TTM Success - David Christensen

A couple more older Bowman cards from Ryan were added to the autograph album when these 2006 Bowman Chrome cards came back signed from David Christensen. The above 2006 Bowman Chrome refractor turned out great. It also scanned great.

The 2006 Bowman Chrome also turned out well. 

Christensen (b. 1988) was a 2nd round pick by the Rockies in the 2006 June Amateur Draft out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Yes, you've heard of this school before, sadly.

He played in the minors from 2006 to 2011, in the Rockies system, reaching High A. He had 378 hits, 56 home runs and a .223 batting average. 

I mailed to Christensen on November 22 and got the cards back on December 8, for a 16-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Brandon Rice

A couple mid-2000s Bowman Chrome cards came back signed TTM by Brandon Rice.  The above 2006 Bowman Chrome came from my friend, Ryan.  He sent me a bunch of Bowmans to try TTM, and I got a lot of them done. 

I'm pretty sure this 2007 Bowman Chrome came from my own stuff.  I have a ton of 2007s, so it was good to get them out of the box.

Rice (b. 1988) was an 11th round pick by the Reds in the 2006 June Amateur Draft out of Spalding High School in Georgia. He played in the minors from 2006 to 2008, in the Reds system. He never got out of Rookie Ball.  He had a record of 5-7 with 47 strike outs and a 4.43 ERA.

I mailed to Rice on November 10 and got the cards back on November 25 for a 15-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Kevin Whelan

A couple older Bowman cards came back signed TTM from Kevin Whelan.  The above 2006 Bowman Chrome turned out really well, even though the scan shows the card being very dark.

This 2011 Bowman also turned out nicely.

Whelan (b. 1984) played in the majors in 2011 and 2014 for the Yankees and Tigers.  His major league experience consisted of three games.  He had a 0-0 record with 2 strike outs and a 9.00 ERA.

I mailed to Whelan on August 19 and got the cards back on September 18 for a 30-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Geoff Vandel

The autograph is hard to see, but I got a 2006 Bowman Chrome signed TTM by Geoff Vandel.  The card looks great; it was among a bunch of 2006 Chrome that I got from a box at my local Target back when I was getting back into collecting.

Vandel (b. 1987) was a 34th round pick by the Padres in the 2005 June Amateur Draft out of Shaw High School in Columbus, Georgia.  He played in the Padres system from 2005 to 2008, reaching A ball.  He had a record of 15-10 with 219 strike outs and a 4.27 ERA.

I mailed to Vandel on January 14 and got the card back on January 26, for a 12-day TAT.

TTM Success - Jason Botts

These Jason Botts cards hung out in my boxes for a super long time.  Way back when I got back into collecting, which was around 2005, I used to pull all rookie cards and drop them in a box.  Years later, I'd go through the box and pull guys who were doing pretty well (this helped me save a couple Trout rookies at the time, the Topps Update got sold immediately, pretty dumb of me) and the rest would just kind of stay in that box forever.  The above 2007 UD Spectrum, while not a rookie, found its way into that box.

The above 2006 Bowman Chrome and 2006 Topps Opening Day also were held in the rookies box.  I kept seeing the cards during searches through the box and I finally saw that I could try to get Botts to sign TTM.  The cards came back after being out for quite a while, and all of them look great.

Botts (b. 1980) played in the majors from 2005 to 2008 for the Rangers.  He had 65 hits, 5 home runs and a .230 batting average.

I mailed to Botts on March 3 and got the cards back on November 20, for a 262-day TAT.

TTM Success - John Hardy

This 2006 Bowman Chrome blue refractor that I got signed TTM by John Hardy turned out so well.  I don't remember how I came about getting the card; it is likely from the card boxes I got when my LCS closed.  Still, the card is really nice, and will be added to my autograph album.

Hardy (b. 1982) was a 7th round pick by the Phillies in the 2004 June Amateur Draft out of the University of Arizona.  He played in the Phillies system from 2004 to 2006, reaching A ball.  He had 110 hits, 1 home run and a .220 batting average.

I mailed to Hardy on March 6 and got the card back on March 18, for a 12-day TAT.

TTM Success - Justin Masterson

I added some really cool cards to my autograph album with this TTM success from Justin Masterson.  I had a ton of his cards in my box, and it was tough choosing what to send him.  The above 2014 Topps mini gold definitely had to be sent, and I love how it looks.  The card is numbered 18/63.

I had Masterson's 2006 Bowman Chrome card in my rookies box for a long time.  I was glad to get it out of there and signed.  Same with his 2008 Topps Heritage RC.

Finally, here are a couple Topps cards that came back, a 2012 Topps (top) and 2014 Topps green parallel (bottom).

Masterson (b. 1985) played in the majors from 2008 to 2015 for the Red Sox, Indians and Cardinals.  He had a career record of 64-74 with 1,004 strike outs and a 4.31 ERA.  He was an All Star in 2013.

I mailed to Masterson on October 22 and got the cards back on February 1, for a 102-day TAT.

TTM Success - Billy Rowell

Billy Rowell was once a prospect in the Orioles system.  He was a first round draft pick, who, lets say, didn't live up to his potential.  I remember reading an article on him after he was drafted where he said he was on his way to the Hall of Fame.  I remember thinking "Ooh, hang on, kid" and here we are.

I had met Rowell back when he was playing for Frederick.  Long before I was graphing cards, I made sure to get Rowell on a baseball, since he was a former first round pick.  Thinking back, I wish I had been graphing cards back then, because I had a bunch of his stuff.  Now, all of his cards are buried in an Orioles box somewhere in my closet.

I did uncover these two cards fairly recently, and saw that Rowell was signing TTM.  I'm glad I sent them, because surprisingly, Rowell wrote me a note in return.  He thanked me for being a fan, and said that he had some good times in Frederick.  I really appreciated the note.  He was always nice to me in the times I met him, so I have nothing bad to say about him.  I just wish he had panned out.

Rowell (b. 1988) was a first round draft pick out of high school by the Orioles in the 2006 June Amateur Draft.  He played in the minors from 2006 to 2011, reaching Bowie (AA).  He had 513 hits, 40 home runs and a .261 batting average across 6 MiLB seasons.

I mailed to Rowell on January 13 and got the cards back on January 24, for an 11-day TAT.

TTM Success - Brandon Fahey

A trip through my Orioles boxes afforded me the opportunity to find a couple cards of Brandon Fahey and send them TTM.

The cards turned out really well, even though Fahey used a fading Sharpie to sign them,

Fahey (b. 1981) played in the majors from 2006 to 2008 for the Orioles.  He had 92 hits, 2 home runs and a .224 batting average.

I mailed to Fahey on March 25 and got the cards back on April 27, for a 33-day TAT.

2019 Wood Ducks Hot Stove Event

It still pains me that I missed the first Wood Ducks Hot Stove event back in 2017.  Thankfully, I get notifications from the team on a bunch of different platforms now, I should never miss any Wood Ducks news.

This year, the third annual Wood Ducks Hot Stove event brought current Rangers Willie Calhoun, Jose Trevino and Jeffrey Springs to Kinston (and in Springs's case, back to Kinston).  Again, the event was held at King's BBQ, which is a very great BBQ chain in Kinston.  This was my second time going to the event.  Tickets cost $30/person and came with 2 drink (for adults of course) tickets and dinner.  There was also a social hour where you could mingle among fellow fans, Wood Ducks employees and the Rangers personnel.  I brought my son, Chris and my brother, Andy, along and the two of them has as much fun as I did.  I posed for one photo, with Willie Calhoun, who was super nice.

Willie also posed with Chris and definitely won a new fan once Chris realized that Calhoun grew up a Giants fan.

Jose Trevino was really cool, as well.  We had met him last summer in Frisco.  We spent some time last night talking about football and who we thought would win in the playoffs.  Turns out, Trevino is a huge Cowboys fan.

Jeffrey Springs kinda sorta remembered us from 2017, when he was a Wood Duck, but the 30th round pick has gone on to become the second Wood Duck to reach the majors.  He is also a native North Carolinian, hailing from Belmont.  He and I discussed how disappointed we were in the Panthers' season and more specifically how disappointed we were in Cam.

We were introduced to new Wood Ducks manager, Corey Ragsdale, who seems to be a pretty cool guy.  This season, he will be doubling as Woodies manager and also Rangers Minor League Field Coordinator.

There was a roundtable discussion with the players, and I was able to ask a question of them: Now that they have reached the majors, who have they met that they were like "Oh man, I can't believe I met THAT GUY!"  Springs answer was Cole Hamels; Trevino answered Michael Young and Calhoun answered Barry Bonds.  The Rangers announcer, Matt Hicks, also answered my question by telling a story about how he interviewed the great Hall of Famer, Vin Scully.  The stories that were told definitely were a highlight of the night, and I was glad that my question elicited some of the best stories of the night.

Chris made a new friend in Calhoun.  Here they are after the event talking about the Giants and Barry Bonds.  According to Chris, he also talked to Calhoun about how it was having Tim Lincecum (still Chris's favorite player) as a teammate last Spring Training and how Calhoun collects his own baseball cards.  Apparently, Calhoun tries to get one each of his cards and signs them for himself.  For some reason, that cracked me up.  He seems like a really cool, down-to-earth guy.  I talked with him later about how it was meeting Bonds.  It turns out, Calhoun was introduced to his idol by his mentor, former pitcher, Dave Stewart.  Bonds and Calhoun formed a friendship this offseason and have spent a great deal of time working out together.  I may or may not have dropped a few hints to Calhoun by saying, "Man, I really need to find a way to get Barry to sign his 1987 Topps rookie card for me..."  Calhoun laughed and told me that each day he worked out with Bonds, he was bringing handfuls of stuff to be signed, and Bonds graciously signed everything he brought.

I picked up two nice items during the silent auction (well, one during the silent auction, and one after).  This team signed "Christmas in July" bat hadn't been bid on at the end of the show, so I offered to buy it at the minimum bid, and the folks were happy to take my money.

The bat is amazing.  I mean, it is really awesome!  It looks even better in person and I honestly have no idea where I want to display it, but it looks so cool.

It definitely is a high-end custom bat that they had made especially for the Christmas in July event last season.  So, Chris and I have jerseys for the event, and I have the team signed bat.

Of course, I couldn't do the event without doing some graphing.  I took 50/50s for my friends, Max and Gerard, and between Chris, Andy and I, we got everything signed.  The purple chrome Calhoun was pulled from one of those 2018 Bowman Chrome Mega Boxes from Target and is the special atomic refractor that was in those boxes.

I was out of Trevino cards, so I had to order some.  I liked this Frisco card from 2018, so I got that off of Ebay.

I also picked up a few parallels from 2018 Bowman, and a red Team USA card.  The 2018 Bowman Chrome base was my end of the 50/50 from Gerard.

My favorite Trevino was this gold shimmer parallel out of 2018 Bowman.  It is numbered 20/50 and scanned amazingly.  I had purchased a lot of 10 additional Bowmans, but they didn't arrive in time.  My friend, Max, will get those done for me at Spring Training.

I had never heard of Ragsdale before, but when I was informed that he would be the manager, I searched him real quick on EBay.  I saw that he was in 2006 Bowman, so I searched my Bowman box and found that although I had a ton of 2006 Bowman, I had no Ragsdales.  I bought a good many of them off of Ebay.

It turns out, though, that my LCS has boxes of "rookie cards" dating back to the mid-90s, which essentially means, there are boxes there that I had never gone through in the 10 years (that's right, I have been in the Greenville area now 10 years) that I have been going to the shop.  I picked up a handful of Ragsdale's cards just in case the ones I ordered didn't get here in time.  Luckily, those all came and I got them done already.

Finally, I got Jeffrey Springs on my Spokane and 2017 Woodies team set cards, along with a Roughriders card that I picked up.

I had such an amazing time at the event; I can't wait til the season starts.  I think I got my 2019 graphing season started off with a bang.  Now, onto Orioles Fan Fest!

TTM Success - Cla Meredith

With all of the vintage cards coming in from TTM requests, it was kind of refreshing in a way to receive this return from former reliever, Cla Meredith.

The most exciting part of it, for me, was getting this 2006 Bowman Chrome back signed.  I had gotten a box of these a while ago, long before I knew about graphing and prospecting, and sat on the cards.  I now have a ton of 2006 Bowman Chrome cards of guys who never made it just sitting in a box.  So, when I found one of a guy I could send to, I was really happy.

I also added a couple Topps cards for the album in these 2007 and 2008 Topps.

All of the cards turned out really nice, and Meredith has a nice signature.

Meredith (b. 1983) played in the majors from 2005 to 2010 for the Red Sox, Padres and Orioles.  He had a career record of 14-14 with a 3.62 ERA and 189 strike outs.  He was traded to the Orioles from San Diego in exchange for Oscar Salazar in July 2009.

I mailed to Meredith on August 5 and got the cards back on November 20, for a 107-day TAT.

Chrome Care Package From Nick C.

I got a nice care package in recently from my friend, Nick C. that had a few nice Chris Davis Bowman Chrome parallels, as well as a few other cards.  I have helped Nick's Maikel Franco PC quite a bit, and he finally got around to hooking me up with these cards.

The 2013 Bowman Chrome blue refractor at the top of the page is numbered 209/250.  The above purple parallel is numbered 147/199.  After consulting my Davis spreadsheet, I learned that I didn't have the blue parallel yet.  I do have another purple parallel, but extra numbered cards are always welcome.

I also have another of these 2014 Finest refractors somewhere in my box, but I failed to log the numbering on my spreadsheet.  I'll have to remember to figure that out sometime.  In the meantime, I will have this one logged and put in my box.

Chris Davis wasn't the only player in the package from Nick.  He also included this 2009 Bowman blue parallel numbered 372/500.

There was also this 2006 Bowman Chrome Nolan Reimold form the Futures Game.  I had one of these in my collection.  You would think that I would have had more of them, but I guess I never picked any other up.  This one will get logged in a few minutes as well.

Thank you so much for the package, Nick!  I enjoyed all of the cards.  I'll have to keep an eye out for some nice Phillies stuff for you.

A Surprise Package From Michael S.

Surprises make me happy. Surprise packages from fellow collectors whom I've built a great rapport with that include cards for my son make me even happier.  I've been talking with Michael S. since I was on my vacation and I picked him up some 1958 Topps set needs.  He's a really super guy who coaches football at a local high school in Texas.  An Astros and Rangers fan (mainly Astros), Michael has been talking to me via Kik messenger every day since our initial contact a month ago.

Michael sent me a really nice package of some Bowman Chrome Orioles (most notably this Nolan Reimold from the Futures Game) and a few other Orioles cards.

Additionally, Michael included some Giants cards for my son, Chris.  The above Pablo Sandoval Bowman Chrome rookie blew me away when I saw it.  This card is really awesome and I know Chris will feel the same when he sees it (he is at his grandparents' house right now).

So, thanks for the surprise, Michael.  I really appreciate it!  We'll have to continue to do more trading in the future as well as continue our conversations on sports, life and collecting.  Thanks!

Completing Another Trade

I completed a trade with Dustin over at the blog 'Coot Veal and the Vealtones' the other day when I sent him an Ivan Rodriguez relic from some past A&A offering in addition to some Carlton Fisk cards.  In return, amongst some Orioles cards was this Virgil Trucks from 1994 Ted Williams, which I did not yet have in my collection.  I have probably 75% of all of Mr. Trucks' cards.  I hope to get some of his oddball cards from his playing days when I get a little money, but the big ones are mostly in my PC now.

The main piece I was trading for, though, was the below 2006 Bowman Chrome Brandon Snyder auto.  Snyder is a favorite of mine and I was happy to add this Bowman Chrome to my small Snyder PC.  I know Brandon has read my blog at least once, so maybe he'll see this on here!

Snyder didn't last long as a catcher in the O's system.  I believe he hurt his shoulder early on and was converted to a first baseman.  He was traded to the Rangers last year.  I believe the Rangers signed him to a minor league deal this past offseason, so I'm hoping Brandon can get back to the majors and stick around.  He is an awesome guy; the kind you really want to root for.

So, thanks for the trade, Dustin!  I really appreciate ding the deal and I hope we can match up again.