2009 Durham Bulls
Background-
Houser was a 2nd Round Draft Pick of the Devil Rays in 2003 after winning "Mr. Baseball" in the state of Florida as a high school senior. He spent a few seasons in the lower Minors before reaching the Bulls in Triple A during the 2009 season. Houser was mainly used as a starter with the Bulls recording a 4-5 record with a 5.16 ERA. While he appeared in a total of 18 games for the Bulls, he did not make it the whole season with the team. The Rays released him on August 2, 2009 to make room on their 40 man roster. Houser ended up on the Marlins the following season in 2010. He spent the majority of the season with their Triple A affiliate in New Orleans, but did get into one game in the Majors that season. He pitched in relief of Nate Robertson in an Interleague game against the Orioles. In all, he pitched one and one-third innings and gave up three earned runs, all on a Miguel Tejada home run.
To be fair to Houser the home run landed in the first row at Camden Yards, which means it would have been 10 feet short of the wall in any other park. He should probably have a 0.00 career ERA. Most likely.
Card-
Houser never appeared in any Baseball America or Prospectus prospect rankings, but someone thought highly of him because he has a decent number of baseball cards. He is in almost of the Bowman products between 2003 and 2005, along with a few other random Topps sets and Upper Deck Prospect Premiers. Since I was looking for an autograph for this post, I stayed away from his Upper Deck, which is a sticker, and went with one of his Bowman cards. Houser cards are not hard to find, and not expensive, so I went with the first really cheap autographed card of his that I could find. I really do like this card though. The 2004 Bowman cards were really nice and I have a few other autographs out of this set that I enjoy.
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