Set Appreciation Post #21 - 2000 Pacific Aurora

Pacific Aurora has a mundane base set with a few incredible inserts, which makes it a pretty awesome product. You've got to take the boring with the exciting with this product.  

2000 Pacific Aurora was also the first card to feature a Hall of Famer in his new uniform and they did it in a creative way. Overall, this is one of the worst products that Pacific Trading cards made in the late 1990s and early 2000s and it is still probably middle of the pack in terms of overall quality. They were a high floor, high ceiling type of card company that is sadly lacking in the current baseball card market. 

I miss Pacific. 

Shall we look at the 2000 Autora set?  

Here is the base design......

Pacific started the Aurora product in 1998 and it basically had the same design concept all three years it was produced. Two photos on the front, one action and one posed, along with a solid colored background. The design in decent. I know the teal colored background is a little weird on this Darin Erstad card, but this is one of the few teams where that statement is true.

Pacific was consistent with their brands and the products tended to run true to that branding from year to year. While this is not the most exciting design concept, you knew exactly what you were getting when you bought these cards. The original Aurora was also a per-pack-insert product released in 1998 that was sold at retail stores. The 2000 set was a Hobby issued product with no per-pack insert guarantee.     

Back of the card. 

I like the sepia photo with the gold and maroon colored writing and trim. Really good look. The stats are basic, but the large photo and readable card numbers in the bottom right-hand corner more than make-up for anything left off the card by Pacific. Solid effort here. 

Let's get one highlight out of the way.  

Best Base Card 

The off-season proceeding the 2000 baseball season featured the high drama of Ken Griffey Jr. demanding a trade off the Mariners. He had a no-trade clause and was essentially only willing to accept a trade that put him on his hometown Cincinnati Reds. The trade ended up happening in early February after teams had made their way to Spring Training and the early 2000 baseball card products had already hit the shelves. 

Griffey getting traded to the Reds was huge news. The trade put the three best home runs hitters of the day, Griffey, McGwire, and Sosa, all in the same division for the foreseeable future, or Mark McGwire got gimpy knees in the middle of the 2000 season. Pacific capitalized on the excitement by producing the first Ken Griffey Jr. card with him in a Cincinnati uniform, making half his cards Mariners and the other half Reds. 

Great card, one of my favorite Griffey cards. 

On to the other things I cover in my set posts........

Favorite Cardinals Card 

It's really hard to pick out the "best" cards from this set. They are slightly devoid of personality, but I decided to go with Fernando Tatis. He had a short window of success with the Cardinals and 1999 was his best season. Fernando Sr. went 30 plus home runs, 30 plus doubles, 20 stolen bases, and nearly hit .300 come in with a .298 average. He also walked more than 80 times. It was a really unique stat line, especially for a third baseman and I love seeing those numbers on the back of the card.  

Favorite Former Durham Bulls Player 

McGriff played on the Durham Bulls at the end of his career in 2004. He's one of the few players who is smiling on his posed photograph for this set. I like the happy vibe on this card. I also like that you get McGriff's batting stance in the top right corner. He's got one of the more unique and identifiable stances from the 1990s.  

One more card and we will talk about inserts......

While the 2000 Pacific Aurora set did not have inserts in every pack, they did offer a parallel card per pack. The majority of parallel cards were pinstriped. I know there are people who enjoy these parallel cards, but I am not a huge fan. 

Perhaps if my favorite team wore pinstripes, I would feel differently. Looks kind of weird on a Cardinals card, but it makes sense and looks good on a Yankees card.......

Inserts 

Now we get to the good stuff with Pacific Aurora. The inserts.  

The most basic insert was the "Pennant Fever". When the Aurora product first started in 1998, these were the inserts that generally came as the per-pack. Pacific continued this insert again in 1999 and 2000. Based on the number in my collection, I would guess that a box typically came with 3 or 4 of these cards. The foil along the bottom of the card is nice, but this isn't even the close to the best thing in this set.  

Let's get serious.  

Pacific made some great cards involving nets in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yes, nets. You'd think that might not work for baseball, but sounds like a great concept for a basketball insert. What has nets on a baseball diamond? Dugouts and foul poles. The good people at Pacific employed some creative people who made great cards like this Shawn Green, which is a Dugout Net card.....

It's not a game-used card or anything, just a die-cut card with the cut-out section being filled in with netting. I am not sure the scan does the card justice, but these are some of the best inserts from this era. The one draw back for these cards is that they were thicker and would chip along the bottom. Check out the white around the bottom of the net.  

Most of the cards in this insert set are available online for less than $5, which reminds me that I have not done a set project in a long time. More of these might be making an appearance in this space in the near future.  

Last one for this set.  

I love that Dugout set with the die-cut space for the netting, but the Styroteach insert with these batting helmets might be even better. These remind me of the Donruss Hard Hats inserts that came out in the mid 1990s. Just a really nice insert card, again I am not sure the scan does this justice. 

Unlike the Dugout set though, these are really pricy on Ebay and COMC. The cheapest cards are around $10 with many being closer to $30 or $40. Not sure I can put together this complete set those prices given the quantity of cards. For now, I am happy with this Barry Bonds card.  

So, how does the 2000 Pacific Aurora set rate?  

I think it's biggest positives are that it has great insert cards and a solid base set. Having the first Reds Griffey cards pumps up the nostalgia factor for me and I am sure others who collected during this time.  When you add in the fact that these were $60 a box for 24 packs, there is a lot of upside here. Obviously, the base card design could be much better, but it's also not horrible. Aurora also has a small checklist with only 150 cards. That means you're only getting 4 to 5 cards of your favorite team.  

I ended up giving the set three Wool E. Bulls for the checklist and set design, everything else was above average with the final rating coming in at 3 1/2 Wool E Bulls.  

You can still find boxes of these cards for less than $100 on Ebay, if you're interested. Given the recent interest in opening old packs of cards and boxes, that's not much of a mark up from the original price. 

Not Really My Style, But Happy You Came Along

I have been working on the Project 2020 cards, mostly sticking with the Bob Gibson and Mark McGwire cards.  Not buying all of them, just sticking with the art work and artists that I enjoy.  Not really been into the "investment" resale and flip thing that has made them popular with some people.  I have posted a few of the cards here over the summer, but I am happy that the prices and insanity around Project 2020 has settled down.  

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the high prices for awhile.  I was able to trade out a Project 2020 Bob Gibson card for an actual Bob Gibson rookie card.  Not sure I could make that trade anymore, which is actually probably a good thing the baseball card hobby.  

Baseball cards are fun, not investments.  

The card that seems to have burst the Project 2020 price bubble was the Ken Griffey card by artist Keith Shore.  You could see it coming a mile away.  The card has an enormous print run.  I am certain there were people who bought hundreds hoping to flip them for a good margin of profit.  They're not quite free on Ebay, but selling at a large discount.  

I figure at this point, the card is at least notable, so I bought one off of Ebay.  I think of this Griffey like a prospect card that was expensive at some point, but is now selling for a dollar because the player has been stuck in A Ball for 6 years.  It felt like I was getting it for free, but not quite.  Some actual money was involved.  

The art is not really my style, but to each their own.  I am just happy this card came along to burst the bubble.  I am sure there are people who really like this card for the art.  The pirate hat people in background are pretty cool.  Seems to be a staple in this guy's art.  

After reading the artist bio on the back, I was curious about the designs he has created for the beer labels.  I had to go check them out.  Similar style art as the cards down to the people with the pirate hats, but it feels like it works better on cans and bottles than cardboard.  

The crashing prices and interest in the Project 2020 cards has helped me go back and add a few cards that I was not sure about at the time they were released, but since several of them are now selling for roughly half of what it would have cost me to originally purchase them, the decision is now much easier.  

The first card I picked up was a remake of the 1987 Topps Mark McGwire rookie card by Blake Jamieson.  One of the criticisms of the Mark McGwire cards in Project 2020 has been that Topps is using the 1987 Topps card with the A's rather than his 1985 Topps rookie card featuring him on the 1984 Olympic team.  

This card combined the two with the wood border from the 1987 card, and the picture of McGwire in a USA Baseball uniform from the 1985 rookie.  I still have issues with the card I will address in a second, but for a discounted price I was willing to add this card to my collection.  

Personally, I would have rather seen the 1985 Topps card used for this set for McGwire.  This seems like a solid attempt to marge the two cards.  My lone fault with this card is McGwire's uniform number.  The artist made McGwire with a 25 jersey, which he wore in both Oakland and St. Louis.  However, he did not wear that number while playing for USA Baseball.  

If you're a long time reader, you know the USA Baseball facility is a few minutes away from my house, and I usually go to games there during the summer.  There is a McGwire plaque inside the stadium that recognizes his play during the 1984 Olympics and commemorates his jersey number being retired a few years back.  I currently cannot find my picture of it.  

McGwire wore 41 while playing in the Olympics Games.  I know, it's a small detail.  I can be picky.  There actually is a card of a player wearing the uniform number 25 for the 1984 Olympic team if you flip through your 1985 Topps set.  That number belonged to......

long time Indians, Giants, and Dodgers outfielder Cory Snyder, who was a shortstop at BYU during college.  His jersey is not retired.  

Here is the back of the McGwire card.  

Blake Jamieson is one of the artists who seems to be a natural fit for the Project 2020 cards since he already did sports art.  I know I posted a card a few weeks back and mentioned that the artists gallery of work online was not kid/work friendly.  Blake Jamieson is fine.  Go ahead and look at his Instagram, nobody from HR will be talking to you.  

One last quick card.  

I believe this card was available the same day as the Griffey show above, or they were at least relatively close.  While I have stuck to McGwire and Gibson cards up to this point, this is the first card that I have bought of a non-Cardinal because of the art work.  

I own the McGwire card by this artist.  The majority of the card is made out of triangles.  The writing on the bottom is the most obvious set of triangles, but you can also find them on the portrait drawing of Koufax's face and hat, along with the picture on the side with him standing on the stairs.  

I also like the original card, but as a collector with a budget, it's not like I am going to be springing for 1 1955 Sandy Koufax card.  Go ahead and assume I won the lottery if the real version of this ever appears on my blog.  

Back of the card.  

Here is the full explanation of the artist and his style.  When I said triangles, I meant to say Pop and Cubism with a surrealist vision. 

Cards I Love Part 23 - 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr.

Upper Deck came out in 1989 with foil packaging and glossy cards.  I was still on Topps, Donruss, and Fleer.  I dabbled with Upper Deck during the early 1990s, but really did not appreciate the brand until the mid 1990s.  Maybe even later than that.  At a $1 per pack, it cut down on the quantity of cards that I could buy if I stuck with my usual brands.

I was in middle school when the Upper Deck card craze kicked in.  The two most important things in my life at the time were baseball cards, and pick up basketball games.  There were plenty of neighborhood kids with Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck cards, and all it would cost me was a large stack of all the other rookie cards that I cared about.  Barry Bonds, Will Clark, Tony Gwynn, Barry Larkin, Ryne Sandberg, Eric Davis, Darryl Strawberry, and Greg Maddux all probably would have left my collection if I had traded for a Griffey rookie.

To me, at the point in my life, Ken Griffey Jr. was a flashy player on SportsCenter.

  

All of those players listed above, I actually got to watch them in person.  They played against the Cardinals.  They had some sort of meaning outside of being a player with highlights on television.  Although, truth be told, I was the only kid in my neighborhood who had actually seen Ken Griffey Jr. in person.

The full box score is here.  This was on vacation.  The bottom of the box score says the weather conditions at the time of the game were unknown.  It was hotter than hot, and the Rangers had metal bleachers in their stadium.  Back to the card.  

I did not trade for an Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.  

For years, the most important Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card in my collection was his 1990 Topps card.  I still love this card, and was more than happy with this being best Griffey card.  

Fast forward about 15 years into the future.  There was a brief window during my life when I did not teach.  It was something along the lines of six months.  I left St. Louis, moved to a small town in southeast Missouri, worked a job or two including managing meeting and convention space for a hotel and restaurant holding company.  I took some historical preservation classes on the side.  More into old buildings than old paintings.

So, one of the buildings I managed meeting and convention space was recently demolished, so this is  the only picture of the building that I can find on the internet.

This had really large rooms inside.  Large weddings, large corporate meetings, things with multiple hundreds of people showing up at an event.  I also had an office inside of the building, along with the office staff that actually worked on selling the dates for the meeting rooms.  There were really busy days with lots of meetings and things to set up, and other days where you were just hanging out.  You know, managing stuff.

One of the slower days, the office staff decided to clean out a box of random items that had been left behind at weddings and meetings.  All sorts of odds and ends.  Umbrellas, flasks, clipboards, mini bottles of liquor, notebooks, fountain pens, keys, centerpieces, candles, and one baseball card complete with a massive screw down holder.

The card was a 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.  It was in great condition.

Front of the card.  So iconic.

Back of the card.  

Man, I loved that job.  It took me 15 years to find a copy of this card, but I landed one for nothing.  Actually, I was not really looking for it when I found it.  

I ended up getting a teach job that I was not really looking for a few weeks later.  There is a good parallel to the card.  I packed up my stuff and moved to North Carolina.  Long story how that happened.   Anyway, I love this card, because it reminds me of the brief time I was not a teacher.  Not for long, but I had a good time working in the business world.  

Cutting Corners For Conciseness

I have been working on putting together the 1980s, and the lone 1990s, Topps Glossy Mail-In sets over the past two months.  So far, I have finished up the 1983, 1986, and 1989 sets.  This post is all about my completed 1985 set, so I am down to 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1990.

No, I am not going to make my goal of finishing these sets by the end of February. 

Yes, I am fine with it.

The 1985 Topps Glossy Mail-In set is on 40 cards, so it would actually be easier to scan than some of the other glossy sets I have posted.  Yet, I am not going to do it.  Those posts dragged out.  Way too long.  We are going to give the big guy an easy day......

So, I am going to go with my favorite five cards out of the 40. 

You know there are Cardinals players, so let's get those out of the way first. 

Joaquin Andujar was a good pitcher for the Cardinals during the first half of the 1980s.  He was the starting pitcher in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series, which the Cardinals won, and picked up 20 wins in both 1984 and 1985.  This was the last season that Andujar was on the Cardinals, although he is in many 1986 products as a member of the Cardinals.  He doesn't seem like the type of player who would garner a spot in a set like this, always surprised he is in here over the Nolan Ryan and Fernando Valenzuela types.  You know, popular.  

This was also the end of the line for Bruce Sutter with the Cardinals.  Best remembered for striking out Gorman Thomas to end the 1982 World Series.  

I was always surprised that he made the Hall of Fame.  Even more surprised that he still pops up in baseball cards.  Not complaining.  

Love the 1980s Tony Gwynn cards.  Look at that brown uniform.  That's how the Padres are supposed to look.  I am a big fan of baseball cards with action shots, but this a nice look for a staged photograph.  I am sure that this was taken during Spring Training, but it sort of looks like it could also be at some random high school stadium.  

Last two cards are rookies.  

Any Dwight Gooden card from the mid 1980s was gold when I was a kid.  At one point I traded my 1985 Topps Dwight Gooden card, good story.  I ended up with a bunch of his 1985 and 1986 cards after his career fell off in the mid 1990s.  This Gloss Mail-In card is one of my favorites.  I like this picture a lot.  If you had to describe the things that made Gooden unique to watch, this follow through would have to be somewhere on the list right?  

This is the rant portion of this post.  

So, you watched that short video clip, the last batter was Alvin Davis.  He's one of the oft forgotten, good young players from the 1980s.  Why are there still people running around talking about Wally Joyner, but nobody talks about Alvin Davis?  I talk about Alvin Davis.  

Alvin did win the Rookie of the Year in 1984, so he at least got a little recognition during his career.  His 1984 appearance in the All-Star game was the only time he made it to the Mid-Summer Classic.  In 1987 the American League had Pat Tabler on their roster as a first baseman.  At the All-Star Break Alvin Davis was hitting .303/.384/.476 with 10 home runs, 19 doubles, and 45 RBIs. 

Pat Tabler? 

Pat flippin Tabler.  

That was apart of a three year stretch where he had OPSs of .886, .875, and .920.  His OPS+ were 127, 141, and 156.  I mean his comparable players on Baseball Reference from that stretch are Jeff Bagwell, Adrian Gonzalez, Paul  Konerko, and Ted Kluszewski.  Yes, let's talk about Wally Joyner.  Roll my damn eyes.  

I like Alvin.  He's getting his own post one of these days.  

  

This Set Has Dragged On Long Enough.....

The last of the 1986 Topps Glossy Mail-In set.  There have been two other posts for this set, which is my favorite out of all the Mail-In sets from the 1980s.  It's Cardinals heavy and I have already gushed over the team's left fielder enough in other posts this month.  Last few groups of cards.

Picking out one player from each group to share something, or some thoughts about....... 

Ernie Riles - He was a prospect in this set, ended up spending roughly a decade in the Majors as a utility infielder.  I best remember him on the late 1980s Giants teams with Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell.  Obviously not that level of player, but he contributed to the team.  I like the old Brewers powder blue uniform and MB glove logo hat.  Very nice card. 

Dave Stieb- Since Jack Morris is in the Hall of Fame, we should also go ahead and put Dave Stieb in there too.  He never pitched in the deciding game of a World Series, but he was one of the better pitchers of the 1980s and some of his career numbers are better than what is on Jack Morris's resume.

In the three season prior to 1986, Dave Stieb had a WAR of 21.6 and Nolan Ryan, same three years, had a WAR of 6.5.  I mean Nolan Ryan struck out a bunch of people though, so that's what is important. 

George Bell (Jorge) Begin rant....

There are bad trades in baseball.  It has been a long held belief that the White Sox trading Sammy Sosa was somehow a terrible idea.  Do people not remember how good Jorge Bell was during his career?  He won the American League MVP Award in 1987, but you'd swear the guy was the biggest bum in the world based on the way people talk about the fact that he was traded for Sammy Sosa.  He hit 47 home runs in a season during the 1980s.  The year before the Cubs traded Bell, he hit 25 home runs, 27 doubles, and drove in 86 runs.  Sure, he fell off after he joined the White Sox, but let's stop talking badly about George. 

End rant. 

Browning.  Should I post the video of him on the Wrigley rooftop again? 

I will do a picture instead.  He also once pitched a perfect game.  

This is a really tough group to decide between.  We have a former football player, a Cardinals player wearing the wrong numbered jersey, and a former Durham Bull.  

Since there has been a lot of talk about college football players, and whether they should choose to play baseball or football, lets go with.....

Phil Bradley- He played both baseball and football at the University of Missouri.  As a baseball player he helped the team win the Big 8 (I miss that conference) Conference Championship in 1980 and they made the NCAA Tournament in both 1980 and 1981.  However, Bradley was much better known as a football player, he did not win the Heisman, but he was the Big 8 Offensive Player of the Year three years in a row.  While football has changed a lot in the last 40 years, and the Big 12 has a reputation for not playing defense, many of Bradley's numbers have held up over time.  He is still in the top 10 all-time in passing yards and top 5 in total yards in conference history.  Bradley mainly played with the Mariners, but bounced around at the end of his career.  He made almost 6 million dollars in 1980s money (that's a lot).  

Tony Gwynn- I guess Jeff Reardon is the least known player in this group, but it's hard to pass up a chance to talk about Tony Gwynn.  The Padres were not the best team in the mid 1980s, but I always think about those years as being some of the best of Tony Gwynn's career.  He could always hit and won several batting titles in the 1980s, a few more towards the end of his career, ending with eight overall.  The thing I liked best about the mid to late 1980s Tony Gwynn was the fact that he stole bases.  He stole 33 in 1984 while winning his first batting title, but went over 50 in 1987 and 40 in 1989.  Gwynn was not exactly the picture of fitness, but he has more than 300 career stolen bases.  I liked fast Tony Gwynn. 

Let's go Darrell Evans.  I used to not like getting his cards as a kid.  He was old.  I saw him play a game towards the end of his career with the Braves.  He was the worst player on the field.  Seriously, the elementary school/middle school version of me was wrong about Darrell.  Not a Hall of Famer, but a good player.  Darrell Evans hit 400 home runs, also walked more than he struck out.  

Fin.  

Relaxing With Some Cards

This week has kicked off my summer vacation.  I teach, but I have a little bit of a different schedule.  I work for roughly nine weeks at a time, rarely less, sometimes more, before I get three to four weeks off.  Again, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less on the breaks.  I often travel with my wife and kids, but I also spend time attending baseball games.....

and working on my baseball cards.

I need to post an updated picture of my card room, but I have come a long way since last summer.  This popped up on my Facebook memories feed today.....

My closet team boxes have been switched out for set boxes, which has been a slow process over the last few years.  I also had a doubles table, which was just a large wood desk covered in extra cards that I pulled out as I was assembling sets.  Some of those cards have been traded, some have been given away, some have been boxed up, and others have gone to other odd places.

Beyond sets, I am also working on some of my Cardinals cards today.  I picked out a few of my favorites to share on this post.  I am going to go with two new autographs and two new cards of one of my favorite current Cardinals prospects.

Autographs first, prospect cards second.

First up is a Tommy Pham from this year's Tier One set.  Before last year there were not that many Tommy Pham autographs floating around out there.  I was actually lucky enough to pull one out of a Topps box a few years back.  Pham seems to be in almost everything nowadays.  He's got a nice autograph, and while he is not having his best year, I still enjoy watching him play.

I like the looks of this card too.  The diamond pattern, the hues of gray in the background, and best of all, the on-card autograph is very nice.

Next.

I like Jack Flaherty.  I am not sure how good of a pitcher he will be in the long run, but I am hopeful that he will continue to pitch well.  More than a strikeout per inning, an ERA under 3.00, and a WHIP right around 1.  Seems like he might be a nice one-two punch with Carlos Martinez the next few years.  I like the the horizontal layout of the Pham more than the Flaherty, but all of the Flaherty autographs from this product are all vertical cards.

Prospect cards.

Tyler O'Neill is probably my favorite Cardinals prospect at the moment.  The guy hits home runs, offers something that the Cardinals really do not have at the moment.  When the Cardinals traded for him last summer his cards were fairly inexpensive.  He's hit really well this year between a brief stint with the Cardinals and Triple A.  The prices on his cards have been creeping up this year, but I am still trying to slowly add some of his cards.

This is from last year's Bowman set.  I know there are a lot of different refractors, colored parallels, etc in Bowman.  This card is a mega box refractor.  I am not sure why Topps/Bowman has gone to all the different types of cards with different patterns in the background.  Who knows.

Last card for this post, another Bowman.  This is from the 2016 Bowman Chrome set.  The Top 100 Prospects inserts have been a long running item in these sets for the last eight or nine years.  Not sure what the point of the Top 100 Updates set is exactly.  The back of the card has a little blurb about him, but nothing insightful or having to deal with his status as a good prospect.

Wolfpack are red. Blue Devils are blue. Tar Heels wear blue too.

Picked up a few new cards of some local players in the past week.  It just so happens that I managed to add one card from each of the local ACC baseball squads.  It was not my original intention to add a card of a player from each of these schools, it just worked out that way.  So, let's start with my beloved Wolfpack.....

This is the best card in this post for obvious reason.  First, it's an NC State player.  Second, it's an NC State player in an NC State uniform.  Third, it's a really nice looking card.

I have added a few Trea Turner Panini cards over the years.  A few of them have been from the USA Baseball sets, while the more recent ones have featured him in the red and white digs from his time in playing for the Wolfpack.  He was drafted in the first round of the 2014 draft by the Padres, behind teammate Carlos Rodon, who was viewed as the better at the time.  Turner was an excellent player during his college career.

The Padres traded him to the Nationals while he was a Minor Leaguer.  Still a little confused by that trade in so many ways.

My cool Trea Turner story: Five years ago, while Trea Turner was still in college, he actually favorited one of my tweets where I posted his average and slugging percentage from his summer play with USA Baseball.....

Hopefully, that tweet was liked out of some sort of motivation.  

Let's move on to the Duke card.  I am actually looking to add a few more cards of some of the players who are currently playing for the Blue Devils.  Griffin Conine is probably the biggest name, Jeff's son, but his cards are a little difficult to find.  Currently, Duke is a top ten team, and they have some really talented players on their roster.  That means that they have baseball cards from their days in high school.  

I recently posted about high school kids having their own baseball cards.  I do not get it, but here is the card......

I have seen Herron a few times over the past few years.  I usually make it to at least one Duke baseball game every year, so I have now seen Herron play a few times.  Pretty impressive player who should probably go in the first few rounds of the Major League Draft.  Not an exciting video, but......

                                        

he's got a nice swing, just a little short in the power department.  Herron has only hit 2 home runs this year, but he also had an on base percentage of .424 entering this weekend's series against NC State.  That has some value to someone, somewhere.  Hello, Billy Beane.  He also is an outstanding defender in the outfield.  

which brings me to the Tar Heel in my post.  There are few redeeming qualities about the school in Chapel Hill.  Fake classes, tailgating at football games with preppy clothes and martinis, that fake folksy vibe that Roy Williams tries to give off......

How do you feel about UNC, Roy?  

There is no wiggle room for UNC basketball players after they leave school, but there is one former Tar Heel baseball player that I have made some peace with since he entered the pros.  He's a good player, whom I enjoy watching, and has a little personality too.  

Tar Heels card.....

is of Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager.  While Seager is not quite as popular as his brother, Corey from the Dodgers, he still has had a good career so for in Seattle.  He's entering his eighth season, seventh full, and has hit more than 20 home runs in 6 of those seasons.  In 2014, Seager made the All-Star team and won the American League Gold Glove at third base.  

Again, overlooked all of the time.  I liked his Player's Weekend jersey last year, which made fun of the fact that......

his brother is very popular with baseball fans.  I would agree with Corey being a better player, plus he was never on the UNC baseball team, but Corey is still a very good player in his own right.  I have a few other Kyle Seager autographs in my collection already, so I did not necessarily have to have this card, but when something is a really good deal, and it from a set that I really like, it's hard to pass up.