The Peak of Good Pitching

Remember that time NC State got eliminated from the College World Series in the middle of the night two years ago?

Yes, it was because of COVID.  

No, don't leave a comment about COVID below.  

Anyway, my Wolfpack reached the College World Series and was in a position to win the National Championship thanks to the efforts of pitcher, Sam Highfill who pitched a shut out against Vanderbilt opposite Rangers first-round pick, Jack Leiter.  

Highfill is from Apex, North Carolina, is best known for its abundance of trains and its cheesy water tower. It's also the town where I happen to live, just a few blocks from both the train tracks and the water tower.  Both are walkable from my house.  

The water tower has some art work on it and is stamped with the words, "The Peak of Good Living" and is located smack dab in the middle of the town. Nobody who lives in Apex is actually from Apex, but local legend has it that the water tower was built first and the town filled in around it.  

Seems plausible. 

Back to baseball. I am not going to rehash the whole reason as to why NC State was sent home from the College World Series at 2 in the morning, but the community rallied around Highfill and the mayor of the town started lighting up the water tower red at night.

Here is the famous/infamous water tower. Note the railroad crossing sign in the foreground.  

While half of that College World Series team is now playing in the Minors, since Highfill was only a freshman, he is still in college at NC State. He missed most of this past season, but did manage did manage to appear last summer in a few games for the USA Baseball National College team.  

The inclusion of Sam Highfill cards is part of the reason I have been opening packs of the USA Baseball cards. Unfortunately, there have been no sightings of good Sam Highfill cards. A few base cards, but nothing too exciting. 

The town of Apex gets a nod at the bottom of the back of the card on the right side.  I like the green frame around the edge of the card and the green box used on the back as well.  More on the use of the color green later in the post.  

I just bought a pair of his autographs from Ebay from less than $10. Highfill is a well-thought of college pitcher, but I am not sure he's high on the board for the MLB Draft. Not quite the same energy level as when Carlos Rodon was at NC State.  

First up, the base autograph. Yes, it's a sticker autograph, which is a bit of a bummer. It is also the autograph of a college kid that cost less than $5. Panini has started using on-card autographs for the college players in Donruss Elite, so I thought they might change the USA Baseball cards too. Guess not.  Do you think that USA Baseball has to pay the college kids for autographs now that they have NIL rights?

Just curious. 

Hopefully Sam got paid some money for signing these cards.  

Notice that Panini went away from the green for this card with only the green bar at the bottom for the team name and another at the top as part of the design around the card brand logo.  

Next up, is a relic/autograph card.  

I like this card much better than the first one. The USA Baseball set has a lot of green included on the packaging this year, as the primary color of both the packs and boxes. Plus, green also shows up on the border and backs of the base cards. Feels like a good move, especially considering that their facility is very green with all of the trees around the field. Green is a prominent color.  

I wish Panini had used the green background on the base autograph as well.  The green on this card also has a star pattern, which actually lightens up the background quite a bit in places. They should have gone simple here and just used the dark color.  No matter, it's still a much better looking card than the first Highfill autograph, but both are welcome additions to the collection.