1994 Classic/Best Gold, Bill Masse

#43 Bill Masse

This is the second Bill Masse autograph that I have posted on here. The first one was posted way back in November. If you would like to see it and read a little about Bill and the long wait I had to endure to get this card signed, just go here.

Like the last Masse card, I got this one signed after a San Antonio Missions game last August. Bill lead the Missions to the Texas League playoffs last year but was not retained as their manager (Bill's hitting coach from last year took over the team this year). This year, Bill is in the Mets system and was the hitting coach for the AA Binghampton Mets before getting promoted to the AAA Buffalo Bisons last month.

I don't know much about these cards. The only place I ever found them in 1994 was at the KB toy store in the mall. It didn't seem that I got too many good players in the packs. They had too many Gulf Coast League players in it. It also seems strange that this is a Classic/Best product, but the card I posted yesterday was just Classic.

Since this is the last card that I got signed in San Antonio, I figured I would show a couple of ballpark pictures. Here is the best picture of the exterior that I could get (there was too many trees to get a good one).



And everyone knows that you can't have a ballpark in San Antonio without some reference to the Alamo.



Here is a view of the seating area.

Contest Winner

At 4:43 am, I had the first entry emailed to me. That entry was good enough to take the prize. The winner is Brian.



Here is another look at the picture that Brian had to decipher.



For those of you playing at home, here are the answers in a sort of left to right, top to down fashion.

Hoyt Wilhelm
Joel Chimelis
Aaron Sele
Bob McClure
Cliff Floyd
Dave Fleming
Jim Eisenreich
Rusty Meachem
Gary Templeton
Dave Owen
Rich Gale
Paul Faries
Kenny Lofton
Kevin Higgins
Bill Swift
John Mayberry
Luis Pujols
Jim Lonborg
Paul Splittorff
Bobby Bonilla
Andy Hawkins
Ron Jackson

While going back through the blog entries (twice), Brian left a few comments. Because of those, I can see that it took Brian well over two hours to come up with the correct answers. By 2:30, he had made his way back to 1992 Score (Will Clark). Fifteen minutes later, he was back to 1992 Donruss (Dave Nilsson). An hour and a half after that, he had made it back to 1983 Topps (Ron Jackson). Half an hour later, he had his guesses in. So, in a way, he kind of left a trail while coming up with the correct answers.

Congratulations, Brian! Send me your address and your favorite team and I will get the 8x10 out to you sometime this week. Since you were the only entry, I'll throw in some extra cards. I am guessing that you are a Rangers fan, but I have been wrong once before. Also, I am curious as to which signatures were the hardest ones. I have an idea, but I want to know what you thought. Just leave that info in the comment section.

And for everyone else, I was wondering if anyone else even thought about attempting this or did it seem like too much trouble or not a good enough prize (or both)?

On a side note, when I was putting the collage of signatures together, the program I was using hit a snag. I got the "this program has encountered a problem and needs to shut down" line. I hadn't saved it at all and was one signature away from finishing it. So, I took a picture of it with my camera and used that photo to finish it. That why many of the signatures look pretty crappy. I redid a few of the ones that seemed darker, but most of them I left as they were.

Contest Time...again

It's time for another contest. But, before I get into that, here is the prize- part of my spoils from the College World Series.



The winner will receive a signed 8x10 of Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers.

This contest should be much harder than the last two I have held where you simply had to guess a number. This is going to be a hybrid of Phungo's "Spot the Signature" and the 88 Topps Blog/Traded Set's "Shopped Cards".

Below is a picture with 22 autographs on it. All you have to do to win the 8x10 is to be the first one to identify all 22 signatures. Every signature has been shown on this blog already. So, if you are not sure about some of them, you can go back and find them. A few of them have been rotated so they fit in the space allotted. Click on the photo for a larger view.



Just send me an email (zman40 at hotmail dot com) with the 22 names on it in any order. The first person to do that correctly will be the winner. Good luck!

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section.

1994 Classic, Terry Bradshaw

#58 Terry Bradshaw

Was this not the Terry Bradshaw that you were expecting? What other Terry Bradshaw would be in a minor league baseball set?

I got this card signed last year in Albuquerque. Terry was the Omaha Royals hitting coach and they were in town to play the Isotopes. I got this card signed after the game when the victorious O-Royals were leaving the field. Isotopes Park, like many minor league parks, does not have access to the clubhouse from the dugout. So, the players have to leave the dugout to to get to the clubhouse. In Albuquerque, that entrance happens to be right by the dugout and it provides ample room to stand around to get autographs before and after the game.

Terry is still in the Royals organization. But he is now the hitting coach for the AA Northwest Arkansas Naturals.

In this card, Terry is playing for the Arkansas Travelers. The Travelers are still playing in the Texas League. They are now affiliated with the Angels and have decent looking uniforms. I never realized it before, but the Travs logo says "greatest game on dirt". They apparently still use that logo. I just thought that that was funny since that is what the College World Series bills itself as.

Contest coming up later tonight.

Update- I have to work tonight. The contest post is scheduled to be posted at 6:00, central time. I have heard that the post options may be acting screwy. If that is the case, the post will appear after I get off work around 9:00.

1994 Bowman, Vince Moore

#476 Vince Moore

First off, you may have noticed I finally got a new header. It's a little bigger than I wanted, but it will work. I guess that the only problem I was having is that it wasn't saved as a jpeg. Who would have thought?

As for the card, this is another Padrograph. This is, however, the first Padrograph on here of a player that never played for the Padres. Vince was a career minor leaguer that never got above AA. In fact, he played parts of five seasons with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes in the California League. The California League is known as a hitters league, so it's not good if you can't hit in it.

Vince was a .265 career hitter, but that number is bolstered by his stats he put up in the Texas-Louisiana League and the Central League. While in affiliated ball, he only hit over .250 three times. In his seven seasons in the indy leagues, he only hit under .250 once.

One thing hurting his average was his strikeouts. In 4,374 minor league at-bats, Vince struck out 1,251 times. He had four seasons with over 100 strikeouts and did it once in only 299 at-bats. While he wasn't striking out at the pace Chris Davis is this year, he wasn't exactly tearing up the minor leagues.

You may have noticed that there were two Padrographs in a row. This will happen two more times as I go through my autographed cards from 1994.

Also, I will have another contest tomorrow around 6:00, central time. Don't miss it.

1994 Bowman, Andres Berumen

#92 Andres Berumen

Here is the first 1994 card. Of course, I got this card from Rod, of Padrographs. This is the first card from him that I have shown on here after he has done a post about a the player. So, if you want to read more about Andres Berumen, head over to Padrographs. You can check out the Berumen post here.

A pack of Phungo cards

When I got home from work yesterday, I was surprised to find a pack of Phungo cards in the mail. Deal sent me the pack as a way of saying thanks after coming in second in the last contest and being stuck with the Grienke signed Sports Illustrated.

I must have recieved a hot pack (I feel like I work for Beckett) since I got one autograph and four insert cards in the pack. But first, here are the base cards.



The base cards included (in no particular order):
Abraham Lincoln- maybe the coolest card in the pack
Shane Victorino- a World Series card that was recently featured on Phungo
Alex Gordon- always nice to get a Royal in a pack
Luke Hochevar- TWO Royals in one pack!
BJ Upton- another World Series card
Bobby Abreu- a cool card taken from the Yankees video board, I believe
Rollie Fingers- a card from last years All-Star celebrity softball game

Speaking of the celebrity softball game, I got a random email from Deal about two weeks ago telling me that I should go to the Futures Game (the softball game is right after the Futures Game, that is how Rollie ties into this). Why I couldn't think of that myself is beyond me, but luckily there was someone out there to point out the obvious. Since that day, I've been planning on going to see it and I even received my tickets a couple of days ago.

The Futures Game brings me to the insert cards in the pack- three Donruss Threads cards of players that will be appearing in the game.



There was also a random Justin Huber card. Justin Huber, of course, is the only Royal whose Dad I have met. Justin is Australian and I met his Dad in Kansas City a couple of years ago after he got a September call-up. His Dad said that he tries to come to the States for a few weeks every year to see his son play. He was a real nice guy and encouraged me to make it to Australia sometime. Justin is currently playing for Rochester and I may send this card to him.

All in all, it was a great pack of cards. Thank you Deal. The autograph will be shown on whenever I make it to my 2007 cards.