April 12-13, 2025, Graphing of Stripers at Tides

This past weekend a couple weeks of torturing myself with card searching and prep culminated into graphing two more AAA teams across two days.  It didn't help that work has been busy and I haven't had a lot of time to go through boxes.  I had Chris and Jesse here at the house searching boxes on Friday to get me ready to go to Norfolk for games Saturday and Sunday.

Chris had to work, so it was my buddy Jesse and I hitting the hotel Friday night.  Since Norfolk's game on Friday had been rained out, we weren't in a hurry to make the two-hour drive up there.  We found the guys we could find, hit the road and got into the hotel around 10pm.  I powdered the cards and loaded the books so we would be ready to do arrival Saturday morning.  The weather sucked; it was chilly and windy all day out there, but Jesse had a sweater and I remembered to bring a hoodie.

We graphed outside with a Norfolk grapher named Jeff.  We hit the Tides side on arrival with a couple tries at some Gwinnett guys, hit Gwinnett inside pregame and their side again outside on departure.

We were really hoping to get Alex Verdugo, who we got outside on arrival when we saw the second Gwinnett team bus come in.  Jesse Chavez signed for us outside on arrival, which was really cool.  I got denied by Sandy Leon (Hola Sandy) on arrival but he signed everything we had on departure.

James McCann was really nice as well.  He was one of the last players out on departure, but it was worth getting him on my Orioles card.  

Luke Williams was a bit tougher, but he did sign for us.  We missed several people like Luke Waddell, Jake Marisnick and Hurston Waldrep.

I had some nice Jesse Chavez cards, but missed one that was stuck behind other stuff in my slider box.  It was also good to finally get Chuck LeBlanc on my Frisco team set card.

There were a bunch of Tides guys that I needed on this trip.  We got really lucky to get Samuel Basallo and Coby Mayo at the same time outside.  The 2025 Topps insert if Mayo turned out great.  The Basallo I got done was from 2024 Bowman Draft.  Jesse helped me get a 2024 Bowman Chrome.

My 2024 Pro Debut Chrome gold refractor of Jud Fabian turned out awesome.  It was also great to get all of the Vimael Machin cards I had pulled for the Independent League last year done.  He is continuing to hit like crazy.  I hope he gets called up to the big leagues again.

One of the toughest cards that eluded me for a while was Triton, the secondary mascot of the Tides.  I finally got that one done for the 2024 team set.

Finally, Terrin Vavra's exclusive deal expired.  So, I was able to get several of his cards signed. His Topps Now card had a lot of miles on it.  This card traveled with me to the Orioles Caravan a couple years ago as a "just in case", then on to Norfolk last year as I tried to get some ink on it.  The card is finally signed an can now reside in the binder.

Jesse and I had a great time, catching 3 games as opposed to the two we originally had thought we would when we planned the trip.  The Tides went 1-2 while we were there but we got to see homers by Fabian and Mayo.

In all, we got the following autographs: Jordyn Adams x 2, Samuel Basallo x 2, Dylan Beavers x 4, Jud Fabian x 2, Coby Mayo x 2, Vimael Machin x 4, Corbin Martin x 12, Terrin Vavra x 4, Thaddeus Ward x 2, Triton x 1, Eddy Alvarez x 1, Matthew Batten x 1, Jesse Chavez x 5, Garrett Cooper x 1, Jose Devers x 2, Chuck Leblanc x 1, Sandy Leon x 9, James McCann x 2, Enoli Paredes x 2, Alex Verdugo x 2, Jordan Weems x 5, Luke Williams x 4, Livan Soto x 6, Carlos Tavera x 1, Luis Vazquez x 1 and Chandler Seagle x 6 (84 total autographs).

An Instagram Trade With Al

Believe it or not, I actually hate trading.  Usually, it is a long, drawn out process where you have to haggle with folks and/or meet their demands to pull something decent off.  I prefer the arrangements I have with friend such as Max or Gerard where we just send each other stuff we think the other would like, and in the end, things kind of wash out.

That's not to be said,though, that I won't pull off a trade here and there.  Recently, a guy on Instagram named Al approached me about trading our extra prospect autos from IP graphing.  I keep a box of extra autos just for this reason, and with the cards that I had built up, I made a pretty sweet deal.

Al was super generous with his cards, and I didn't know he would be at the start.  I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the deal until he sent me some photos of cards he was making available.  The 2017 Topps Heritage Minors Gavin Lux is the card that got my attention, and ultimately what persuaded me to strike a deal.

I had a couple unsigned versions of the card, but I had no way of seeing Lux in person in order to get one signed.  I know he is a really well thought of prospect, so I was hoping I would have a chance to get him at some point.

Al and I basically did a card-for-card trade, but the autograph he was most focused on was Nick Madrigal.  I had one left, and was able to include it in the deal.  I think including that card set the wheels in motion on Al's end, and I think the both of us are very excited about each person's returns.  I was able to get: Lux, Jeff Brigham, Dilson Herrera, Lewis Brinson, Tyler Alexander, Helmis Rodriguez, Daniel Robertson, Chris Ellis, Ryan McMahon, Austin Beck...

 Justus Sheffield, AJ Reed, Forrest Wall, Rosell Herrera, Kyle Freeland, Alex Verdugo, Jamie Westbrook, Cody Reed, Sam Selman...

Jairo!, Tyler Danish, Andrew Sopko x 3, and Pat Neshek.  Al also included autos of Josh Morgan and Collin Wiles, but I already had them, so those will either be included in a future trade with someone else, or they'll make it into a gift or something.

I was very happy with my deal with Al.  He and I agreed to do some 50/50s together, if the season can ever get going.