July 2019 Graphing Recap of Mudcats at Wood Ducks

This past week, the Mudcats came ot Kinston to take on the Wood Ducks.  I was able to get most of the 2019 Mudcats team set taken care of.  The only cards I am missing are guys who have moved up or are injured, much like my Wood Ducks set.

I was really glad to get two signatures on Joe Ayrault's card, as his son was at the game.  I had Kole sign the card, first as he came off of the field after the first game of Thursday's Double Header.  Tuesday rained out, and Wednesday was an 11AM game, so the two games on Thursday were my shot to get the cards done.

Joe had been ejected during the first game, but signed for me before the second game.  He had let his emotions calm down and told me that it was a whole new game.

I love this team set, and am glad that I am just about done with it.

I also got some All Star and top prospects cards done from each set.

I don't think I am going to try to get Jonah Mergen's kids to sign this card, even though I do see them from time to time at the ballpark.

Brice Turang was pretty nice this time around.  It seemed as if he was in a better mood signing, which helped out.

It is always a lot of fun to see Phil Bickford, and with Sherten Apostel's addition to the roster, I was able to get a card done from my Hickory set.

August 14-16 Graphing of the Mudcats at Wood Ducks

My first games back after my trip to the National resulted in my getting a ton of cards signed.  I had picked up a bumch of cool cards and parallels of some players, including this 2015 Bowmans Best Phil Bickford numbered 10/25.

Bickford is a great guy, and will sign anything you have.  At the beginning of the season, I was worried because I had missed Bickford last year when he was injured, so I wasn't sure if I would get my cards signed.

Luckily, he has been with the Mudcats since I saw him on Memorial Day, and he signed everything I had by the time I saw him last.  This red parallel of his 2017 Bowman turned out really well.  This card isn't numbered.

I got so many different cards of his signed, and I also was able to get a bunch done for some friends.

Devin Williams was really cool, as well.  He limited how many cards he would sign, so I was only able to get the 2014 Bowman Ice I had found at the National signed, and also some 50/50s for my friend, Gerard.

I'm glad I got Demi Orimoloye on everything I had, because he has since been traded to the Toronto system in exchange for Curtis Granderson.

I got 4 different 2015 Bowman Chrome cards of Nathan Kirby signed.  All of these were ones I found at the National.

I had missed Bob Milacki a few times, but was able to get him on a good bit of cards during this series.  I had ordered the Toys R Us card for early in the season, but finally got it done.  Now that Toys R Us is out of business, it'll be cool to look back on this card.

I finished off the Mudcat coaches for the All Star set.  I am now only missing one of the coaches with Lynchburg because I misplaced them when Lynchburg was here.

I picked up a Mudcats team set so I could get some of the other guys in my album.

I'm not too big a fan of this design.  They would look better as football cards, I think.

 However, I got a good many of them signed, and they look good in my album.

One of my favorite cards I got signed was the blue shimmer refractor of Jairo Beras.  It looks so nice signed.

I got three different Eric Jenkins 2015 Bowmans signed.  He is really nice.  I met his dad this past weekend, and he was super nice as well.

I had also picked up a couple different Spokane Indians team sets.  It was fun seeing some of the Wood Ducks players from when they were there.

A few of the players commented on the older cards, which was cool.

I liked picking up the Spokane sets, so I think I will grab some of the more recent ones for future Wood Duck graphing.

 I found this black letter parallel of this 2015 Stadium Club Guilder Rodriguez in a dime box at the show.  It turned out really well, and will look great in my album with my base card Max sent me.

Finally, here is a Bowman Mega Box parallel of Leody Taveras from this year.  He refused to sign for me the first day of the series, but signed the other two games.  The card looks great, and I am glad he signed it.

Graphing the Mudcats in the Rain

My friend Michael was visiting over Memorial Day Weekend, and we wanted to try to hit up another ballpark in the area before he left.  Since we had pretty muched tapped out all of the Keys and Wood Ducks we had, we decided to head toward Raleigh, and see the Carolina Mudcats on Memorial Day.

There was a pretty ominous forecast, but as of the time we loaded the car, 9:45 AM, the game was still a go.  I wanted to grab some coffee on the way to the park, so that's why we left early.

We got to the ballpark, and were informed that at 10AM, the call was made to cancel the game.  It was raining some, but it wasn't too bad, so we decided to watch the Mudcats swing in the cages, since they were out.

As tie went by, the rain intensified, but luckily, I had an umbrella in my car.  We waited by the player exit, and were able to get autographs of everyone we were looking for.  I'm glad we stuck around, because Keston Hiura was moved up to AA a couple days later.

The first auto we got was of former Oriole, Bob Milacki.  He was really nice, and signed everything we had.  Unfortunately, a drop of water hit one of the cards, and it messed my pen up.  You can kind of see in on the 1991 Topps (bottom right).

I did a 50/50 for my friend, Gerard, and these two Tucker Neuhaus were some that I was allowed to keep.  Since he braved the weather, and held the umbrella, Chris kept these cards.

I had these Phil Bickford cards in my box for a while, since he was hurt for most of last season.  I got almost everything done, which was nice.  He was a really nice guy.

Finally, we had gone to the LCS and picked up some nice cards for graphing.  Some of the cards were of Nathan Kirby, since I didn't find any of him in my box.

In all, we did pretty well, and it was worth the hour drive to Zebulon.