1993 Donruss, Kevin Baez

#361 Kevin Baez

Here is a card that Paul, from Paul's Random Stuff, got signed for me at an Atlantic League game. Kevin was a coach for the Long Island Ducks.

Kevin only played in 63 Major League games over a three year span. All of them were with the Mets. He hit .179 for his career with 7 RBI. He even obtained one intentional walk, so he must have been hitting eighth that game, right in front of the pitcher.

1993 was his last season in the Majors, but his playing career lasted until 2005. He played eight more seasons in AAA with the Orioles, Tigers, Twins, Reds, and even the Mets (eight years after they traded him to the O's). After that, he played four more seasons in the Atlantic League with the Ducks.

1993 Bowman, Brian Rupp

#700 Brian Rupp

Here is another card that I got signed in Wilmington. Brian is the Blue Rocks manager.

After I got my three autographs from Wally Whitehurst, it started to sprinkle. The sprinkle turned to rain and the I thought that I wasn't going to get anymore autographs before the game. But it was short-lived and once I thought that it had stopped, I got this card signed by Brian. It was still apparently sprinkling, although barely, and you can see a few spots in this signature that got hit (you'll have to click on the image to see a larger version). I had a buddy with me at the game that was trying to get autographs from the Hillcats in the pouring rain, so this one is great compared to some of his attempts.

Brian never made it to the Major Leagues. He played in the Cardinals organization his entire career, mostly as a first baseman. He had good on-base numbers, but his power numbers were pretty weak. Maybe he will eventually make it as a coach. His Hillcats did win the Carolina League championship this year.

I got this card from checkoutmycards.com. It is one of the funky foil bordered cards that look like an oil spill with the sun shining on it right. The card commemorates Brian being the player of the year in the Arizona League. He lead the league in batting (.386), total bases (102), slugging (.493), and doubles (20).

1992 Upper Deck, Wally Whitehurst

#414 Wally Whitehurst

Here is the second autograph that I got from Wally in Wilmington, Delaware. He was P.J. Forbes' pitching coach for the Lynchburg Hillcats. He was also the one that said that it wasn't going to rain anymore when the Blue Rocks grounds crew was pulling the tarp back onto the field. But, I'll have more on that in the next post, which will be up tonight sometime.

1992 Classic/Best, P.J. Forbes

#376 P.J. Forbes

I got this card signed at the Wilmington Blue Rocks playoff game. PJ was the manager of the visiting Lynchburg Hillcats. At the game, I was trying to get autographs from the Rocks. I had my buddy getting autographs from the 'Cats for me. He wasn't able to get PJ's before the game because he didn't know which one he was. I was able to get the card signed after the game. It was easier to spot him then since he still had on his coaching helmet.

PJ had a long minor league career. He had two brief call-ups to the Majors. The Orioles called him up in 1998 and he got 10 at-bats in 9 games and got one hit. The second call-up came in 2001 with the Phillies. With them, he only got 7 at-bats in 3 games with 2 hits. That was it for his Major League career. He played one more year of AAA ball and that was the end of his playing career.

I like PJ since he played for Wichita State and was on their lone NCAA championship team in 1989. This is the fifth player from that team that I have an autographed card of.

On this card, PJ is playing for the Quad City River Bandits. The Bandits are still around even though they changed their name to the Swing of the Quad Cities for a few years. They play in a beautiful ballpark in Davenport, Iowa that gets flooded from the river occasionally.

1991 Topps, John Shelby

#746 John Shelby

Now that game 163 has started, I figured that I would post a Tiger card (even though I am pulling for the Twins).

This is the second John Shelby card that I have posted on here. Like the first one, I got this card signed in Baltimore last month. John is the O's first base coach. Also like the first one, it has his crazy, impossible to read signature. I would think that that scribble would be hard to duplicate, but John has it down.

I like this card because the picture was taken at Royals Stadium. You can see the bright orange seats (which look red here) that were put in when the park was built in the '70s and part of the stadium club. Plus, it is always fun to see some older pictures from the turf days. There are some years when the Royals have fast outfielders that I wish they still had the turf. But, you can't beat the look of real grass.

Miguel Cabrera just went deep to put the Tigers up by three.

1991 Topps, Xavier Hernandez

#194 Xavier Hernandez

Here is the second card that Xavier signed for me in Scranton, Pennsylvania when his Durham Bulls were in town. You can see the first card here.

Again, I was in a hurry to get ready to go on the race/baseball trip, so I only took two cards of Xavier. I wish that I would have taken the time to find a third card of him as a Yankee. Oh well,I probably wouldn't have found one anyway.

This card reminds me of '81 Donruss. From now on, any card that has the ivy in the background will probably remind me of '81 Donruss.

The Bob Feller Museum

Yesterday, on the way home from Minneapolis, I decided to cut through Nebraska rather than drive through Kansas City. The Sprint Cup race was in KC, and I wanted to avoid that traffic at all costs. Shortly after getting on I-80 in Des Moines, I was low on gas and looking for a gas station. I saw a sign for the Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, Iowa and there happened to be a gas station in the town as well. So, I stopped for gas and then headed to the museum.
(click on pictures for an enlarged view)



The museum was very small and the one thing that stood out to me the most was the outside wall by the small parking lot.



It may not look like much, but the wall has a 3D look to it. From the side shot here, you can see that everything sticks out from the wall. Technically, I think that this is called a relief.



I got to the museum just before it closed and watched most of a video about Bob. It was kind of funny since it was probably made in the early '80s and was hosted by Tom Seaver.

There were only two rooms in the museum. One had tons of memorabilia from his youth, his Navy years, and his playing days. It was obviously the better of the two rooms. They even had the bat that Babe Ruth held during his retirement ceremony at Yankee Stadium in 1948.



That artifact had the best story in the museum. The Indians were in town that day. For some reason, before the Babe went onto the field, he grabbed a bat. The bat that he grabbed just happened to be Bob Feller's (why he was in the Indians dugout, I do not know). After the ceremony, one of the Indians players got the bat and got the Babe to sign it (the signature is just barely visible now). I think that Bob ended up giving the bat to the player that had got it signed (I don't quite remember that part) and Bob signed it as well. Many years later, the bat ended up in an auction and Upper Deck bought it for $107,000. They ended up giving it away in a sweepstakes and a teacher in Seattle won it. The teacher was pretty happy with it until he learned that he would have to pay over $30,000 in taxes to keep it. He tried to raise money for it, but he ended up reaching an agreement with Bob for an undisclosed amount. Now the bat is on display at the museum.

The other room had some oddball stuff in it. One of the things was the Bob Feller Award which is given to the best high school pitchers in Iowa every year. They also had some memorabilia from all of the Hall of Famers at Yankee Stadium last year for the All-Star game.

They had a small, but nice, gift shop. They had the usual t-shirts and things like that. They also had a ton of autographed memorabilia from former players that had been there for signings. They had autographed balls, bats, jerseys, and 8x10s. They also had many things there signed by Bob.

I talked to the guy that ran the place and he told me that the autograph signings were what kept the doors open. He also said that he was amazed at how many autograph requests Bob still gets through the museum every week. I asked if there was a charge for the autographs and he said that it was $25 and another $5 for an inscription. I looked down in the case that I was leaning on and noticed some autographed cards and I asked how much those were. He said that they were $10.

Most of the "cards" were just pictures cut so that they were card size. There were even a few '08 Goudey cards of him. But unfortunately, those were not signed. I finally noticed an oddball card that was more than just a picture (there was an actual back to it) and decided to get it. It is numbered 10/100, but I do not recognise the logo at all. There is no date or any other useful information on the back besides the card number- 4. Does anyone know anything about this card? All I know about it is that it saved me $15 by not having to send my own card for him to sign.




The card briefly talks about Bob enlisting into the Navy two days after Pearl Harbor. In 2006, I was driving to Georgia from my grandparent's home in Texas. When I got to Mobile, Alabama, I decided to take a break and check out the USS Alabama that was on display there. The Alabama was an old battleship and one of the main things that I remember about it was that Bob served on the ship. They had a few pictures and autographs on display there. (Another thing that I remember about it was that the movie "Under Siege" was filmed there). It wasn't mentioned in the museum, but I thought that I read in the Alabama that Bob was the first Major Leaguer to join the service after Pearl Harbor. That is something worth appreciating and here is a picture I took of the ship on that trip (it's Bob Feller related).



As for what could have been and still might be the final days of the Metrodome, I had a really good time. I went to the game on Friday and Saturday. I waited too long to get tickets to the Sunday game and I am kind of glad that I didn't go to it since it wasn't the last game at the dome. But here is a picture from Fridays game. Notice the retired numbers in the upper deck in the outfield.



Here is a picture from the game on Saturday. They opened up the seating in the upper deck and pulled up the curtains that the banners and retired numbers were on.



I also had time on Saturday morning to check out Target Field, the Twins new home next year. I had a hard time getting around the outside of the park, but that could have been because some of the areas were closed off because of the construction. Hopefully, it will be easier to get around it next spring. But, I liked the look of the ballpark. There was no red brick to be seen. That is always a plus in my book. Also, check out the roof. There are no light towers sticking up from it.



The reason there are no light towers is not because they have not added them yet. Instead, they tucked all of the lights into two continuous rows underneath the upper deck's cover (I took this picture from the top level of a nearby parking garage).



All in all, I had a great time this weekend. It was also sad since my baseball season is now officially over. There will be no in-person autographs until Royals Fanfest in January. But don't worry, I have enough autographs to get the blog through the off-season. Plus, I will be trying to add some '81 Donruss and vintage TTMs along the way.

Tomorrow, I will have a couple of '91 Topps to post. Hopefully, I will be starting my 1995 cards next week. I'm looking forward to it since the very first one is of a Hall of Famer.