Marcell, Marcell

I set out this spring to find some Marcell Ozuna cards.  At the time I started, I made a post with a few of his Marlins cards that I had picked up after his trade to the Cardinals.  The rest of this summer I was quiet with Ozuna cards until last month when I found a copy of his Topps Tek autograph from this year's set.  

The lack of new Marcell cards had more to do with his disappointing performance on the field and less to do with the cost or availability of his cards.  Now that the season is over, I feel like there are many Cardinals fans who are over Marcell in many ways,  especially now that the team has traded for Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.  

Plenty of Marcell Ozuna cards around now.  Reasonable prices too.  I picked up two of them.  

First up is a 1983 style insert card from this year's Topps set.  There are a few of these from Series 2 and Update products that were sticker autographs.  Luckily, Marcell was an on-card autograph.  The 1983 Topps were some of the first baseball cards in my collection, so I have really enjoyed finding these cards this year.  I do not have all of the Cardinals autographs, nor all the former Durham Bulls, but I am getting close.  Probably won't finish.  

Last one.  

This is my second Triple Threads card of the year.  I also picked up a Blake Snell.  Pretty typical design for this product, but I had not noticed the gold foiling on the other card.  It has a little sharper contrast with the red jersey swatch and the coloring around the action shot of Ozuna.  I am not much into relic pieces anymore, but the red piece has to come from a batting practice jersey.  

The disclaimer on the relic pieces nowadays.  It's still a nice looking autographed card, good addition to the collection, and a good 2019 out of Marcell would make these two cards even better.  

1990 Durham Bulls Team Set - Part 1

I have been trying to circle back and do some posts on some of the older Durham Bulls team sets that I have been able to find over the years. They have had pretty good success with the level of talent that has passed through town, so almost every Bulls team set that I have in my collection has some recognizable names in there. 

Players who are just strictly Minor Leaguers can be fun too.  Some have good stories, or in the case of this set, stories to follow up on.

For the 1990 set, I am going to split it up into three different posts.  It's a thirty card set, same size as some of the others, but it's a little busy at the moment and blogging is my chill time at night.  I cannot spend my entire day writing.

Let's go.

The first card in the set is the team picture.  I like this look a lot better than just some filler front cards with a checklist.  That happens frequently with Minor League sets, especially with some of the older sets from the 1980s and 1990s.  The Bulls were still playing at the Durham Athletic Park at this point, same stadium as Bull Durham.  The park is now used for a variety of different events, including the home field for the North Carolina Central Eagles.  Not a high level of college baseball, still always good to get to a game there at least once a year.  

Rather than a checklist, the back of the card simply has the players identified from the team picture on the front of the card.  

There are a few players in the team picture who do not appear in the team set, so I guess this is a nice way to squeeze a few more team members onto a card.  Like many of the 1980s and 1990s Bulls team sets, this is sponsored by the Herald-Sun.  There are a few years where there are two different Bulls sets, the Herald-Sun always marked the line between official and cheap mass produced Minor League set from some company like STAR. 

Let's look at some players.

First player card in the set is a former Major Leaguer, also Kevin Mitchell's cousin.  Keith Mitchell appeared in the Majors for four different teams: Braves, Mariners, Reds, and Red Sox, all though he only appeared in 128 games and had slightly less than 300 plate appearances.  His last appearance in the Majors was with the Red Sox in 1998.  Mitchell left the U.S. for awhile and played in both Korea and Mexico.  Eventually he returned to the states and made a comeback attempt with the Reds in 2003.  A .192 batting average in Triple A, along with 16 strikeouts in just 52 at bats probably do a lot to explain why it was a short lived experiment.

Not great numbers in the years before he got to Durham, but he did really well with the Bulls in 1990.  He hit .294/.411/.388 with 18 stolen bases.  Good enough that he was in Triple A the next season and got 48 games in with the Braves by the end of the summer.    

Champion was picked by the Braves in the 2nd Round of the 1986 MLB Draft.  In 1990, he was playing with the Bulls in A Ball.  Not a really fast climber.  Still, he had a decent year with the Bulls and got promoted to Double Greenville later in the season.  

He played the following season in Double A and then left professional baseball.  His 1991 was not the best, still a little surprised that it ended his career.  Champion was still just 23.  Perhaps an injury, or maybe he really did just walk away.  Hard to tell.

Deak was drafted with the Braves third round pick in 1986, their next selection after they picked Brian Champion.  This was the catcher's second season with the Bulls.  He did not hit very much, but he still got promoted to Double A.  Deak did walk a lot.  His career Minor League on-base percentage was .386, there were several years where he was over .400.  

Deak played in the Minors for awhile.  He made it to Triple A in 1992 and got chances at that level with the Braves, Mariners, Padres, and Cardinals.  Always room for a good catcher.  Deak never made it to the Majors though,  

The Braves signed Ken Harring as an amateur free agent out of LeMoyne College.  It's a small Jesuit school in Syracuse, New York.  He had a great first summer in the Braves organization at Idaho Falls in the Pioneer League.  His summer with the Bulls was not so great.  It was his last in professional baseball.  

Although it did not work out in professional baseball, Harring has done very well for himself in coaching at the college level.  He has had a few different stops along the way, but has had a long and successful stay at UMass-Lowell where he has coached baseball since 2005.  Seems like a nice program, they share a stadium with the Lowell Spinners, a Red Sox Minor League team.  Harring should pass the 400 win mark at some point next season.  

Castleberry was apart of some good teams during his college career at Oklahoma.  During his senior year at OU, he hit over .300, lead the team to an impressive 18-6 record in the Big 8, and helped get the Sooners into the college baseball tournament.  Braves used their third round pick in 1989 to draft the infielder.  His summer in Durham was not his best, but the Braves ended up using him in a trade the following summer to land Danny Heep for their bench from the White Sox.  

Castleberry had a long career in the Minors.  10 years in all, he spent time with the Braves, White Sox, Brewers, Expos, Rangers, and Cubs.  While Castleberry never reached the Majors, he played several of his later season in Triple A and probably played well enough to deserve a chance at a Major League roster.  For example, in 1995 he had a .294/.368/.404 slash line with the Expos Triple A team, but never received a promotion.  

Another former Major League player.  Mordecai had a long Major League career with the Braves, Expos, and Marlins as an infielder.  He mainly used as a utility player for those teams.  Mordecai won the World Series twice as a Major Leaguer.  He was on the 1995 Braves and the 2003 Marlins.  Mordecai also appeared in the 1996 World Series as a Brave, but the Yankees won that year.  As for his time with the Bulls, this was the first of two years that Mordecai played in Durham.  

Mordecai his .280/.379/.406 for the 1990 Braves and spent the first half of 1991 with the Bulls before he was promoted to Double A.  He reached the Majors during the 1994 season appearing in just 4 games, but played in Atlanta full time in 1995.  

According to Baseball-Reference this is Don Campbell. He was a Braves draft pick out of Texas Southern in 1988.  Campbell had a great first summer with the Braves Rookie League team in Idaho Falls.  He had a rough year with the Bulls in 1990.  For whatever reason, he did not play professional baseball in 1991.  

During the 1992 season, he briefly appeared in the Minors for the Cardinals A Ball team in St. Petersburg.  Campbell only played in 22 games and was back out of professional baseball.  

Czarnik had a short Minor League career, but he still made it all the way up to the Richmond Braves in Triple A.  He spent the 1988 and 1989 seasons in the Pioneer League and Midwest Leagues, and earned a promotion to the Bulls to start out 1990.  Czarnik's time with the Bulls was the high point of his professional baseball career.  In 17 games for the Bulls he posted a 5-1 record with a 1.15 ERA.  In 17 games, Czarnik only allowed two home runs and had a WHIP of 0.91.  Pretty impressive.  

He went on to pitch some games in Double A with the Greenville Braves before closing out the season with the Richmond Braves.  For whatever reason, the 1990 season was his final one in professional baseball.

A side note about Czarnik.  Apparently he threw a no-hitter for the Bulls during the summer of 1990.  There are several places that make reference to the game, it is included as part of his baseball bio a few different places, yet the game appears to have gone 14 innings and shows the Bulls losing 3-2.  If I ever find out more about the no-hitter, I will run a follow up post.

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Marcos Vazquez appeared for the Bulls during three different season.  Overall, he went 12-2 pitching for Durham.  Vazquez never reached the Majors, but did pitch 9 seasons in the Minors ranging from Rookie Ball all the way up to Triple A.  Amazingly, for a guy who played in the Minors for a long time, he only pitched in the Braves and the Reds Minor League systems.  

His overall record in the Minors was 70-58 with an ERA of 3.72.  Vazquez had four different seasons where he reached double digit wins, which can be a tough thing to do in the Minors.

More 1990s Bulls cards later in the week. 

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 56 - Joe Magrane

The beginning of Joe Magrane's career with the Cardinals was more successful than many baseball fans remember.  He started the seventh game of a World Series, won an ERA title, led the National League with a 161 ERA+, had a top 5 Cy Young Award finish, and nearly led the NL in wins one season too. 

That was just his first three seasons.  

The Cardinals selected Joe Magrane in the first round of the 1985 MLB Draft with the eighteenth overall pick out of the University of Arizona.  He quickly made his way through the Minors in a year and a half, making his Major League debut with the 1987 Cardinals.  As described above, his first three years in the Majors were great.  Everything you could hope to get out of a first round draft pick and more.  

If you look through a stack of Joe Magrane baseball cards you will probably notice that half of his cards are all-star cards and the whatnot from 1990.  Magrane was a serious contender for the Cy Young in 1989 and probably should have led the League in wins.  

He had a Diamond Kings card.  

I should have prefaced the statements above by saying that he was all of those things, Cy Young contender, before the month of September.  The Cardinals finished that month below .500 and probably cost Magrane all of those individual awards.  It was brutal.  

Here's another card commemorating 1989.  

During the months of July and August Magrane went 11-1 and entered September with a 18-7 record.  He started six games during September and he walked away with an 0-2 record for the month.  Magrane's last two starts of 1989 were a seven innings of shutout pitching, five strikeout, but a no decision to the Phillies.  His last start was a seven inning, one run allowed loss to the Pirates.  So, that's 15 innings with 1 earned run and he recorded a loss out of those two games.  Just terrible.  

This was the season that the Cy Young Award was given to Padres reliever Mark Davis.  Sigh.  

Magrane still got all of these All-Star cards out of it.  

So, this is a 1990s Cardinals post, so we should move on and talk about something outside of Magrane's 1989 season.  To start the 1990 season, Magrane went 0-6.  The Cardinals were terrible that season, but it's not like they let him down.  Magrane was really mediocre.  You put mediocre on a last place team and you get a 10-17 record.  

Towards the end of the 1990 season he hurt his elbow and lost nearly two years.  All of the 1991 season and most of the 1992 season.  The Cardinals brought him back in September of 1992, sort of a late season, in-season, addition to the club.  He did not pitch well.  

Magrane still got a few cards during these years.  

Like all early 1990s players, one of the best places to find some good cards is in the Stadium Club sets.  Magrane has a bunch of studio style pictures on his 1992 and 1993 cards from this product.  I really prefer his 1991 card, which shows him pitching in a game.  

His 1992 Topps card is similar, but with more action.  

Back to his career.  

The Cardinals kept Magrane around for the first half of the 1993 season, but eventually released him.  Magrane ended up signing with the Angels where he played out the 1993 and 1994 seasons.  The Angels cut him towards the beginning of the 1995 season, after which he bounced around the league for a year signing with the Cubs, Expos, and White Sox.  

The White Sox were the only team that ran him out there to pitch a few games.  It did not go well, but he did get an autograph in Leaf Signature, who didn't, for appearing in a dozen or so games.  

While his career on the baseball field did not really go as planned, Magrane has made a nice name for himself around sports as a broadcaster.  He has worked for the Rays as a play-by-play announcer, NBC during the 2008 Olympics, but more recently has worked as a commentator on MLB Network.  

Not the most notable Cardinals from the 1990s, but still a memorable player.  Especially for his efforts during the 1989 season.  

Brewers' Best

Last night I wrote about a Durham Bulls player.  That happens often in this blog space.  Sometimes, I feel like I really neglect the rest of the great baseball that is played in my little corner of the world.  There is not a Major League baseball team in the state of North Carolina, but within an hour of my house I can get to:  

• Five Different Minor League parks: Durham, Zebulon (Carolina Mudcats), Fayetteville, Burlington, and Greensboro.  Kinston is just over an hour.   
• Three ACC baseball teams that are frequently ranked in the top 25: UNC, NC State, and Duke 
• The ACC Baseball Tournament is frequently held in Durham 
• The USA Baseball program is 10 minutes from my front door

I have often thought about finding more time and space to write about these teams and players.  I will be a little proactive about the matter and write about a former Carolina Mudcat tonight.  The team plays about forty minutes away from my house headed towards the coast from Raleigh.  In the decade plus that I have lived in North Carolina, the team has cycled through a few different affiliations.  The past two years, the Mudcats have been the Milwaukee Brewers team in the Carolina League.  

Last year the Mudcats best player was Keston Hiura.  I'd argue that he's also the Brewers' best prospect.  The second baseman was a first round draft pick out of UC Irvine back in 2017.  While he was there he played for the College National team as a part of the USA Baseball program, so I had seen him before he was in the Minors.  

Very good player.  

Hiura passing through town twice has sort of outweighed the fact that he is on the Brewers.  Easily one of the best prospects to pass through the area in the past few years.  

He's a top 50 prospect and you can buy his autographs for between $5 and $10.  Keston Hiura has actually hit while he has been in the Minors too.  Some of his autographs are actually quite pricy, but if you're like me, you just want to own an autograph of a good player, there is nothing wrong with finding something like this Bowman Tek card.  

The design on Bowman Tek cards this year is a lot better than Topps Tek in my opinion.  There is still something goofy behind the player picture, but it's geometric and fits into the overall appearance of the card well.  The diagonal name plate looks pretty nice too.  

Project Durham Bulls #44 - Doug Rader

1965 Durham Bulls 

Background-
I do enjoy finding cards of the Durham Bulls players that I have watched over the past ten years plus that I have lived around Durham and Raleigh.  However, the Durham Bulls are one of the longest running Minor League teams around and have a long history with many great players.  I love finding some of the older players, especially the ones that I do not know a lot about, and taking time to find out more about their careers.  While I was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s, I knew Doug Rader as a manager, but I did not know a thing about him as a player until I moved to North Carolina.
The Astros signed Doug Rader as an amateur free agent out of Illinois Wesleyan University in 1965.  He was sent to start his professional baseball career with the team's Carolina League affiliate in Durham.  Rader ended up playing 112 games for the Bulls and hit .209/.307/.385 with 14 home runs, 14 doubles, and 38 RBIs.  Not a great line, but he still ended up getting promoted to Double A the following season.  Rader made his Major League debut in 1967.  He played 11 years, mainly with the Astros, but he also appeared in games for the Padres and Blue Jays.  In all, Rader had 1,300 hits, 155 home runs, more than 700 RBIs, and an impressive 5 Gold Gloves.

After retiring, Doug Rader went into coaching and managing.  He managed the Rangers during the 1983, 1984, and part of the 1985 season.  In 1986, the White Sox used him to manage the team for two games after management fired Tony LaRussa in the middle of the season.  Rader also managed the Angels for three seasons in the early 1990s.  He worked as a hitting coach with the Marlins for the franchise's first two seasons, but retired after the 1994 season.  To the best of my knowledge, he has not worked in baseball since that job.

Card- 
I am really happy with this card.  Like really happy.  The Greats of the Games autographs have always been one of the great products of the late 1990s and early 2000s.  By the time that the mid 2000s rolled around, I am not sure that the many collectors would describe the product as great.  I still think it was a nice set, definitely a step back though.  This Rader card is a far cry from the 1999 or 2000 sets, but there is still plenty to like.

First, the Nickname cards were always a staple in the Donruss Signature set.  Fleer never used nickname cards even though the products were rivals of sorts.  Fleer went with the nicknames in this set.  Yes, they are sticker autographs, but Fleer also picked some unique players.  Besides, the Donruss Signature Set had also turned to sticker autographs too.  I have another one of these cards of Tom Henke "The Terminator", who never appeared in any other autograph product.  Rader also only appears in this set as a signer.  Really unique cards to own.

Rader was a redhead and earned the nickname "Red Rooster" based on the way that his hair stuck out of his hat.  In some ways, I wish that I had a simple card with a regular Doug Rader signature.  However, if you only have one choice of card for a player, this is a pretty sweet card and a really good addition to my collection of Durham Bulls cards.  

High Tek Iron Man

I really like the Topps Tek cards, but I do not really like the fact that boxes/packs of the cards cost $100.  You do get 40 cards, which is better than some of the box/pack products.  Still not something I would normally touch.  On the other hand, I do like buying the single cards from these products after someone else has gone ahead and spent the $100 to open up the cards.  

The week of Thanksgiving I had a little extra time and managed to sell a few extra cards that were occupying space in my card closet.  Rather than dedicating the earnings to something that was on a checklist waiting to get crossed off, I decided to go out and find the best card I could using the money I had just earned.  

Right around $40.  I think I did alright.  

For less than half the cost for a box of Topps Tek, I landed one of the better autographs that I could have pulled out of a box.  I know, Cal Ripken does not pop up on this blog very often, but I still like him as a baseball player.  One of the likable stars of the game from my younger years.  I would actually like to think that his pursuit of Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak helped baseball recover after the player's strike in 1994.   

It's an on card autograph and has a very nice signature from the Hall of Fame infielder.  Love the looks of this card.  

I did end up with a second card.  It came from the same seller.  I had a little extra money after bidding on the Ripken card, so why not.  

Do I have a Brian Dozier autograph?  No.  He had a down year in 2018 and ended up getting traded to the Dodgers late in the season.  He's currently a free agent, so no team at the moment.  For a dollar or two, this is a nice card of a second baseman who has had a few 30 and 40 home run seasons.

Really, the important thing is that I got a Cal Ripken autograph.

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 55 - Rex Hudler

Not the most talented member of the 1990s Cardinals, but he was really popular with fans.  Rex Hudler was gritty and always hustled.  He originally came up with the Yankees after they selected him in the first round of the 1978 MLB Draft.  He stopped over with the Orioles, before he ended up on the Expos where he got some regular playing time.  He has a baseball card as a Yankee in the 1985 Donruss set, but I remember him more as a member of the Expos in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

He had a run in with Ozzie Smith while he was on the Expos, which was sort of the first time that I really paid attention to him.  I do not remember all of the details, having trouble tracking specifics, other than they had some "differences" about Hudler sliding into second base.  

The Cardinals traded for Hudler one month into the 1990 season in exchange for reliever John Costello.  The infield was a little crowded, but with loads of underachievers on the roster, the Cardinals found him playing time in the outfield and a few places on the infield.  

His versatility was nice, but Cardinals fans loved his hustle.  

 

Hudler, known as "Wonder Dog" ended up playing for the Cardinals through the 1992 season.  He spent the last few years of his career with the Angels and Phillies before he retired from the game after the 1998 season.

Let's look at some cards.  My favorite Rex Hudler card in a Cardinals uniform is his 1991 Stadium Club card.  Just a great looking photograph.

Good picture of Hudler wearing a first baseman's mitt.  Not sure about the glove, but I also like the look at the old Busch Stadium in the background.  Definitely nice that the Cardinals have a new stadium, but I miss seeing the old Busch.  I also like that Hudler is wearing the old polyester uniform.  The team last wore these uniforms in 1991, before ditching them for a button up jersey.

Some more cards.  

His 1991 Topps card is another favorite.  Sort of looks like there is dirt floating around behind the base, which itself if filthy.  If only Rex Hudler's jersey was a little dirtier.  Great looking picture out of a set with a lot of great photography.

A few more.

I am not sure I have done a Donruss Triple Play card in all of these 1990s Cardinals posts.  They were kid friendly, cheap, and they sort of looked like those Sports Illustrated for Kids cards that come for free in the magazine.  Nice card.  

Cards with a nearly identical picture.  

Way to put the effort in Fleer.

That's about it for Rex Hudler.  He has moved into broadcasting since his retirement from baseball and is currently working for the Royals.  Still sort of a personality of television, worth a few minutes of your time on a night when your team is playing poorly.

He is best known for "Hudisms".  They are like Shannonisms if you are a Cardinals fan.  They include things like "Chris Young is tall" or "Solo home runs don't hurt you" or "You can't sweep a double header unless you win the first one".  I guess these are all true.