a little here and there too. His best year on the diamond came in 2010 when he hit .306/.439/.490 in 47 games. ACC is no slouchy baseball league, so those are solid numbers.
Russell was drafted in the summer of 2010, but returned to State to play football in the fall. The spring of 2011 was spent with the Rockies who eventually sent him to play with the Asheville Tourists. He had an alright summer, but quit the Rockies towards the end of the Minor League season.
Big Russ picked up his telephone and called Tom O'Brien, the NC State football coach, but was told that the school had another quarterback who was ready to start. Mike Glennon was tall and looked a little bit awkward at times, but he also had some really good moments playing at State. My favorite....
Russell Wilson transferred to some B1G school and won some games there. Since the whole relationship was Russell has been weird. People in Raleigh really want to still love Russell. He got invited back to the spring football game have his jersey retired by the school.....
and Russell has come up with clever ways at times to merge the two schools together.....
Whole Pack of Badgers is pretty good, but Russell hasn't really dropped the whole thing about not getting his quarterback job back at NC State. For whatever reason Wisconsin invited him as a graduation speaker a year or so ago and Russ rehashed the whole story about NC State not giving him his starting job back after he quit the team.
Boo Hoo.
Which leads to a baseball card. If you go and look at a list of current baseball players who went to school at NC State you'd end up with Carlos Rodon and Trea Turner as the two most recognizable names. Pretty good talent there.
In fact that team was good enough to make a trip to the College World Series in 2013. It was a pretty cool thing to see as a Wolfpack fan.
You know who wasn't on that team? Russell. Russell Wilson never made a College World Series appearance. In fact, he was never even on the same team as Trea Turner or Carlos Rodon. The best Major League player that State had while Russ played with in Raleigh was Jake Buchanan.
Nothing wrong with Jake. It's just that he's not Trea Turner, nor Carlos Rodon. So, here is the card....
Okay. First, I was in school while Russell Wilson was the quarterback at State. I really liked watching him play football and have great memories of sitting in the student section watching him do his thing. Probably my favorite game I saw him play in was his freshman year against Miami. Really did a lot of damage with his feet. Great game to watch.
I also understand why State did not give him his scholarship back. You quit a team, they moved on. End of story. Back to the card.
I have been looking for a Russell Wilson autographed card for awhile now. I have some non-autographed cards of him with in a Wolfpack uni......
The problem with the Russell Wilson baseball autographs has always been price. There are always a bunch up on Ebay, but they are way too expensive for what I would spend on a Russell Wilson baseball card.
That's $299.99. I did not pay that much for my copy of this card, or anything close to that price. This is not just one of those jacked up prices on Ebay either. The Russell Wilson NC State autographs are always priced like this by almost everyone who sells one. Luckily I was able to trade for a copy of this card. Hurt a lot less.
Overall, there is something a little odd about this baseball card. I know that Panini put them together on a card because they went to the same school, but.....
- They never played together
- I am not sure you could really argue that Russell Wilson was ever a great baseball player
- I am not sure that Russell Wilson wants to have much to do with NC State at the moment
- Russell Wilson was not really a pitcher
- Carlos Rodon makes a lot more sense for this card..or give me Dan Plesac. Someone. Anyone.
Any card with Russell's autograph is a winner in my book. Go Hawks!
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