50/50s and More From Brayden

It's not often when someone messages me out of the blue saying "I think you're a good guy and I'd like to be friends", but that is essentially how the first conversation between my friend Brayden and I went.  He had messaged something to that effect to me, then we went on to make a deal later for an Adrian Beltre signed baseball.

Since then, I have talked to Brayden daily.  He's a huge Yoan Moncada fan.  Not only because Moncada is a great prospect and all, but because they have an actual friendship.  I think that is pretty cool.  Brayden lives in Texas, and his home MiLB team is the Frisco RoughRiders, so he is able to catch some Wood Ducks that have been promoted out of High A.

Brayden took care of a few 50/50s for me, and also included some nice Orioles cards and a couple other IP autos that he was able to get recently.

I had sent Brayden the last remaining Mike O'Neill card that I had, along with another that I had found in a dime box earlier this year at a show.  He took care of those for me, even though I was completely ok if he had kept them.  He also added the above Jason Castro and Randy Choate cards.

Brayden got a few Isiah Kiner-Falefa cards done for me, and added the 2015 Bowman Joe Jackson.  Jackson is cool because he is a distant nephew of Shoeless Joe Jackson.

Finally, Brayden included this nice autograph of Darren O'Day and this rookie card of Chris Davis.  He didn't have to add the extras, but it was really cool of him to do so.  Brayden is a great guy, and I am really happy that he saw to it to message me that day.

Thank you Brayden!

April 10, 2017, Wood Ducks Home Opener Graphing Recap

Last night was the home opener for the Down East Wood Ducks in Kinston, so for the first time since September 2011, professional baseball returned to historic Grainger Stadium.  We were washed out of the exhibition game against Mount Olive University last week, but beautiful weather greeted us last night.  I brought along a decent-sized group to the game against the Winston-Salem Dash; it was me, my wife, my son, my brother Andy and our friend, Gavynn.  I had made plans beforehand to meet up with the Ducks' starting pitcher, Brett Martin after the game to hand off a signed photo of my dad's race car, since Martin is a huge fan of motorsports.  My mom came in clutch with the photo, and even had Dad sign it "To Brett", which was a nice touch.

Before the game, Chris and I did some graphing on the Wood Ducks side of the stadium.  I had brought (and bought) some cards of Dash players, but it turns out that two of the guys that were on the Dash roster aren't there any more.  Oops.  Still, I had plenty of Wood Ducks guys I wanted to get, since I bought some cards specifically to get signed by them.

At the "meet the team" event last Sunday, Josh Morgan told me that he would sign any cards that I had, so when the finally arrived, I wanted to make sure I got them signed.  They turned out great; and Chris was able to get a couple as well.  He even got one signed for my friend, Carson, who I accepted a 50/50 consignment for.

I picked up two sets of cards of the 2016 Hickory Crawdads; one for me and one for Chris.  The both of us were able to get a couple cards signed out of that set.  I need to help Chris fix his autograph book, as some of his photo corners are already failing (he put them in wrong, then pulled some up to try to fix the problem, now the cards slide around).

Like I said above, I accepted a 50/50 card consignment from my little buddy, Carson.  He sent four cards that he wanted me to try to get signed for him, and I was 3/4 successful.  I got him a nice Bowman Platinum Jairo Beras, and the part for me was this one.

Chris was able to get Carson a signed 2014 Bowman Chrome of Michael O'Neill.  O'Neill came over and signed 3 of the four cards I had in my book.  His cards were some of the ones I really wanted to get signed as soon as possible.

This bubble refractor from 2014 Bowman Chrome was the card that I was most excited about getting signed by O'Neill.  I loved these cards when they came out (and picked up several for my Chris Davis PC).  It turned out great.

I was finally able to find cards of Ducks pitching coach, Steve Mintz (Mount Olive University's own). I bought several off of EBay, and got one from each of our team sets.

I still had tons of Howard Johnson cards that I could get signed, but he would only sign one yesterday.  Unfortunately for Carson, hi card wasn't the one at the top of the Johnson list last night.  I had two cards I bought specifically to get signed, and one of them was a success.  This 1991 Topps Desert Shield Howard Johnson fits the profile of "different" cards that I wanted represented in my binder.  They are tough to come by, so having a signed one in the autograph album was a must.  Luckily, I found this card on EBay for $3.75 + $1.00 shipping.  I have one other Johnson card that I picked up to get signed that I will have to get next time (along with Carson's 1987 Fleer).

Martin had a pretty good Wood Ducks debut last night.  He struck out 7 Dash players in 5 1/3 innings pitched.  In the first inning, he only needed 10 pitches (all strikes) to retire the side, with two strike outs.  When we met him after the game, he signed everything that Chris and I had, including four of these 2014 Bowman Chrome black shimmer minis.  I kept one for myself, gave one to Chris, then gave the other two to Gavynn and Andy as souvenirs for their trip.

The Wood Ducks won last night 4-3 off of a walkoff error in the 10th inning.  It was a really exciting game, and I was glad to have been a part of it.  I am glad Martin pitched well.  I plan on backing him fully as a fan, now, since he has been awesome to us the times that we have met him.

Baseball is Back In Kinston

Since the end of the 2011 season, professional baseball has been missing from Eastern North Carolina.  The Kinston Indians picked up and moved to Zebulon, outside of Raleigh and assumed the team name of the Carolina Mudcats, who had relocated to Pensacola Florida.  I have missed having a minor league team close to home since Zebulon is about an hour away.

The Texas Rangers have stepped up and now own a Carolina League affiliate and have placed them in Kinston.  They are known as the Down East Wood Ducks.  While I don't care much for the "Down East" moniker, I do think the Wood Duck logo is pretty cool.  The team colors are also really nice, it seems that their jerseys will be green and orange.

The hats the guys wore today were tan with the Ducks logo, but they didn't have any of those hats for sale.  I picked up the black one shown above.  It is tough for me to don another hat other than my O's one, but I do believe in backing this team fully.  I hated when the Indians left, so I plan on letting it be known that I am happy that these guys are here.

They had a meet the team event tonight which coincided with their first ever practice.  This was open to the public, so Chris and I decided to head to Grainger Stadium and check the team out.

Chris tried his hand at "graphing" the limited amount of cards that we had.  We had cards of coaches Howard Johnson and Bobby Rose; and one Bowman Chrome card of Rangers prospect Michael O'Neill.  Above, you can see Chris chatting it up with Rangers prospect, Jairo Beras.  I ordered some cards of the Rangers prospects, but they haven't come yet.  I'm hoping they come tomorrow for the exhibition game against Mount Olive College.

They did a really good job getting historic Grainger Stadium ready for the season.  It is just like I remember it from when they were the Indians.

I'm really happy that the Rangers are the ownership group of this team.  That means that they have the capital to ensure that things are taken care of and can invest in the upkeep of the stadium, regardless of how ticket sales are going.  My hope is that ticket sales won't be a problem, but I'm sure that some days will be better than others out there.

The concession stands were open while we were there, so I went ahead and tried a hot dog tonight.  It was pretty good.  Not as good as the mac n cheese and crab dog, but I enjoyed it.

I was able to "rack" while I was at the event tonight.  I got coach Bobby Rose before the game, and talked to him a bit.  He was really friendly.  I also got Howard Johnson.  I was really prepared for Johnson,  I had a bunch of his cards to get signed, and had my auto book set up.  I did really well in getting stuff signed.  The above 1992 Upper Deck Iooss Collection card came out really well.  I had a silver Sharpie at the ready, and am glad it came out the way it did.

These two cards came out really nice, as well.  The hologram card looks so great in person.

I got these above cards taken care of as well.  The 1987 Topps was the card that I really wanted to add to the autograph album; some of the others were ones I liked, but that 87 had to get done.  Thankfully, I was able to pull it off.

Surprisingly, these are two of the only three Bobby Rose cards I could find in my entire card collection.  I went through a 4,000-count box at my LCS, and still wasn't able to find one.  He was really friendly, though, and I will have to pick up some more of his cards.

Michael O'Neill was the only prospect card that I was able to find, and I was happy to get this 2014 Bowman Chrome signed.  He is the nephew of former Yankee Paul O'Neill.  His wife and my sister-in-law are actually cousins.

Finally, I was able to get this pocket schedule signed by the entire team, sans coaches.  I didn't bring any baseballs, so this was all that I could find on such short notice.  It will looks really cool, and I will eventually have it framed.

Tomorrow, I have the exhibition game against Mount Olive College.  I hope to get a few more autos tomorrow, as I hope my COMC order comes in.