Friday Five: Five SEMO Players With Baseball Cards (Don't Say Who)

The NCAA College Baseball Tournament starts Friday.  While most readers who stop by here regularly will no doubt know that I have a degree from NC State, few know that I also have a degree from Missouri's finest teachers college: Southeast Missouri State or SEMO.  Before we go all in on SEMO, let me say that I hope NC State goes far.  They should.  On to SEMO....

Southeast Missouri won the Ohio Valley Conference this year and defeated Jacksonville State to win the conference tournament and receive the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.  SEMO has been to the NCAAs before in baseball, but this year feels a little bit different.  Sure, they are a four seed.  Yes, they are playing national seed Mississippi State in their first game in Starkville.  It's just that this year's SEMO baseball team has a lot of talent and are considered by many to be a dangerous team.  D1Baseball writer Aaron Fitt has a good break down here if you are looking for some specifics on the Redhawks (they were the Indians when I went to school there).

If you rate your baseball team's based on their acting ability, then watch this, and know that SEMO is likely going to be a national title contender.....

On to the baseball cards.  I know you are really excited to go look through your collection and find a few players who attended Southeast Missouri and played on the baseball team.  For this week's Friday Five I present: Five SEMO Players With Baseball Cards.  

There are actually six.  

1. Shae Simmons P Atlanta Braves 

I will throw a current name out at you first.  Shea Simmons has one year under his belt with the Braves.  The Scott City, Missouri native reached the Majors in 2014 appearing in 26 with 23 strikeouts in 21.2 innings and a 125 ERA+.  Simmons was shut down last year after Tommy John, but is working his way back and should be with the Braves at some point this summer.  Simmons has a bunch of cards out, including several autographs.  Really good player, really inexpensive autograph.  

2.  Kerry Robinson OF Rays, Reds, Cardinals, Padres, and Royals

If you watched baseball in the late 1990s and early 2000s there is a chance that you might remember Kerry Robinson.  He just might be mentioned in the Tony LaRussa book 3 Nights In August.  Anyway, besides attending SEMO, Kerry Robinson also played for the Durham Bulls and the Cardinals.  Sort of a cool trifecta.  My best memories come of him as a Cardinal.  Especially this home run against the Cubs....

Thanks to Kerry Robinson's YouTube Channel for the video.  

Kerry also has a bunch of different baseball cards.  He was drafted by the Cardinals, ended up on the Devil Rays in the expansion draft, and then ended up back with the Cardinals after a few stops along the way.  HIs 1997 Bowman card with the Cardinals is nice, but I also like some of his Devils Rays cards too.  Oh, and I own his baseball card contract from Topps.  

3.  Steve Bieser C-OF Phillies, Pirates, and Mets

Bieser is the current coach of the Redhawks and has done a great job of running the program the last few years.  He was drafted by the Phillies in 1989 and made it to the Majors with the Mets in 1997.  He actually has a 1997 Collector's Choice card, but it appears that I don't own one.  I have a ton of cards from that set, which I probably bought at the Venture in the Cape Girardeau Mall while I was at SEMO, but not a Bieser.  So, here is a Minor League card.  Bieser was in the Minors for awhile and has a bunch of different cards in some cool 1990s minor league team sets...

4.  Justin Christian OF Yankees and Giants (Durham Bulls too)

I best know Justin Christian as a Durham Bulls player.  Yes, he was on the Yankees and Giants, but Durham Bulls.  He played one full season with the Bulls in 2014 posting a .271/.344/.434 line with 10 home runs, 4 triples, and 37 doubles.  Here is Christian batting for the Bulls against the Gwinnett Braves.....

As far as baseball cards, there are several cards of Justin Christian.  Of course, several minor league team issues, but also a few Yankees cards from his early years in the Minors.  Probably his easiest to find is his 2008 Bowman card.  

Somewhere I have a Justin Christian Durham Bulls card lingering.  I need to go find it and post it at some point.  Onward, upward....

5a.  Tom Upton "Muscles" SS Browns and Senators 

I don't know a lot about Upton other than he went to SEMO and he has a card in the 1951 Topps set.  Sure I am missing a lot of details here, but I have to work tomorrow.  Plus, did I mention 1951 Topps.  It's a classic even if he had a .225 career average.  

5b. Ray Ripplemeyer P  Reds and Senators 

Ripplemeyer never played a game for the Reds, only the Senators.  He was in the Reds minor league system for awhile and ended up in the 1961 Topps set as a Red.  Ripplemeyer also appears to have attended SIU-C, or Southern Illinois-Carbondale.  That's like Carolina to all ACC schools and people who went to class in college, Kansas to Missouri, etc..

That Other School

I do college sports on my blog, but focus almost all of the discussion on the ACC schools around my house and my alma mater NC State.  Of course, my degree from NC State is actually a Masters Degree.  My undergraduate degree came from Southeast Missouri State, a small teachers college, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  I majored in Elementary Education and spent a few hours hanging out in Scully Hall in between trips to some small classrooms in nearby towns.

SEMO does compete in Division I sports playing in the Ohio Valley Conference against Murray State, Austin Peay, Belmont, and Morehead State.  There are others.  Their big rival is SIU.  Nobody like the Salukis.

Of course SEMO has produced a few baseball players over the years.  The last player from the school to appear before this year was Justin Christian, now plays for the Durham Bulls, but also spent time in the Majors with the Giants and Yankees.  There was also Kerry Robinson.  This year SEMO added another player to their list of Major League products when the Braves called up relief pitcher Shae Simmons.  Very impressive so far.....

After Simmons made his first appearance with the Braves I was excited to track down a few cards of the former SEMO star.  However, there were not many cards of Simmons floating around outside of a few team issued minor league cards.  Never my favorite things to buy, but I was seriously considering it until I saw he had a nice autograph in the Bowman Inception set.  Yes, I bought one.  

Simmons has a pretty popular autograph in the early days of Bowman Inception.  There have been a whole bunch of these cards up on Ebay and the vast majority of them have sold for more than $10, with a few crossing $15.  Not bad for a set man in his first month in the Majors.  Hopefully Topps will make a few more cards of Shae Simmons before the end of the year.

One Last Item From the Vault...

I really enjoy collecting certified autographs and like to steer clear of in-person autographs unless I have extreme faith in the person or I am getting the autograph myself.  Those always make for good stories.  One of the biggest problems is that we are now down to a sparse few card companies who do not vary their autograph field greatly from product to product.

For example, I try to collect as many Cardinals and Rays autographs as possible.  The Cardinals are my favorite team to follow, but also enjoy watching the Rays since many of their players spent time playing for my hometown Durham Bulls.  I dabble in the Tigers and have a few other players I check in on, but the list of items going into my collection is not really all that wide.  You would think that would still leave me plenty of cards to chase down, but it seems like Topps excels at having the same few players for each team sign for each product.

So, I ask myself somedays: How the hell am I going to get a certified, or highly reliable Tony Cruz autograph?  I do not live in St. Louis anymore, he's not making an appearances in the Raleigh-Durham, or central North Carolina area, and I know Topps will not put him as a signer in a baseball product.  It's not that I am singling in specifically on Tony Cruz, I am not.  However, he's a useful role player on the Cardinals and has now been on the team for several seasons.  It would be a nice addition.

This is an area where the Topps Vault can come in handy.  Sure, Topps is not rushing out to make the first certified Tony Cruz autographed baseball card for a 2014 Topps product, I am sure the Cardinals will have Holliday, Lynn, Jay, and Craig, but since he has a card in their base set he has signed a card contract.  Topps actually puts their invalid, out of date baseball contracts, up for sale in their Topps Vault Ebay Store.

Just this past week I was making my weekly stop in to check out their new items and ran across a sweet  autograph of former Cardinals player, and current Cardinals employee, Kerry Robinson.  This was probably my one chance to snag a certified autograph of the Cardinals, and fellow SEMO (Southeast Missouri State) alumni, unless Topps is coming out with a front office employees of Major League Baseball set.  For $9.99 I picked it up.

I own a couple of these Topps contracts now, all really inexpensive.  Robinson is just the latest addition to my collection, of a Cardinals player, I have found in the Topps Vault.  For those not fimiliar with Kerry Robinson, he was originally drafted by the Cardinals and ended up on the expansion Rays (the 1998 Durham Bulls) and the Reds before returning to the Cardinals.  Robinson played three seasons for the Cardinals from 2001 through 2003.  He pinch hit for Mark McGwire in the last game of Big Mac's career and had this hit against the Cubs: 

The Topps Vault is a great way to pick up a certified autograph of some really cool players.  Now, I am filling in my Cardinals autograph collection and usually end up finding my autographs for less than $15.  Better players can fetch high dollars, but sometimes you'd be surprised and can walk away with a solid Major Leaguer for between $20-$30.  At the end of the day you will have a very unique collectable and a great item for your collection.  I have actually thought about having one or two of mine framed for my Cardinals room.