June 10, 2023, Graphing of the Blue Rocks at Grasshoppers

The plan this weekend was to go to Greensboro and do a little graphing while the Wilmington Blue Rocks were in town.  I was in the area for work and stayed the weekend at the farm.

I was lucky I had a ball and blue pen in my bag, because the first person I saw come out of the tunnel to the clubhouse was former World Series winning manager, Jack McKeon.  I got my ball signed, and it turned out pretty well, save for the J in Jack. 

When I left on Wednesday, I didnt check to see if Wilmington's roster had changed.  Brady House had been called up to Wilmington from Fredericksburg.  Of course, my House cards were left at home.  I did find a few at the LCS in Winston-Salem. In the end, House only signed one card outsode after the game.  He was pretty tough, but i was lucky enough to get him.

I didn't have a whole lot of cards for either team, but I made do with what I had.  I got every card I brought for Jake Bennett and Jared McKenzie signed.

I had my little cousin Ale with me, so he was able to get an extra Jeremy De La Rosa signed for me.  De La Rosa used to sign everything, but has gone down to one per.

I also didn't have much for Greensboro. I got everything signed that I brought for the Grasshoppers, which was nice.  The Blue Rocks won the game and I had a good time.

In all, I got the following autographs: Jase Bowen x 3, Thomas Harrington x 2, Robby Hammock x 1, Jake Bennett x 2, Jeremy De La Rosa x 2, Jared McKenzie x 2, Brady House x 1 and Jack McKeon x 1 (13 total autographs).

August 2019 Graphing Recap of Blue Rocks at Wood Ducks

I came back from the National with some nice parallels of some teams that I knew I would see during the last month of the season.  The above Brewer Hicklen mega refractor is one of the cards I really wanted to see signed.  It turned out great!

I was able to finally get Daniel Lynch on some cards.  He had been hurt the first time the Blue Rocks came through, so I wasn't sure if he would be back or not.  Luckily, he was, and signed everything I had.

I had some really nice Nick Prattos that I got from the National.  The bottom three are some of them.  He is always super nice, even when he gets ejected!  I ended up with his broken bat, and he was cool enough to sign it after one of the games.  He had broken the bat after a called third strike, and voiced his displeasure while slamming the bat to the ground.  Kyle Isbel gave it to us at the end of the game.  Chris and I waited outside and had Pratto sign it.  He smiled as he signed it, so that was good.

I was able to scour my boxes for a couple of Larry Sutton's cards.  I was glad to find these, but I had hoped I would have a few more.

I was glad to knock some more MJ Melendez cards out.  He limits, so it took some time to get all of these done, but I was able to get some cool stuff for myself, and also some friends' 50/50s.

Chris helped me out with getting this JP Martinez done.  He got tougher and tougher as the season went on, but I was glad to get another card out of my box and into my album!

Finally, I was lucky enough to have some of the roving instructors in my autograph book that I could get to sign.  Bryan Harvey and Dwayne Murphy were both at a couple of the games, so I was able to get these cards done.

July 2019 Graphing Recap of Blue Rocks at Wood Ducks

This past week was the Blue Rocks' first trip to Kinston this season.  I had knocked off a few of their cards when they were at the Mudcats the week prior, so the major stuff I wanted to get done was completed already.  I missed Daniel Lynch and Seuly Matias, since the two of them were on the DL.  I also found some cards of the Blue Rocks' pitching coach, Steve Luebber.

Luebber has a nice signature, but he never seems like he enjoys stopping to sign.  I got him on these two cards during the series, and had three other 1972s to get done.  I had some other folks help me with those, so I wouldn't have to be the one bothering him the whole time.  It worked out, as they are all signed, now.

I got Blake Perkins on the remaining cards that I had of him.  He seemed really nice, and happy to sign.

Kyle Isbel was one per, and MJ Melendez was two per, so I still have some stuff leftover from them.

Even though they limited, they were really nice, and stopped for us each time.

Nick Pratto might have been the nicest of the bunch.  He sifned full pages of 4 cards for me each time, and always had time to chat.

The Wood Ducks took two of three during this series, which may serve as a preview of the Carolina League playoffs.

July 2019 Graphing Recap of Blue Rocks at Mudcats

This past Saturday, with Chris out of town, I decided to use m rain check for the July 4th Mudcats game so I could catch the Blue Rocks.  Wilmington is the only team that hasn't made a trip down to the Wood Ducks yet this season.  I thought it would be a good idea, especially with Chris gone, to get a few cards knocked out.  That way, I would have a head start for when they finally come to town this weekend.

Also, I stocked up on some Mudcats, and was able to get some nice stuff signed.  The above Phil Bickford was so nice, he even complimented it.  He had never seen the card before.

I had cards from the Carolina League Top Prospects and All Star sets, so that gave me a few guys I wouldn't have had.

I also had picked up two Mudcats team sets, and started working on those.  This year's team set looks really cool.  I'm glad I picked them up.

I also was able to pick up a Midwest League All Star set, so I started in on that, as well.  I'll have to send off a lot of those cards, since they have some teams I won't see, but the cards are still cool, and there are some big names in there.

It took me a while to realize that the Mudcats' Wes Rogers was in 2018 Heritage Minors, but he is really cool, and I was able to get him to sign this.

I had waited a long time to get some of my Nick Pratto cards done.  The above Team USA cards were found at a show, and look really great.

This Bowman Chrome also looks really cool.

I was worried that I wouldn't get this Black Perkins 2016 Bowman Chrome Blue Shimmer refractor signed; he had been called up to AA earlier in the season.  Thankfully (for me, not for him, sadly), he was bumped back down to High A, and I was able to get my card signed.

Scott Thorman didn't seem like he was going to stop for us, but his son told him we were calling for him, and he turned around and signed for Jackson and I.  He seemed nice, though, and signed everything we had.

I have a ton of MJ Melendez, and he signed three of the cards in my book.  This was one of those times where having Chris right there would have really helped.

I misplaced my snap case I had set aside for Lexington in April, so I missed out on some Michael Gigliotti.  Thankfully, Gerard had sent me some in a 50/50, and I ended up with a 2018 Heritage Minors.

Kyle Isbel signed only one card for us, and Kris Bubic was two-per.

Brewer Hicklen signed everything we had.

Finally, the Mudcats were having a promo where the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld was there signing autographs.  I'm not much of  Seinfeld fan, but I knew of the character, so I got the team set checklist signed by him.  I even had him put the "No Soup For You" inscription.

Next series is the Mudcats coming down to the Wood Ducks.  Hopefully, the weather will hold out.

Graphing the Blue Rocks at the Wood Ducks

During the Carolina League season, all northern division teams come down to the Wood Ducks only once per season, with the exception of one team.  Last season, the Wilmington Blue Rocks came twice; this season, the Frederick Keys are coming twice.

Last season, I missed Chase Vallot both series, so I really wanted to make sure that I got him this time around.  I had a whole bunch of cards that I wanted to get signed, and I was successful!  I really wanted to try to get one of the Carolina League Top Prospects cards done, since I have been sitting on them since last year.

I picked up a 2017 South Atlantic League All Star set from last year when I went to Columbia a couple months ago.  I was able to get these two cards done.

Khalil Lee was probably the Royals' biggest prospect on the team this season, so I was glad he was very friendly and signed everything I had.

Bryan Brickhouse was also really nice.  He is from North Carolina, so we talked about that for a bit outside after one of the games.

I didn't realize how many Blue Rocks had cards until this series.  They seemed to have quite a few guys with cards, which I really enjoyed.  I was able to get almost everything I had done.

I also took some 50/50s for the series, and was able to get most of them done, which is always great.

Even better, I was able to get some older Topps cards out of my boxes, and get them signed.  I had a bunch of Doug Henry, but was only able to get him one time during the series.  He didn't seem all that thrilled about signing, so I didn't want to bother him.

Another person I missed last season was Abraham Nunez.  I had these cards in my box waiting for the Blue Rocks to come back, and I didn't miss him this time around.

I finally got some new Wood Ducks stuff in, as well.  One of the 50/50s I took gave me the blue refractor of Anderson Tejeda, and I also had gotten in my 2018 Pro Debut boxes.

I have some games coming up, so I should be able to have a great many cards to show off in the coming weeks.

August 8, 2017 Graphing of Blue Rocks at Wood Ducks

Chris and I took in a game (along with one of Chris's friends) between the Wood Ducks and Blue Rocks last week.  We were able to do a good bit of graphing that was the culmination of the dime box finds from the National.

The above Ti-Quan Forbes was a box topper from one of the boxes of 2013 Perfect Game.  The card turned out really nice.

These are Bowman Chrome minis that I found in a dime box at the show.  That seller had boxes of Bowman dating back as far as 2006, I believe.

They also had a ton of 2014 Bowman blue and black parallels.  I stocked up on the black parallels of a bunch of guys that I knew I would see this month.

I pulled two Josh Morgan cards out of my Perfect Game boxes.  I also found four Matt Lipka 1st Bowman Cards.  He was nice enough to sign all four at this game, and we also talked about how young he was in the picture.

I was able to get a few more Jamie Quirk cards signed.  Chris actually got to go out on the field and present the lineup cards to Quirk and the umpires.  He was invited out there by Jeremy Moore, which was a really cool moment,

I added some new Topps cards to my binder, thanks to Quirk.

I had some nice parallels of Scott Blewett as well.  They turned out really nice.  I also had a bunch of Chase Vallot, but he was on the DL and didn't make the trip to Kinston.

Finally, here are the Roman Collins cards that I got.  I got two refractors, one chrome and a paper base.

Now, I am off to try to get more Mudcats.