Bulls Opening Day- Rain Delay

After a two and a half hour break we are getting ready to play.  Had fun talking to a couple of friends and eating some dinner.  

I had a chance to go check out the Bull Durham Brewery during the break.  I am not sure how many teams make their own craft beer setup in the stadium, but this is cool.  

I got to check out part of the Rays games while I was waiting.  The grounds crew is working on the field and the game is going to start in about ten minutes. 

Go Bulls!

Durham Bulls Opening Day

The Durham Bulls return home to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park after starting their 2015 season with six games on the road.  So far the Bulls are 3-3 on the new season under brand new manager Jared Sandberg.  Considering they have already had a few roster moves made this season, Mikie Mahtook and Allan Dykstra have been called up to Tampa, I am really happy with the early results.  

Tonight's Home Opener at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park should be fun.  The Bulls have made some great changes around the stadium off the field, along with some new players on the field, and I will share a few of the changes when I get to the stadium in a few hours.   The lineup is set, the tickets are printed, should be a fun summer.  Go Bulls!

The Bulls 2015 Opening Day lineup features four players who appeared for the Bulls prior to this season.  Vince Belnome returns for his third season in the Durham lineup and has been a fixture in the early going in the second spot in the lineup.  Curt Casali and Luke Maile, two catchers, also return.  Sandberg has been doing well at getting both players at bats and chances to catch as well.  Tonight Casali starts at catcher and Maile gets the nod at DH a night after hitting his first Triple A home run.  Ha Ju Lee also returns to the Bulls lineup.  The slick fielding short stop is hoping to find his touch at the plate.  He's had a slow start, but had a pair of hits against Charlotte last night.  

Marp Triple Threads

It's been a slow start to the 2015 card year, but I will have some Gypsy Queen to post later this week. I am hoping that it's as cool as it was last year.  In the meantime, I went ahead and found a card from last year's Triple Threads to fill in a hole in my collection.  Here's a look at the new card....

I found this card in a Cardinals trade room on Facebook and was happy to take it off of another collectors hands.  I picked up a few Matt Carpenter cards last summer, but missed out on one of these cards.  Carpenter is one of my favorite Cardinals players at the moment.

#MyCardMonday

While baseball has started up this week my two favorite teams, the Cardinals and Durham Bulls, are actually celebrating their Opening Day games this week.  Living 13 hours from St. Louis makes attending a Cardinals game a little bit tricky, but I am definitely going to the Bulls game Wednesday night.  Which got me thinking about my favorite Opening Day moment involving the Bulls.

There is a clear winner involving B.J. Upton.  Umm...Melvin.  Which makes this cool card this week's #MyCardMonday

The Opening Day involving Upton took place in 2006.  The Bulls were taking on the Toledo Mud Hens and were losing 4-1 in the 9th inning.  The team loaded the bases for B.J. and the rest is history.  I found the video clip on the Bulls MySpace page.  It still exists.  Sorry it's grainy.

BJ Upton's Grand Slam on Opening Night from Durham Bulls on Myspace.

Secret Weapon Bobblehead

I have a few things that I am going to work on catching up on with blogging this week.  There are times when things come in the mail and I just do not get around to scanning, or taking pictures, of the item.  A few weeks, or in this case, months later I remember that I have not put an item up on my blog.  I have had the last two weeks off of school and spent a little bit of time working on putting a new shelf up in my baseball card room.  I keep autographed balls and bobbleheads on my shelves.  This set of shelves was more a necessity than plans for future purchases.  After sanding and painting I hung the shelf up and started taking the bobbles out of the boxes.  First up was this one.....

The Cardinals gave away this bobble last September.  Oquendo currently works as the Cardinals third base coach where he has worked since 1999.   Jose also spent the vast majority of his playing career with the Cardinals and was dubbed "The Secret Weapon".  Basically he was always in the line up, but 1980s Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog played him all over the place.  Hence the shin guards on the bobble.

This is a pretty easy bobble to find on Ebay and not very expensive either.  There are dozens of them for sale for around $20, but if you are patient it's not hard to win the bidding on one for less.  I like looks of this bobble and love that they put the catchers stuff on him....

The back base of the bobble has the "Secret Weapon" nickname in black, kind of hard to see, and pictures Jose in his trademark number 11 jersey.  Here's a look at the sides of the Jose Oquendo bobble...

Overall this is a really cool bobblehead to add to the collection.  While Oquendo was not the best player on the 1980s/1990s Cardinals teams he was a unique talent and had some great moments wearing the birds on the bat.  Probably my favorite of all, when it comes to Jose, is his Game 7 three run home run against the Giants in the 1987 National League Championship Series which put the Cardinals in the World Series against the Twins.

Collecting the Durham Bulls: Scott Diamond

The Rays signed Scott Diamond to a contract just last week and sent him down to Durham.  Bulls fans might have seen Diamond previously with the Rochester Red Wings, Louisville Bats, or the Gwinnett Braves.  Diamond originally made it up to the Majors when the Twins made him a Rule 5 Draft Pick back in 2010.  After spending time with Rochester Diamond got 7 starts with the Twins in 2011.  He went 1-5 with a 5.08 ERA.  Not too great, but he bounced back strong in 2012.  He started 27 games that season and posted a 12-9 record with a 3.54 ERA.  His ERA+ was 116 and his walks per nine led the American League.

2013 was a step back for Diamond at 6-13 with a 5.43 ERA, 21 home runs allowed in 131 innings, and an ERA+ of 75.  He did end up back in the International League that year and had a fine 4-0 record with a 2.93 ERA.  Still the Twins ended up releasing the left handed starter who was then signed by the Reds making 2014 a split season between the Louisville Bats and Rochester.  Diamond went a combined 5-12 with a 6.57 ERA.  Not a great season.

The Rays are hoping that Diamond can regain his 2012 form with the Bulls.  Given the injuries that have struck the Rays pitching staff early this season, and some of the struggles that some of the young pitchers on the team have had, it wouldn't be surprising to see Diamond get a spot start for the Rays at some point in the year.

Cardwise Diamond has a lot of cardboard.  His rookie cards were in 2012 releases and can be found in Topps Update and Panini Prism.  The Panini card has an autographed variation to go along with all of the normal colors and different number parallels that can be found in that same.  Same for his rookie Topps Update card minus the autographed parallel.  Almost all of Diamond's rookie cards, including the Panini autograph, can be found for less than $5 shipped.

2013 is the prime year for Scott Diamond cards.  Diamond basically had an autograph in almost every major Topps product that year.  He was in the base Topps set, Gypsy Queen, Heritage, Tribute, Tier One, Turkey Red, and Allen & Ginter.  I picked up a Diamond autograph on the cheap awhile back, but the price has not really changed over the past few years.  Almost all of his signatures, brand does not matter, are all under $5.  You might have to pay some shipping that would bump some of those cards over $5, but still.....

I like the idea of having players like Diamond around.  He's got Major League experience and has won big in some of his previous Minor League stops.

Friday 5: Best 5 Sets from 1991

I love the 1991 baseball card sets and I had a hard time sitting on this post all week.  If you were not collecting that year and are looking for something fun and inexpensive to open any of these sets would be a great deal of fun to assemble.  Before I show off my Top 5 I am going to have to put up an Honorable Mention for this week for one of my most underrated sets of all time.  It's already had a post or two....

Honorable Mention- I have always loved the 1991 Bowman set.  I will go ahead and admit that I am slightly biased towards it, but it is a well deserved love.  The set has a lot of important rookie cards in it that are of no particular value, but they are a lot of fun to take out of the box and flip through.  Of course there is Jeromy Burnitz and his incredible follow through along with Jim Thome, Chipper, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Mussina, and Ivan Rodriguez.  Those guys are going to be prominent through out this post.

#5- Upper Deck Final Edition- This is a really tiny set that you can probably find for $1.00 on Ebay.  Sure there will be shipping, but they are seriously ridiculously cheap.  How many copies of this set did Upper Deck print?  I am going to guess many many thousands.  Anyway, it's Upper Deck's first stab at an "Update" set and it's not too good except two cards.  First, there is a Jim Thome rookie card in the set.  They also put in a Pedro Martinez rookie card.  Classic also had a Pedro rookie card in 1991, but the vast majority of the Pedro rookie cards appear in 1992 products.  Having a rookie card of one of the best pitchers from the era is a definite plus and makes this set worth owning.

#4- Fleer Ultra Update- The Ultra Update set is a lot like the Upper Deck Final Edition set, but with one huge difference.  It is actually a 1991 product with a somewhat limited print run.  Fleer distributed this product in set form and made it a Hobby only product.  I think it was a pretty crazy idea at the time, but it has seriously made this set more difficult to collect then others of this era.  While there are good rookie cards in the set of Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, and Jeff Bagwell there are also some other cards which have good value and collectability like the Juan Gonzalez card.  Second year card, but it's hot.  Why?  Not sure.

#3- Studio- This was a really unique set at the time of it's release.  While there were a lot of products that were trying to go high end with foil packaging and different card stocks Studio changed some of the basics of baseball cards.  Studio did that, but there were other changes too.  First, the pictures are black and white head shots.  Is there another set like this?  No.  Really unique.  Flip the card over and there are no stats.  Mark McGwire likes Whitney Houston.  Consider me shocked and disappointed at the same time.  Not the most expensive set, but a really fun product to open from packs.  Or just buy the set and enjoy the pictures.  Either way you're going to be happy.

#2- Topps- Always been a really underrated Topps set in my opinion.  There are not any really great cards in this set, nor Earth shattering design, but there is some really good photography here.  There are a lot of action shots and the staged shots are done really creatively.  Always loved that Benito Santiago card.  This is also the last Topps set before Topps started using thinner card stocks with progressively more and more gloss.  Kind of an end of era set and one that is fun to flip through and look at.  If you don't own this set it is cheap and fun to put together as boxes often sell for less than $10 on Ebay.

1991 Stadium Club- The Topps answer to Upper Deck and quite well done.  The photography was cool, the packs were foil, and the cards were glossy.  These cards also cost a dollar per pack pack in 1991, so they also match Upper Deck's SRP.  Lots of great cards in this set, so I went with the cool Nolan Ryan tuxedo card.  After it's 1991 debut Stadium Club was a staple of the Topps product line for more than a decade.  As a collector during the 1990s is was nearly impossible to not dabble in Stadium Club every year.  Like all of the rest of the products on this week's list you can find packs and boxes of Stadium Club for next to nothing on Ebay.  Fun boxes to open.