Monday, April 26, 2010

2002 Topps, Travis Wade



#320 Travis Wade

Here is a card that was sent to me last year by Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff. It features Travis Wade. Travis has never played in the Majors, but he did make it up to AAA. That's not bad for a guy that went undrafted.

According to the Baseball Cube, Travis went to college at Eastern Michigan. He must not have played there since he made his pro debut with the Kalamazoo Wings of the Frontier League at the age of 18. He only made two appearances for them that year and he ended up playing for a couple of teams in the Texas-Lousiana League the following year. He must have impressed a scout there because the Astros signed him the following season.

Travis played in the Astros organization for four seasons and he pitched in 27 AAA games in 2002. The Astros released him before the 2003 season and he was picked up by the Giants and assigned to their AA team. He pitched there for one season before being let go.

After that, Travis has been a mainstay in the Atlantic League. He pitched for the Newark Bears from 2004-2006. He then pitched for the Long Island Ducks for a year and a half before moving to the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs for a half season. Last year, he split time with the York Revolution and the Victoria Seals of the Golden Baseball League. I have no idea if he is pitching this season or not.

This signature on this card is hard to make out because it is so dark. But, this is pretty much the only mainstream card available of Travis Wade, so I can't complain (not that I would complain about a free autograph). As always, thanks Paul.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pitching coach for the 2010 GBL St. George RoadRunners, under manager Darrell Evans, who was Travis' manager in Victoria in 2009.

Anonymous said...

Travis actually played 4 years of college ball prior to his stint with the Kalamazoo Kodiaks at the age of 21. Two with Kellogg Community College and two with EMU. Also pitched part of 03' in AA Round Rock for the Astros before being released. He played in the CPBL (Chinese Prof. Baseball League) in Taiwan for the '05 season as a starter.

zman40 said...

That's pretty cool that he pitched in Taiwan. Thanks for keeping me up to date.