August 2019 Graphing Recap of Blue Rocks at Wood Ducks

I came back from the National with some nice parallels of some teams that I knew I would see during the last month of the season.  The above Brewer Hicklen mega refractor is one of the cards I really wanted to see signed.  It turned out great!

I was able to finally get Daniel Lynch on some cards.  He had been hurt the first time the Blue Rocks came through, so I wasn't sure if he would be back or not.  Luckily, he was, and signed everything I had.

I had some really nice Nick Prattos that I got from the National.  The bottom three are some of them.  He is always super nice, even when he gets ejected!  I ended up with his broken bat, and he was cool enough to sign it after one of the games.  He had broken the bat after a called third strike, and voiced his displeasure while slamming the bat to the ground.  Kyle Isbel gave it to us at the end of the game.  Chris and I waited outside and had Pratto sign it.  He smiled as he signed it, so that was good.

I was able to scour my boxes for a couple of Larry Sutton's cards.  I was glad to find these, but I had hoped I would have a few more.

I was glad to knock some more MJ Melendez cards out.  He limits, so it took some time to get all of these done, but I was able to get some cool stuff for myself, and also some friends' 50/50s.

Chris helped me out with getting this JP Martinez done.  He got tougher and tougher as the season went on, but I was glad to get another card out of my box and into my album!

Finally, I was lucky enough to have some of the roving instructors in my autograph book that I could get to sign.  Bryan Harvey and Dwayne Murphy were both at a couple of the games, so I was able to get these cards done.

June 2019 Graphing Recap of Salem Red Sox at Down East Wood Ducks

It was a tough series for me to graph, but I did have some success this past weekend getting a few more cards signed while the Salem Red Sox were in town.

I was very low on cards for both teams, but I was able to finish everything I had for Salem, including some 50./50s for my friend, Gerard.  Also, Thad Ward was called up to Salem, so I was able to get three cards out of my box and have them signed while he was here.  The above 2018 Bowman Chrome sparkle refractor was a last-minute find in my box yesterday before we left for the game.  I don't know how I missed it beforehand, but I luckily found it and got it done.

Ward and Bryan Mata were both really nice, and signed everything that Chris and I had.  I had several Matas left from my 50/50 with Gerard, but all I had of Ward were the three cards that I found in my box.

Mata has a nice, bold signature, and it shows up well on cards in blue.  At 19, he is the youngest player on the Red Sox.

Marcus Wilson, on the other hand, has been in the minors since 2014, but has only reached AA, briefly.  He was traded by the Diamondbacks to the Red Sox earlier this year.  He played 19 games this season with he Red Sox AA team in Portland, Maine, and had a .161 batting average.  Demoted to Salem at High A, he now has a .348 average with 7 home runs.  He showed this weekend that he can mash High A pitching, but has yet to do so at a higher level.  Probably bitter that he is back slumming it in the Carolina League, Wilson will sign only one card per series for autograph seekers.  That's too bad, because he really put on a show.  Maybe the stutter-step around the third base coach while doing his home run trot was a bit much; it seemed to rile up the Wood Ducks bench this weekend.

Wilson had called me out for getting a card signed on Thursday, and asking him to do another on Friday.  I'm not worried about him, though.  I drafted a couple other folks at the park to get the two additional cards that I wanted signed, and they helped me out by getting them done.  Don't worry, I was beyond respectful, even though his attitude rubbed me the wrong way.

The Wood Ducks made some personnel changes, since this was the first game back from the All Star break.  Moved up to Frisco are Leody Taveras and Jason Bahr.  Jairo Beras is back in Kinston following a demotion from Frisco, and Curtis Terry has been promoted from Hickory.

Finally, my attention to details at the Wood Ducks games paid off.  I had heard our friend, Billy, tell us that Bryan Harvey shows up at the games from time to time as a rover for the Rangers.  I happened to look through a box of 1993 Flar on Wednesday for someone who will be at the National, and found a Harvey card.  I put it in the book immediately, thinking it would be a good idea to have it ready.  That was good timing, since he was there on Thursday.  I got that card signed, then had enough time this weekend to find a few more cards.

The Wood Ducks are out of town until July 1, then they will play a series against the Winston-Salem Dash.  I need to load up on some more cards so that I am ready for the series.

TTM Success - Bryan Harvey

It took me a couple tries, but I finally got a return from former reliever, Bryan Harvey.  I used a few really nice cards from the mid-90s, notably this Topps Embossed from 1995.  I didn't have a whole lot of these, but now I have one in my autograph album.  It's a pretty cool card, I think.  The auto turned out really nice, as well.

Here are some requisite Topps cards that I sent off.  I had to add a 1989, since it looked so sharp, and the 1993 marks some of the first Marlins cards.  They both look really cool.

Always loving horizontal cards, I got three with this Harvey success.  The 1994 Topps didn't turn out as nicely as I had hoped, since the card is so dark.  I didn't have a lot of 1994 to choose from, so this one will be fine.  The other two horizontal cards look much better, though!

Harvey (b. 1963) played in the majors from 1987 to 1995 for the Angels and Marlins.  He is a fellow graduate of UNC-Charlotte and father of Orioles prospect, Hunter Harvey.  He had a career record of 17-25 with an ERA of 2.49 and 448 strike outs.  He had 45 or more saves in two seasons, 1991 and 1993, the same two seasons in which he was an All Star.  He finished second in the 1988 AL Rookie of the Year voting and 5th in the 1991 AL Cy Young voting.  He finished 8th in the NL Cy Young voting in 1993 and received MVP votes that year as well, finishing 14th.

I mailed to Harvey on November 3, but the package came back RTS, so I tried the new address provided by USPS on November 15.  The cards finally came back on December 8, for a 23-day TAT.