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).
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