The Rest of 2008 Upper Deck, Part II

#407 Doug Davis
#427 Luis Hernandez
#446 Felix Pie
#518 Reggie Abercrombie
#526 Mark Teahen
#549 Delwyn Young
#670 Vincente Padilla
#712 Elliot Johnson
#98-JK Jason Kendall

Here are the last of the 2008 Upper Deck base set.

Doug Davis- Doug signed this card for me at an Oklahoma Redhawks game in 2012. He was playing for the visiting Omaha Storm Chasers.

Luis Hernandez- Luis signed this card for me after batting practice at The K in 2009 during his one season with the Royals. He would later go on to play for the Wichita Wingnuts. But, by the time he was in Wichita, all of my cards of him were already signed.

Felix Pie- I was able to get Felix by the Orioles dugout on my last visit to Camden Yards in 2009.

Reggie Abercrombie- Though he never played for the Wingnuts, he played in the American Association long enough for me to get multiple autographs from him throughout the years. This one was obtained in 2016 while he was with Winnipeg. He was still with the club this past season at the age of thirty-eight.

Mark Teahen- Mark was always a great signer while with the Royals. This is one of the cards that he signed for me by the Royals parking lot in 2008.

Delwyn Young- I got Delwyn to sign two years ago while he was a member of the second, and last, incarnation of the Kansas Stars.

Vincente Padilla- Vincente signed for me at a Royals game in 2008. His Rangers were taking batting practice at the time.

Elliot Johnson- Elliot signed for me at a Scranton-Wilkes/Barre Yankees game in 2009. He was playing for the visiting Durham Bulls at the time.

Jason Kendall- Jason worked as a special adviser for the Royals for a few seasons and I was able to get this card signed outside The K in 2013. That day, I had just this one card of him and it was on the same page as two Emilio Bonifacio cards. When I gave him my book to sign, he said "dude, that's not me". When I pointed out his card, he was like "oh, I was going to say I'm not black".

The Rest of 2008 Tristar Projections

#83 Darren Ford
#90 Josh Horton
#198 Mitch Einertson
#256 Josh Vitters
#320 Salvador Sanchez
#399 Desomd Jennings

Darren Ford- Unlike the last card of Darren that I got signed at a Sacramento River Cats game, this one was pulled out of a pack. I actually bought the pack at the Kauffman Stadium gift shop for eight bucks just because it also came with an Eric Hosmer card. It worked out well as I eventually got the Hosmer card signed and I got an auto in the pack.

Josh Horton- I love the way this card looks. Josh's loopy blue signature just looks like it was made for this card. It is perfect. It definitely came out a lot better than the last card of him I posted when I had him sign in black. This card was signed at a Tulsa Drillers game in 2010 while he was playing for Midland.

Mitch Einertson- Mitch played for the Wingnuts for parts of two seasons and I was able to get this card signed at one of their games in 2012.

Josh Vitters- I got this card signed in Hoover, Alabama in 2010 while Josh was playing for the visiting Tennessee Smokies.

Salvador Sanchez- Sal signed this card for me the day after I got Vitters to sign. This time, though, it was in Birmingham at historic Rickwood Field for the 100th anniversary of the ballpark.

Desmond Jennings- I got Desmond to sign at the 2009 Futures Game in St. Louis.

2008 Tristar Projections, Jeremy Hellickson

#208 Jeremy Hellickson

Here is a card that I got signed at a Royals game in 2010 while Jeremy was a rookie with the Rays. It was a Sunday day game, so I was trying to get pitchers down the line in the outfield. When Jeremy came over to sign, I handed him my card book and Sharpie. I always try to take the cap off of the Sharpie just to make it easier for the players. On that day, Jeremy didn't realize that I took the cap off for him and he tried to take it off himself. Instead, all he did was get blue Sharpie all over his hand. When he realized what he had done, he just looked up at me and gave me a dirty look. It was quite funny.

Jeremy pitched for the Rays for five seasons, going 40-36 with a 3.78 ERA. The Rays traded him to the Diamondbacks after the 2014 season and he has bounced around a bit since then. Besides playing for the D-Backs, he has seen time with the Phillies, Orioles, and Nationals, his current team. But, this season has basically been a wash for him as he has been on the injured list since late May (I think that is the first time Injured List has been used on here). For his career to date, Jeremy is 76-75 with a 4.13 ERA. He was the 2011 American League Rookie of the Year and he won a Gold Glove in 2012.

Jeremy is pictured with the Columbus Catfish on this card. Unfortunately, the Catfish no longer exist. They left Georgia after the 2008 season and became the Bowling Green Hot Rods.

2008 Tristar Projections, Wade Davis

#201 Wade Davis

Here is a card that I got signed at Royals Fanfest in 2013. At the time, Wade had just come over from the Rays. He was basically a throw-in in the Wil Myers/James Shields trade. There wasn't any real expectations for him except to help fill in the rotation. Absolutely no one envisioned that he was going to be a dominant reliever that would anchor a bullpen that would lead the Royals to back-to-back World Series appearances, let alone revolutionize how a bullpen could be used.

While with the Rays, Wade was a starter for his first two plus years before moving to the bullpen for his last season in Tampa Bay. As a starter, he was 25-22 with a 4.22 ERA and 254 strikeouts in 388.1 innings of work. Then, out of the 'pen, he was 3-0 with a 2.43 ERA and 87 K's in just 70.1 innings of work. Why the Royals would want to move him back to the rotation is beyond me. They probably just lacked rotation depth and needed a starter.

So, Wade started his Royals career as a starter and made 24 starts in 2013 and also had 7 relief appearances at the end of the year. As a starter, he was 6-10 with a 5.67 ERA with 107 strikeouts in 125.1 innings. In his brief time out of the 'pen at the end of the year (after missing a month of the season to injury), he was 2-1 with a 0.90 ERA and 7 strikeouts in 10 innings.

The Royals kept him in the bullpen the following year and the rest is history. For three seasons of relief work out of the Kansas City 'pen, Wade would go 19-4 with 47 saves, a 1.18 ERA, and 234 strikeouts in 182.2 innings. On top of that, he only allowed three home runs. And, as if you thought those numbers were lights out, he was even better in the postseason.

During the Royals two postseason runs, Wade was 2-0 with 4 saves with a 0.36 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 25 innings of work. Those numbers just look unreal.

The Royals traded Wade to the Cubs before the 2017 season and he signed with the Rockies last year where he would lead the National League in saves. But, he is having a rough go of it this year and is not the team's closer and is sporting a non Wade Davis-like ERA of 7.43.

In case you are wondering, this card has an error on the back. It lists Wade's birth date as 9/8/89 when it is actually 9/7/85.

2008 Topps, Part IV

#597 Kyle Davies
#623 Trey Hillman
#UH15 Kevin Cash
#UH89 Joakim Soria
#UH92 Eric Hinske
#UH144 Robinson Tejeda

I am almost done with '08 Topps, so I had to break down the last two post to six cards each. This one is a little Royals heavy.

Kyle Davies- Believe it or not, I got this card signed by the Royals parking lot in 2008.

Trey Hillman- I almost posted this card by itself a few weeks back. Then I remembered that I posted a minor league card of Trey many years ago. This one was signed by the Royals parking lot in 2008.

Kevin Cash- I got this card signed in Omaha in 2011 while Kevin was coaching for Round Rock. He has moved up a bit since then and is currently the manager for the Rays.

Joakim Soria- The one current player in the batch, who is currently pitching for the A's. Unlike the last two Royals, I got this card signed at Royals Fanfest in 2009.

Eric Hinske- I got this card signed last year outside of Kauffman Stadium when Eric got dropped off from an Uber. That is another thing that has changed while 'graphing outside of The K in the last ten years. Players now get dropped off from Ubers instead of cabs. The cabs could be seen from miles away and the Ubers now just magically appears. Eric was a coach for the Angels at the time, but has since moved on to the Diamondbacks.

Robinson Tejeda- I got this one signed by the Royals parking lot, but it was is in 2009. I think this is the first time that I got a players base card and update card signed from the same year.

2008 Bowman, Elliot Johnson

#BDP24 Elliot Johnson

With this card, we finally enter the Draft Picks and Prospects set from 2008 Bowman. Since the BDP set and the base set look exactly the same, I just lump them together as one set. It was nice, though, when Topps was nice enough to add the BDP designation to the card numbers of the second set. Later on, they drop that designation and it gets a little confusing.

My oldest kid got this card signed for me at a Royals Spring Training game in 2013. We actually stayed for the entire game that day and afterwards, Elliot stopped to sign a few autographs. I gave my then seven year old my card book and he hustled down and got Elliot to sign two cards for me.

Unfortunately, my oldest kid never got into collecting autographs like I did. But, he still helps me out whenever he can. Now that he is a teenager, it usually takes a little bribery to get his help. The last two Spring Trainings, it was in the form of a dollar a card. This year at Royals Fanfest, it costs me a new pair of shoes. His help is getting a little pricier as he gets older, but it is much appreciated.

Elliot played in the Majors for parts of five seasons with the Rays, Royals, Braves, and Indians. The utility player played every position in the Majors except for pitcher and catcher. A .215 hitter, he had 12 home runs and 69 RBI for his career.

Elliot's best season was with the Rays in 2012. He got into a career-high 123 games that season and he hit .242 with 6 home runs and 33 RBI.

On a side note, that was actually the second time that I had gotten Elliot's signature. I originally got him at a Scranton/Wilkes-Barre game in 2009 when he was with the visiting Durham Bulls. I seem to have a knack for getting autographs of future Royals players and I think it might have started with him at that Bulls game.

Arizona has been added to the 2008 Bowman map.

2008 Allen & Ginter, Scott Kazmir

#146 Scott Kazmir

Here is a card that I got signed at a Royals game in 2009. Scott had just been traded to the Angels about a week before that and I got lucky by spotting him mulling around in the dugout while the Angels were taking batting practice. I called over to him and he came over and signed one of the three cards I had of him. I do not remember what other two cards I had at the time, but I doubt that they were better than this card.

While looking at Scott's stats, I was surprised to see that he hasn't pitched since 2016. I knew he was traded this past off-season from the Dodgers to the Braves in the great salary dump trade. I guess I just never realized that the Braves released him in Spring Training and nobody ever picked him up.

If Scott's career is indeed done, he had a nice one. Playing twelve seasons with six teams, he racked up a 108-96 record with a 4.01 ERA. The three time All Star played in three postseasons. His best year was with the Devil Rays in 2007 when he went 13-9 with a 3.48 ERA and a league leading 239 strikeouts. That was his only 200 strikeout season.

This is the first card on here that features a Tampa Bay Ray. I have posted a handful of Devil Rays, but this is the first one without the Devil moniker.

1998 Donruss, Miguel Cairo

#320 Miguel Cairo

This is the first Devil Rays card I have posted on here in over two years and is only the third Devil Ray on here to feature the team's inaugural uniforms. Needless to say, but I bet there are not too many Rays fans that check out this blog.

I got this card, and two others, signed by Miguel last year at Spring Training. At the time, he held a front office title and I was able to find him in the back fields helping out the minor league players.

Miguel was an original D-Ray and he spent three years with the club after being taken from the Cubs in the expansion draft. Despite being a utility player for most of his career, he was the Rays everyday second baseman while he was there and he never played any other defensive position. Over those three years, Miguel would hit .275 with 9 home runs, 116 RBI, and 69 stolen bases. His 48 RBI for the inaugural Rays were a single season high for him.

2007 Topps Heritage, James Shields

#237 James Shields

Here is a card that I got signed before a Royals day game in 2010 while James was still with Tampa Bay. It just happened to be the Royals annual Bark in the Park game where fans are encouraged to bring their dogs. At Kauffman Stadium, the fans get to parade their pooches around the warning track prior to the start of the game. James and a few other Rays pitchers were on the field getting their work in when the parade started. Once that happened, they were essentially stuck out there, so they just watched the show like everyone else. Afterwards, James came over to sign and I asked him if the Rays did a Bark in the Park. He wasn't sure, but he knew that there was rays there everyday, referring to the ray petting tank at Tropicana Field.

James pitched for Tampa Bay for seven seasons, going 87-73 for them along the way with a 3.89 ERA. He hit double digit wins for them every season except his first one and made his lone All Star team as a Ray in 2011. That season, he logged 249.1 innings while tossing 11 complete games with 4 shutouts. He struck out a career-high 225 batters while going 16-12 with a 2.82 ERA, also a career best.

Prior to the 2013 season, James was dealt to Kansas City with Wade Davis and Elliot Johnson for Wil Myers, Mike Montgomery, and Jake Odorizzi. Considering that Wade Davis is the dominant beast that he is, I would say that the Royals fared much better in that trade.

Unfortunately, my time of nearly posting daily has come to an end. Tomorrow, it is back to the bump and grind of the 48 hour work week. I really enjoyed having the time to pump out a bunch of posts over the past five weeks, but that will be grinding to a halt. Hopefully, I will be able to get two to three posts done in a week. We will just have to wait and see.

2007 Fleer, Tim Corcoran

#369 Tim Corcoran

Here is a card that I got signed at a Round Rock Express game in 2008 while Tim was pitching for the visiting Albuquerque Isotopes. The Express have a sweet autographing set-up where the players have to walk across the left field concourse to get to the field. That is where I got Tim when he signed this card.

Tim pitched for the Rays for parts of three seasons. He was used as a starter and a reliever and he logged 130.1 innings in the Majors. Over that time, he went 5-9 with a 4.97 ERA. All of his decisions came in 2006, the only year he started games. He pitched 90.1 innings that year and had an ERA of 4.38 with 59 strikeouts.

Even though 2008 was the last time Tim pitched in the Major Leagues, he continued to pitch in the minor leagues through the 2013 season. In all, he played for sixteen seasons and logged 1272 innings of work.

I have a hard time calling this set a Fleer set since it was put out by Upper Deck. But, that is the way things were in 2007.

2007 Bowman, Desmond Jennings

#BP106 Desmond Jennings

Here is a card that I got signed at the 2009 Futures Game in St. Louis. At that point, this was the only card of Desmond that I could get my hands on to take with me.

Desmond made his Major League debut the next season when he was a September call-up for the Rays. He got the start on the first day of September and went 0-3 with a strikeout against the Blue Jays. He got his first hit ten days later and finished that first month hitting .190.

He started 2011 in AAA before getting the call in July. He got off to a blistering start for his second go-around in the Majors. After a 2 for 3 day for his first start, he went on to have multi-hit games game in five of his first six games that year. That sixth game was a 3 for 4 game where he had four RBI and hit his first Major League home run. He went on to finish the season hitting .259 with 10 home runs and 25 RBI in just 63 games.

He would be an everyday player for the Rays after that season and has put up consistent numbers every year. He usually hits about .250 with 10-14 home runs and about 50 RBI. He did knock in 64 runs in 2013, his best total to date.

Things took a turn for the worse this year, though, when Desmond was battling some knee soreness. He missed some games before being put on the disabled list in May. He tried to rehab the knee, but ended up having surgery on it earlier this month. As of right now, there is no timetable for his return.

Desmond was hitting .222 before the surgery.

2005 Donruss Champions, Joey Gathright

#181 Joey Gathright

Here is the second card of Joey Gathright that I have ever posted on here. Joey spent some time with the Royals, so I have a few sigs from him. But this one I picked up a little more recently. In 2013, Joey was playing for the other Kansas City team, the American Association's T-Bones. He signed three cards for me before a game in Wichita that summer.

Joey last played for the Royals in 2008 and all of my prior autographs from him were obtained that season. Back then, all his signatures looked like his initials. I was shocked when I got these cards signed in Wichita and he had more of an actual signature. I was not expecting that. Here is the first card I posted of him in 2011 to compare.

Joey played for the Devil Rays from 2004 til a mid-season trade in 2006. In his two and a half seasons in Tampa Bay, Joey hit .244 with 65 runs, 27 RBI, and 38 stolen bases. The Rays sent him to Kansas City for JP Howell. JP pitched for the Rays through 2012, so I would say that trade worked out great for them.

Two bat cards in one week? I doubt that will ever happen again.

Apparently, Joey notified the public yesterday, via Facebook, that he has officially retired from baseball.

2006 Topps, Damon Hollins

#UH94 Damon Hollins

This card right here is the first baseball card that I got signed at a ballpark. Before that, all of my autographed cards were obtained TTM, at card shows, or in packs. I had some signatures from ballparks before, but most of them were on baseballs. That all changed in 2008 when my buddy and I made our first ballpark trip west. It was such a long journey just to get to the west coast that we had to stop at some minor league parks just to break up the drive times. The first park we stopped at on that trip was Isotopes Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico and that is where I got this card signed. Damon was playing for the Omaha Royals at the time and I was able to get this card signed after the O-Royals got done with fielding practice.

Damon was really nice and he was signing everything for everybody. One guy handed him a stack of about a dozen cards and Damon signed each and every one of them with a smile. I only got this card signed because I didn't think I had a card of Damon. So, I purchased this card off of ebay for a penny and overpaid for shipping just so I had a card to get signed (back when you could buy stuff for a penny on ebay and before I knew about checkoutmycards). Unfortunately, about a year later, I was going through an old minor league baseball card album and found two or three minor league cards of Damon that I could have took with me to get signed. This was also before I knew about the Beckett website. But, that is OK. Tampa Bay is the only team that Damon saw any significant Major League time with, so I am glad that I have a signed Devil Rays card of him.

Damon was drafted by the Braves in the fourth round of the 1992 draft and he was a top-100 prospect for the Braves prior to the 1995 and 1996 seasons. He made his Major League debut with the Braves in 1998, but was traded to the Dodgers after only playing in three games. He played in five more games with the Dodgers that season before being released. After his release, it was back to the minors for Damon and he would stay there until he got called back up to the Braves in 2004. Then, in 2005, he stuck on with the Devil Rays and played in 120 games that year and 121 the following year. He only hit .239 as a Ray, but he did club 28 home runs over the two seasons while driving in 79. He then spent all of 2008 with Omaha and retired after the season.

2005 Turkey Red, Dewon Brazelton

#257 Dewon Brazelton

Here is the third and final Dewon Brazelton card that I got signed at a Wichita Wingnuts pre-season game last season. Dewon was with the Kansas City T-Bones at the time and he only appeared in two regular season games for them before getting released. Unfortunately, that may have been the end of his career because I cannot find anything about him pitching this season.

You can see the first Brazelton card I posted here and the second one here.

Now, on to some college baseball news.

There were sixteen teams eliminated from the tournament yesterday and, of those sixteen, seven were picked to advance to the CWS. The biggest upsets were Oklahoma State and Oklahoma. Both teams were picked by four contestants. The other teams to get knocked out included Navy(1), Fresno St.(1), Florida International(1), Southern Miss(2), and Kansas State(2). It wasn't a good day for the Big 12.

There were also a few upsets yesterday. The biggest, in my opinion, was Dallas Baptist beating TCU for the third time this year. The Patriots are now 2-0 and they are one win away from advancing to the super-regionals. No one picked Dallas Baptist to advance (and I wouldn't have either), so they are going to be the dark horse team that I am pulling for today and, hopefully, next weekend.

Other upsets included Texas losing to Kent State, Cal State Fullerton losing to Stanford, and Rice losing to Baylor.

Out of all of the unbeaten teams, Florida State and South Carolina were the ones picked by the most people (10). After Dallas Baptist and UC Irvine (who nobody picked), Mississippi State(1) and Kent State(2) are the two unbeatens that were picked by the least people.

The games are about to start and it is looking like it will be another exciting day of college baseball. If you are interested in watching any of the action, head over to ESPN 3. You can watch up to four games at a time there.

2005 Topps Total, Joey Gathright

#347 Joey Gathright

Here is card of the former Ray, Royal, Cub, and Red Sock, Joey Gathright. I got this card signed at a 2008 Royals Caravan stop here in town and Joey was accompanied by Brian Bannister, Billy Butler, and I think Dennis Leonard. Overall, it was a nice selection of players. Too bad the Caravan doesn't make it to these parts any longer.

Joey was drafted by the Devil Rays in the 32nd round of the 2001 draft. Despite being the 949th player taken that year, Joey made his Major League debut in 2004. Joey had one skill that coouldn't be taught and that was speed. Speed got him to the big leagues and speed defined his game. The only problem was that Joey couldn't hit.

That may have been a bit harsh. Joey could hit the ball. He just couldn't hit the ball hard. For a guy that was as fast as Joey, you would think that he would be a doubles and triples machine. However, that was not the case. In 1175 Major League at-bats, Joey recorded only 30 doubles and 8 triples (and 1 home run). He had 309 hits in the Majors, so 270 of his hits were for singles. I don't know how one could check it out, but I would guess that maybe as many as a third of those hits were infield hits, too.

Unfortunately for Joey, speed wasn't enough to prolong his career. He got released by the Orioles AAA team last season and finished the year in the Atlantic League. I cannot find anything about him for this season, so I am assuming he has yet to find a team.

Joey's signature is basically just his initials. That is kind of boring.

If Joey can't find a team this season, maybe he could join the circus and become a car jumper or something.

2005 Topps, Jeff Niemann

#682 Jeff Niemann

Here is a card that I got signed at Kauffman Stadium last year on the final day of the season. It was a Sunday day game, so the hitters didn't take batting practice. Luckily, though, the Rays were heading to the playoffs and their pitchers were out on the field getting their workouts in.

That day also happened to be "bark at the park" day, so there were a bunch of dogs at the ballpark. Prior to the start of the game, the dogs and owners got to take a lap around the warning track and Jeff waited paitiently for them all to go past so that he could sign some autographs for the fans. Jeff must be a dog person because it looked like he enjoyed seeing some of the dogs that paraded past him.

I never realized how big Jeff was until I saw him that day. He is 6'9" and he towers over the rest of the Rays pitching staff.

So far this season, Jeff is not off to the start that he wanted. He is 1-5 through 6 starts with a 5.74 ERA.

2004 Topps Total, Damian Rolls

#657 Damian Rolls

Here is the third and final Damian Rolls card that I got signed at a Kansas City T-Bones game in 2009. You can see the first one here and the second one here.

Damian's Major League career spanned parts of five seasons and all were spent with the Devil Rays. His biggest year was probably 2003 when he had career highs in games played (107), at-bats (373), hits (95), runs (43), doubles (20), home runs (7), and RBI (46). But, in 2004, Damian could not get it going and he spent the entire season in a prolonged slump. He ended the season batting only .162 and the D-Rays released him after the season. That was the last time Damian played in the Major Leagues.

For his career, Damian was a .248 hitter with 53 extra base hits and 73 RBI. He played every position at the big league level except for shortstop, pitcher, and catcher.

I like how Damian is listed as an outfielder on this card, yet he is clearly playing infield in the picture.

2004 Topps Chrome, Dewon Brazelton

#392 Dewon Brazelton

Here is the second of three cards that Dewon signed for me at the T-Bones/Wingnuts preseason game back in April. The first one can be seen here.

It sounds like Dewon has had an interesting career. He had knee surgery and Tommy John surgery before completing high school. Because of that, he went undrafted out of high school and attended Middle Tennessee State instead. He set the MTSU school record for wins and strikeouts while there and he ended up getting drafted with the third overall selection in the 2001 draft.

He made his pro debut the following year with the Rays AA team, the Orlando Rays. He did good enough that season the got promoted to AAA for one start before getting a September call-up to the big league club. In his Major League debut, he gave up 5 runs in 6 innings against the Blue Jays and he took the loss. He fared much better in his second start by throwing 7 innings and only allowing 2 runs to the Yankees. I'm sure that Rays fan were pretty excited by the fast start that Dewon had.

Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last. Dewon pitched in 52 more games for the Rays, over three seasons, before they traded him to San Diego. He pitched in 9 games for the Padres in 2006 before getting demoted and then released. In 2007, he pitched for the Royals AAA and the Pirates AA team. He didn't pitch at all in 2008 and 2009 was spent in the Atlantic League. He started out 2010 with the Kansas City T-Bones, but he must have been released before the season started. It would appear that Dewon's career may be over.

It seems that the major issue with Dewon may have been control. For his Major League career, Dewon tallied just 145 strikeouts compared to 151 walks. It is going to be hard to be successful with that bad of a strikeout to walk ratio.

I thought it was funny when I looked up Dewon's page on Baseball Reference. Our good friend, the Collective Troll, is the sponsor of the page. That is pretty cool.

2003 Topps Heritage, Josh Hamilton

#124 Josh Hamilton

Here is a card that I got signed at a Rangers game in 2008. It was the first time that I tried to get autographs at Rangers Ballpark and I didn't know which gate to go through to get to a good spot. For some reason, I went in the left field gate and I couldn't have picked a better gate that day. As soon as I saw the field, I saw Josh signing autographs along the left field foul line. So, I made a beeline down there and I was able to get all three cards signed.

Of course Josh was quite friendly as he chatted with fans and took pictures with them. It is probably the only time that I have seen a player stop to pose for pictures. I would have took a picture with him, but I was rolling solo on that trip. The other fans all looked like they were having a great time and I didn't want to bother them with taking a picture for me. Maybe next time.

I bought one pack of '03 Topps Heritage and every single card in it had a crinkled top right corner.

2003 Fleer Tradition, Damian Rolls

#367 Damian Rolls

Here is the second of three cards that Damian signed for me at a Kansas City T-Bones game last year. You can see the first one here.

Damian is from Kansas City and I got this card signed after Damian got done hanging out with a group of people in one of the picnic areas at Community America Ballpark. While he was signing my cards, I asked him if he was starting that night and he started going on about starting second base that night and that he hadn't played second in over a month. That night also happened to be the night that Willie Wilson was the starting centerfielder for the T-Bones and I asked Damian his thoughts on that and he didn't sound too pleased. He said something to the effect that "management was getting on us to get into the playoffs and then they go and do this; so I really don't know what to think of it". I thought about bringing up the game we played against each other at the state tournament in 1994, but he has played so many game since then that I doubt he would remember. Overall, Damian seemed very personable and it was fun talking with him.

I really like this Fleer Tradition set. It is a good-looking set that is not glossy and is perfect for autographs. I wish I would have bought a few of these while they were out.