1999 Ultra, Tony Womack

#111 Tony Womack

If I am not mistaken, this is the last autograph I have to post from the Collective Troll. The seventeen card well is now officially dry and I enjoyed each and every one of them. Thanks Marck! I'll always keep you in mind when I come across a current or former Rays player whose autograph you still need.

As for Tony, he spent thirtteen years in the Majors with the Pirates, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Cubs, Cardinals, Yankees, and Reds, just like yesterdays Tony who played for seven teams in thirteen seasons. The main difference between the two is that I only saw this Tony play seven times (compared to 14 for the other Tony) and he only hit .138 in those games (compared to the other Tony's .408). So, while Tony Graffanino needed me at the ballpark as much as possible, Tony Womack needed me to stay home on gamedays.

Tony Womack started all seven games at shortstop in the 2001 World Series for the champion D-Backs.

When I looked at the giant scan of this card, I thought that I was looking at Chico Lind. The glasses must have thrown me off.

1999 Stadium Club, Kevin Polcovich

#6 Kevin Polcovich

This beautiful card was sent to me by the Collective Troll. It is the only '99 Stadium Club card that I own and I think that, based on this one card, I missed out on that set. This card looks great and I would hope that the rest of the set would look just as good.

As for Kevin, he was a 30th round draft choice for the Bucs out of the University of Florida. In his sixth year of pro ball, Kevin got called up to Pittsburgh. He got into 84 games that year and he hit .273 with 4 homers and 21 RBI while mostly playing shortstop. One of his homers was off of Curt Schilling.

The next season, Kevin was on the big league roster all year. But, in 81 games, he only hit .189. That was his last season in the Majors. After that, he played two more years in AAA and one year that was split with an indy team and a AA team.

Even though his final big league season was less than spectacular, at least this great looking card came out of it.

Also, there is still time to claim a spot in the previous post. If there isn't any more selections by 9:00 central time tonight, feel free to grab more than five slots.

1998 Donruss, Jose Silva

#248 Jose Silva

Sorry about the lack of a post yesterday, but work has been knocking me down lately. Christmas is going to be my first day off since last Tuesday and I needed some time to recharge the batteries. I was going to skip todays post as well, but I feel a little refreshed after a nice two hour nap.

Here is a card of Jose Silva that the Troll sent me this summer. Jose played in the Majors for seven years with the Blue Jays, Pirates, and Reds. He was a reliever most of that time and he has a career ERA of 5.41 with 4 saves. Jose made his Major League debut in 1996 and none of his Major League stats really stands out to me.

The one thing that does stand out is that Jose is still pitching professionally. Since 2004, Jose has been pitching in the Mexican League. He has spent the last four seasons with Monterrey and he saved 18 games for them last season. He is even pitching in the Mexican Winter League right now with the Tomateros de Culiacan. I have never taken Spanish, but I'm pretty sure that he is playing for the Culiacan Tomatos. There are just not enough professional teams around anymore that are named after fruits or vegetables.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas tomorrow!

1998 Collector's Choice, Jamie Navarro

#336 Jamie Navarro

Here is another card that the Troll sent to me. He sent this one along a couple of months ago with the Jared Sandberg card.

Jamie pitched for twelve seasons with the Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, and Indians. He was 116-126 for his career with a 4.72 ERA. He was mostly a starter and he won a career high 17 games with the Brewers in 1992. He pitched in over 200 innings a year six times and he recorded 32 complete games. As a Cub in 1996, he had 158 strikeouts which was also a career high.

He made his final Major League appearance in 2000, but his career wasn't quite over yet. In 2001, he pitched for Newark of the Atlantic League. It looks like he sat out of the '02 season, but he made a comeback in 2003. That year, he 17 games with Newark, 2 games with the Louisville Bats, and 5 games with Oaxaca of the Mexican League. That was his final season playing professional ball.

I like this card since the picture is of him signing autographs. Those are always good cards to have signed. But, one thing kind of freaks me out. That is the hand in the top left. If you click on the scan, you might see what I'm talking about. The hand looks kind of shapeless since you can't see any fingers from that angle. If even appears that Jamie is kind of looking at strangely, like he is trying to figure out what is going on with it. Or, maybe I have just been working too much lately.

1998 Bowman Chrome, Jeff Wallace

#106 Jeff Wallace

The final 1998 Bowman card is from the Collective Troll. This one is of former reliever Jeff Wallace, who spent three seasons with the Bucs and one with the Devil Rays. In 137 innings of work, Jeff was 3-3 with a 4.20 ERA.

It looks like the Pirates mainly used him as a left-handed specialist. He appeared in 90 games with them and pitched 86.2 innings. In his one season with Tampa Bay, he made 29 appearances (one was a start) and pitched in 50.1 innings. His ERA that season was 3.40. That was the lowest of his career since his brief 11 appearance rookie year. It seems strange that a season like that would be the last time he pitched in the Majors.

The Red Sox claimed Jeff off of waivers after that season and he pitched in 24 games the following minor league season. He appears to have hung them up after that.

Interestingly, Jeff was originally drafted by the Royals. He was sent to the Pirates in the deal that brought Jay Bell and Jeff King to Kansas City.

1998 Bowman, Chad Hermansen

#168 Chad Hermansen

Here is another card from the Troll. This one was part of the first package he sent me when he had already given away the Royals '87 Donruss Opening Day team set.

This is the second Chad Hermansen autograph that I have. I got the first one in a pack of 1995 Classic 5 Sport. The great thing about this autograph is that you can actually see it. The one on the 5 Sport is on such a dark area of the card that you can barely make it out. So this is a definite upgrade. Plus, I like how the out of focus ball is in the picture. That's a nice touch.

Since this is a signed Pirates card, I am going to guess that the Troll got it signed at a Spring Training game.

1998 Bowman, Jared Sandberg

#78 Jared Sandberg

This is the first of five '98 Bowman cards on here and this one came from the Collective Troll. This one features Ryne Sandberg's nephew, Jared. The Troll sent me this card and one other '98 card at the end of September, along with some assorted Royals and '81 Donruss.

Jared was taken in the 16th round of the 1996 draft by the Devil Rays. I am assuming that that was the first year they drafted. Anyway, Jared's pro career got off to a slow start and he didn't get above A ball until his fifth season. In his sixth season, though, he got a call up to St. Petersburg and he appeared in 39 games for the D-Rays, hitting .2o6 with a home run and 15 RBI. He got into 102 games the next season and he hit .229 with 18 homers. It seems that his one problem was strikeouts. That season, he struck out 139 times in 358 at-bats. The following season would be his last as a Major Leaguer and he went on to hit .213 with 6 home runs in 55 games.

He spent all of the next season with the Rays AAA affiliate before they granted him free agency. He spent the next three seasons playing for three AA teams and one independent team. His final season was 2007 as a member of the Royals AA affiliate in Wichita. I went to a few games in Wichita that season, but I do not remember seeing Jared.

This is the very first Devil Rays card on here.

With the Troll's autographs, I usually guess wrong on how he got them. But, it is still fun to do. I think that he got this one in person, maybe after an interview.

1997 Score, Rafael Bournigal

#305 Rafael Bournigal

This is the last Score card from 1997. It is hard for me to believe that I actually have three cards from the set signed. At this time last year, I didn't have one.

This card came to me from the Collective Troll. It was in the lot of cards that he sent me when he realized that he had already given out the Royals Donruss Opening Day teamset. Since someone had already claimed the Royals, he sent me some autographs instead. I think I came out better with the autographs, so I have no complaints.

Rafael played in the Majors for seven seasons with the Dodgers, A's, and M's. He was just a part time player throughout his career and the most games he got into in a season was 88 with the A's in 1996. He was a career .251 hitter that had 4 homers. The one stat of his that stands out is his strikeouts. He had 932 at-bats, but only 64 strikeouts. Unfortunately, he only amassed 59 walks. I guess he just went to the plate swinging (and making contact).

The Score set has an interesting look to it. It is pretty bland by Score's standards. The white borders don't bother me too much, but the one thing I do not like about them is the lower-case font. That probably annoys me more than anything.

1995 Pinnacle, Scott Elarton

#171 Scott Elarton

Here is another through the mail success, I think. This one was done by the Collective Troll who then sent it to me a few months ago. I have no idea when this autograph was obtained.

For me, I mostly remember Scott for being a Royal. He was the number one pitcher on a couple of very bad Royals teams. He had a lot of arm problems throughout his career and that trend continued during his time in Kansas City. He only pitched in 29 games in his two years as a Royal. 9 of those games were in the second year after coming back from an injury. He posted 10.46 ERA during those 9 starts and somehow he got 2 wins and only 4 losses. That is amazing. I was quite happy the day the Royals released him. He was, however, a 17 game winner in 2000 with the Astros before he started having arm problems.

The Indians picked him up after the Royals had let him go and he ended up getting into 8 games in 2008, all in relief. He pitched pretty well and posted a 3.52 ERA in 15.1 innings of work while striking out 15.

These draft pick cards remind me of the 1994 Score Select set with the torn edge in them. I think I like the base cards better, even though they had more foil on them.

1988 Topps, John Wathan

#534 John Wathan

As odd as it may seem, I did not get this card signed at the Willie Wilson Classic. This card is actually from the Collective Troll. I thought that I had the first half of his cards wrapped up a couple of days ago, but I obviously forgot about this one.

This card is cool because it is the only manager card that I can think of that has him wearing a batting helmet. I took this card with me to Royals Fanfest last year, but I was unable to get it signed. I got a few cards signed by him, but they were all older cards. While I was standing in another alumni autograph line that day, I was going to try to get this card signed as John was leaving the signing area. But, he ended up going the opposite direction. Well, I have one signed now.

Thanks Troll!

1987 Donruss, Alvin Davis

#75 Alvin Davis

Here is another card from the Troll. I think that this will be the last one from him until I get up to cards from 1995 or '96. I would have guessed that this was a Spring Training autograph. But, after the comment that he left on the Phil Bradley autograph, I am willing to bet that this signature was obtained at the card show in New Britain, Connecticut. The show had an odd group of ballplayers there- three Mariners (Bradley, Davis, and Spike Owen) and Jim Bouton and Don Mincher. Sounds like it would have been a cool show to have attended.

As for Alvin Davis, I remember him because of a card in this set. It wasn't this card; it was his Diamond King card. 1987 was the first year that I collected Donruss and I really loved the Rated Rookie cards and the Diamond Kings. I figured that the DKs were of the guys that had the best season the year before. It wasn't until they came up with the MVP subset that I realized that that was not the case.

Tomorrow, I am heading to Baltimore to visit a buddy for a week. I'm hoping to take in a Wilmington Blue Rocks playoff game tomorrow if the weather cooperates. Then I will go to an O's game on Tuesday and hopefully meet up with Ryan of the Great Orioles Autograph Project. It should be a good time and I hope to have internet access and still put out a post a day.

1987 Donruss, Kevin McReynolds

#14 Kevin McReynolds

Amazingly, this is an autographed Padres card that did not come from Rod, of Padrographs. I can hardly believe it myself. This card actually came from the Collective Troll. This is the second Diamond King card that he sent me and this one is of a player that even spent a couple of seasons as a Royal.

In fact, Kevin was part of the deal that sent Bret Saberhagen to the Mets. It was him, Gregg Jefferies, and Keith Miller for Saberhagen and Bill Pecota. At the time, it was probably considered the worst deal in Royals history. Kevin only spent two seasons in KC, Jefferies was traded away after one year, and Miller spent most of his time in Omaha. But at the same time, Saberhagen started having arm troubles. While he did pitch for eight more seasons, he also missed two because of injury and pitched in less than ten games in two others.

So, looking back, the Royals traded Saberhagan at the right time.

I am going to guess that this card was signed during Spring Training. But, I could be wrong.

1986 Donruss Rookies, Steve Lombardozzi

#18 Steve Lombardozzi

Here is another card from the Troll. This one features the former Twins light-hitting second baseman, Steve Lombardozzi. Steve spent parts of four seasons in Minnesota before being dealt to Houston. While with the Astros, Steve only played 23 games over two seasons while spending most of the time in the minors.

Steve was a .233 career hitter. But, in the 1987 World Series, he was the man. He was 7-17 in 6 games with a double and a home run with 3 runs and 4 RBI. Plus, he didn't have any errors in the field. It's too bad he couldn't carry that run into the next season.

The autograph on this card looks like some of the signatures that I have on some newer cards that are unprepped. After a second look at it, I was surprised to see that the card actually is glossy. The regular '86 set wasn't and neither is the '87 set. Was this the first set of cards to have gloss on them?

1986 Donruss, Phil Bradley

#22 Phil Bradley

Here is another card that was given to me by the Collective Troll. This one features the former Mariner, Phillie, Oriole, and White Sock, Phil Bradley.

I always liked Phil as a kid because he grew up in the same town that some of my cousins were from, Macomb, Illinois. I always hoped that they would run into him on the street some off-season and get an autograph for me. But, it never happened. But, he is now part of my collection thanks to the Troll.

Phil was an All-Star in 1985. For the year, he hit .300 with a career high 26 home runs and 88 RBI. Those numbers started to decline in the following years and he was out of the Majors after the 1990 season.

He didn't play in 1991, but he was able to latch on with the Cubs AAA team in '92. He hit .248 with them in 42 games before being let go and picked up by the Angels AAA team. For them, he hit .299 in 41 games. That was his last season playing ball.

According to Wikipedia, Phil now works for the player's association and is an assistant coach for the softball team at his alma mater, Missouri. While Phil was at Mizzou, he was also the schools starting quarterback for two years.

Again, I believe that this autograph was probably obtained during Spring Training. Also, you can't go wrong with a signed Diamond King card.

1985 Topps, Johnny Ray

#96 Johnny Ray

Here is another card that was given to me by the Collective Troll. This one features former Pirate, and Angel, Johnny Ray.

Johnny spent ten seasons in the Majors, mostly in Pittsburgh. He is a .290 career hitter who had 70 or more RBI in a season three times. He hit between 5 and 7 home runs every year except for his rookie year and was an All-Star in 1988. Those seem like pretty decent numbers for a second baseman in the '80s.

I am guessing that this was obtained by the Troll during Spring Training. The red really works well on this card.

1983 Topps, Jim Morrison

#173 Jim Morrison

This card was given to me by the Collective Troll. He sent me about fifteen autographed cards last month to make up for the Donruss Opening Day set he was unable to get me. This was the oldest card in the lot.

Jim was basically a utility infielder that played twelve seasons with five teams- the Phillies, White Sox, Pirates, Tigers, and Braves. He had his longest stint with the Pirates and mostly played third base for them. Throughout his career he also got some time at every other infield position and he played a few games in left and right field. But the one position that really stands out to me is his pitching.

In his final big league season, he got to pitch for the Braves. And it wasn't just a one time deal either; the Braves put him on the mound three different times. The first time happened at the end of June when the Braves were losing to the Giants 13-6. He pitched 2.1 innings and gave up no runs on three hits and a walk. He recorded his only strikeout of the year in that game and it was against the Giants pitcher, Craig Lefferts.

He was back on the bump two months later. This time, the Braves were down to the Cards, 7-0 (John Smoltz started the game). Jim pitched the final inning and gave up no runs on no hits with one walk.

His final outing occurred seven days later against the Cardinals, again. Going into the ninth inning, the Braves were down 5-0. But Jose Alvarez gave up four runs in the ninth while only getting two outs. So the Braves brought in Morrison to put out the fire. He got Terry Pendleton to ground out for the final out of the game.

Terry Pendleton faced Morrison the week before and popped out to third. He finished his career 0-2 against Morrison. The only players to get a hit off of him were Candy Maldonado, Jose Uribe (a triple), and Harry Spillman.

1994 Stadium Club, Lloyd McClendon

#511 Lloyd McClendon

This is the third card in a row that was basically given to me out of the blue. The first two came from Padrographs last year. This one came from the Collective Troll just last month. The Troll was having a giveaway last month that featured some '87 Donruss Opening Day cards. I chimed in that I wanted the Royals team set, if it was available. CT emailed me back and said that it was mine.

Then the next day, he emailed me again to say that someone had claimed them before I had, but that he would make it up to me. I told him not to worry about it, but he sent me a package anyway. Well, this is the first card from that package that I have shown on here.

Lloyd played eight seasons with the Reds, Cubs, and Pirates. He never played in 100 games in a season despite being versatile enough to play first, third, outfield, or catcher. He was only a .244 career hitter. But, in three playoff series, hit hit .625 in 16 at-bats. He went on to manage the Pirates for five seasons and is currently the hitting coach for the Tigers.

I believe that this autograph was acquired during Spring Training at some point.

Check out how he signs his last name. It looks like a pretzel.