The Rest of Upper Deck USA

#USA-10 Jordy Mercer
#USA-PP Petey Paramore
#38 Eric Hosmer

For starters, these cards actually come from two different sets and one of them might be an insert set for the Upper Deck base set. But, who cares? They are all Team USA baseball from Upper Deck, so they are getting lumped together.

Jordy Mercer- A good friend of mine got this signed for me at a Wilmington Blue Rocks playoff game in 2009. I was 'graphing the home team and my buddy was nice enough to try the visiting side. It was an overcast day that day with off and on rain. I told him to not even bother trying to get autographs when it was sprinkling, but I think he was doing his best to get some cards signed for me that he went all in, rain or not. So, this one got hit with a couple of rain drops. Luckily the other one Jordy signed came out a little better.

Petey Paramore- I got this card signed at a Wingnuts game in 2013 while Petey was playing with the Kansas City T-Bones. I bought this card just to get it signed and it came out looking fantastic.

Eric Hosmer- Eric signed this card for me in 2009 in Burlington, Iowa. The Burlington Bees were a Royals affiliate at the time and I was able to get Eric to sign a couple of cards for me before the game I attended. That was the first time I ever got his signature.

2008 Upper Deck USA, Pedro Alvarez

#USA-17 Pedro Alvarez

Here is a card that I got signed at the 2009 Future's Game in St. Louis. Pedro was on Team USA that day and I was lucky enough to get him to sign two cards prior to the game starting.

Pedro played in the Majors for nine seasons with the Pirates and Orioles. Over that time, he was a .236 hitter with 162 home runs and 472 RBI. His best season was with the Bucs in 2013 when he hit .233 and had career highs in homers (33) and RBI (100). That was also the only season that he ever made an All Star team.

It looks like Pedro's career might be over as he did not play in a game in the Majors or minors this past season.

Speaking of minors, Wichita finally named their new AAA team yesterday and it is probably the worst name in Minor League Baseball- the Wichita Wind Surge. How dumb is that? Anyways, I am still anxiously waiting to go to games at the new park and seeing some AAA ball on a regular basis. I doubt, however, that I will be wasting my money on any Wind Surge gear. Maybe I will just buy a Marlins hat or shirt. Or maybe I will just rock my Royals gear there all season long.

As for Pedro, he has a unique looking signature. It looks more like graffiti than a signed name to me.

2005 Upper Deck USA Baseball, Kevin Gunderson

#58 Kevin Gunderson

Here is a card that was given to me by Rod, from Padrographs, when we met up at a Hillsboro Hops game in 2015.

Most of the cards that I get from Rod feature a Padre or someone that had played for the Padres at some point. But, not this card; Kevin only played in the Braves organization. After a quick check at Baseball Reference, I see that Kevin is from Oregon. Oregonians are another lot that Rod collects. Even though I collect autographed cards of anyone and everybody, it is still cool when another person hooks me up with a signed card from their collecting niche. And that has happened quite a few times with Rod.

Kevin played at Oregon State and was drafted by the Braves in the fifth round of the 2006 draft. He played in their organization for four seasons, reaching as high as AAA in 2009. But, he only pitched in four games at that level and called it a career after the season. For his career, he was 12-10 with a 3.01 ERA.

2007 Upper Deck USA Baseball, Mike Moustakas

#38 Mike Moustakas

Finally, 359 days after posting my first card from 2007, I am ready to post the last one. By my quick count, I posted 143 signed cards from sets made in 2007. That averages out to one post every two and a half days. That is a good posting rate for me these days. That rate was better than it would have been thanks to the birth of my son and some daily posting while on paternity leave.

I got this card signed in Wilmington, Delaware while Mike was playing for the Blue Rocks in 2009. It was a crappy day for baseball as it had been raining off and on for a couple of days. While I was there 'graphing before the game, the weather could not decide what it wanted to do. It was almost always at least misting with occasional bouts of rain thrown in. I got Mike to sign for me while it was just misting and the cards came out OK. There is one light spot on the first "M" of his signature where the Sharpie hit a tiny drop of water, but it is barely noticeable.

Mike signed two cards for me that day. The first one can be seen here.

Since I am finished up with my 2007 cards, it is time to rewind and show off older cards that I got signed over the past couple of years. I am really looking forward to that as I have about twenty cards from the '50s to post. At the rate I post, it will probably be sometime next year by the time I get around to posting my 2008 cards.

2004 SP Prospects, Brett Hayes

#NH-BH Brett Hayes

Here is a card of Brett Hayes that I got signed at Royals Fanfest last year. The set-up for Fanfest last year was less than ideal. The set-up for this year looked nearly identical which led to me not attending Fanfest for the first time. But, the one bright spot to Fanfest last year was the final signing of the evening. By that time, the autograph lines had thinned out immensely. Because of that, we were able to hit up four of the six lines they had. Prior to that, you could not go through more than one line per session. Brett was in the second line that we hit as we criss-crossed Bartle Hall to end the long day.

Brett was the Royals back-up catcher last season. Or at least he was until they acquired Eric Kratz from the Blue Jays. He got into 27 games and hit .135 with a home run and 2 RBI.

It looks like Brett is going to be playing for the Indians this season.

I only have three cards from this set that are signed. One of the other ones just happens to be another jersey card from this insert set. It is of Luke Hochevar. You cannot beat a signed jersey card, especially when you can pick one up for about a buck.

1985 Topps, Oddibe McDowell

#400 Oddibe McDowell

Last week, I posted a card of Oddibe McDowell that I had in my incomplete complete set of 1985 Fleer Update. That only reason that I sent that card to him to get signed was because I was finally sending him this card. I originally got this card in a pack in 1985 when I was six. Being that young, I wasn't too careful with my cards and all of my original cards from '85 and '86 are not in the best of shape.

I noticed a few years back that Oddibe is a good TTM signer and I have been trying to get this card to send his way. I first began by trying to acquire it in a trade on the Topps Million Card and Diamond Card giveaway sites. Unfortunately, not too many of these cards were unlocked and I could never get anyone to agree to a trade. I then started checking out Check Out My Cards occasionally. But, I could never find one for the price I wanted to pay for it. Finally, after periodically checking that site for a year, I found this card from the Topps Tiffany set. The Tiffany set is the glossy version of the set and I believe it only came in set form. So, I picked up the card, even though it has yellowed some through the years, because it was cheaper than the base card.

The signature came out nice and Oddibe even included an inscription. I always think it is neat when a player that inscribes Bible verses on the card inscribes two different verses on the cards.

1985 Topps, Don August

#392 Don August

Here is a card that I sent out to get signed just because I love the subset. 1984 was the first year that baseball was in the Olympics, even though it wasn't a medal sport. To commemorate the event, Topps included these cards in the '85 set. All of the players were amateurs and a few of them went on to successful Major League careers.

Baseball became a medal event for the '92 games and lasted through 2008. Baseball was eliminated from the Olympics after that mainly because the best players in the world are not involved. The only way I see baseball back in the Olympics is if Major League Baseball finds a way to let its best players compete. The NHL does it by pausing its season for two weeks every four years. Personally, I think MLB is happy enough with its World Baseball Classic that it could care less if baseball was in the Olympics.

In five Olympics, gold medals were awarded to Cuba three times, with the USA and South Korea each with one. Team USA also won two bronze medals. Other countries to medal in baseball have been Japan, Chinese Taipei, and Australia.

1988 Topps, Ed Sprague

#113T Ed Sprague

First off, I am sorry for the absence of posts over the last month and a half or so. Between work, going to the gym, and a great new girlfriend, I have had little time to do anything else. Anymore, I may come home and shower and grab some clothes, but I spend most of my time either at work or at her place. I still check out the other blogs when I get a chance, but this blog has kind of been put on the back burner for now. I am hoping to get in a sporadic post every once in a while, but I doubt that it will be anything like it was anytime soon.

Having said that, here is my first signed card this year. This card features the former Blue Jay, Ed Sprague. Ed is the head baseball coach for Pacific and I was able to get this card and two others signed by him at a Kansas State baseball game this past Sunday.

I had plenty of cards of Ed to choose from, but I wanted this card because I have always enjoyed Team USA cards. I didn't own the card, so I purchased it from checkoutmycards. I ordered the card about two weeks before the game and I was a little disappointed when it hadn't arrived by Saturday. So, I called my local card shop and, although he didn't have this card as a single, he did have the '88 Topps Traded set in stock and said it would be about ten bucks. I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend that much for basically this card, but I said screw it and went downtown to get it. When I got there, the owner was nice enough to drop the price down to four dollars since that was what they were going for online. I was a little surprised to hear that line from him, but I certainly appreciated it.

Having overcome that obstacle, I was feeling good until game day came. The problem that morning was my girlfriend. This was our first baseball game together and she doesn't quite understand why I have to get to the park so early to get autographs. Hopefully, she will grasp this new concept sooner rather than later. So, needless to say, we were running behind. Instead of getting to the park a half hour before first pitch, we got there maybe ten minutes before. I started to make my way over to the Pacific dugout to maybe get my cards signed when the coaches went to the plate to exchange lineup cards. That seemed like a bad time for that and all of the Pacific coaches were wearing jackets, so I couldn't tell who was who anyway.

Instead, we went and found a seat and had a great time at the game. K-State ended up winning 9-3 and my girl's little boy got a baseball from an usher and a free t-shirt from the mascot.

Towards the end of the game, we moved down by the Pacific dugout and I was still struggling to figure out which coach Ed was. Three of the four coaches looked really similar. Eventually, I found a guy wearing a Pacific hat and I went and chatted him up. He was from California and was out for the game and was nice enough to point Ed out to me. As soon as the game was over and Ed headed for the clubhouse, I asked him to sign and he signed all three cards for me. I brought some cards for my girl's son to get signed, but he was in line to run the bases by that time and missed out. Maybe next time.

I miss posting cards that have a story with them. I think that was one of the reasons I went so long between posts. The next card I was planning on posting was a Brian Bannister card and there really isn't much more to say about him than what I said in the first two or three cards I posted of him. Maybe I need to reevaluate the way I do things here.

So, there is my Ed Sprague story. While some of you are lucky enough to be 'graphing in the Florida or Arizona sun, I am stuck braving strong Kansas winds at college games to get mine. But, it is better than nothing. I'm going to a Wichita State game a week from today and former Met Jeff Duncan will be in town with Purdue. I just realized this today, so I don't have time to order any cards of him. I luckily have an '03 Ultra card to get signed, but I wouldn't mind a couple more. If anyone might be interested in a 50/50 trade, just let me know.

*I was feeling lazy and didn't want to warm up the scanner, so this photo was taken with my phone. Sorry about the thumb.

2004 Upper Deck National Pride, Eddie Rodriguez

#NPJ-ER Eddie Rodriguez

Here is a card that I got signed prior to the Royals last home game of the season. That day, I took advantage of the "Early Bird Special" stadium tour and I got to go in and watch the Royals take batting practice an hour before the gates opened. It worked out really great as I was finally able to land a few Royals signatures that I had not had yet.

One of those new additions was Eddie Rodriguez, who has been with the Royals since 2009. I've had plenty of opportunities to have Eddie sign for me, but there has been one problem. It is extremely had to find cards of him. Eddie never played in the Majors and his minor league playing days took place in the late '70s and early '80s when minor league cards were less prevalent. He managed in the minors and coached in the Majors, but there were not any major issue cards made of him. He has a few minor league cards from team sets, but I have never seen any of them show up on checkoutmycards.com. I'm sure that I could find some on Minor League Singles, but I am lazy and comc.com is so much easier.

Eventually, though, this card appeared on comc.com for less than two dollars and I was more than happy to pick it up. I like getting jersey cards signed and this one came out looking good.

When I originally got this card, I just assumed it was from the same set that my Luke Hochevar jersey card was from. Turns out that I was off on that assumption. But, to my defense, if you check out the card of Luke, you will be able to see why I thought that.

2004 SP Prospects, Luke Hochevar

#NH-LH Luke Hochevar

Here is a card that I got signed by Luke Hochevar at Royals Fanfest. This was one of four game-used cards that I got signed that day and it is the first game-used card that I have posted on here. I think that I now have six game-used cards signed.

This year, Luke gets the nod as the Royals Opening Day starter. I have mixed feelings about that, but after the loss of Grienke and Meche, Luke kind of became the ace of the staff by default. The main problem I have with Hochevar is that he has a hard time staying healthy. In three seasons with the Royals, he has yet to throw over 150 innings. Last season, he only threw 103 innings. Maybe all of that will change this season and he will be able to last 180 innings or more. I can only hope that that is the case.

The other problem I have with Luke is his consistency. There are some days when he looks like he really knows what he is doing and then other days where he just looks confused and beaten on the mound. I would prefer him to be in control every game he pitches, but just being more consistent in his starts would be good enough for me.

On an unrelated note, I will say that Luke has been a good signer thus far into his career. I have got him to sign inside the ballpark and outside by the parking lot. He even signed outside the ballpark one day for about ten minutes when he had his Saint Bernard with him.

I didn't realize that the flat bill trend was going on in 2004. I don't recall seeing flat bills until Chad Cordero was sporting one in the 2005 season. Nevertheless, Luke still wears the flat bill. Maybe it was he that started the trend.

Not only is this the first game-used card that I have posted on here, this is also the fisrt Team USA card as well.