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).

June 13 and 15, 2023, Graphing of Cannonballers at Wood Ducks

Normally, a series is 6 games, and it usually takes me all 6 to finish off what I have.  In the case of last week's series between the Wood Ducks and Cannonballers, I was able to get everything done in the two games I was able to see.

I had help, of course.  Chris came along with me, as well as my cousin, Ale.  I got some cards in from my buddies Gerard and Max.  Gerard sent me some Andres Mesa parallels and a nice 2007 Upper Deck Premier Carlos Maldonado.  Max sent me some other Maldonados, including the above 2007 Fleer.

The big news of the series was that the Wood Ducks team set came out.  I got a bunch of cards from the set signed.

Normally, the Wood Ducks wait til the last possible second to issue the team sets, but with the new Minor League collective bargaining agreement, Choice's contract is about to expire.  Or so I've heard.

There were a couple guys on Kannapolis who weren't here early in the season like Tanner McDougal, Wilber Sanchez and Niah Schultz.  I also was able to rack Jordan Sprinkle and Peyton Pallette again.

In all, I got the following autographs: Danyer Cueva x 5, Willy Espinal x 1, Gleider Figuereo x 13, Logan Frandsen x 1, Carlos Maldonaldo x 9, Andres Mesa x 21, Yeison Morrobel x 7, Tommy Specht x 3, Tanner McDougal x 2, Peyton Pallette x 28, Wilber Sanchez x 7, Jordan Sprinkle x 25, Noah Schultz x 2, Jojo Blackmon x 4, DEWD x 4, Yosy Galan x 4, Josh Gessner x 4, Dylan MacLean x 4, Damian Mendoza x 4, Jesus Moreno x 4, Ian Moller x 7, Brock Porter x 2, Brian Pozos x 4, Henrik Reinertsen x 4, Adrian Rodriguez x 2 and Ruben Sosa x 4 (175 total autographs).