A Night At The Durham Bulls Atheltic Park

I had a chance to attend my first Durham Bulls game of the season yesterday afternoon.  The Durham Bulls Athletic Park has actually undergone a $20 million dollar update this off season and I was really excited to see the changes to the park.  I wish I could have gone on Opening Day, but I missed out.  So, let me give you a run down on the stadium and the team. 

The first thing that caught my attention was the new entrance to the stadium.  It's obviously not complete yet, due to the crazy winter here, but I love the new open look with the fountains.  Previously the DBAP had a closed off entrance with a narrow gate which really blocked off the frint of the park.  The facade of the stadium was only two stories high with a porch surrounding the third floor.  The new facade with the enclosed third floor does a lot for the front of the stadium.  There are also two fountains in the front which I am guessing will be inside the stadium once the team puts a gate back up in front.  I am going back again soon, so I am sure this part of the stadium will change.  You can actually tell they are still working on the the front part also by looking at the roof line which is awaiting some sort of edging.  The old facade is pictured below. 

The inside of the stadium is still very similar in appearance, but there are some slight changes.  One of the biggest changes is the area behind home plate.  I waited until the end of the game to snap a few pictures, but the club seating in the center was previously not a part of the stadium.  There were always a few boxes on the side, but the center of that level was a pressbox.  The club area is apparently really really nice.  I also like the scoreboard above the club level seating.  There were no scoreboards in the infield seating area prior to this renovation. 

The other big visible change to the seating area is the new video board in the outfield, and the advirtising boards which stretched from center field to the right field line, have also been replaced with electronic boards.  The whole outfield is pictured below.  The video boards in right center and right field are hard to see in this picture. 

Here is a good picture of the left field video board located on the Blue Monster.  The manual score board has been moved from below the video board to its new location out in left center field.  Here's the new look and the old look below.

Now

Before

Here's a picture of Jerry Sands.  You can see the wrap around video board out in right field well in this picture.  We will come back to the uniform changes in a few, but I really like the updated outfield.  Looks really sharp.  

There were other changes inside the ballpark too.  The concession stands were upgraded.  All of the seats were replaced.  I could put that in this post, but I also want to talk about the ring ceremony and the players on the team.  That would be one long blog post.  Later this summer I will go to the DBAP on an empty stomach and do a Food Network Style post on all the fixings around the ballpark.  The food and beverage selection is excellent. 

On to the next item.  The Bulls won the Governors Cup last season for winning the International League.  Before the game the players on last year's team received rings.  The team also put a banner out in left field and brought in the Governor's Cup.  Think of the Stanley Cup, but in baseball form.  I wanted to start a "Skate the Cup" chant, but decided against it.  Wool E. Bull wore a tux. 

Group photo while the Braves are stretching in the background. 

You probably noticed the gold numbering on the Jerry Sands picture above.  Following the Major League teams which also wear gold numbering or piping on their ring days, the Durham Bulls likewise with their uniforms for today's game.  Here is a picture of SEMO alumni (me too) wearing his Bulls uniform for the gold numbers. 

So, let's get to the game.  The Bulls lost 4-1.  The Gwinnett Braves got a three run home run from Mark Hamilton and a long home run from Ernesto Mejia.  Hamilton is a former Cardinal.  Meija has hit at least one home run in every game this weekend against the Bulls.  Maybe tomorrow.  In the meantime here's a few short videos of some the players from the game today. 

First up is Gwinnett left-hander Hector Daniel Rodriguez battling Bulls second baseman Robby Price.  This is the first go around for Price in Triple A.  He played at Kansas in college and was an All Big 12 selection.  Hector Daniel Rodriguez is a veteran of the Mexican League.  He threw in the low nineties, high eighties with his fastball and ha good movement on his pitches.  The Bulls had trouble with him the first time through the line up, but he got yanked in the fifth.  Price flies out. 

Next up is Matt Andriese facing Ernesto Mejia.  Mejia is a great power hitter in the International League.  Last season the Braves power hitter launched 28 home runs in Triple A.  As mentioned before, he's kind of killing the Bulls this weekend.  Andriese is a newcomer to the Rays system this year arriving in the Alex Torres trade.  Last year he split time between AA and AAA for the Padres.  Has a fastball in the low 90s.  Not sure there is a lot of movement on his pitches.  Mejia strikes out. 

Next up, local product and former Dodger Jerry Sands.  Worked a walk in this video.  I know that Sands had is struggles last year with the Pirates Triple A team, but he has looked sharp so far this season.  I am expecting a good year out of Jerry playing in front of a home town crowd.  

Last, but not least, is a video of former Yankee and Giant Justin Christian.  There are not many Major League players who graduated from Southeast Missouri State, but Christian is one of the few.  I received my undergraduate degree from there in Education.  Anyway, he is facing a hard throwing Braves reliever here Wilfrin Obispo.  Christian flies out.  

Jumbo Beltran

I have a big stack of Museum cards I need to post and will be working on for the next few days.  Museum is a pretty pricey product, but there are some great cards in this product.  It's also one of those products that is a tad bit risky to open, so I went ahead and let someone else assume all the risk in pursuit of some big hit cards.  Thank you case busting people.  I could not do it somedays without you.  My first cool Museum card of the year was this beautiful Carlos Beltran:

I picked up a couple of these jumbo pieces from Museum last year, but I kind of like the look of this year's pieces better.  This Beltran card has a really nice big chunk of bat.  Cool looking grain on the bat piece and limited to just 25 copies.  My copy gets double brownie points for being numbered to Beltran's number 3 uniform number with the Cardinals.  Luckily the person selling this card did not market it as an "Ebay 1 of 1" and ask $300 for it.  This copy cost me a little less than $20.

While Beltran is no longer on the Cardinals Topps has had Beltran as a Cardinal in all of their early 2014 releases.  I have Carlos on my fantasy baseball team this year, so I am counting on a good year out of the newest Yankee.  No hard feelings.

Collecting the Durham Bulls: Robby Price

Next up on my collecting the Durham Bulls posts is infielder Robby Price.  Price is not on the Rays Top 20 prospect list and very little is ever mentioned of him, but he's one of those players every team needs around.  Price has spent time playing both second and third and has even dabbled a little bit in the outfield.  While his stat line does not show power or speed numbers Price is an excellent on-base guy.

During his four year minor league career the Kansas grad has posted a total of 215 walks versus 167 strikeouts and a career OBP of .383.  I would expect that Price will be coming off the bench for the Bulls, but I like the idea of having a player who can come in and provide good defense and make some pitchers work during the late innings.  Plus, I have been told by Biscuits fans that he was pretty clutch.

Baseball card wise the options are pretty limited for Price.  Unfortunately that can happen sometimes with minor leaguers.  The best option for collecting Price cards at the moment is to find the parallels of his cards in the 2012 Bowman set.  There were a ton of the them....

I have one.  I believe this is a Blue Wave refractor, but it could also be the icy one.  2012 Bowman had parallels by the dozens.  The Price cards are super affordable too.  Almost everything is a dollar or two.  Some of the really hard to find parallels look like they might touch $5, but if you are patient I am sure you can find them cheaper.  Price also has a few team issued minor league cards floating around too. 

Awesome Lo Brown Autograph

I have found myself dabbling a little bit in basketball autographs the past few months and managed to add another favorite player from my alma mater NC State.  I never start out looking for basketball cards, but somehow manage to run into them here and there.  I was actually looking for a few Topps Museum cards last week when I stumbled upon a great looking card of former NC State point guard Lorenzo Brown.  The card was far too pretty to pass on....

I miss having Upper Deck make baseball cards and this card took me back.  This card has a fabulous design and is very well made.  Thick card stock, cool transparent section with the logo and player picture, and I love the the black background with the silver signature.  Just a really well made and designed card.  I know that Topps just signed an extension on their exclusive license with MLB, but we can all dream a little bit right? 

Lorenzo Brown (or Zo or Lo Brown) played for three years at NC State holding down the point guard responsibilities.  He was a very good college point guard, but has had some trouble settling down in the NBA.  He was a first round pick of the Timberwolves, but was traded to the 76ers.  He has spent the year shuffling in between the Sixers bench and the D-League.  Hopefully he will get some playing time down the stretch for the worst team in the NBA.  Favorite performance in college was his eleven assist game against the UNC-Cheaters last year.

Collecting the Durham Bulls: Erik Bedard

I am going to be doing a couple of these a week and will also add players as the Durham Bulls roster changes throughout the summer.  One of the more interesting players on this year's roster is Erik Bedard.  I have a feeling that his stay in Durham may be a short one, so we are going to go ahead and get him out of the way first. 

 

Bedard's rookie card was in the 2001 Bowman Draft set and he was a highly regarded prospect at the time of his cardboard debut.  His first full season in the Majors was 2004 with the Orioles.  He spent four years with the O's and his best season was easily 2007.  While Bedard's record was only 13-5, he posted an ERA right above 3.00 with more than 200 strikeouts and an ERA+ of 146.  The Orioles traded Bedard to the Mariners for Adam Jones and a few others.  

Bedard was a solid pitcher after his trade to the Mariners, but never duplicated his 2007 season.  He  ended up also spending time with the Red Sox, Pirates, and Astros.  This spring he auditioned for the fifth starters roll with the Rays, but lost the battle to former Bulls pitcher Jake Odorizzi.  Most thought Bedard would opt to go elsewhere, but after some foot dragging, ended up in Durham.  I would expect him to end up in Tampa sooner than later, or end up opting out of his Minor League contract at some point for opportunities elsewhere.  

Bedard has plenty of cards floating around and there are plenty of good pieces to add.  He has several different autographs and relics, not to mention the normal spattering of short prints, serial numbers, parallels, printing plates, etc.  The best Bedard card in my collection is a copy of his 2007 Bowman's best.  

 

At the time of this set's release this card was a pretty good pull.  In fact, I am pretty sure that I easily paid more than $10 for this card.  They can now be found for less than $5.  If I had to go out and buy a Bedard autograph this afternoon I would recommend a copy of his Bowman autograph from 2002.

 

The card is readily available, features a nice on-card autograph, and also is pretty cheap.  Here's the last one that sold on Ebay.  Less than $5 shipped.  Cannot beat that.  Bedard does have a Co-Signers autograph with Adam Jones, but I am not a big fan of Co-Signers autographs.  Especially when there is a significant gap in the talent level of the two players.  Not to poo poo on Bedard, but give me a nice Adam Jones autograph (by himself) anyday.  Bedard is scheduled to make his Bulls debut on Monday.  Looking forward to seeing him pitch a few times before the inevitable day of reckoning comes. 

Dodger Under The Radar

Card collectors are funny sometimes with young players.  I was looking at a Tim Beckham card earlier in the week, it was a 1/1, and was basically told that the card was going to be "a minimum of $100 cause he was the number one pick and all".  I like Tim Beckham.  He's a Rays prospect and was on the Durham Bulls for the past year and a half, but if the Rays could redraft he would not be the top pick in the draft.  Why do collectors hold on to silly notions about draft orders or think that the top prospect of certain teams (like the Brewers) hold any value? 

I take solace in the fact that for every $100 Tim Beckham card I run into I can always find a few equally underrated cards.  After passing on the Tim Beckham card I did manage to land a nice Joc Pederson card from the same collector.  It did not even cost me $10. 

The card comes from my favorite 2013 set Bowman Inception.  I am slowly working my way to owning all of the autographs from this set, slowly, but this was a big one in my book.  Sadly, it appears too few collectors know Joc Pederson.  Let me fill in some holes so you can buy one of his cards sooner, rather than later. 

Pederson one of the better power prospects in the game at the moment.  Baseball America rated him as the 50th best prospect in the game pre-2014.  Basically his power has increased every year he has played in the minors and last year he had a successful season playing at Double A.  In 2011, Joc split time between Rookie Ball and A Ball, but managed a .323/.407/.503 line with 33 extra base hits, 11 home runs, in roughly 80 games.  In 2012, Pederson played an entire year in the High A California League and posted a .313/.396/.516 line with 44 extra base hits and 18 home runs in 500 at-bats.  Last year was a slight fall playing in AA, but he was a 21 year old playing AA.  Not too shabby.  His line was .278/.381/.497 with 49 extra base hits and 22 home runs.  

The thing I like about Pederson is the fact that he hits for power, but also shows some patience and manages to draw walks and get on base.  His lowest OBP over the last three years was .381.  How many teams would take that with more than 20 home runs?  The only downfall for Joc Pederson appears to be the fact that the outfield is rather crowded right now for the Dodgers.  I cannot imagine that they will block a legit top prospect with Andre Either, but sometimes I do not get some of the moves the Dodgers make.  That's for a different post.  

For the moment, your assignment is to go out and find a few good Joc Pederson cards for your collection while they are still relatively cheap and inexpensive. 

Mail Day! Part 1

The amount of times I have used Mail Day during the past year is ridiculously low.  Plus, my alternative title for this post was "Smorgasbord of Cardboard".  Hands off that title by the way.  I will still use it at some point.  Anyway, I received a package of cards yesterday that was stuff full of five pretty nice cards.  Four autographs cards I targeted from a seller on Ebay and won.  Then there was another card that was just sitting there, so I bought it.  Cannot pass up certain cards which only cost $0.99.  So, here's my run down on my winnings.  Or Mail Day Part 1:

This was the original card that brought my attention to the seller I picked these cards off of on Ebay.  I have not added many Shelby Miller cards to the collection recently and have really been looking long and hard at some of his autographs from different Topps products last year.  I feel like I missed a bunch of them.  Anyway, I know that the green Finest cards are not necessarily the lowest print run in the set, but I really like the looks of the cards.  Further, the green copies of the Miller autograph consistently sell for more than $25 dollars.  There are several Buy It Now copies of this card still up on Ebay and they are all over $30.  I picked up my copy for a little bit less than $20.  Pretty hard to beat that price.  However, while I was picking up this card I managed to snag a few other autographs that were also missing from my collection.  Here's three more autographs:

If you are a regular reader you know that Archer is a personal favorite from the Durham Bulls and also a local talent from Clayton, North Carolina just outside of Raleigh.  Not his best autograph and there is a slight smudge on the A in Archer, but still a nice add to the collection for less than $5.  I will have to pick up a nicer copy of this card at some point, but happy to have this one for the price. 

Kyle Gibson is a former Mizzou standout and starred last season for the Rochester Red Wings in the International League.  While his Major League ERA was up over 6, his ERA in the minors was right around 3 with 7 wins.  Hopefully this year will be a little bit better for the former Tigers pitcher. 

I might be the only person without an autograph of Didi Gregorius.  He signs for everything and always seems to be the most frequent signer in every Topps product.  Not saying I love this card, but it's hard to say no to an autograph on this nice looking of a card limited to 125 copies.  $2 is a small price to pay for this card.  Although it was one dollar more than my cheapy throw-in card....

I am not sure the ARod card market has hit rock bottom, but it cannot be too far away when his relic cards have skated down to the equivalent of a dollar bin pickup.  I mean a Yankees relic with a pinstripe is always worth something?  Right?  Maybe Arod is going to prove me wrong.