I found a really Chris Archer card a few days back on Ebay that seemed worthy of an add to the old collection. The Rays cards have been pretty limited in the early going of the 2015 card calendar, so adding new autographs and relics has been a rather difficult task over the past two or three months. However, I really liked this Archer autograph in spite of the fact that it is a sticker autograph. The two patch pieces on the side are not huge, but both are multi-color. I really like the light blue patch piece on the bottom. I am not sure I have many light blue jersey pieces from the Rays. Cool story, back to school work....
What's the big news in baseball today? Long time Snorting Bull favorite Carlos Rodon is getting called up to the White Sox. While I am sure that it will probably have a little less fanfare than the Bryant promotion, in my opinion Rodon is going to be a fantastic player for a long time. The former NC State player was taken by the White Sox third overall in last summer's amateur draft in June. He has quickly moved through their system and looks like he is going to start out his Major League career in their bullpen. We'll see how long that lasts.....
Which brings us to #MyCardMonday
There are a bunch of different Rodon autographs out floating around, but my favorite autograph of the left handed pitcher is probably the first one I picked up of him a few years back. This card is out of the Playoff Prime Cuts set and features Rodon in his USA Baseball uniform. He actually has several different autographs and relic cards in this set, but this is my easily my favorite card. The price of the Rodon cards has fluctuated over the past three years, but there are plenty of Rodon autographs floating around out there.
I made a pair of posts from the Durham Bulls Opening Night on Wednesday and wanted to take a little bit of time to give a run down and a few final thoughts on the evening and the upcoming season for my local rooting interest. I love going to Bulls games and it was rough having the team start their season out of town while I had two and half weeks off of school for my spring intercession. I had a few parent conferences during the afternoon Thursday, but was excited to go to Durham and check out the 2015 version of the Bulls along with all the fixings of the Durham Athletic Park.
Let's start out with a three cool things I saw around the stadium......
Around The Stadium
1. Craft Beer- There is a double staircase that leads from the front gate of the stadium up to the seating areas of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. For years the space in between the two staircases was a club area for season ticket holders. It was also briefly a second team store. This year the space is home to the Bull Durham Beer Company which is the Durham Bulls entry into the craft beer world. You can walk through the space and check out the different beers that they are brewing. When it gets a little bit warmer outside I will have a glass and let you know how it tastes. North Carolina has a great craft beer scene, so I am guessing that this is going to be something good. I know a few people that are really excited about this addition to the park.
2. New Food- The Bulls are doing their own catering this year and also have a few new food vendors in the stadium. It was a cold rainy night so I tried a bratwurst which was different from the normal ballpark brat. It had some southwest flavoring and a little bit of kick. Nothing obnoxious, but again not the norm. I am also excited about the addition of Rise Donuts in the ballpark. Rise is a local restaurant in Durham that makes a good donut, great biscuit, and loads of other good food. If you are a local and are ever near Southpoint Mall in Durham it's worth your time.
3. Baseball cards. The older team sets are only $4.50 in the team store. I bought a set of the International League Prospects from last year. That's another post, but if you are missing any of the old sets now would be a good time to fill in some of the holes.
The Team
We are two weeks into the baseball season and the Bulls have had several different players called up to the Rays already. Allan Dykstra, Mikie Mahtook, C.J. Riefenhauser among others have already made a trip or two in between Tampa and Durham. I still like the players that are on the team and think things will settle down as players like James Loney, Alex Colome, and Alex Cobb return from injury. I think my favorite player at the moment might be Joey Butler......
The right handed hitting veteran has spent time with the Rangers and Cardinals and I had heard good things about his bat before the season. He seems to have some pop and I think he is going to be fun to watch this summer. Although Mahtook got sent back down yesterday, but he did manage to hit his first Major League home run Thursday night while I was at the game.....
If you are planning on attending a Bulls game I would also recommend checking out Hak Ju Lee on defense and also Taylor Motter. I am not sure what kind of player Motter is going to be quite yet, but he showed some good pop last year in Double A Montgomery and definitely has that grit factor.
The Game
Like I mentioned earlier it was a rainy night in Durham. When I arrived at the Durham Athletic Park the field was covered and it was pretty clear that the game was not going to start at the announced start time of 6:10. The delay gave me two hours to check out the new additions to the stadium, the food, and also gave me a chance to catch up with a couple of friends who were also at the game.
The grounds crew did a great job with the field, and after some consulting with new manager Jared Sandberg, the tarp was pulled and the preparation for the game got started......
The game ended up not being too close as Everett Teaford was not really fooling many of the batters on Norfolk who made solid contact against the left handed pitcher with some frequency at the beginning of the game. The big hit in the first frame was a Chris Parmelee home run to right field that was just crushed.
Teaford ended up giving up 6 earned runs in his 4 innings of work, but the Bulls difficulties were compounded by the fact that their bats were silent against Norfolk hurler Mike Wright. In all the Bulls managed just four hits.
In spite of the loss of the Bulls loss, and the two hour rain delay, it was great to get back to the ballpark to see the Bulls. I always feel like Opening Night is like a holiday and in my book is right up there with opening Christmas presents and having a piece of turkey on Thanksgiving. I am glad to have my summer friend back. Let's hope it is a good year for the Bulls.
I am way behind on blogging this week, so I am getting around to my Friday Five post for this week a little bit later than I really wanted. Better late than never. This week I am looking at my favorite five baseball card sets from 1992. There are some good ones here, so if you have not dabbled in these card sets they are all easy to find and pretty affordable.
In no particular order, here are the 1992 sets......
1992 Fleer Ultra- I put the Ultra Update set on my Friday Five last week and stated that it was intended to be the Fleer answer to Upper Deck and Stadium Club. I am not really sure that most collectors considered the 1991 set a "premium" product, but the 1992 set definitely had the feel and look of those two established products. While the rookie cards are not that great, think Rod Beck, there are some other really cool cards in this set to chase down outside of picking up a copy of the base set. Fleer also put in an insert set of Tony Gwynn cards, Award Winners, Ultra All-Stars, and All-Rookies. Note Cardinals fans: The All-Rookies set includes Donovan Osborne.
The other highlight of this set is the 2000 Tony Gwynn autographs that were inserted into packs. The cards are not obviously too hard to find, due to the number of cards signed, but the cards can be quite pricy. There are ten different versions of the autograph (they used the Tony Gwynn insert set cards), but I am not sure if there is a premium on any of the versions....
1992 Topps- The 1992 Topps set was kind of the end of an era for Topps. First, the cards were printed on white cardstock. The cards had cleaner edges and corners, but something seems a little bit off with these cards when compared to the Topps sets from the 1980s and early 1990s. The 1992 set was also the last Topps made with a single series. Topps also introduced the Topps Gold card in the 1992 season.
1992 Pinnacle- Every card company made the leap into "premium" cardboard at some point in the early 1990s. The Pinnacle brand was Score's feature into that card market. If I had to rank these sets this week this could easily end up near the top of the list. The set has rookie cards of Manny Ramirez, Jeff Kent, and Snorting Bull favorite Brian Jordan. Pinnacle also had even more anti-fraud gizmos than Upper Deck. Bar codes on the card could be unscrambled to spell out Pinnacle...I am not sure why someone would want to counterfeit these cards......Seriously, the black edges of the cards make finding nice copies of these cards really difficult. The high grades on these cards have a low population, so nice raw copies can sell well depending on the card. See Manny Ramirez.
1992 Bowman- Rivera, Manny, Piazza, Trevor Hoffman, and Carlos Delgado all have rookie cards in this product. What do most people think of when they hear the brand name of Bowman? Rookie Cards. While the 1992 Topps set started moving the flagship brand away from their traditional base set, the Bowman cards were coming into their own. Over time the size and design of the Bowman set has changed, but this was the first year that the product really focused in on young players. On top of having the set focus on young players, which worked well in 1991, the 1992 set was printed on the same card stock as the Stadium Club set and also featured the popular foil short prints. If you had to own one 1992 set it should be this one. However, this set is the one product on this list that is not necessarily a cheap buy.
1992 Stadium Club Dome- This set is worth buying just for all of the cool pictures of Major League Baseball players wearing high school uniforms or paisley shorts. All sorts of good early 90s fashion statements in here. Originally packaged as a 1991 product, the set is generally recognized as a 1992 product by collectors. Probably because the set was released in March of 1992 after the 1992 Stadium Club set had been released. This product was sold as a set and packaged in a thin plastic model of the SkyDome. This set is really inexpensive and totally worth it. See Manny Ramirez in front of Duke Chapel.
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.
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.
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.
