Vacations Are Good

I feel like I have not had a break in awhile.  I know there are plenty of people who go long stretches with no vacations, and I am a teacher so I often hear the, "you just sit around all summer" line more times than I can count.  Actually, I usually teach for a two to three month stretch before I get a vacation that usually lasts for roughly three weeks.  I have been on the same schedule for more than decade, my clock is sort of used to the schedule by now.   

I am now going to yell at a few clouds, but before I do here is a Stadium Club autograph of Brandon Lowe that I picked up.  I had not posted it yet, but here it is now....

I drove more than 3,000 miles this summer.  I went from Raleigh to St. Louis, to mid-Missouri, and then on to northern Michigan.  Eventually I ended up in Grand Rapids for a wedding before driving home (13 hours with 2 kids) the day before the beginning of the school year started.  I switched grade levels, moved classrooms, and ended up running a committee.

I feel a little stretched thin.

This is a Steven Souza autograph that I also did not get a chance to post.

This card cost me $2.00.  It's Steven Souza, but he once won the International League MVP Award in a season where he only played 90 games.  His numbers were insane. 

Friday was my last day at work for the next three weeks.  I am not going anywhere, or doing anything the least bit responsible during that time.  I am going to spend some serious time doing non-work things.  Kids going to parks and museums, home improvement projects, and baseball cards.  I have actually been planning on doing some writing on a project I have been working on for awhile with my baseball cards.

I am pretty excited about it.

This is Tanner Houck.  I once saw him pitch a no hitter.  I didn't have time to post this when I got it a few months back. 

Definitely needs a post or two next week since the project has been six years in the making.  

This picture was from way back when I started a project with my cards.  The original post is here.  My baseball card room used to be really red.  It's not that color anymore. I am going to get a little bit of rest and probably take my kids to the park first.  

Friday Five: Five Coolest Baseball Games I Have Seen In Person

It's been a long time since I have made one of these Friday Five posts.  I should make this a regular thing again.  I know there were several regular readers who used to really like these, so to reward your patience I am going to double the normal five and go with ten for this week.  Really, I came up with five games, then had an honorable mention or two.  That quickly ballooned into another five games.  The Friday Ten just sounds terrible though.  Here's the list.


10.  July 22, 1986 San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals 

A lot of Cardinals fans will tell you that the Gold Standard for baseball brawls was the Cardinals and Reds from 2010 with Brandon Phillips and Yadier Molina.  Maybe an older fan will tell you it's the time Will Clark tried to take out Jose Oquendo and it ended up in a huge fight between the two and Ozzie Smith.  They're all wrong.   I went to a baseball game once for my mother's birthday and this happened.....

The video quality is not great, but this whole thing was basically set off by Whitey Herzog and Roger Craig, the two managers of the teams.  You know it's good when the St. Louis Police get involved, Mike Heath has to restrain Vince Coleman by carrying him off the field, and fans throwing beer at Chris Brown.  It appears that Tito Landrum might have been some sort of peace maker throughout.

9. April 14, 2006 Toledo Mud Hens vs. Durham Bulls 

My first Opening Day in Durham had a pretty memorable finish.  The Bulls were losing for the entire game including a 4-1 deficit entering the ninth inning.  Good old Lee Gardner pitched the ninth inning for the Mud Hens, but walked Shawn Riggans, Brent Butler, and Darnell McDonald to load the bases for the Devil Rays top infield prospect B.J. Upton.  As I remember it, there was not much doubt that the ball was over the fence.  A great way to start off my first full season of Durham Bulls baseball.  Here is the box score.

I don't remember Ryan Ludwick being on the Mud Hens that season.  See, these posts are already doing me some good.  I saw a Cardinals player and I don't even remember it.  

7.  July 16, 2006 Columbus Clipper vs. Durham Bulls 

This was the first no-hitter that I ever attended, but I did not stay for the whole game.  This is what happens when you go out to a game with a bunch of people that you work with and they say, "let's walk across the street and eat garlic fries and drink beer".  The garlic fries at the restaurant across the street from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park are excellent, but I deeply regret my decision.  Hammel ended up pitching into the ninth inning, but was at 125 pitches when manager John Tamargo pulled him out the game.  I didn't see it.  

Requisite picture of Jason Hammel pitching in Triple A.  

In the end Juan Salas came in and got the last two outs of the game.  The Clippers actually ended up scoring a run at the end of the game because Wes Bankston and Delmon Young committed errors on the same play, a ball hit by Carlos Pena, which was followed up by a wild pitch by Salas.  Always had this terrible feeling that I would not see another no-hitter ever and that this was the dumbest time to ever leave a game early...it worked out okay though. Read on.

6. October 5, 1985 Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals 

I moved to St. Louis at some point in the summer of 1984.  I know I went to a baseball game or two that summer and I know I went to a few during the 1985 season too.  The best game out of my first two years living in St. Louis was the second to last game of the year between the Cardinals and Cubs.    The Cardinals and Mets were in a heated pennant race, with no wild cards at that time, which meant you had to win your division.  This was the game where the Cardinals clinched the National League East by beating the Cubs 7-1.

Ozzie made this great play, Cesar Cedeno hit a home run, and John Tudor pitched great.  Definitely one of my better memories watching baseball as a kid in St. Louis.  

5. (tie)  September 5, 1998 Cincinnati Reds vs. St. Louis Cardinals 

I went to this game for a friend's birthday.  Drove home from college and watched the game.  It was McGwire and it was 1998.   I was actually sitting in left field for this game, but I was over about three sections towards center field and up about twenty rows from where the ball landed.  

The whole home run chase thing has lost some of its luster over time due to the steroid stuff, Bonds breaking the record again a few years later, etc.  It was something that was really important to baseball in St. Louis at the time it happened though.  If you could ask the 21 year old version of me about this game when it happened, or maybe a month after, it would have been higher than 5.  Same with the next one.  

5. (tie) September 7, 1998 Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals 

Same kind of stuff as the previous moment.  I thought this one was a little bit better, still going with a tie though, since it came against the Cubs.  Sosa was there and the Cubs were high fiving McGwire running around the bases.  Something always great about a Cubs and Cardinals game.  This one was the best I have seen of that rivalry.  

4. July 1, 2015 USA Baseball National College Team vs. Cuban National Baseball Team 

This was the second no-hitter I watched in the span of a year and the third one overall.  If you keep reading I promise you there is another one.  The summer time version of the USA Baseball National Team is made up of college players.  In this case the no-hitter was thrown by three pitchers from the SEC: Tanner Houck from Missouri, A.J. Puk from Florida, and Ryan Hendrix from Texas A&M.  All three are now in the Minors.  The final out....

This was a cool game to watch because it was a bunch of college kids taking on Cuban players who are in a professional league back home.  If you have never been to a USA Baseball game in Cary, NC the crowd tends to have more scouts than fans.  It's why there isn't a ton of noise at the end of the game when Hendrix gets the final out.  The one ding against this game is the fact that two of the Cuban players, both started the game, defected after the game.  Don't get me wrong, the three pitchers are great, but I have often wondered how much the Cubans were into the game.  

3.  April 26, 2014 Scranton Railriders vs. Durham Bulls 

The second no-hitter I saw, but the first one that I watched in its entirety.  I went to this game because my brother was in town for something work related.  We sat behind the Scranton dugout and watched Luis Sojo coach third base for the Yankees Triple A team.  I think I first noticed that Montgomery had a no-hitter going sometime in the fifth.  

Montgomery pitched into the ninth inning, but was pulled out of the game by the Rays.  Brad Boxberger finished the no-hitter off with a ground out and a strikeout.  Montgomery actually just missed a perfect game, walking just one batter, which happened to be former Bulls player Russ Canzler.  

2. September 27, 1998 Montreal Expos vs. St. Louis Cardinals 

A younger version of me would have put this at number one all day long.  I still love Mark McGwire as a player, still love what the home run race in 1998 did for baseball, and still remember the excitement this generated.  As previously stated though, it's luster has been somewhat diminished.  

Still a pretty awesome moment to witness.  I consider myself a pretty fortunate to have seen as many baseball games as I have in my life, not many people have seen something like this before.  

1.  September 15, 1991 New York Mets vs. St. Louis Cardinals 

I went to tons of Cardinals games while I was in high school with my father on Sunday afternoons.  The Cardinals were not good for most of my teen years, but they had a few good players and a few bright spots along the way.  Probably the best player on those teams was center fielder Ray Lankford. He's really an under appreciated player in the history of the team who is in the all-time top 10 in dozens of offensive categories.  Yet, he's not in the team's Hall of Fame likely because he's the only player on those top 10 lists who spent the majority of his career playing on bad teams.  Ted Simmons might fit that too. 

The best moment I had watching Lankford came early in his career against the Mets when he hit for the cycle.  It was a great moment at the time, but I think it has become a little bit better with time just for the fact that I am pretty doubtful I will see another player hit for a cycle again.  It could happen, but the odds are heavily against it.  

Here is the box score from Baseball-Reference.  

While I am really into collecting Ray Lankford cards, I also have several non-baseball card items of his too.  Probably my favorite item is my scorecard from that game.  I wrote in pencil, so I try not to take it out to often.  

While this is my best baseball moment, I am always open to further suggestions if someone wanted to hit four home runs in a game I attend, or pitch a perfect game.  I will have to revisit this post in a few years and see if it has changed at all.  

One Third Of A No-No Part 2

A few summer ago I was fortunate enough to witness a combined no-hitter by three pitchers on the USA Baseball College National team in a game against the Cuban National team at the USA Baseball Complex in Cary, North Carolina.  The stadium is a few minutes from my house and a must stop at some point every summer.  The College National team is usually chalk full of some of the best draft prospects, so even if you don't get to see a no-hitter you still get to witness a slew of first round draft picks.

Previously I have made posts about Florida pitcher A.J. Puk and Texas A&M pitcher Ryan Hendrix who pitched the last two legs of the no-hitter, but I was still missing an autograph from the starting pitcher from that game.  

The starter for that game was Mizzou pitcher Tanner Houck......

Of the players I saw in this game, I was actually most excited to find a card of Houck.  Growing up in St. Louis, I spent a lot of time watching Mizzou football and basketball games.  There are not a ton of Mizzou baseball cards floating around, but some of the ones that are out there are kind of pricey.  Max Scherzer is the most notable player who came out of the program.  He has a few recent cards in Panini products wearing the old gold and black along with a Donruss Elite card from back in 2007 when it first became a amateur baseball product with draft picks.  

Houck cards can be a little on the expensive side too, at least for my tastes, so I had to wait a bit.  I was honestly hoping that I could also find an on-card autograph too since all of his Panini autographs from last year's USA Baseball products featured stickers.  In the end, the price dropped a bit, but I still ended up with a sticker autograph..........

This is my second card from the Elite Extra Edition Panini cards after I added a Seth Beer card a month or so ago.  These are really nice looking cards with the large jersey swatches and player pictures in their USA Baseabll uniforms.  I am trying to decide what number Houck signed next to his name.  From the picture and card above, he wore 31with USA Baseball, but he wears 11 while he is pitching at Mizzou......

Either way, 11 or 31, I am happy to finally land an autograph of the third player from the no-hitter I saw almost two years ago.  Houck will be a high pick in this summer's MLB Draft, so I am also looking forward to possibly finding a few more of his cards over the next few years.....

Snorting Bull Summer Baseball Tour Game 1: USA Baseball versus Cuba

I ventured out for the first stop on my baseball summer tour this evening to the town of Cary, North Carolina for a USA Baseball College team game against Cuba.  The venue is about five to ten minutes from my house and hosts all kinds of cool amateur baseball events.  The best of the events tend to be the National College Team games.  The team is filled with really good up and coming baseball talent and they usually play some pretty decent teams.  

During my game preview post I had talked a little bit about some of the players I was eager to watch at the game tonight, but I did not know much about the Cuban team before I arrived at the park this evening.  Here's a look at their roster......

Sorry for the blurriness, but you can see from the right hand column on their roster page that the players on these team are actually professional players in Cuba.  I'm not going to debate the quality of the Cuban National Series, but they are professionals playing against college kids.  On to other things......

This was the first game of this series between the USA College National Team and the Cuban squad.  Truth be told, I am going to another one of these games in a different ballpark as part of my summer baseball tour.  The one thing that always surprises, and disappoints me, about the USA Baseball games is the lack of fan support.  This program has an excellent track record of producing top level draft picks and you can see that nobody is in the stands.  This is a pretty good baseball market.  I just do not get it.  

The starting pitcher for the game this evening was Mizzou freshman Tanner Houck.  Again, I mentioned him in my preview post as a player to watch during the game......

He did not disappoint.  Houck ended up pitching four innings against Cuba and was lights out.  They do not have a radar gun with speeds posted in the stadium, but former Baseball America, current D1 Baseball, writer Aaron Fit always pops up at all the important college games and he had the following report during the game:

The Cuban pitcher was also very good too and held the USA Baseball bats silent while Houck was in the game.  I spent time really studying three batters, again mentioned in my previous post:

Nick Banks from Texas A&M

Buddy Reed from Florida

and Bobby Dolbec from Arizona......

Again, the offense was really quiet tonight.  The team did score two runs in the game, but there were not any extra base hits or anything too sharp coming off of any bats tonight.  Dolbec in particular seemed to have trouble with the Cuban pitchers.  

Back to the pitching.  After four innings Houck was pulled from the game for Florida lefty AJ Puk.  He's big and he throws really hard.  He's one of the early front runners to possibly be a first pick of the first round kind of player.  

Puk also pitched four innings, but he allowed a base runner on a walk, and another reached on an error.  The runner who reached on the error ended up at third while the score was still 1-0, but Puk did a great job of pitching and stranded the Cuban runner there to end the inning.  Here's a better look at the Florida pitcher.....

So that takes us up to the ninth inning.  Did I mention that Puk did not give up a hit either?  So, the ninth inning belonged to Texas A&M pitcher Ryan Hendrix who came in and got the first two Cuban batters out, then.......

Pretty good way to spend a nice evening and I could not ask for anything better for my first stop of my summer baseball tour.  Next stop is tomorrow night in Burlington, North Carolina.  

Snorting Bull Baseball Tour Day 1: USA College National Team versus Cuba

Tonight marks the beginning of my first annual baseball tour.  Just something I am trying on a small scale this year.  Living in North Carolina I get a lot of chances to see baseball at a lot of different levels.  Over the next week, or there abouts, I am going to be attending a few baseball games mostly around central North Carolina.  First up is the USA Collegiate Baseball team taking on the Cuban National Team.

I did a write up on a USA Baseball game last year if you are unfamiliar with the program run during the summer in Cary, North Carolina.  Basically the team is filled with freshman and sophomore's and serves as sort of an All-Star team for the college baseball leagues.  I will be checking in on a little bit more college baseball later in the week too.  Here is a look at the current roster for USA Baseball.....

If you clicked that link above to my write up from last year and compared it to the amateur draft from last week you would see that there were several top picks on last year's squad including first overall pick Dansby Swanson.  Truth be told, if you read my write up I liked Alex Bregman better, but I was probably splitting hairs.  This year I am interested in a few players.  Here's my run down on five of them:


Buddy Reed- The Florida sophomore has been the offensive star for USA Baseball in the early part of their schedule.  He arrived late, due to the College World Series, but has been a .500 hitter and driven in five runners during his first week with the squad.  He's not considered one of the elite prospects on this team, but a good summer with the College National Team could certainly boost his stock.

Nick Banks- The Charlotte native plays his college ball at Texas A&M and is considered an elite draft prospect for the 2016 MLB Draft.  FanGraphs ranks him currently as the best college position player in the draft.  The junior to be lead the SEC in batting this year.  Currently he is one of the offensive leaders of this summer's College National Team with a .393 average.  

A.J. Puk- The Florida lefty is considered the best college pitcher in the 2016 MLB Draft.  He has already made two appearances for USA Baseball this summer giving up one run in 6 innings of work.  This spring at Florida he went 9-4 with an ERA of 3.81, but also made eight starts as a first baseman. With a mid 90s fastball his MLB Draft stock is strictly based on his pitching arm.  He seems a little raw, but when you're 6'7. left-handed, and throw hard......

Bobby Dolbec- This is another two way player in college who is going to be drafted for a very specific skill: power.  Dolbec is currently the only player on the National College Team with a home run this summer.  He actually has two.  The corner infielder lead Arizona with 15 home runs this past season and looks to be the top power prospect in the 2016 MLB Draft.  He's a big guy and a lot of people have started making the comparison to Kris Bryant with him, but I think that's not completely accurate.  Bryant was a little bit more polished as a college hitter, but Dolbec is still going to hit home runs somewhere in the near future.  

Tanner Houck- The star pitcher thus far for the US National College Team has been Mizzou freshman Tanner Houck.  He has made two appearances so far this summer for the squad including an impressive start against Chinese Taipei.  Overall he sporting an ERA of 3.12 with a win and no losses.  At Mizzou this season he was named a Freshman All-American by Baseball America and became one of the better pitchers in the tough SEC during the season.  

You can follow along with the game tonight by following my Twitter account or by checking out my page tomorrow morning.....