1990 CMC 5

#365 Tim Bogar

I got this card signed this past summer at a Royals game. Tim was the Quality Assurance coach for the Tampa Bay Rays. In his playing days, he was mostly a utility player for the Mets, but he did get some decent playing time in his two years with the Astros. This is the first of three cards that he signed for me. At the game, he was the last player/coach off of the the field. He signed for quite a few people (though most people probably didn't know who he was).

This is the last card from the CMC set. I know very little about these cards. They are nice looking and are pretty glossy for 1990 standards. The backs are colorful and include a head shot taken from the card front. I have no idea what CMC stands for and I haven't seen another set made by them. Interestingly, these cards came in packs that also included Procards. CMC made the AAA cards while Procards was AA and A.

This card shows Tim as a Tidewater Tide. The team is now called the Norfolk Tides. They ended a nearly 40 year affiliation with the Mets a few years back and are now with the Orioles. The card before this one showcased a Syracuse Chief card. That team is still the Syracuse Chiefs, but they spent about ten years as the Sky Chiefs to lose the Native American moniker. Now they are the Chiefs again, but their logo is a train. Their long affiliation with the Blue Jays just ended. The two cards before that featured Richmond Braves. The Braves are in the process of leaving Richmond and are going to be playing in the Atlanta suburb of Gwinnett County next season. And, the first card of this set had an Indianapolis Indian. That team hasn't changed much since then besides their logo and affiliation.

1990 CMC 4

#350 Mark Whiten

I got this card signed through the mail in 1993 when Mark was playing for the Cardinals. In September of that year, Mark had a four home run, twelve RBI game (both record tying). The game was game two of a doubleheader. In the first game, he had one RBI. So, for the day, he had thirteen RBI which tied the National League mark for RBI in a doubleheader. I probably sent this card to him the very next day.

On a side note, a got a random package in the mail today. Matt, from Heartbreaking Cards, sent me a package with three autographed cards in it. They are fairly new cards, so it will be a little while before I get to them on here. But, I wanted to give a shout out to Matt and tell him thanks.

1990 CMC 3

#297 John Mizerock

This is the second of three Mizerock autographs I got this past season at The K while he was smokin' and jokin' in the bullpen prior to a game. Last year, Mizerock was the Royal's bullpen coach. The Royals reshuffled their coaches this off-season and Mizerock will be their bullpen coach next year. I was kind of surprised by this. For one the Royals re-assigned their third base coach to a roving instructor. Mizerock has been a Major League third base coach for the Royals before. But, they decided to move the bench coach to third base coach. So, now there is an opening at the bench coach position. Mizerock has never held that job before, but he has been the manager for every minor league team in the Royal's system and was even an interim manager for the Royals. But, they hire John Gibbons (who has actual Major League managerial experience) as the bench coach. So John Mizerock will be coming back next year as the bullpen coach. Maybe he'll be the next Dave Duncan- a former catcher turned pitching coach. Who knows?

1990 CMC 2

#296 Tommy Greene

I got this autograph through the mail, probably in 1991 after Tommy threw his no-hitter. He was with the Phillies at the time and threw it against the Expos. He walked seven batters in the game, but a no-hitter is a no-hitter.

Tommy's first name is actually Ira (sorry, I had to throw that in there).

Also, I got a package today to complete a trade that I made with Dayf, of Cardboard Junkie, last week. I don't have a scanner, so I'll just list some of the highlights. The featured card of the trade was the Mike Aviles '08 Topps U&H. He also threw in four Leaf Carlos Beltrans, a Sweet Spot Zack Grienke, and some older Royals cards (Brian McRae, Mark Gubicza, and Jeff Montgomery), just to name a few. But the best part about this trade is that we both got the card we were looking for out of the Topps U&H. Now, we no longer have to waste money on this product. Thanks Dayf!

1990 CMC

#73 Jose Castro

This wasn't the start to the '90s that I was looking for. I don't have any '90 Bowman signed, so we start off the '90s with a minor league card of a career minor leaguer.

I got this card signed at a Ranger's game in September. Jose was the hitting coach for the Mariners. Jose must not get many requests to sign cards because I asked him to sign as he walked by, and he said "Who, me?". He then came over and signed this card.

Looking at his stats, he is the deffinition of "career minor leaguer". He played thirteen seasons in the minors, ten of them in AAA. So he got to AAA pretty fast and put up decent numbers in his first season, hitting .303 and posting an OPS of .846. He had two more seasons later on that were nearly identical. But, he never got a shot in the Majors.

1986 Fleer 3, kind of

NN Tigers logo sticker/Virgil Trucks

I put the "kind of" in the title because this isn't exactly an '86 Fleer card. It's obviously a sticker that came from the '86 Fleer set.

A few weeks ago, I came across a couple of websites that list home addresses for retired players. It seemed that Virgil was on all of the lists and I did not have a clue who he was. So I looked up his stats and he was a pitcher that pitched eighteen years (plus, missed almost two years during WWII) for five different ball clubs. He had one 20 and two 19 win seasons and a 19 loss season. His 19 loss season actually came the year before his only 20 win season. How strange is that? He wasn't much of a strikeout pitcher as his career high was 161. His second highest was 153 and that was in 275 innings pitched. But, here's the kicker. He is one of four pitchers all time to pitch two no-hitters in one year. That's Johnny Vander Meer, Allie Reynolds, and Nolan Ryan territory right there. That is what made me want to get his autograph. He did that in 1952 with the Tigers. Incidentally, this also happened to be the year that he lost 19 games. He went 5-19 and 40% of his wins were no-hitters. The first no-hitter was a 1-0 victory on May 15th over the Senators. It was his first win of the season. The second no-no was also a 1-0 victory, this time against the Yankees on August 25th. This was his last win of the year. His ERA was 3.97 which might be on the high side for 1952 (I might be wrong, it definitely would be a decent ERA today). But, he played on a horrible Tiger team. This team was about as bad as the 2003 Tigers. They went 50-104 and had pitchers that lost 20, 19 (Trucks), and 17 games. It's just an incredible story.

One reason I decided to just send a sticker is because I read that he'll sign your card and then give you a couple of extra signed cards. Here's the one that I got.



It's a cool card that he had made up to show off his two no-hitters. The only bad part about it is its size. It's about a half inch longer and wider than a standard baseball card. Plus, he also sent this.



It's basically a personalized post card promoting his book. It's kind of hard to read (after all, Virgil is 91 years old), so this is what it says-
Hi Zach,
Glad to sign your card
& enclose one for you.
Plus this about my
book if your[sic] interested.
Take care & my best
to you & your family.
Sincerely,
Virgil "Fire" Trucks

What a nice guy. I might actually have to pony-up $30 for his book, especially after I sent him another card to sign. I bought a 1954 Bowman off ebay last week and sent it off earlier this week.

I love how he signs his nickname. He adds Fire before Trucks. But the best part is that he does Fire in red. Very cool.

News

I am now a contributor to Auto-Matic for the People. It's another cool site that is autograph exclusive. Here, I will mostly be posting football, hockey and basketball autographs along with an occasional baseball autograph. I'll probably do a couple of posts a week and am really looking forward to it. You should check it out if you haven't already.

I also want to say thanks to my best friend, Dustin. He does all of the behind the scenes work on this blog. I don't have a scanner, so every single scan on here is courtesy of Dustin. Without his help, this blog would not exist. When I first started this, he was probably my only reader, as well. He's getting married in a couple of months and I wish him all of the luck in the world. Thanks again.