2000 Bowman, Bryan Edwards

#108 Bryan Edwards

Here is a card that I got in the mail about a week ago from Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff fame. Paul had sent me a package out of the blue and it included a healthy stack of Royals cards, a Nolan Ryan manu-pacth card from the 1973 All Star game in Kansas City (which was really cool), and a handful of autographs. Here is the first autograph from the bunch to be posted.

This one is of the former Red, Padre, and Mets farmhand, Bryan Edwards. Just by looking at Bryan's stats, it is hard to tell what kind of minor league career he really had. The reason for that is because Bryan did three separate stints in an independent league. He was drafted by the Reds in the ninth round of the 2000 draft and he pitched in 13 minor league games for them that season. The strange part is that he also pitched for Newark, of the Atlantic League, for 6 games that season.

He then spent 2001 with the Reds Midwest League team in Dayton before ending up in the now defunct independent Western League for all of 2002. He was back in affiliated ball in '02 with the Padres, but that gig lasted just one season. He then moved over to the Mets and he spent three seasons with them while spending a majority of the time at the AA level. His last season there was 2006 and he had 4-8 record with a 4.72 ERA.

After that, it was back to the Atlantic League and Bryan played for three different teams during the 2007 season. That appears to be that last year that he played.

It kind of makes me wonder if Bryan had some behavioral problems or if he just rubbed his coaches the wrong way. You just don't see guys that young bouncing back and forth from the affiliated leagues to the independent leagues.

1998 Sports Illustrated, Shane Halter

#161 Shane Halter

Have you ever seen a card quite like this? I don't know what the set designers at Fleer were tripping on, but it was apparently some good stuff.

I got this card signed at Fanfest last month. Out of all the Royals alumni that were there, Shane was the only one that was making his first Fanfest appearance. That was kind of cool since he really didn't have a long career and his Royals tenure only lasted 160 games. It's always nice when they bring in a somewhat obscure player. It's a good change of pace.

This was the only Shane Halter Royals card that I could find, so my choices were to get two Tigers cards signed or get this card and a Tigers card signed. You obviously know which route I went on that one.

Shane's Royals career lasted just two Major League seasons, after playing his first five pro seasons in their farm system. Hit hit .276 in his rookie campaign with 8 extra base hits. The next season, his average dropped to .221, but he had 14 extra base hits. Plus, he even pitched a scoreless inning that season. Towards the end of Spring Training the following year, Shane was traded to the Mets for a guy that never made it to the Majors.

I really do not know what to make of Shane's signature. I see an "S" and maybe an "h". Maybe he is like Ichiro and he only needs one name. Or, maybe his signature has shortened so much that he just signs "S" and then a quick and short "Halter". It's really hard to tell. At least I can make out the number he wore.

1998 Fleer Tradition, Heath Murray

#215 Heath Murray

Here is the second Heath Murry card that I have posted on here. I posted the first Heath Murray card in December of 2009. Here is a link to the first card. Go there if you care to find out more about Heath because there really isn't much more to say about him except that he has a really squiggly signature.

I believe that this is the shortest post I have ever done.

1997 Donruss Signature Autographs, Mark Kotsay

#63 Mark Kotsay

Here is a card that I bought along with most of the Leaf Signature cards that I posted last week. This is the first card that I have from this set and I do like it. It is a bit more colorful than the Leaf set, but the cards seems to cost a bit more as well. This one cost me $1.75. While that is not expensive in any way, most of the autographs are a little more pricey than the '96 Leafs. For instance, there are 145 cards from this set on sale at checkoutmycards.com right now and only seven of them cost a dollar or less. For the '96 Leaf set, 84 of their 511 cards costs a dollar or less. It obviously seems like the difference in price has to do their availability.

I bought this card of Mark just because of his college career. Growing up in Kansas in the late '80s and early '90s, there was always one baseball constant and that was Wichita State baseball. Sure I wanted to be a big league player when I was growing up, but I would have rather played in the College World Series than the MLB World Series. That was just the way I grew up. Because of that, I was always watching the CWS and it was during the 1995 CWS that Mark Kotsay became a known name to me. He had an outstanding season that year as he won the Golden Spikes Award and was named the Most Outstanding Player at the CWS.

In 1996, Mark's Cal State Fullerton team went to Wichita for regional play and, even though his '96 season was less spectacular than his '95 season, I wasn't going to miss the chance to see the future star in action. So, a buddy and I drove down to Wichita to see Fullerton take on Rice. While I no longer remember who won the game, I do know that I got to see Mark play in college.

That is one of the fun things about D1 baseball. It is a lot like the lower level minor leagues. There are hardly any household names and at least 95% of the players are not going to make it to the Majors. But, when you do catch lightning in a bottle, it is always fun to look back and say "yep, I got to see that guy play when he was in college".

As for the most recent Major Leaguer that I saw play in college, here is a grainy picture of one Buster Posey leading off of first base at the 2008 CWS.

1997 Circa, Kevin Seitzer

#152 Kevin Seitzer

Here is the second Seitzer card that I got signed at Fanfest last month. The first card, which I posted one month and one day ago, can be seen here.

I bought this card for cheap from checkoutmycards.com just prior to Fanfest. I have a few Royals cards and a Brewers card signed by Kevin, but I still needed an Indians card signed by him. When I saw this card, I just assumed that it had to be from the incredibly crazy 1995 Fleer set. That is the only thing that I thought when I saw this card. So, I bought it and when I saw it in person, I could tell just how wrong I was. Maybe I should pay a little more attention when I buy my cards online.

As it turned out, this card is from Skybox's Circa set. Who would have thought it? If this crazy-looking set wasn't modeled after '95 Fleer, than I am losing my mind. Sure, this set may be a little toned down from the '95 Fleer, but just barely. They scrapped the biography information (height, weight, birth year) for a quote and threw some foil on the card and now we have Circa instead of Fleer. I guess it should come as no surprise that Skybox was owned by Fleer at the time. No wonder Fleer is not around anymore. They couldn't learn from their past mistakes. Maybe Topps could learn a little lesson from this.

But, overall, I am completely happy with the way this card turned out. Now, I just need to get an A's card signed by Kevin and then I should be good to go.

1996 Leaf Signature Extended Autographs, Mike Magnante

#117 Mike Magnante

Here is the final 1996 Leaf Signature card that I will post for at least six months.

This was one of the other cards I bought with my hockey cards last week. The reason why I bought this card is simple. It cost me $.49. It was the cheapest signed card from the two '96 Leaf sets and I wasn't going to pass it up for that cheap.

When I bought the card, I was barely familiar with Magnante. I had seen the name before, since he played for the Royals, but I just figured that he played a couple of less than inspiring seasons and was never heard from again. I was wrong on that assumption. It turns out that Mike's Major League career lasted twelve seasons. The first half of his career was spent with the Royals before playing for Houston, Anaheim, and Oakland in the second half of his career.

Mike spent a majority of his time serving out of the bullpen and he appeared in 484 games in his career. He finished his career 26-32 with 3 saves and a 4.08 ERA. He had three sub-3.00 ERA seasons, and with him being a reliever, it is hard to say which was his best. But, since I am a bit biased, I am going to go with his rookie campaign as his best season. That year, Mike pitched 55 innings in 38 games and he posted a 2.45 ERA, which ended up being the second best ERA of his career.

Overall, I am very happy with my forty-nine cent autograph.

1996 Leaf Signature Extended Autographs, Jose Hernandez

#78 Jose Hernandez

I had been planning on going to a hockey game yesterday and, just recently, it was announced that they were going to have an alumni game prior to the actual game. On Wednesday night, I noticed that one of the guys playing in the alumni game had actually played in the NHL and there were some cards of him from the early '80s. So, I went over to checkoutmycards.com and I was able to find three cards of him for less than a dollar. But, since I needed them on such short notice, I had to pay the higher shipping charge of nine dollars so they would get here by gametime. Since my total for the cards was so cheap, I ended up buy three more cards from the 1996 Leaf sets. I'll post one of them tonight and one tomorrow and the third one will be posted whenever I get around to posting it.

The first one is of the much traveled Jose Hernandez. I got this card for $1.28. I bought this card for a couple of reasons. The first is because I remember Jose for striking out so much. Why that is a reason to go out and buy a card of him, I don't know. But, I did it anyway. The second reason why I bought the card is because I got Jose's autograph at a game in 2000. Back then, I wasn't collecting baseball cards, so I got him to sign a ball signed by three other Brewers. Now, I finally have a card signed by him, too. I think I may start looking for certified autographs of guys that I only have their autograph on baseballs.

Jose played in the Majors for fifteen seasons and he saw time with the Rangers, Indians, Cubs, Braves, Brewers, Pirates, Rockies, Dodgers, and Phillies. He was an All Star for the Brewers in 2002 and he had three seasons where he had more than 20 home runs. But, like I said earlier, Jose struck out a bunch. He racked up 1,391 strikeouts in his career while collecting 1,166 hits. He was a .252 career hitter, but imagine how much better he could have been if he could have made a little bit better contact. Oh well, he was still good enough to last fifteen seasons in the Majors, so he was obviously doing something right.

I got to see Jose play four times, and in those games, Jose had three hits versus two strikeouts.