April 18-23 2023, Graphing of Mudcats at Wood Ducks

This past week, the Mudcats visited historic Grainger Stadium to take on the Wood Ducks for a 6-game series.  The Wood Ducks lost the series 1-5, which was pretty rough.  I got to 5 of the 6 games, with Wednesday being an Education Day, with an 11am start.  I missed that one since I had to work.

I got in everything I had ordered from Ebay, as well as 11 batches of 50/50s.  I already can tell that I will be cutting down on the number of 50/50s that I take, because this was a mess.  I got everything sorted out and most of it already taken care of, however.  I just have a few loose cards that I was unable to get for folks.  Those will have to wait, unfortunately.

Still, I had a great series, with some helping hands that knocked out a few cards for me, and almost finished off a couple of the Wood Ducks.  I had some really cool cards come in like some of the 2022 Bowman Heritage (bottom left), as well as the blue parallel Anthony Gutierrez (top of post).  I got an Invicta chrome signed by Gutierrez.  That card turned out great.

I had a bunch of Danyer Cueva come in, and he was the first player to start limiting us.  I'll have to ration out the rest of the cards I have of him so I don't burn him out.  I did get the stuff that I ordered taken care of, so that was nice.

I finally got Brock Porter on is Perfect Game card, as well as a few random Woodies that I needed to finish off.  Funny thing I figured out tonight, I still need to get a Yeison Morrobel base chrome signed.  I hae a refractor and a mojo refractor, but not a base chrome.  That's a little strange.

Hedbert Perez was pretty cool.  Last season, he was pretty much one-per, so I was afraid I would be strictly limited on him, but he hit whole pages a few times on this trip.  I have only a handful of his stuff left, and won't be taking any more, so I should be able to finish him off.  He has some nice cards, though, and I was really happy with the ones that got signed.

Jacob Misiorowski was really nice.  He was a strict one-per, but signed for us every time we asked.  I finished off a bunch of cards for folks, so that worked out nicely.  I also got my pack-pulled 2022 Panini Prizm Draft pink parallel signed, which was cool.  I found the above Matthew Wood after the first game, and worked it into the book for Thursday's game and got it signed.

The Perfect Game Chase Costello was given to me by a fellow grapher who was visiting all the way from California.  Costello was really cool, and I was happy to trade the card for one of my extra Danyer cards.  Jheremy Vargas informed us that it wasn't him pictured on the front of his 2022 Heritage Minors card, so he signed the back for us.  This will be an interesting one to look back on in the album years from now.

In all, I got the following autographs: Jojo Blackmon x 2, Cam Cauley x 28, Danyer Cueva x 19, Jeferson Espinal x 3, Anthony Gutierrez x 33, Dylan MacLean x 4, Ian Moller x 16, Yeison Morrobel x 26, Brock Porter x 13, Luis Ramirez x 4, Chase Costello x 1, Jacob Misiorowski x 12, Hedbert Perez x 32, Jheremy Vargas x 7, Gleider Figueroa x 2, Andres Mesa x 2, Carlos Maldonaldo x 2 and Matt Wood x 1 (209 total autographs).

June 2022 Graphing of Mudcats at Wood Ducks

The Carolina Mudcats came back to Kinston for a 6-game series against the Wood Ducks after the Wood Ducks had been away for two weeks.  It felt like longer, with all of the stuff we had going on recently, so it was nice to get back into a groove at Grainger Stadium.

I caught all 6 games, and got to see the Woodies sweep the Mudcats, which was great.  THere were some really close games, and great pitching.

I had taken a lot of 50/50s for this series; more than usual, and was able to almost finish everything off.  Prepping on Monday was a pain, but I got it all done, and ended up doing very well, even though a lot of the Mudcat players were limiting us on signing.  I enlisted a little help here and there to polish off a few guys, and it helped.

I was also able to find Demetre Kokoris's Vancouver Canadiens team set card, which he was excited to see.  I am glad to finally add him to the autograph album.  A lot of the stuff I got done for the Wood Ducks was parallels that I got in a 50/50 from Gerard.

I finally got some of my 2022 Bowman cards out of my box when the Mudcats came.  Jackson Chourio was the highlight of the series.  He was one per every time he walked by, so we were able to get him to sign most of the games pre and post-game.  I also got him to sign a baseball after the Sunday game.

A big difference between the first series of the year between the two teams and this series was that Hedbert Perez and Jeferson Quero were limiting pretty heavily.  I was still able to get the stuff signed that I wanted signed, which was nice.

I raided my closet and found this 2019 Aberdeen team set card of Jean Carmona.  I had bought the set to get Adley Rutschmann, and ended up not even opening it once the 2020 season was canned.

In all, I got the following autographs: Jackson Chourio x 11, Jheremy Vargas x 9, Hendry Mendez x 12, Hedbert Perez x 17, Dylan MacLean x 3, Ryan Garcia x 30, Maximo Acosta x 6, Jeferson Quero x 9, Eduardo Garcia x 14, Demetre Kokoris x 3, Jean Carmona x 2, Xavier Valentin x 1, Mitch Bratt x 3, Cam Cauley x 9, Ian Moller x 4 and Jose Rodriguez x 9 (142 total autographs).