April 2, 2025, Graphing of Cannon Ballers at Dash

On Wednesday, the Winston-Salem Dash hosted the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers in another exhibition game.  I had two tickets, since Winston-Salem was doing a $0.52 promotion, but ended up being unable to fill the second spot.  That ended up being ok, because the graphing scene (at least on the Kannapolis side) was a mess.

Players from both teams limes up on the field pregame for a signing event, but it was very disorganized. Rosters with uniform numbers hadn't been released prior to the game, so we had to ask everyone what their name was.  That was pretty embarrassing, but I've had to do it before.  Still, everyone was pretty cool and signed a good bit of what I had.  Most limited, but that was ok.  I can try to see Winston-Salem again soon.

The White Sox have quite a few guys with Bowman cards from the last several years.  I knocked out a lot of players who had been in my Bowman box for years like the two 2022 Bowman Wilber Sanchez cards.

It turned out that the Kannapolis guys who lined up for the signing had no cards.  They were cool about it though and chatted with us for a bit.  We made our way to the Kannapolis dugout, which ended up being swamped.  I was in the scrum, right in the middle of it, but still got a few guys that I needed.  I wasn't too worried about the guys that I missed because I plan to catch them in either Fayetteville or Zebulon.  Hopefully I can.

I ended up leaving early, around the 3rd inning, because I had a long ride home.  I did get to see George Wolkow launch a bomb of a home run.  He crushed that ball.

I had a good time, even though graphing is more fun with friends. 

In all, I got the following autograohs: Sam Antonacci x 2, Lucas Gordon x 4, Wes Kath x 1, Seth Keener x 3, Jeral Perez x 3, Wilber Sanchez x 2, Samuel Zavala x 2, Ryan Burrowes x 4, Darius Day x 2, Nick McLain x 3, Brayden Montgomery x 1, Casey Saucke x 2, Jordan Sprinkle x 5 and George Wolkow x 5 (39 total autos).

April 1, 2025, Graphing of CENSORED at Crawdads

The bitterness is still fresh and the feelings remain raw, but I got over myself a little bit and saw the first ever Hub City Spartanburgers game when they took on the Hickory Crawdads in an exhibition game on Tuesday.  By the end of the game, I felt a lot better. Many of the former Down East Wood Ducks recognized me and acknowledged my feelings about the team folding.  One of the players who took the time to ask how I was doing and thank me for making the trip was Anthony Gutierrez.  Anthony is (by far) the single player who has signed the most cards for me.  Yes, I counted.  Anthony signed for me with no problem and was just super cool.  I was so glad to see him again.

Brock Porter was another guy who made sure to shake my hand and ask how i was doing.  Gleider Figuereo and Danyer Cueva also recognized Jesse and I as we were graping, and signed what we had.  I was glad to get the final Wood Ducks cards, my Figuereo and Cueva 2024 Topps Pro Debut. Pablo Guerrero also recognized us, which was really cool.  I'm glad he was included in 2024 Bowman Draft.

I googled Dalton Oence images, looked at them, looked up and immediately recognized him.  I was impressed that I recognized him and got this UNC card signed.

Another cool thing about the game is that I got to see my buddy Dugan at work.  He's the analytics guy for the Spartanburgers.  I've known Dugan since he was 14, having met him at a card show way back then.  Im really proud of him and am happy to see him living his dream by working in baseball.

In all, we got the following autographs: Pablo Guerrero x 3, Dalton Pence x 1, Brock Porter x 3, Casey Cook x 3, Danyer Cueva x 3, Dylan Dreiling x 1, Gleider Figuereo x 3 and Anthony Gutierrez x 8 (25 total autographs).

Another TTM Success From Dave Tomlin

This 1975 Topps that came back signed TTM from Dave Tomlin was either in an assortment of cards Ryan gave me or from the Conrad boxes from a few years ago.  I wanted to add another 75 to the autograph album, having gotten Tomlin several years ago on some of his other cards. 

I mailed to Tomlin on January 2 and got the card back on January 21 for a 19-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Chris Wakeland

This 2000 Topps Gold Label signed by Chris Wakeland is a really nice looking card. It's also pretty thick, as cards go.  I like the concept, a high level chromed-out card.  I'd like to see some more of these pop up in some future releases. 

Wakeland (b. 1974) played in the majors in 2001 for the Tigers.  He had 9 hits, 2 home runs and a .250 batting average. 

I mailed to Wakeland on January 2 and got the card back on January 21 for a 19-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Mike Dimmel

Another 1991 Crown Orioles card was added to the album when this Mike Dimmel signed card came in TTM.

Dimmel (b. 1954) played in the majors from 1977 to 1979 for the Orioles and Cardinals.  He had 1 hit, no home runs and a .125 batting average.

I mailed to Dimmel on January 6 and got the card back on January 21 for a 15-day TAT. 

Another TTM Success From Ryne Sandberg

With Ryne Sandberg battling cancer, I wanted to send to him again and also send a note with well-wishes to him.  I did, and got my cards back signed pretty quickly.  The above 2024 Panini Crusade is a really cool card that looks great in the autograph album. 

I also got him to sign my 2018 Topps 1984 Chrome silver pack card.  This had been sitting in a stack on my desk since 2018.  I finally sent it off to get signed, and it looks great.

I mailed to Sandberg on December 16 and got the cards back on January 21 for a 36-day TAT.  I paid his fee of $10/card.

TTM Success - Kip Wells

TTMs have been very slow to come in lately.  I'm slowly whittling down my stack of stuff to be scanned.  I also am almost at a point where I'll scale back what I mailed out as the season progresses.  I'll be focusing on prepping for upcoming series and scanning stuff that has come in from 50/50s; starting with a box of awesome returns from my guy Max.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  The 2007 Upper Deck First Edition that came back signed TTM from Kip Wells was the next card in my stack to scan.  The card is pretty cool and turned out nicely. 

Wells (b. 1977) played in the majors from 1999 to 2009 and 2012 for the White Sox, Pirates, Rangers, Cardinals, Rockies, Royals, Nationals, Reds and Padres.  He had a record of 69-103 with 963 strike outs and a 4.71 ERA.

I mailed to Wells on November 9 and got the card back on January 21 for a 73-day TAT.