Old Bulls On New Cards

I am always on the lookout for new cards of Durham Bulls players.  There are plenty of easy and obvious targets out there, but every once in a while there is a name on a checklist that surprises me.  When the 2021 Topps Heritage set was released, I was really happy to see Jake Cronenworth had an autograph in the set.  Unfortunately, that card is also selling for a ton of money at the moment.  Luckily, there was also a surprising name in the mix on the Topps Heritage checklist.  

This guy.  

Phil Regan was a starting pitcher for the 1957 Durham Bulls.  It was a great year for the team.  Future Tigers outfielder Bubba Morton broke the color barrier for the Bulls franchise, and the team won the Carolina League championship defeating the High Point Hi-Toms led by Dallas Green.  It's hard to believe 64 years later, players on the team are still appearing on baseball cards. 

Sure, Regan played on some good teams with the Tigers, Dodgers, and Cubs, but look at the second line of the stats.....

This card is exactly the same as the actual 1972 Topps Phil Regan card.  I never realized that this set had Minor League playing stats for veteran players.  A bit of a rarity, but I checked out a few other former Durham Bulls players and they also had their Minor League stats listed.  Might have to go find the former Durham Bulls in this set at some point.  

Cholly Jolly

Cholly Jolly is one of the great yesteryear nicknames that I have run across collecting older baseball cards.  It belonged to long-time Pirate and Cub first baseman Charlie Grimm.  I have posted a card of his before, a quick refresher....

He was a St. Louis native, but he also played on the Durham Bulls for one season early in his career.  Grimm had a solid 20 year career as a player, known as a great fielding first baseman.  Bill James has long considered him to be the greatest defensive player at the position.  He also had a pretty good run as a manager after he retired. 

Grimm was the manager of the Cubs for much of the 1930s and 1940s, and prior to 2016, had coached the last three Cubs teams to reach the World Series.  He ended his managerial career by working a few years for the Milwaukee Braves.  He helped turn over the roster as the team moved from Boston to Milwaukee, he leaned heavily on a few young players who he thought were superior to the veterans on the roster.  He swapped out guys like Earl Torgeson and Bob Elliot for Eddie Matthews and Joe Adcock, and sat Andy Pafko for Hank Aaron.  The Braves fired him before 1957, they did not give him a ring obviously, but he set up the team to win the World Series. 

Here the first Cholly Jolly card I added to my collection way back at the beginning of this year. 

I believe that this 1934 Goudey card is considered Grimm's official rookie card, but he had other cards long before this was printed during his playing days.  My second card of the longtime Cub is from the early 1920s.  Here is the card.....

This is a 1922 American Caramel card.  The card has some discolorations in different places, and the corners look only slightly rounded.  If only I could compare this to another card from this set, I'd be curious how the size of the borders are on this copy compare to others.  I am not saying that the card is altered, but I kind of suspect this has been trimmed a bit.  I traded for this card, and the person who traded it felt that the person they bought it from had some reputation with that sort of thing. 

I am not chasing anyone down, nor pointing any fingers.  Happy to take an old card with a bit of a discount due to it's "condition", which I will admit looks a little too good to be true. 

Back of the card. 

You can see more discoloration on the back of the card.  The front and back of the card has a similar orientation as the Cracker Jack cards.  I wish there was something more to the back, but this is from the 1920s, so no love lost because the American Caramel Company slapped some advertising on their baseball cards. 

Overall, I am really happy to add a second card of Grimm to my collection.  The former Durham Bull had a good playing career, and had some solid contributions as a manager.  I need to find a few of his manager cards, which will be a project for next year. 

A Venerable Old Card (Set) Part 13

Last week in this space I showed off a cool old oddball Ozzie Smith card that showed up in a box from a college friend.  Still so many more cards to show off, so this week I am going to focus a little bit on the Cubs.  Not just today, but all week.  In sorting out the box it is clear that a bunch of the cards in the box are old Cubs giveaways.  Some look pretty cool, others not so much.  I know that I am a Cardinals fan and you may not think of this as a place to read about cool Cubs cards, but let's get something straight here before we look at the cards.

It's hard as a Cardinals fan to collect Cubs cards.  I still have nice Cubs cards.  Further, the Cubs cards we are dealing with this week are from the 1980s.  What baseball loving kid in the 1980s did not spend a percentage of their summer break watching the Cubs games on WGN?  I did all time.  I can probably name most of their starters anytime after the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s.

A little background on tonight's card set....

This is the Thorn Apple Valley Cubs team set.  It was a stadium giveaway during the 1983 season.  While the 83 season was not a great one for the Cubs, the set features rookie cards of Ryno and Joe Carter.  There are also a lot of good veterans in this set, many of whom were contributors on the 1984 Cubs team, which was a really good team.

1980s Cubs also means there is music.  Enjoy the cards, commentary free.  

Sweet Ruggiano

Everyday I wake up and spend a few minutes reading the box scores.  I have four teams I check the box scores for everyday: Cardinals, Rays, Tigers, and Durham Bulls.  The order usually depends on how the box scores are arranged on the web, but those four are a daily constant.  I have a few other stops along my way through the box scores.  I still like to check out a few ex-Cardinals: Albert, Kyle Lohse, maybe Colby Rasmus.  There are a few Durham Bulls too.  I still check for Jason Hammel, B.J. Upton, and maybe James Shields.  My Durham Bulls constant though is Justin Ruggiano. 

The Rays picked up Ruggiano in a trade with the Dodgers and ended up spending parts of five seasons with the Bulls, had a cup of coffee of two with the Rays, before he left the team as a minor league free agent.  Ruggiano signed with the Astros, then the Marlins, and finally made it up to the Majors with the Fighting Fish in 2012.  Ruggiano also played last season with the Marlins before he was traded to the Cubs this past off season. 

While the Cubs happen to be one of my least favorite teams in the Majors, I still check out the Ruggiano line everyday (except he's now on the DL).  I'm excited to see what Ruggiano can do this summer in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley.  Last year he posted a team high 18 home runs for the Marlins playing in a pitcher friendly park.  He could jump over 20 this year if he gets the at-bats. 

I am still waiting for Ruggiano's first Cubs card.  All of his 2014 cards, so far, have been Marlins cards.  However, I did manage to stumble across a cool Ruggiano card recently.  During his first summer as a Durham Bull (2007) he appeared for USA Baseball in the World Cup.  The USA Baseball team ended up winning the gold medal during that event with Ruggiano patrolling the outfield.  Upper Deck included him in their USA Baseball set in 2008 with a jersey/autograph.  I recently snagged a copy:

I have a pretty big collection of Ruggiano cards and was happy to pick up this difficult to find piece as my latest addition.  The card is limited to just 50 copies and is signed in red ink.  The card features a small swatch of grey swatch of jersey from his playing time with USA Baseball.