The Mayor of Kings Mountain Has Relocated

While Will Wilson was playing on the NC State baseball team, one of the school's fan websites dubbed him "The Mayor of King's Mountain", which his small hometown located in the western part of the state.  

The Mayor of Kings Mountain, Will Wilson, singles as the UNC LF misreads the ball. Run scores. Bases loaded with no outs in T5. Pack, 3-0.

— Pack Pride (@PackPride) April 16, 2017

The nickname is still popular with the local college baseball crowd, but has not really caught on with people outside of the area.  Regardless, I am enjoying the fact that Wilson appeared in several different 2020 products.  I recently picked up two of those cards, including one with his new team.  

Old team first.  

This is Wilson's card out of this year's Topps Heritage Minors.  The Orem Owlz (Z is for stupid) are an Angels Minor League team.  The Halos picked him out of NC State in the first round of the 2019 Draft.  For whatever reason, the Angels traded him last off-season to the Giants for Zack Cozart.  

I am sure that this photo would have probably been different if there had been Minor League Baseball this season.  The back of the card gives mention of his time in Raleigh.  

I think he's going to be at minimum a solid Major League Baseball player.  

Now, for a card with his new team.  

I used to really hate Bowman Sterling.  It supposed to be some sort of high end Bowman brand product, but for a long time it had sticker autographs.  This is actually a really nice card, and I love that the signature is signed on the card, not on a sticker.

These were the last two Wilson autographed cards that were on my list to find for this year, so I will give his cards a break until next summer.  

Done With Bowman Draft

Long ago I used to pick on Bowman Draft for it's poor photoshopping.  The pictures were terrible.  Some of the cards looked like something that a little kid could do on photoshop.  There were all kinds of misfires.  Here are a few:

Your pixels are showing......

Horribly out of proportion......

Players who are still wearing half of their college baseball uniforms.

Luke Weaver went to Florida State.  The Cardinals do not wear maroon.  Richie Shaffer went to Clemson his wrist bands and batting gloves are orange and purple.  Even when they got the uniforms right, they missed so many other details.  

Luckily, the good people at Topps have cleaned up Bowman Draft a little bit.  Still, I am avoiding the product.  Prospecting is always a big thing in baseball cards.  It is not very cost efficient though, especially given that I am just finding the cards of the Cardinals prospects, and some of the players I watched while they were in college.  

This year I have been looking for Will Wilson cards.  The Angels drafted him out of NC State in the middle of the first round.  

.@NCStateBaseball's Will Wilson has been drafted 15th overall in the first round of the 2019 MLB draft by the Los Angeles Angels (📷: Emma Sheppard) pic.twitter.com/xJykJ3P08u

— Technician Sports (@TechSports) June 4, 2019

Wilson was recently traded to the Giants.  Topps put him into Bowman Draft.  I have had little trouble finding his base cards and a few of the variations at little cost.  Wilson also signed cards for Bowman Draft.  That's a different story.  

I like collecting former NC State players, but anything that is in the three digit range on Will Wilson is a little much.  Especially given that the card shows Wilson in an NC State uniform photoshopped into an Angels uniform.  The green wall, orange line, and black billboards are all too familiar.  

Luckily, there are other options out there.  I still was able to find a Will Wilson autograph, it is actually in an NC State uniform, and it literally cost a fraction of the Bowman Draft card.  I have already ignored most of the Bowman Draft cards in recent years, but I might be done after this year.  

In the past I have spent time bashing Panini for not have a MLB license, and making cards that have all of the logos airbrushed off.  However, they really do a great job with the NCAA license.  Even if the Bowman Draft autographed card of Will Wilson were more affordable, I would have still picked up this Panini Contenders card of him, and probably would have preferred it over the other.  

The Mayor Of Kings Mountain Take 2

Last year I found my first Will Wilson card, which was out of the Leaf Perfect Game set from a few years back.  It still amazes me that there are card companies that make baseball cards of kids in high school and college.  This card was actually from Wilson's time in high school. 

Wilson ended up playing at NC State in college and at some point was dubbed "The Mayor of King's Mountain".  As far as I can tell the Pack Pride account on Twitter came up with the nickname. 

The Mayor of Kings Mountain, Will Wilson, singles as the UNC LF misreads the ball. Run scores. Bases loaded with no outs in T5. Pack, 3-0.

— Pack Pride (@PackPride) April 16, 2017

Wilson was drafted by the Angels in the first round last year, but was traded to the Giants recently.  Hopefully they will give him some playing time.  Regardless, Will Wilson has started to appear in some different card sets since he was drafted.  A few are a little more than I am willing to pay at the moment, but I found a few nice cards at the right price. 

The best part is that they are all NC State cards.  They are also all Panini cards, which I do not always know the most about. 

This is a sticker autograph.  It would be sweet if the signature was on the card.  Still looks really good.  Prizm is a pretty nice Panini product.  This is the first of two autographs that I found of Wilson in an NC State uniform. 

This is the second. 

This is another sticker autograph.  The top of Wilson's signature is cut off on the top of the sticker, but I still like this card.  Panini runs this "School Colors" insert across several sports.  I have another "School Colors" card of Dennis Smith, who played basketball at NC State.  

Similar ideas.  Last card.  

This is a regular base card of Wilson's from Prism.  Good extra card that was inexpensive.  More Will Wilson cards next week. 

The Mayor of Kings Mountain. Take 2.

A quick review from the first post about Will Wilson. 

1. He's from King's Mountain, North Carolina, which is shown on the map below.  It's west of Charlotte towards the mountains. 

2. Will Wilson had a baseball card made while he was in high school. 

3. Pack Pride, an NC State fan site, dubbed him "The Mayor of King's Mountain" a few years back during his freshman year at the school.    

The Mayor of Kings Mountain, Will Wilson, singles as the UNC LF misreads the ball. Run scores. Bases loaded with no outs in T5. Pack, 3-0.

— Pack Pride (@PackPride) April 16, 2017

and since I wrote the first post.....  

This past summer Will Wilson played for the USA Baseball College National Team, which plays mere minutes away from NC State's campus, and even closer to my house.  

We are all caught up.  

I got to see Will Wilson play last summer while the College National Team was playing Chinese Taipei.  Pretty fun game to attend.  

More importantly, since he was on a USA Baseball team you know he is getting a baseball card at some point.  Do these guys get any money for signing all of these cards, or is more just a thing that they have a card?  

Curious.  

Here is my Will Wilson card.  

It's a sticker autograph, and there is a slight flaw in between his first and last name.  At first, I thought that maybe someone at Panini was eating a half melted candy bar while they were putting together this card.....

but it is not.  Just some sort of weird mark underneath the sticker.  It sort of made me wonder if someone didn't put the sticker on the card, and then pull it back off because it was not straight or flat.  More Will Wilson cards later.  

                            

The Mayor Of Kings Mountain

There are only about 10,000 people in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, so I am going to give a few little facts about the town.  A quick map shows where it is in comparison to the cities you may know in central North Carolina.....

It's really not all that far from Charlotte.  When I first heard of the town, I assumed it was somewhere out in the western parts of the state.  I assumed that nobody really lived in the town.  Not really accurate.  

The town is also really important to our country's history.  It was the location of a battle during the Revolutionary War.  The British had won most of the battles in the southern colonies before the Battle of Kings Mountain.  The fight ended up being a win for the colonists.  

President Theodore Roosevelt actually mentioned The Battle of Kings Mountain in his book The Winning of The West: 

"This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution" 

There are also a few baseball players from the small town of Kings Mountain.  Otto Briggs played in the Negro Leagues during the teens, twenties, and thirties.  Jake Early, a catcher for the Senators and Browns during the 1930s and 1940s also hailed from Kings Mountain.  He was one of the best defensive catchers from his era.  

No more major war turning battles have taken place in Kings Mountain in recent years.  People wise, there has been a country singer, I don't listen to country music, and an actress from some daytime soap opera.  There is also another pretty good baseball player, who is currently starring for the NC State baseball team.....

Will Wilson is the team's current shortstop and one of the better players in the ACC.  He was named the All-ACC First Team shortstop for this season and made the Collegiate Baseball's All-American Second Team.  

Wilson's success in Raleigh has earned him the nickname "The Mayor of Kings Mountain" 

The Mayor of Kings Mountain, Will Wilson, singles as the UNC LF misreads the ball. Run scores. Bases loaded with no outs in T5. Pack, 3-0.

— Pack Pride (@PackPride) April 16, 2017

 

This tweet from the NC State fan site Pack Pride is the first time I have found him mentioned as "The Mayor of Kings Mountain".  All the of tweets and social media posts prior to the one embedded above appear to be about the actual mayor of Kings Mountain.  

Luckily, we are also living in a day and age where high school kids have baseball cards.  Will Wilson managed to get into two different sets.  I am still trying to find a copy of his USA Baseball card, which was in a Panini set, but I have been able to find his Perfect Game card.....

I am not a huge fan of Leaf cards, but this is one of their nicer products.  I believe these are their only baseball cards that do not have all of the logos airbrushed off the pictures.  The base cards are really nice too, I will have to try to find one of Wilson.  

Wilson will likely also end up on the USA Baseball College National team this summer.  Hopefully.  That should net him a few more Panini autographs and maybe a few other nice cards until he ends up in the Major League Draft.  Wherever Wilson ends up as a professional, hopefully his nickname will stick with him.