They're Here.

I shared a Kent Merker card from an old Durham Bulls set earlier in the week.  It was from the 1997 BellSouth Bulls to Braves set, which I have been trying to track down forever with little luck.  For whatever reason, someone listed half the set on Ebay earlier in the week.  I made an offer, it got accepted, and now the cards are here.  Definitely some positive feedback for shipping.  

I am pretty excited.  

There are a few cards here that are duplicates, but there are also cards here that I have never even seen before the Ebay listing, like Chipper Jones.  

Here is a look at the set. 

The checklist has the 9 players included in this half of the set, but also a brief description about the player selection.  One thing that I really like about the Bulls to Braves set was that they included players who great while they were in Durham.  It would be really easy, especially with a long running Minor League team, to just throw together 10 players who were good in the Majors.  Love that we get cards of Dennis Burlingame and Melvin Nieves who made their mark with the Bulls for various reasons.   

Player cards.  

Good career with the Braves and Padres.  Ryan Klesko had cool sideburns and liked surfing.  

Avery was toast as a Major League player when this set was released.  The Braves had let him walk as a free agent where he ended up signed with the Red Sox.  If you talk to people who watched the Bulls in the 1980s and 1990s, he was apparently absolutely incredible in the Minors.  Scary that he was 18, fresh out of high school, and was that dominate right away.  How do you lose 4 games with an ERA of 1.45?  I know the answer, I am just saying. 

Burlingame is sort of a local legend with the Opening Day perfect game.  He was on the same team as Steve Avery, only his ERA was even lower at 0.50 in 11 starts.  He was a top 50 prospect as a teenager, but as the card says, his career was ruined by injuries.  

Turned out to be a pretty good player.  

Hit 300 home runs, and was not happy that the Oakland A's had a soda machine that changed players $1 for can of Coke.  

Maybe skip this one if you're a Padres fan.  

Melvin had a career year in 1992, which included time with the Bulls.  I have run into the occasional Padres fan who will use unkind words about Melvin, but I have met more Braves fans who are really grateful that he played so well in A Ball.  As the card states, Melvin was traded for Fred McGriff.  Melvin made it to the Majors, played a few years with the Padres, Tigers, and Reds.  

Another really good Major League player.  He killed my Cardinals during the 1996 NLCS.  They could not get him out.  He hit .542 with 7 extra base hits (2 home runs, 5 doubles) in 7 games.  

Second time this week I have posted a copy of this card.  Great Minor Leaguer, solid Major Leaguer.  

Good Minor Leaguer.  Decent outfielder for the Pirates during the 1990s.  Although, Harry Carey once compared an Al Martin home run against the Cubs to Babe Ruth hitting home runs.  There is even video. 

1989 Durham Bulls Part 2

This is the second half of my 1989 Durham Bulls set, which was put out by Star.  The first half of the set can be found here.

I said it would be a week before I posted the second half of the set in the original post, it turned out to be a month.  Close enough. 

I did not do much information on the 1989 Bulls outside of the baseball cards during my first post, so a little more on their performance before we tackle the second half of the team.  During the regular season, this was the best team in the Carolina League, finishing 7 games ahead of the Kinston Indians in the Southern Division.  The Bulls reached the Carolina League Championship, but fell to the Prince William Cannons (Yankees) in the finals.

Manager Grady Little took home the Carolina League Manager of The Year.  Phil Plantier, a Red Sox prospect at this point, took home the League MVP with a pretty ridiculous stat line.

On with the cards.

A pretty good set of cards opens the second half of the set, let's start with Ken Pennington.  This was his second season with the Bulls and he put up a respectable .275/.323/.413 slash line with 10 home runs and 34 doubles.  He led the Carolina League in doubles.  

Neid was a good prospect for the Braves and ended up being the first draft pick in the 1993 Expansion Draft by the Rockies.  However, 1989 was not his finest moment.  Neid went 5-2 in 12 starts, seems good, until you look his 6.63 ERA.  That's 43 earned runs in 58 innings.  I guess the Bulls hit when he pitched.  

Last up is Al Martin.  I best remember him as a Pirate, but he was also the fourth outfielder on the 2001 Mariners team that won 116 games.  Easily had the best career of any position player on the 1989 Durham Bulls who reached the Majors.  

Stoker and Ross were solid players for the Bulls, neither reached the Majors, but they did well in Durham.  Ross hit 11 home runs, 24 doubles, and stole 22 bases.  He was in the Braves farm system until 1992 when he was traded to the Red Sox for Jeff Reardon.  Stoker won 8 games for the Bulls with an ERA in the mid 4s.  Solid, but this was his last year in the professional baseball.

Ben Rivera pitched a few seasons for the Phillies.  That included 13 wins for the 1993 Phillies National League Championship team.  He also pitched in Japan, Korea, and Mexico.

Tomberlin was probably the best player on this team during the 1989 season.  He hit 16 home runs, drove in 61 runs, and also managed to steal 35 bases.  He made his Major League debut with the 1993 Pirates and ended up playing a total of 6 seasons.  Tomberlin played for a total of five different teams during his 6 seasons:  Pirates, Red Sox, A's, Mets, and Tigers.  He was a career .233 hitter, but he made it.

Theron Todd played three years in Durham, 1989 was his second.  His first season with the Bulls was his best, but he could not duplicate again and ended his career in A Ball.

Tilmon won 11 games for the Bulls in 1989.  One of his best seasons as a professional, but not his best.  He ended up playing for a long time in the Northern League, which is independent Minor League ball.

Last two players.  Ziem and Turner were both very good for the Bulls and both made it to the Majors.  Ziem was a perfect 9-0 in Durham in 1989.  The team used several different players in the closer role, Ziem was amongst the pitchers who held that role during the season.  He reached the Majors in 1987 with the Braves, pitched in 2 games, and ended up all the way back down in Durham.  Not sure if that was because of an injury?

Turner went 9-9 for the Bulls in 1989, but had almost a strikeout per inning and an ERA of 2.90.  He was traded to the Astros for Jim Clancy in 1991, but made it the Majors when he signed with the expansion Florida Marlins during December of 1992.  The Marlins used him in 55 games where he pitched 68 innings.  Turner had an ERA+ of 147 and a 2.0 WAR.  Not bad.  He ended his career with a few games with the 1994 Cleveland Indians.  

Which brings me to the coaches.  

First, we have long time Cardinals pitcher Larry Jaster.  He pitched on the 1967 World Championship team and the 1968 National League Championship team.  Jaster was a role player on those teams.  Perhaps his best known accomplishment was being the first player to throw a pitch in a Major League game in Canada.  

Incocencio Guerrero was a player on the 1988 Durham Bulls.  He was a long time Braves farmhand who played a total of 10 years in their system.  He also appeared for the 1982 and 1983 Bulls teams.  Not sure of exactly sure of all the details, but Guerrero stuck with coaching for awhile.  In looking up some of his other cards, he has plenty as a coach.  

Little managed the Red Sox for two years in 2002 and 2003, later the Dodgers in 2006 and 2007.  Before those two Major League managing gigs, he spent a lot of time in Durham.  He managed the Bulls from 1988 through 1991, never had a losing season as the team's manager.  

Project Durham Bulls #11: Al Martin

Al Martin 1989 Durham Bulls 

Background-

The Atlanta Braves drafted Al Martin out of high school in 1985, he then spent 5 years playing in Rookie and A Ball.  In 1991 he played for the Braves Double A and Triple A teams.  After 1991 he spent one more season in the Minors with the Pirates.  I looked up his biography on Baseball Reference and half way expected to see him in sort of trade between the Pirates and Braves, but he was actually a six year Minor League free agent.  It's not rare to see players who are Minor League free agents reach the Majors, but I am guessing that Martin had one of the better careers of a player who reached that mark.  He made his Major League debut in 1992 with the Pirates and went on to play a total of 8 years in Pittsburgh.  Al Martin had some nice years playing with the Pirates, but was on some really bad teams.  His best season was probably 1993 when he hit .281/.338/.481 with 18 homers, 64 RBIs, and 16 stolen bases.  The Pirates traded him to the Padres for John Vander Wal where he spent a year playing, the Padres traded him to the Mariners for John Mabry where he played two years, and he ended his career with the Devil Rays in 2003.  

 Card- 

Martin is also in the 1996 Leaf Signature set, but I kind of liked this Donruss Signature card a little bit better.  The main thing I was looking for in picking up a Martin card was that he was a Pirate on the card, which was not really a problem since his only two certified autos were in a Pittsburgh uniform.  Further, in working on this project of finding Durham Bulls autographs it is a little bit trickier to find cards of players from the years the team was a Braves affiliate.  Currently the Bulls are a Triple A team, so percentage of players reaching the Majors is pretty high.  During their time as Braves affiliate the team was a high A team.  The percentage of players which much smaller, much tougher to find autographs of the players.  While it's not a great signature, it's nice to finally add a Braves era player to my Project Durham Bulls posts.