Messed Up Biscuit

Last summer the Cardinals traded Tommy Pham to the Rays in exchange for one of my favorite Durham Bulls players Justin Williams, along with Double A pitcher Genesis Cabrera, and another Minor Leaguer.  We aren't going to worry too much about Roel Ramirez.  Pham has played well for the Rays over the last few months.  Currently, he is in the middle of a long consecutive games on base streak. 

Meanwhile, Justin Williams is not playing because he lost a fight with a television set during the off-season.  I still liked him from his time in Durham. 

I honestly think that Justin Williams is also the last Cardinals player on the 40 man roster.  There are tons of outfielders on the team, and he is the worst of them.  Even worse than Dexter Fowler for the moment.  We'll see how much longer he's a Cardinal. 

Which means there is a lot riding on Genesis Cabrera to do something.  Cardinals fans are relying on him to make everything alright.  I picked up a few of his cards last fall.  Probably my best was his Topps Heritage Minor League card, which featured him as a Double A player with the Montgomery Biscuits. 

Genesis has a deckle edged card, along with a few other different variations.  You know the routine.  

I did skip over his Donruss/Panini stuff last fall.  It was more expensive, and it's Panini.  Sometimes all of the airbrushing really bothers me.  Not to be snobby, but I like seeing the full uniforms and logos.  All of it.  

The price fell enough that I finally went out and got a copy of his Donruss Extra Elite card.  The autographed version.  It did not look great on Ebay, but he's a Cardinal right?  

It's pretty bad.  

First off, this is really a card of Genesis on the Biscuits.  They have a pretty easy to like Minor League uniform, yet here we are with this card.  I know, Panini can't do logos.  

The sticker autograph is also not very well done.  It's obviously a sticker, not blended in very well with the card.  Feel a little buyers remorse.  

Back of the card.  

We've got a description of his pitches, a good outing, and the details of him being traded to the Cardinals.  This is going to send a little weird, but the red coloring on the back of the card bothers me more than anything else.  The front of the card is purple, but the back is red?

Is it because he is a Cardinal, or are all the backs of the cards colored red?  The only other cards I have from this product are either of USA Baseball players, or Cardinals.  Not really sure.  It would have been nice to match up the coloring a little better.  Maybe just make it a card where everything ends up with the Biscuits coloring.  Pretty messed up. 

Biscuits and Biscuits

Working on finding my favorite Durham Bulls players every summer inevitably leads to me having to buy or trade for a few Montgomery Biscuits baseball cards.  The Bulls, being the Triple A team of the Rays, and the Montgomery Biscuits playing in the Double A Southern League, I'm sure that most of the players like getting to make that move.  As a card collector,  I really don't mind anything having to do with the Biscuits.  It's easily one of the coolest logos in all of Minor League baseball.

Better than the Baby Cakes or Railriders or whatever other goofy names have popped up in the Minors over the last few summers.  I have never actually been to Montgomery, so I am not exactly sure why the team is named the Biscuits.  As a Midwest transplant living in a Southern state, or is North Carolina a mid-Atlantic, I can attest to the fact that Southerns love eating biscuits.  Non-southerners like them too.  

We've got places like.....

They've got okra on their menu.  That's only cool in the south.  More well known.......

Bojangles.  A must stop for biscuits and Bojangles also in a Raekwon song.  

Back to baseball cards.  

So, over the year's I have dabbled in the world of Biscuits cards.  They have less butter than a Biscuitville biscuit and less blueberries than a BoBerry Biscuit, but they are nice all the same.  All of my Biscuits cards feature that cool logo along with a player who almost certainly appeared for the Durham Bulls.  My all-time favorite Biscuits/Durham Bulls cards is a Hak Ju Lee logo card from the 2013 Pro Debut card....

There have been others along the way too, including one that came out earlier this summer in the latest Pro Debut release.  The player on the card is even on the Durham Bulls this year.  Here's the latest Biscuits card featuring Durham Bulls infielder Willy Adames.  

I really like Adames as a player, he's fun to watch, and I was excited that this card was on the checklist this year.  However, I wish the Biscuits logo were a little but clearer.  The past two years Topps has used the pennant shape on these logo cards in Pro Debut.  The problem, in my eyes, is that it shrinks down the size of the logo, blurs what is there, and minimizes the minor league aspect on the card.

Sweet Rays!

The season came to a close for Rays a few days ago when they lost in Game 4 of the ALDS against the Boston Red Sox.  Much of the focus after the loss focused on long-time Rays ace, and former Durham Bull, David Price.  It's clear to many that the Rays will likely trade Price this off-season and will go into rebuilding mode next year without their ace.  However, I strongly disagree with this take on the Rays.

Yes, the Rays will likely trade their ace, but if the James Shields and Matt Garz trades taught us anything, its that the Rays will make a good trade for the Rays and will use Price to restock their minor league.  Not that it really needs to be restocked.  So, if James Shields was worth Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery, and Patrick Leonard I think it's safe to say that the Rays will make out just fine in trading Price.  I will still collect my David Price cards, but will have a few more good young players to track down.

Until then, I am still working on finding some cards of Rays current minor leaguers and ran into a pair of really cheap relics this past week.  Both cards come from the recently released Topps Heritage Minor League set.  The first is most likely the initial replacement in the Rays rotation for David Price.

2013 Topps Heritage Minor League Enny Romero Clubhouse Collection Relic 

Romero pitched at three levels in the Rays organization this year making appearances for the Montgomery Biscuits (Double-A), the Durham Bulls (Triple-A), and finally for the Rays at the Major League level.  Romero is a hard thrower with a very bright future.  I've featured a few of his cards on my blog during the past month.  Really inexpensive cards and well worth the risk.

2013 Topps Heritage Minor League Black Hak Ju Lee Clubhouse Collection Relic /50

I was really happy to pick up this card.  Numbered to just 50 copies, this is the only Durham Bulls relic or autograph in the Topps Heritage Minor League set this year.  It probably means they could have put Mike Fontent on the card and I would have bought it, but luckily they went with my favorite Korean shortstop prospect.  I actually really like the black background with the purple stripe.  Pretty catchy.

Impressive Ray

I made a post last week about a pair of new Rays I was thinking about collecting with a strong leaning towards pitcher Enny Romero.  A few marathon games against the Orioles this weekend actually landed the young phenom a starting gig in this afternoon's series finale in Tampa.  I was excited to watch the game, but the awesomeness of the Major League blackout rules prevented me from actually viewing.

The ESPN Gamecast helped me keep track of Romero's four and two-thirds innings of shutout baseball which helped keep the Rays in the hunt for the American League Wild Card race.  The game also made it nearly impossible for the Orioles to make a return appearance to the post season.  Given the impressive performance this afternoon by Romero I am going to go ahead and post my latest pick up from the Rays rookie left-hander.

2011 Bowman Chrome Enny Romero Autograph 

As I said in my previous Enny Romero post, he has very few "hit" cards out on the market.  Before this week he basically had two relics cards and an autograph card.  Topps did release their Minor League version of Heritage this week which does feature another Romero relic card as a Montgomery Biscuit.  Obviously I really the autograph card the best, but it also does not hurt the card to be from the 2011 Bowman set which is a really strong autograph list.  

Romero seems to have a really inconsistent signature, but I think a lot of it has to do with the pen he used to sign the cards.  Hand sign items on Ebay seems pretty strong and consistent, but his Bowman autographs are a little bit streaky looking and the loop seems to fade on cards.  I am happy to own this card, but might have to look around for another copy with a better signature.  

The Greatest Baseball Logo Captured on Cardboard

Last year Topps put a Hak Ju Lee hat patch logo card in their Topps Pro Debut set featuring the Rays shortstop prospect as a Montgomery Biscuit.  The Biscuits are the Double-A team of the Rays, so many of the players on the Durham Bulls, the Rays Triple A team, played for the Biscuits at some point.  I missed out on the Hak Ju Lee card last year and in doing so, missed my chance to have a the Biscuits logo on cardboard.  Cool logo pictured below:

Who wouldn't want a card with a giant version of that logo pasted on the front?  Luckily, someone at Topps did not get the message that Hak Ju Lee was playing in Durham this season, or perhaps since they already had a Durham Bulls logo card of Alex Colome, Topps made the executive decision to demote Lee in his Pro Debut appearance this year.  Which ever way you decided it went down, the decision to keep Hak Ju Lee as a Biscuit for an additional year allowed me a chance at redemption.

2013 Topps Pro Debut Hak Ju Lee Hat Logo Patch 

I was actually worried for awhile that I was going to fail on my mission for a second straight year.  I found one copy of this card for trade, but the other collector was looking for a Hall of Fame autograph or "Yankee type autograph" in return.  This was my initial PM on trading for the Lee patch card:  

"Dude, you have some pretty sweet Yogi Berra autographs, I could do one of those for the Lee"   

After spitting out my beverage I countered with a "Yankee type" autograph of Joba Chamberlain or maybe a Brett Gardner.  Still waiting for a response by not holding my breath.  If he ever actually trades me the card I will do a give away on my Facebook or Twitter page.  

Eventually I narrowed my search down to Ebay where I promptly watched several auctions, but forgot about them and forgot to bid.  I found a Buy It Now, but it was significantly higher than the auctions and the final offer price of $14 was not going to hack it on this card.  Finally, I was paying attention last week and found a copy for less than $5.00 which is good since I am back to school this week.  No more day auctions.  

In the meantime, I am really pleased with my latest pick up.  I really like Hak Ju Lee as a player, but more importantly I really like the Montgomery Biscuits logo.  There are some pretty crazy minor logos and mascots, but this one has to be one of the best ever.