Friday Five: Top 5 Greensboro Minor Leaguers

I spent a little bit of last Sunday checking out a game in Greensboro.  It's the second straight year that I have made the trek west to visit NewBridge Bank Ballpark, which is the home to the Marlins entry in the South Atlantic League.  If you live within driving distance of Greensboro, or are going to be in North Carolina at some point during the baseball season, it is worth a few hours of your time to catch a game at this stadium.

It was a rough afternoon for the Grasshoppers, the current name of the team, who were taking on the Kannapolis Intimidators.  The Intimidators are a White Sox affiliate.  Instead of writing a post on the current squad, I am going to take a little bit of time and write about some of the great players who have passed through Greensboro over the years.

There are some teams that do a great job of recognizing their past teams and players inside of their stadiums, and for this, the Grasshoppers definitely get strong marks.  Around the concourse of the field the team has banners that are broken down by decade that recognize different teams and players.  The banners are very well done.

There has been organized professional baseball in Greensboro for more than 100 years, but with a short ten walk, and a little bit of reading, baseball fans can soak in all of the greatness that has happened in the city's baseball history.  I took some notes, did a little supplemental research at home, and have assembled my top five Greensboro Minor Leaguers.  

The list is deep and told in baseball cards as always.....

Honorable Mention-

Jorge Posada - 1992 Greensboro Hornets 

Posada played on the 1992 Greensboro entry along with fellow future Yankees Derek Jeter and Shane Spencer.  In 101 games, Posada posted a .277/.389./472 line with 12 home runs, 22 doubles, 58 RBIs, and a surprising 11 stolen bases.  Posada went on to play 17 seasons in the Majors, all with the Yankees, collecting more than 1,500 hits, 275 home runs, 1000 RBIs while helping the team win the World Series in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009.  Jay Jaffe's JAWS system rates him as the 16th best catcher of all-time just behind Thurman Munson.  

Don Mattingly - 1980 Greensboro Hornets 

Mattingly's appearance in Greensboro marked his first full season in professional baseball after spending 1979 in the short-seasoned New York-Penn League.  The Hornets boasted an infield with Donny Ballgame, future Twins fixture Greg Gagne, and Rex "Wonderdog" Hudler.  Otis Nixon was also an infielder on the team and future Twins and Phillies pitcher Fred Toliver anchored the rotation.  Overall a really deep team for the low minors.  Mattingly managed to post a .358/.422/.498 line with 9 home runs, 32 doubles, and 105 RBIs.  Overall, Mattingly would go on to play 14 seasons with the Yankees collecting 2,153 hits, 222 home runs, and 1099 RBIs.  He won the 1984 American League Batting Title with a .343 mark and also won the 1985 AL MVP Award.  

and now for the Top 5

5. Andy Pettitte - 1992 Greensboro Hornets 

Pettitte pitched for the Greensboro Hornets during his second year in the Minors.  After being drafted in the 22nd Round of the 1990 draft, Pettitte started his professional career the next summer with stops in the GCL and the New York-Penn League.  For the Hornets, Pettite went 10-4 in 27 starts with a 2.20 ERA. Andy Pettitte would go on to pitch 18 years with the Yankees and Astros.  Overall, he won 256 games and ended his career with 2,448 strikeouts.  Pettitte was also an important part of the Yankees winning the World Series in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009 ending his career with a total of 19 postseason wins.  5 of those victories occurred in the World Series.  

4. Robinson Cano - 2002 Greensboro Bats 

Cano appeared on the 2002 squad along with Shelley Duncan and Dioner Navarro.  The year marked a sort of a break out for Cano who was just 19 at the time, making him one of the younger players on the squad.  In 2001, Cano's first season in the Yankees system, he posted a .231/.328/.361 line with just 3 home runs and 14 doubles in almost 250 at bats.  In his lone season for the Bats, Cano hit .276/.321/.445 with 14 home runs, 9 triples, and 20 doubles.  Cano is the lone active player on this list, but has put in 12 seasons so far with the Yankees and Mariners.  He is 33 and already over 2,000 hits, 250 home runs, and is approaching 500 doubles.  Jaffe's JAWS system already rates him as the 14th best second baseman of all-time and his peak 7 years of WAR already exceed the average Hall of Fame second baseman.  His best seven years have already past Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg, Craig Biggio, and Roberto Alomar measured by WAR.  Should be in Cooperstown at some point in the future.  

3. Curt Schilling - 1987 Greensboro Hornets 

Schilling actually started out his career as a Red Sox, later traded to the Orioles for Brady Anderson.  Schilling started 28 games for the Hornets that year and posted an 8-15 record.  His 3.82 ERA wasn't terrible, but he also struck out 189 batters in 184 innings.  The Hornets finished 30 games under .500 that season, so I am going to go ahead and overlook the 15 loses.  The beginning of Schilling's Major League career also got off to a bit of a slow start.  He ended up playing a total of 20 years, but only won 105 games during his first 12 years.  His last 8 seasons, split between the Diamondbacks and Red Sox, netted him 111 wins.  Schilling also surpassed 3,000 strikeouts, 11 postseason wins, and 3 World Series rings.  Schilling is not in the Hall of Fame yet, but should get there one of these days...

2. Mariano Rivera - 1991 Greensboro Hornets and 1993 Greensboro Hornets 

Rivera passed through Greensboro twice on his way up to the Yankees.  However, he was a starting pitcher almost the entire time he was in the Minors.  Overall, Rivera pitched 39 games for the Hornets during the two stops with 25 starts.  His combined won-loss record of 5-9 is not great, but during his first appearance in the South Atlantic League he pitched 114 innings and struck out 123 hitters.  His second time through he started ten games, only one once, and again had an excellent strikeout rate.  Rivera is the first of three Hall of Famers on this list, or he will be soon, after a great 19 year career as the Yankees closer.  He's MLBs all-time save leader with 652, but more importantly he was one of the greatest postseason pitchers in the history of the game.  Rivera ended his career with 42 postseason saves and a 0.70 ERA.  

1. Derek Jeter - 1992 Greensboro Hornets and 1993 Greensboro Hornets 

Jeter also appeared twice for the Hornets and is by far the most popular former Greensboro player out there.  Jeter first appeared for the team in 1992 closing out the year.  Jeter actually spent part of the season with the GCL Yankees before playing 11 games with the Hornets.  His .243/.378/.324 line was nothing to write home about, but it's also a really small sample size.  In 1993 Jeter returned to Greensboro, but stayed the entire season posting a .295/.376/.394 line with 5 home runs, 11 triples, 14 doubles, and 18 steals.  Jeter went on to play 20 seasons with the Yankees recording 3,465 hits, 260 home runs, 358 stolen bases, and won four rings.  

and finally....here's Gypsy Queen (Part 1)

When did Gypsy Queen come out again?  It was several weeks ago, but I am just writing a post about the two boxes I opened up now.  What happened to cause this delay?  The statistics of page views do not support what I am about to say, so I will first thank you for continuing to visit my page in spite of the fact that I did not post as regularly as a normally do in terms of both quantity and quality.  The beginning of April started with a vacation.  By the time the vacation ended and returned to work my schedule of writing and posting cards and the whatnot was completely in taters.  I managed to get to the end of April and have worked my way back into shape in terms of posts. 

So, to actually answer the question at the top of the post the product arrived on April 15th.  I attended the Durham Bulls home opener that evening and left my boxes of Gypsy Queen in my car.  The next day, after work, I opened them live on Periscope.  Something I am playing with, but I need to use an Ipad instead of my phone.  I also need to have the camera set up so that it is somewhat still.  If you are on Periscope my user is the Snorting Bull. 

After the Periscope broadcast these cards just sat on my desk.  So, between a post this evening and tomorrow I am planning on catching everyone up on my Gypsy Queen cards including my two cents on the set and design this year. 

Lets start off with the good stuff.....


Autographs 

I opened two boxes of Gypsy Queen so I was supposed to receive a total of four autographs.  I kind of made it there.  I have not run into a redemption this year, but after last year I have decided to sell/trade all of my code cards this year.  Probably next year and the year after that too...... Yes, I got three autographs and a redemption card.

Obviously I really like the Matt Adams autograph.  It's always cool to pull an autograph from your favorite team out of a box that you open.  Adams is not my favorite Cardinal, but I probably would have ended up with this card at some point, so it's all good.  Someone asked me on Twitter whether Pompey was one of those guys I liked because I saw him in Triple A, but he actually was never in Buffalo before the Jays sent him down there this season.  Gausman and Johnson are nice autographs too.  I will let you know what the Gausman brings me when it is traded/sold. 

Relics 

Last year I did really well with the relics in this product pulling a button card from Greinke.  I was hoping for a similar card this year, but I guess that would have been beating some pretty long odds.  Here's what I did ended up landing......

Gypsy Queen can have some rather ordinary relics, so I was happy to draw out the Kolten Wong, again a Cardinal, and the low print run Miggy with the nice frame border.  Honestly, as much as I was hoping for something cool, like a button card, I also feared drawing four relic cards with names like Adrian Gonzalez.  Nothing against Adrian, but he's not my favorite player and that's a rather ordinary looking relic.  Back me up Dodgers people....

Plates-

and here is where my box was made.  I have heard different collectors say that there seemed to be a lot of plates being pulled out of Gypsy Queen this year and I have to agree.  I have seen numerous box breaks and different collectors on social media open boxes/cases and post their hits.  Lots of plates.  My two were pretty nice, so I cannot complain. 

This one was kind of a surprise to me.  I am not a huge plate person and I do not actively seek them out to buy or trade.  If one happens into my collection at the right price, so be it.  I am not sure how many of these I have pulled over the years, but I do not think that I have ever landed a printing plate of an insert card.  This seems to be a first as far as I can remember.  It's a nice card. 

Lastly, a Liriano plate.  I like the frame around the plate.  Really nice card and made for a nice finishing touch for my two boxes of Gypsy Queen. 

2015 Topps Jumbo Box

This feels like the official start of the 2015 card year.  I picked up a jumbo box of the new Topps base set after school one day this week at my favorite local card shop Big D's Sports Cards.  I had a great time opening the box and talking cards and baseball with the owner of the store Jimmy.  So here's a look at my box and my take, with a little bit more detail than the other day, on the 2015 Topps base set.

After spending two days looking at these cards I have decided that I am going to like the design of the 2015 Topps base set.  It is a little bit busy at the bottom of the card between the bottom and the patterns, but at least Topps has gotten away from the white bordered cards that they have put out the last six or seven years straight.  It had gotten a little bit monotonous and I am happy to see Topps roll the dice a little bit and try something different.  I think the design could have been improved a little bit if they had toned down the colors a little bit.  The parallels are monochromatic and look even better than the base cards.

I especially love the gold parallel cards.  These are really sharp, but then again any of the colored parallel cards look nice with the simplified color scheme.  This Hamilton looks cool.  Is that iced camouflage?  I'm not sure, but it's serial numbered to 99 and looks really nice.

Another oddity of the 2015 Topps cards is the combination of the Future Stars tag at the top of the card along with the Rookie Card.  Have these two Topps hallmark logos ever appeared on the same cards before this year?  I could not think of one, but then again I did not go research it either.  Why does Even Gattis have a Futures Stars logo anyway?  He has been in the league for a few years now.  On to some hit cards.....

My relic cards.  What do you want out of a relic card out of a Topps base set?  Carlos Gomez is fine for a hit out of this box.  I could have done better, but the relics out of the base set all end up selling for less than $5 at some point anyway right?  Gomez is a good player and I am not sure that I have a relic card of him.  Welcome to the relics box Carlos.  

Definitely not a keeper here, but still a really cool pull out of a box of base box of Topps.  I am not going to sell or trade this Baez card simply because he is a Cub, but because I am not sold on him being an impact player.  Something about him reminds me a little bit of Dan Uggla.  Plays second base, hits .190, strikes out two or three times a game....Moving on.....

This was my manu card out of my jumbo box.   These seem like they are pretty nice, but I am starting to wonder if the manu card is getting a little bit stale.  I saw a couple of manu cards on Ebay and on trade sites that had the Future Star logo on them that looked really nice.  Topps did a logo man manu card a few years ago.  These kind of seem like a rehash.  

My favorite insert set out of the set was the Gallery of Greats.  These are a knock off from the late 90s/early 2000s Topps Gallery product.  These looked nice back then and they still look good today.  I pulled this nice Kershaw and also landed a Hanley Ramirez.  I am going to have to pick up the rest of these at some point this spring.  By far the nicest looking insert.

I also liked these defense insert cards.  How many Colby Rasmus insert cards have been made?  I am not sure there have been many, but I really like defensive sets.  There are always some sort of insert like this in Gypsy Queen and am happy to see it in the base Topps set.   One more like.....

I liked both of these cards and I am pretty sure that I have copies of both of hanging out in a box somewhere.  Old cards are always cool, and while I like for Topps to go out on a limb sometimes, they are a tradition rich company.  It's nice to see some of these classic cards, and cool names, reappear in modern products.  

Last insert set for the moment.  There was a ton of hype around these First Pitch cards.  I honestly do not get it.  What am I missing here?  Sure there is 50 Cent, but I am not sure I really care about half the people in this set.  There is this soccer guy?  There is Macklamore, some gymnast, and maybe Eddie Vedder?  I am just not excited about these.  Sorry.