Random Ray - 1993 Upper Deck Home Run Heroes

I am a huge fan of the 1993 Upper Deck set. Simple design, great photography, it might be my favorite Upper Deck product of all-time. If you have not checked out the 1993 Upper Deck set blog written by Night Owl, you are missing out.  

Here is the front of the card........

Wrigley always makes a great background for baseball cards. The ivy wall is the obvious answer, but the short brick wall behind home plate is also a classic landmark for those of us who are old enough to have watched day Cubs games on WGN in the summers. 

Beyond the background, I love the action shot of Ray Lankford hitting. He had a great left-handed swing and always hit well against the Cubbies. In fact, in 158 career games against the Cubs, Lankford had 23 home runs, 7 triples, 30 doubles, and 26 stolen bases. 

I loved the blue Cardinal hats in the 1993 card sets. The team stopped wearing them in the late 1960s and brought them back as their road hat in 1992 as part of their 100th Anniversary. The patch on Lankford's sleeve is also part of the 100th Anniversary. 

A closer look at the patch......

Back of the card.  

This is a really good write-up about Lankford, his skill as a player, and his potential to be a star when he was a younger player. The Cardinals were not very competitive during the early 1990s, so it's nice that someone at Upper Deck was aware of a good player on a team that was a perennial mediocre team at best.  

Friday Five: Favorite Adam Wainwright Autographs

It has been really hard to watch the Cardinals this summer. The worst part has been watching Adam Wainwright trying to reach 200 career wins, currently he's at 198. Waino has not been himself this season and I fear he is likely going to fall short of 200 by two wins. 

Rather than dwelling on the negative, I took some time last night to flip through my Adam Wainwright cards. Wainwright has not signed many certified autographs beyond the first few years of his career, which came before I started writing about my cards. I have not really shared any of these on my blog prior to this evening, but thought they would be a fun post.  

Honorable Mention: 2006 Topps Co-Signers Autograph 

Wainwright actually has two autographs in this set. There is a Co-Signers dual autograph card, which also is signed by Anthony Reyes. It would be a pretty sweet add to the collection, just never got around to finding a copy. Especially given that both played an important role in the 2006 Postseason for the Cardinals. I put this card as an Honorable Mention largely due to condition issues. My scanner did a good job of hiding the blemishes, but this is a black card with not-great quality card stock. The edges are a little chippy. However, I do like the Spring Training photograph with Wainwright wearing number 70. 

5. 2007 Topps Finest Autograph 

This is the only card in this countdown that has previously appeared on this blog. I traded for this card back in 2014 and gave it a post. It's a nice card, but I wish Topps had blended the sticker a little better. Nothing worse than a white baseball card with a silver sticker slapped on top. Actually pretty common practice at this time. I did not scan the back of the card, but the "No Pressure" label on the bottom is in reference to Wainwright's Game 7 performance against the Mets in the 2006 National League Championship Series. 

Not a Cardinals fan? Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth inning, and Carlos Beltran up with a trip to the World Series on the line.  

My favorite Wainwright moment.  

4. 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars Autograph 

This is the only Wainwright autograph I ever pulled out of a pack of cards. The 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars was the greatest/worst box I ever opened. I got this Wainwright autograph along with Ruddy Lugo and James Shields. Lugo and Shields were both on the Durham Bulls at the time. I think both cards are now under $2 on COMC these days. My other autographs were Kelly Shoppach and Colter Bean, but did I mention Adam Wainwright? The sticker is showing here, because my scanner is having a really good Friday. Seriously, Upper Deck did a really good job of blending it on the front of this card. The card is also acetate and has some nice front and back features. Maybe another day when I feel like making more scans.....

3. 2004 Bowman Sterling Autograph/Jersey 

This was the first Wainwright autograph in my collection. I picked this up from a local card shop in St. Louis back when I lived there. Relatively cheap as I recall too, less than $20. I might rank this a little higher, but the autograph is partially off the sticker. I have contemplated replacing this card at some point, but many of the sticker autographs on other copies of this Bowman Sterling card are also missing part of Wainwright's signature. It's really hard to do much better than what Wainwright did on this card. The red jersey swatch is a nice bonus. Bowman Sterling is a good looking product, I just wish the autographs were on-card.  

2. 2006 Upper Deck F/X Special Endorsements Autograph 

I like the looks of this card and I also like how Upper Deck blended the sticker autograph. You can barely tell that Wainwright did not sign the actual card. Sticker autographs are a sub plot on this post and this is the best of set of stickers that Adam Wainwright signed during a two-year window early in his career. I believe this was a random EBay purchase at some point in 2006 or 2007. If this were an on-card signature, I might have picked this card as the top Wainwright autograph in my collection. Still really nice at 2.  

1. 2004 Topps Traded Signature Moves 

Good design with an on-card signature, and a complete Wainwright signature. I know a winner when I see one and this is not a sticker autograph.   

Random Ray- 1992 Upper Deck FanFest

Ray Lankford was not on the 1991 National League All-Star team, but somehow managed to get a card in the 1991 All-Star Game FanFest set, which was produced by Score.  

Here is the card, which I blogged about last year.  

Ray Lankford was not on the 1992 National League All-Star team, but somehow managed to get a card in the 1992 All-Star Game FanFest set, which was produced by Upper Deck.  

Here is the front of the card.  

I like the picture on the front of the card with Lankford taking a swing in his road uniform at Wrigley Field. I miss the days when the Cardinals would wear the blue hats and batting helmets on the road. The player in the background is second baseman Luis Alicea. Trying to track the picture to a specific game, Lankford and Alicea only hit together in a game at Wrigley Field once in 1991, which took place on October 5th. 

The design is decent. It's a FanFest card, so it's going to include the All-Star logo. The pinstripes at the bottom are not my favorite, but this was the year the Padres switch to blue and orange pinstriped uniforms. It's a crime the Padres stopped wearing brown.  

Back of the card.  

Upper Deck included a nice summary of Ray Lankford's Minor League career, along with some highlights from his rookie season. I like that they mention his cycle game at the bottom of the card. Upper Deck always did a good job with player write-ups, so not surprised by the quality here.  

Overall, I really like this card. Still feels really odd that young Ray Lankford was not in All-Star Games, but appeared in a bunch of All-Star sets.  Prime of his career Ray Lankford was in the All-Star Game and there are almost no cards to recognize the accomplishment. 

Seems like it should be on a baseball card.  

Pujols Parade - 2001 Upper Deck

I want to do a few Pujols rookie cards along the way. At some point in the past two years, I did a longer post about all the Pujols rookie cards that have ended up in my collection over the years. Today, I thought I would focus on one of the cards and give a little back story.  

Several times in my life I have dabbled with not teaching.

One of those instances came within the first year or two of graduating college. I ended up taking classes to get my real estate license and worked for a Prudential office in suburban St. Louis. I was half-way decent at the job. I worked there for roughly a year and sold (helped people buy) a bunch of houses along the way. Like any job, there were good things and bad things about work. For this post, I am going to focus on the bad. 

Sorry, real estate people.  

I am not some great real estate sales expert, so maybe this take is completely wrong. Everything that I sold was from a person who was connected to a person I personally knew. Nobody (rarely) ever walked into, or called the real estate office and bought something. Cold calls in real estate are a complete waste of time. Still, the agents at my office were required to spend time each week answering phones at the office.  

The majority of the calls were loan officers, underwriters, attorneys, or other real estate agents trying to get ahold of the real estate agents in our office. It was a complete waste of time and likely just a short cut for the broker to avoid having to pay out salary and benefits to a receptionist. It was not the best run ship and is no longer open. 

Complete shocker. 

According to the internet, the old office is available for rent for just $585 a month. Whoever took this picture did a great job of not including the gigantic empty lot behind the office that used to be a shopping mall. Don't worry, I have got you covered.  

I survived my time playing receptionist at the real estate company many different ways, including opening a few packs of baseball cards. There was a nice little card shop right down the street from my office called "The Sports Card Dugout".  Randy, the owner, ran a great little store. 

While I do not live in St. Louis any longer, as far as I can tell, the Sports Card Dugout is still open for business. Obviously better run the real estate office.  

The worst days to get receptionist duty were Saturdays. Nobody called. Nobody even came into the office. It was hours of sitting alone in an office with nothing to do. Well, expect opening baseball cards, reading some books, and surfing the web.  

I pulled my 2001 Upper Deck Albert Pujols card on a Saturday at the real estate office. I already had a few Pujols rookies by the time Upper Deck Series 2 was released, but any chance of pulling one of his cards was a huge deal that summer. Many of his rookies were short-printed and hard to come across. The Upper Deck Pujols rookie was one of his first widely available rookie cards.  

I did not miss out.  

Here is the card.  

I love the action picture on the front, which was taken in Coors Field. The Cardinals started the 2001 season on the road with the season opener coming against the Rockies. Upper Deck always had great photography, but I love that they got an action photo from within the first few games of the season for this Pujols rookie rather than using a staged Spring Training photo.  

Here is Albert's first career hit against the Rockies. 

The back of the card.  

Considering Pujols had been in the Majors for a short time, this is a pretty good little write-up. 

Overall, there is nothing flashy about this 2001 Upper Deck Pujols rookie. It's just a solid baseball card from the early 2000s. Over the past 20 years, this card has aged well and is one of the better Pujols rookie cards out there. More importantly, this Albert Pujols card helped me get through one extraordinarily uninteresting Saturday waiting for the phone to ring at a real estate office.  

Pujols Parade - 2009 Upper Deck Goudey

Upper Deck was really good at remaking other card companies' sets. It all started with their Upper Deck Vintage sets whose designs were borrowed from 1960s and 1970s Topps sets. That product eventually died out, but during their last few years of producing baseball cards, Upper Deck made a Goudey set. You are not going to believe this, but the sets were based on the 1930s and 1940s Goudey sets. The 2009 Goudey set is based loosely on the design of the 1933 Goudey set.  

Upper Deck was great at pushing the envelope on copying other sets without crossing any sort of lines. They are the Vanilla Ice to Goudey's David Bowie.  

You see, the border says "GOUDEY" and not "BIG LEAGUE", like the original Goudey cards. Just like Vanilla Ice wrote a song that sounds like a David Bowie song, but there is a little cymbal ting at the end of the beat.  

Everyone be cool. There is no need to call any lawyers. Let's just look at the baseball card.  

Even if Upper Deck stole the design, it's not a bad one to steal. I like the bright yellow background behind Pujols. The art work is fine, but I feel like his face is off, as well as the bat. Pujols has a look about him while he is hitting, but whatever is happening on this card is not that look. 

Albert does not squint while he is hitting and he frequently pulls his lower lip into his mouth. His bat on the Goudey card is also too north and south. Pujols starts with his bat high, behind his head, with a slight upward tilt. You can always see his bat knob looking at him from the side.  

I am sure the artist tried very hard. I am already over the inaccuracies.  

Back of the card.  

I cringe.  

The first sentence says, "people talking about him in the same breath as the greatest players to ever play the game". The second sentence mentions Nomar Garciaparra. 

Nomar is not even the best athlete in his house, let alone one of the greatest baseball players.  

Let's do a quick rewrite.  

Albert Pujols hits baseballs like Mia Hamm scores goals.  

Random Ray - 1999 Upper Deck Retro

In the earlier 1990s, every card company wanted to appear as modern as possible. Foil, sparkles, glossy finish, cool and unique packaging. There was always something new. 

In the late 1990s, several card companies decided to come full-circle and make retro baseball card sets. Later on, it got annoying, but that was after Topps was the only licensed card manufacturer. The bloat of retro was all on Topps. 

What was retro about Upper Deck Retro?  

The card stock was kind of retro. The cards were also sold in a lunch box. The cards also said "Retro" at the top next to the Upper Deck logo. In conclusion, the cards were not really all that retro. 

Here is the Ray Lankford Upper Deck Retro card.  

Pretty standard picture of Lankford batting. Is this another card of Ray with a picture that was taken in Shea Stadium? I am leaning towards yes. I would also like to take a minute to say something bad about a Cardinals road uniform. In 1998, the Cardinals took their uniform numbers off the front of their jerseys. They did not look good. The look was abandoned fairly quickly. I was happy.  

Back of the card. 

The back is fine. 

You got a stat line, a name bar, a black and white Cardinals logo, and the little cartoon guy on the side of the card. The cartoon guy's name is "Student"? That's not very original. Not Upper Deck's best effort, but their later attempts at retro sets were a lot better.  

A Rant About Ben Sheets

The Olympics are starting this weekend, I doubt that I will watch very much. Maybe not at all. At one point in my life, I loved watching the Olympics. Over the past decade, I have watched less and less of the events. My loss of interest stems from the continued use of professional athletes in the games and the overly dramatic telecasts. I just want to see people swimming fast, not everyone has to have a backstory. 

"Ryan Held was a well-off middle class kid from Springfield, Illinois. He got a scholarship offer to attend NC State where he met his future wife. They don't agree about their pizza toppings. Mike Tirico has more about what this couple does when they order pizza....."  

Changing topics. I am going to write about Ben Sheets for a few minutes. 

Yes, the Brewers pitcher.  

The topic might seem really odd for my blog, but I promise you it's a relevant current topic with the start of the Olympics.

If you do not remember Ben Sheets, or do not know who he is, he pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers in the early 2000s. He was a good pitcher on a lot of not-so-great Brewers teams. Above-average pitcher, innings-eater who won his fair share of games while striking out a bunch of people. Sheets had a bunch of arm injuries late in his career and ended up pitching briefly for the A's and Braves for one season each. 

I care deeply about Ben Sheets and have a pretty healthy collection of his cards. I have never really written about him in this space. I guess if you really, really pay attention on Twitter, you might have seen me harangue some USA Baseball types about him. 

Yes, there will be baseball cards in this rant about Ben Sheets.  

Ben Sheets has several USA Baseball cards. 

Have you ever seen one?  

Unfortunately, there have not been any made since 2013 when Panini included him in a few different products. It's criminal that he's not in every USA Baseball card product. The fact that Ben Sheets has not had an Olympic related card in almost a decade goes to show how little card companies research the players on checklists. 

Some of you already know all about Ben Sheets and the Olympics. Here is another card. Keep reading anyway for the rant part of the post. 

Ben Sheets was in the 2000 Summer Olympics on the USA Baseball team. The roster was made up of Minor League players. A few were serious prospects, but the majority of the team consisted of older players who had lingered in the upper levels of the Minors. Ernie Young was one of the players. Go look him up.

The team was managed by Tommy Lasorda. After losing out on the Gold Medal at the previous two Olympic games, the expectations for this team were really low. Sheets was selected for the team. At the time, Sheets was a high-end prospect in the Brewers system. He was a great college player at the University of Louisiana-Monroe and was drafted in the first round by the Brewers in 1999.

Sheets essentially jumped from college to the Majors in a season. There are not many Minor League cards of him. This is the only one in my collection. I know there are others out there, just have never tracked them down.  

The Cuban National Team was the clear favorite to win the Gold Medal in baseball at the 2000 Olympics.  They had a roster full of professional players. Yes, the USA Baseball team players were technically professional players, but the Cuban team was filled with players who would have likely been in the Majors had Cuba not been closed off at that time.  

The two teams played in the preliminary round-robin and the Cubans beat the US team 6-1. Apparently the game was more lop-sided than the score indicates. However, the US team reached the medal round. After squeaking past a tough semi-final game against South Korea. the squad made the Gold Medal game against Cuba. A Cuban Gold Medal was all but a forgone conclusion. The team had won 21 straight Olympic baseball games entering 2000, including the Gold Medal games in both the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta games.  

Enter Ben Sheets.  

Sheets was a Double-A pitcher throwing against a Major League roster. All Sheets did was pitch a complete game, three-hit shoutout. No Cuban baserunner ever got past second base. It was a great performance. In the modern world of the Olympic Games with professional athletes taking over, this is as close as we are likely going to come to having another great upset in a team sport. 

At the time of this game, Sheets was very popular and got a few baseball cards out of this pitching performance.  Upper Deck included him in several different end-of-year products.  

There are also several 2001 Topps cards that show him wearing a "United States" jersey, but those pictures are actually from the 2000 All-Star Futures Game. The format of the Futures Game has always been the American players versus the International players. For the 2000 game, the US team wore these very Olympic looking uniforms.  

Further, Topps did not have a license to produce USA Baseball cards in the early 2000s. That production license was held by Upper Deck. I am sure that it was not an accident that Topps used this photo.  

Also, while it is not clear on the Topps Finest card above, Sheets is wearing a Milwaukee Brewers hat in the picture. Doubtful that you'd be allowed to wear that in the Olympics. There were plenty of other prospects in these sets who also appeared at the Futures Game, but managed to be photographed in their regular uniforms.  

Paging Barry Zito.  

So we are to the rant part of the post. (Deep breath)

Sheets performance against a heavily-favorite Cuban baseball team in the 2000 Gold Medal game was the best performance by a member of a US Olympic team sport in modern history outside of the 1980 hockey game against the Soviet Union. Although, the "Miracle on Ice" game was actually in the semi-finals, not the Gold Medal game. I am also excluding sports where competitors can win individual events and medals.

THIS WAS A GREAT PERFORMANCE.  

No matter though, nobody is paying attention to Ben Sheets. He's an average Major League pitcher. Ben is retired and has probably returned to Louisiana where he sitting around doing who knows what. 

You know what Ben Sheets hasn't done since he won a Gold Medal? Well, he has barely been acknowledged or recognized for a great performance during an Olympic Gold Medal Game.  

Do you know what USA Hockey has done to recognize the members of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" team?

+The team and all of its members are in the US Hockey Hall of Fame.

+The team lit the Olympic flame at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City

+The rights to the story were sold to Disney and made into a movie. 

Those were the three items I found by Google Searching the team, reading just the little snippet on the first link, and not actually clicking on it to read any further detail.  

Ben Sheets? 

Surely he has some sort of recognition somewhere by USA Baseball. Somewhere there is a plaque or a spot for him in a Hall of Fame or his number is retired? The answer to those questions:

No, there is not a plaque. I have looked for one at the USA Baseball facility. It's not there.

Yes, there is a USA Olympic Hall of Fame, but Sheets has not been inducted. 

Yes, USA Baseball has retired jersey numbers, but not Sheets. These are the retired numbers at USA Baseball. All of them have a plaque in the stadium. 

Before I start yelling, I am fine with Stephen Reich having his number retired. This is not about Stephen Reich. 

Now for the yelling part of the rant.  

MARK MCGWIRE HAS HIS NUMBER RETIRED!!! 

MARK FLIPPING MCGWIRE.

He was not even the best first baseman on the 1984 Olympic team.  

Why is Will Clark's number not retired? He out hit McGwire by almost 40 points with 10 more home runs and nearly 20 more RBIs. Look at Bobby Witt. He had an ERA under 1. I'd say Scott Bankhead, but he went to UNC. Plus, Bobby Witt was signing autographs at USA Baseball once and eye-rolled me for mentioning that he played for the Cardinals.  

He was old and not very good.  Still gave me the autograph though.  

Let me continue besmirching Mark McGwire as an Olympian.  

Baseball was a demonstration sport in the 1984 Olympics, these guys were not even playing for a Gold Medal. Further, if they had been playing for a Gold Medal, they lost to Japan in what would have been the Gold Medal Game. 

You know who did win a Gold Medal in the Olympics and pitched his ass off in the Gold Medal Game? 

Ben Sheets.  

I think Ben Sheets is in the first row, closest to the camera. He's not holding his flowers.  

Can Ben Sheets have his number retired?  

I have tweeted at USA Baseball. They have ignored me.  

Can Ben Sheets get a USA Baseball baseball card?

It's been nearly a decade since he's appeared in one of their sets. Kris Bryant has more than 80 USA Baseball cards during that time. Kris Bryant also has 0 Olympic Gold Medals. Two years ago, Roger Clemens got a USA Baseball card. He appeared in zero Olympic Games and has 0 Gold Medals. 

During the next week, if you are watching the Olympics, take a few minutes to mute Kenny Albert's backstory about the hard-knock life hockey players who went to Harvard, and look into Ben Sheet's 2000 Olympic performance. 

Random Ray - 1995 Collectors Choice

This is the second Collectors Choice card I have featured on my Random Ray posts. Yes, I am going to post all of them at some point, because these were great cards. I don't care that they were marketed for kids or that they were $1 pack cards at discount retailers. 

This card stays true to Upper Deck as a card brand. Great photography with a simple and modern design.

Here is the front of the 1995 Collectors Choice Ray Lankford card.  

All of the design elements, player name, team name, and brand logo, are all on the edges of the card. The main focus is the picture. This is a nice action shot of Ray diving back into first base against the Giants. I would try to do that thing where I figure out where and when the picture was taken, but Ray was frequently on base during road day games against the Giants in 1994.  

I love the Cardinals road uniforms from the 1990s and early 2000s. I still have no idea why they gave up on wearing the blue hats for every road game. It's a good look.

Back of the card. 

The stats are really simple on the back, but you get another really nice big color photograph of Lankford. The designer did a good job of balancing the space between the stat box and picture. Honestly, knowing that this was geared towards kids, I was in high school which counts, I don't mind the simple stat box. 

If you have a favorite player from the 1990s, you can never go wrong finding a card of them from a Collectors Choice set.  

Random Ray - 2001 Upper Deck MVP

This week's Random Ray is one of the last Ray Lankford cards as a Cardinals player. He was traded during the 2001 season to the Padres, so all of his 2002 cards are all with San Diego.  I believe he might have one card as a Padres player in 2001.  That's for another day.  

This week I am going with an Upper Deck MVP card. These were inexpensive cards that were sold at a lot of big box retail stores.  I believe it is supposed to be a notch up from the Collector's Choice cards.  Collector's Choice were inexpensive cards for kids and MVP were inexpensive cards for adults.  Something like that. I liked Collector's Choice better, but that's just me.  

This is a pretty standard MVP set design.  It's clearly made by Upper Deck, even if there was not an Upper Deck logo in the top left-hand corner, its just got that look.  The pixels on the left actually have the word "Lankford" hidden in them running top to bottom.  Sneaky, Sneaky.  

The picture is decent.  Clear action shot of Ray playing a game in Busch Stadium.  I wish the catcher was visible in the picture rather than having the pixels on the side.  It would be fun to see who they were playing here.  You know I am a big fan of figuring when pictures were taken on baseball cards.  

Back of the card.  

The little photo in the top, right-hand corner is a little odd.  It's off center and the background is really dark.  Ray is sitting in the dugout, which was painted dark green in Busch Stadium.  We can do better.  

The stat line is pretty simple, but also standard for Upper Deck baseball cards.  The write-up is a little odd being split between the top and bottom of the card.  However, I do like that they mention he is the career home run leader at Busch Stadium II.  Albert Pujols did not catch him before the stadium was torn down after the 2005 season.  

Overall, this is a decent baseball card.  I am not going to tell you I love it, but Upper Deck MVP was a solid product considering it cost roughly $1 per pack.  

Random Ray - 1997 Collectors Choice

The first half of the 1990s were not good years to be a Cardinals fan.  I feel like I say that every week on my Random Ray posts.  The team typically featured a combination of older, inexpensive players who were past their prime and younger prospects who did not pan out for various reasons.  It really all boiled down to the fact that the team's owner, August Busch III, was really cheap and did not care about the team.

  That all changed after the 1995 season.  The team was sold to the current ownership group and they actually tried to improve the roster by adding good players.  Before the 1996 season, the Cardinals signed or traded for Ron Gant, Andy Benes, Royce Clayton, Gary Gaetti, Luis Alicea, Todd Stottlemyre, and Dennis Eckersley.  I am probably forgetting some people.  

Do you know how nice it was to find baseball cards of Ray Lankford pictured alongside baseball players who were actually talented? 

This card was in Series 1 of the 1997 Collectors Choice set.  Many of the Cardinals photos for Series 1 were taken during the team's first few games of the 1996 season against the Mets in New York.  Note the blue dugout and orange handrails in the background.  The picture looks like its following a Ron Gant home run.  A quick flip through the box scores from the 1996 Cardinals shows Gant homered in the second game of the season against future Cardinals closer, Jason Isringhausen.  

Always nice when you can track a picture down to a specific game and event.  

Back of the card.  

I am not a big fan of overly busy card backs that are crammed with a lot of information.  However, Upper Deck seems to make this one seem decent.  There are a decent amount of stats, a nice write-up about Ray Lankford, and I dig the "Did You Know" trivia/factoid at the bottom.  The highlight on the card back is the picture at the top.  Interesting that Ray Lankford is wearing Dmitri Young's batting helmet.  

Dmitri wore 24 for the Cardinals in 1996 and 1997 and was a switch hitter.  Given Ray is wearing a batting practice jersey and gray pants, I am guessing this is from a Spring Training game and the team packed lightly.  I don't think the veteran players even appear that often in the road games in Spring Training.  

Overall, a nice card.  Love these Collector's Choice cards.  

Dysfunctional and Talented

I spent a little bit of time last month working on my collection of 2006 Durham Bulls baseball cards.  That was the first full year that I lived in North Carolina.  It was easily one of the most talented Bulls team that I have seen.  High draft picks, Top 100 prospects, future Major League All-Stars, a World Series MVP, and plenty of other solid Major League players. 

The team was also easily one of the worst Bulls teams that I watched in terms of on-field play and their finish in the standings.  In the 15 years, I have been watching the Durham Bulls, it's the only one to finish in the bottom 5 teams in the International League.  

In spite of their lack of wins, the 2006 Durham Bulls is still a fun group of players to collect.  

You've probably seen a few of these guys.  

First up is a pair of B.J. Upton autographs.  Nothing too hard to find, not sure why I am only getting around to these two at this point.  

Above is a 2003 Topps autograph out of the base set.  The card below is from the 2005 Upper Deck Origins set.  Both on-card signatures.  These would have been pretty pricy back in the day.  Both cost me less than $5 combined.  

Next up is long-time Major League pitcher Jason Hammel.  He was a member of the 2016 World Series Championship team for the Cubs.  Hammel never appeared in a playoff game that season, but did win 15 during the regular season.  The 2016 Cubs actually had 3 former Durham Bulls players; Hammel, Mike Montgomery, and Ben Zobrist.  

Love this autograph.  

Next up is a pair of autographs from James Shields.  

Never a huge fan of Shields during his playing career, but I have grown to appreciate his time in Durham a little more since he retired.  He was a good player in Durham, just never understood the hype around him in the Majors.  Shields has a career Postseason ERA of almost 5.50.  Why is he nicknamed "Big Game"? 

 

Back to his time in Durham. Shields pitched the first home opener I ever attended for the Bulls in 2006.  He pitched 6 innings and did not give up an earned run.  The Rochester Red Wings did manage to score 3 unearned runs against Shields.  Upton hit a walk-off grand slam to win the game in the bottom of the 9th.  

I did not have a single Shields autograph in the collection.  At some point I owned one, but it appears I traded/gave it away at some point.  

Next up, Delmon Young.  

Only non-autograph in the post.  I don't really dig relic cards, but I liked the picture on this Bowman with Delmon standing in Comerica Park.  He never turned into the franchise player many thought he would be, but he had some great moments in his career, especially the Postseason, with the Tigers.  

Those green Devil Rays hats were terrible.    

Last Delmon autograph is a Topps Finest card.  I think I avoided all of the silver sticker autographs that I could back in the day.  Delmon has a ton of sticker autographs, so I usually stuck with the Upper Deck cards since the stickers were clear.  These are dirt cheap now.  

Last card.  

The 2006 International League MVP.  

Kevin Witt was a good prospect for the Blue Jays in the late 1990s.  They released him at some point and he bounced around between several teams before making his way to the Bulls in 2006.  He ended up hitting 36 home runs and driving in 99 runs in just 128 games.  Pretty good player, even if did not even amount to much in the Majors.  

I have several Witt autographs, but I never got around to adding this card.  He's not someone with a great signature, but this one is really weak.  The card only cost me $2 after shipping.  Not sure I can really complain at that price.