I Have Never Written A Post About Chris Richard

Who is the Durham Bulls all-time home run leader? 

My Chris Richard collection started while he was in the Minors with the Cardinals. I was at my local card shop and bought a pack of Royal Rookies. It was an inexpensive per-pack-autograph product that was generally not worth your time or money. You also never know when you buy an autograph of a Minor Leaguer. It's like buying a lottery ticket.  

Here is my Chris Richard lottery ticket.  

Almost 5,000 copies sold for $5 each, but worth $2 on COMC.  

I'd have been better off buying an actual lottery ticket.  

Anyway, this was in 2000 and the Cardinals had Mark McGwire and later Will Clark. Chris Richard was traded to the Orioles for relief pitcher Mike Timlin. I got more Chris Richard cards all from packs. At the time I was not really excited about Chris Richard. He was a first baseman on the Orioles who could only hit 15 home runs in one of the best hitters parks in the league.  

"WHERE ARE THE ICHIRO ROOKIES??????" 

Would have likely been my reaction to pulling a Chris Richard Prospect card in 2001.  

Although, this is his Fleer Tradition card, so more likely.....

"HOW THE HELL DID THEY LEAVE ALBERT PUJOLS OFF THE CHECKLIST FOR THIS GUY?" 

I even got the short-printed, serial numbered Chris Richard cards, like this Fleer Focus.  

Fast forward a few years to 2007 and Chris Richard is a 4A player on the Durham Bulls. 

The 2006 season was a disaster for the Bulls, a rarity in these parts, in large part due to several younger, high-end prospects who go off the rails in every way imaginable. Delmon Young hits an umpire with a bat, BJ Upton thinks Triple A parks are beneath him and gets a DUI drinking with UNC students, and Elijah Dukes literally tries to strangle Ryan Knox while the team is waiting for their bus at a hotel. 

Chris Richard was 30 and going to provide a calming presence to the team. 

The Bulls finish first, Richard hits 14 home runs, and nothing crazy happens while the team is waiting for the bus. Success brought Richard back in 2008, 2009, and 2010.  He hit at least 20 home runs each of the three seasons and ended his Durham Bulls career with 84. A record that is unlikely to be broken soon.  

I have actually willingly collected Chris Richard cards since his stint in Durham.  

Love seeing him as a Durham Bull on baseball cards......

but there are not very many of them. 

Chris Richard still has some nice cards for a guy with a short Major League career.  

My favorite being his 2001 Topps Golden Anniversary Autograph, which is short-printed and a tough find.

2007 Durham Bulls Team Set

Just filling in a few holes from previous years.  I saw this set on sale this past weekend while I was attending Friday night's during Durham Bulls game and just simply could not pass this one up.  I think I now have all of the Bulls sets from every year that I have lived in North Carolina (roughly ten years).  I am going to have to go back and start working on the sets from before 2005 now.  This set actually has some pretty nice names in it for a Minor League team set.  A bunch of these players made it up to the Majors with Zobrist being the best of the lot.  Here's a look at the cards and a few thoughts on some of the players.....

Alright, a little bit hard to read and the cards have a horizontal orientation.  Still fun to look at.  The best card in this group belongs to Johnny Gomes on the left hand side of the middle row.  I was never really a huge fan of Johnny Gomes, but he's had a decent career and won a World Series ring with the Red Sox in 2013.  Long time relief pitcher J.P. Howell is below Gomes and Brent Butler is in the top right hand corner.

A few more Major Leaguers in this group too.  Top right is Royals/Rays infielder Elliot Johnson.  Most famously plowed over a Yankees catcher during a Spring Training and injured him somehow.  Can't remember how he trucked, but it might have been Francisco Cervalli.  Jeff Niemann on the middle left was a high draft pick out of Rice, had a decent year or two, and his career was then wrecked by shoulder problems.  Loved watching him pitch for the Bulls, but injuries definitely did him in.  Chris Richard is in the bottom right.  He was first baseman for the Orioles for awhile, but ended up in Tampa with the Rays afterwards.  Richard spent several years in Durham and is on the top of the franchise leader board in several offensive categories.

This is a good group of cards.  Let's start with the top left card belonging to Justin Ruggiano.  He's one of my favorite Bulls of all-time, and even though he's hanging out in Tacoma, I still am following his career.  Shawn Riggans is in the middle of the top row.  He was a pretty good catching prospect for awhile.  The Zobrist card in the set is in the bottom right hand side.  I also like the Gary Gaetti card to the left of the Zobrist.  

Last three.  Montoyo, the manager, is on the left.  He managed the Bulls a long time and did a great job.  Cool to add a card of his to the collection.  Wool E. Bull on the right is also a sweet add.  The Blue Monster in the middle?  Not so great.  

2002 Upper Deck Ovation Set

I spent my afternoon sorting out a few 2002 baseball card sets.  This all part of my reorganization project which seems to be taking forever.  The scene looked something like this:

My wife was pretty nervous our three year old was going to attack the coffee table underneath all of these cards, but he did a great job of respecting the cards and practiced his yoga/gymnastics off to the side (note purple yoga mat).  So, I now have about 38 to 39 sets to put together.  I am not sure if I am close enough to assemble the Archives Reserve (aka Archives Chrome set).  If I am missing too many cards I will break it apart and use it as some trade bait.

I sorted out one of the sets, a short one, and here's my quick take on the 2002 Upper Deck Ovation set:

The Ovation set was first put out by Upper Deck in 1998 with the primary feature being the cards being a pair of embossed baseball seems that ran on all of the other Ovation sets until this one.  This was the last Ovation set that Upper Deck put out and truthfully, was probably one too many.  Fair warning for the collectors who see these boxes really cheap on Ebay.  There is a really good reason they are inexpensive.

First, the set design got pretty stale fast.  In 1998 two embossed baseball seams was cool.  1999 and 2000 too.  2001 Upper Deck changed it to a single baseball seam on a puffy baseball which took up half the card.  By 2002 the company switched up the design and embossed the team logo with some sort of greenish/grey color scheme in the background.  Meh.  Upper Deck really banked on a few other factors selling this set beyond the base set of cards.  This set had one major attraction and maybe a few minor ones too.

This was the first product which featured a bevy of Mark McGwire autographs.  Before the 2002 Upper Deck Ovation set the only place to find a Mark McGwire certified autograph was in the popular Mother's Cookie Set.  I know some people walk around and say, "but I have a copy of his 1998 Upper Deck card signed."  Upper Deck had McGwire sign autographs for the Ovation set, but he also signed a very small amount of his previous Upper Deck cards.  The autographs in this set were seeded similarly to the SP Authentic boxes at the time with a line of autographs made for the set and another set of buybacks.  The odds on the McGwire autographs were really really steep, but there were a few minor attractions in the set beyond McGwire autographs.

I know I just said that their were attractions beyond the McGwire autographs, but those even include more McGwire.  The Superstar Spotlights were a regular part of the Ovation sets, but the 2002 set featured a handful of players with three or four cards each which made up a timeline of the players career.  Pretty cool to see a young version of McGwire in an A's uniform or a younger Ken Griffey in a Mariners uniform.  Really cool idea and I honestly wish Upper Deck had made this part of this set bigger.  One more, Yankees fans cringe and turn away.

While Topps was busy airbrushing Jason Giambi into a Yankees uniform, Upper Deck actually had real photographs of the newly minted free agent in his new pinstriped uniform.  At the time these sets were released Upper Deck made a pretty big deal of having the first cards of the Giambino as a Yankee.  Unfortunately, Giambi really never lived up to the contract he signed with the Yankees.  To make up for the fact he is mentioned I will share his best moment in a Yankees uniform, in my opinion.