2002 Topps, Dave Veres

#497 Dave Veres

Here is a card that was sent to me from Paul around Christmas-time last year. It features the former ten-year Major League veteran, Dave Veres.

Dave pitched for the Astros, Expos, Rockies, Cardinals, and Cubs during his career. He never started a game, but he finished 284 of them. In 1999, he recorded a career high of 31 saves for the Rockies. The amazing part about that is that he did that while posting a career worst ERA of 5.14.

Following that season, Dave was packaged together with Darryl Kile and sent to the Cardinals. He saved 29 games during his first season in St. Louis, but he lost his closer role over the next two years and only recorded 19 saves in that span. He spent three seasons with the Cardinals and he appeared in 71 games each season. I wonder if Tony LaRussa did that on purpose.

He signed with the Cubs in 2003 and ended up splitting the season between Chicago and Des Moines. He then spent all of 2004 playing for the Giants AAA team. He seems to have retired after that for two seasons. He then re-appeared for five games with the Rockies AAA team in 2007 and 2008 was spent with the York Revolution of the Atlantic League. He did not play at all last year and his career is likely over. He career numbers are 36-35 with a 3.44 ERA and 95 saves. Not too shabby.

Dave has a stylish and unique signature. I like it.

2002 Topps, Kyle Farnsworth

#486 Kyle Farnsworth

Out of the seven 2002 Topps cards that I have signed, this is the only one that I was able to acquire on my own. I got this signed at Royals Fanfest last year, shortly after Kyle became a Royal. I had three cards of him in my book, but he only signed this one and it looks like he signed it with a Sharpie that was left over from the year before.

So far, this is the only Kyle Farnsworth autograph that I have. I saw him a couple of times last year in the parking lot, but he was pitching so poorly that I didn't even bother asking him to sign. It may be like that again this year if he continues to suck like he has in the first month.

Amazingly, Kyle has more strikeouts than innings pitched (coming into this season). He does throw hard and he can overpower batters. The only problem is that you can't put him into a game that matters. He's lights-out in blowouts. But if it's a one run game, or even tied, forget about it. It is almost guaranteed that he will squander the lead. I hope that he is able to turn that around this year because the Royals bullpen is awful and they need all the help that they can get.

Luckily, whenever I think of Kyle Farnsworth, I will always think of this rather than how bad a pitcher he has been for the Royals.

Today's word of the day, courtesy of Steve Stone: racky-tacked

2002 Topps, D'Angelo Jimenez

#428 D'Angelo Jimenez

Here is the final '02 Topps Padrograph and it is of D'Angelo Jimenez. Jimenez played for eight seasons with the Yankees, Padres, White Sox, Reds, Rangers, A's, and Nationals. He was basically a utitlity infielder (that doesn't look right, but an utility infielder doesn't sound right) with the exception of his 2004 season with the Reds. That year, he played in 152 games which was almost twice as many as he has played in before or since. He hit .270 that year with 12 home runs, 67 RBI, and a .990 fielding percentage at second base.

2007 was the last year he spent in the Majors. He did play last year, however, and he split his time between the Mexican League and the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League. I'm not sure if he is playing this year or not.

2002 Topps, Jake Gautreau

#328 Jake Gautreau

Here is another Padrograph from Rod. This one features a former Padre first round pick, Jake Gautreau.

Jake was an All-American at Tulane in 2001 before being drafted by the Padres with the 14th pick in the draft. He signed quickly and made his professional debut with the Eugene Emeralds shortly afterwards. He hit .309 for them before earning a late-season promotion to the AAA club. He went 2-7 for them to finish out his first pro season.

He spent the following season, 2002, playing for the Padres high-A team, Lake Elsinore. He hit .268 with them and was moved up to AA in 2003. He spent all of '03 with the Mobile Bay Bears and hit .242. He ended up repeating AA in 2004, but evetually got promoted up to AAA for 48 games where he hit .274. According to the Baseball Cube, he even got traded twice on the same day that year. On July 30th, he is listed as being traded to the Rangers and then traded back to the Padres. I do not know what to make of that. I wonder if the trade got voided because of an injury. Unfortunately, it doesn't list who he was traded for.

While that trade might have fallen through, the next one didn't. That off-season, Jake was traded to the Indians. He spent two seasons with them and he hit .253 the first season and .194 the second season (both with the Tribe's AAA club). He was then traded to the Mets early in the '07 season and he hit .226 with them in 62 games before getting released. It looks like 2008 was his last season playing ball and that year was spent with the Ft. Worth Cats of the American Association.

2002 Topps, Travis Wade

#320 Travis Wade

Here is a card that was sent to me last year by Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff. It features Travis Wade. Travis has never played in the Majors, but he did make it up to AAA. That's not bad for a guy that went undrafted.

According to the Baseball Cube, Travis went to college at Eastern Michigan. He must not have played there since he made his pro debut with the Kalamazoo Wings of the Frontier League at the age of 18. He only made two appearances for them that year and he ended up playing for a couple of teams in the Texas-Lousiana League the following year. He must have impressed a scout there because the Astros signed him the following season.

Travis played in the Astros organization for four seasons and he pitched in 27 AAA games in 2002. The Astros released him before the 2003 season and he was picked up by the Giants and assigned to their AA team. He pitched there for one season before being let go.

After that, Travis has been a mainstay in the Atlantic League. He pitched for the Newark Bears from 2004-2006. He then pitched for the Long Island Ducks for a year and a half before moving to the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs for a half season. Last year, he split time with the York Revolution and the Victoria Seals of the Golden Baseball League. I have no idea if he is pitching this season or not.

This signature on this card is hard to make out because it is so dark. But, this is pretty much the only mainstream card available of Travis Wade, so I can't complain (not that I would complain about a free autograph). As always, thanks Paul.

2002 Topps, Bobby Jones

#17 Bobby Jones

Here is the first of seven cards from the 2002 Topps set. Out of the seven, I got one of them signed myself. The rest were given to me by Paul and Rod. This one is obviously a Padrograph and is from Rod.

This is not the first Bobby Jones autograph. I got my first one TTM in the early 1990s. I posted it almost a year and a half ago and it can be seen here. The coolest thing about the two cards is the evolution of Bobby's autograph. The signature on this card and the signature on first card vary greatly.

The signature on this card basically looks like "BS". I'm not saying it is a fake autograph, I'm saying that his signature isn't much more than a "B" and an "S" (that is supposed to be a "J"). The signature on the older card looks like "Bay" and then you really can't make out a last name. But, the first letter of his last name looks very similar to what I call the "S" on this card. The "B" changed a bit over time, but his "J" that looks like a "S" is bascailly the same. It's always cool to see how a player's signature evolves over time.

Whenever I see a card from this set, I always think it is a gold card. Did Topps make gold cards for this set and, if they did, were they very noticable from the base cards?

2002 Fleer Tradition, Ramiro Mendoza

#292 Ramiro Mendoza

Here is a card that Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff, got signed for me last year at a Newark Bears game. Last summer, Paul got more Atlantic League autographs than he knew what to do with. So, rather than going to the games and not getting autographs, he offered to get some cards signed for his readers. I had just got this card in a repack box around that time, so I sent it to him even though he said not to send him any cards of pitchers. Luckily, Paul came through for me and I now have this card to show for it.

Is it just me, or did Ramiro just fall off the map? It seemed like he was a very good reliever for the Yankees in the late '90s/early 2000s. Or maybe I just heard his name too much since the Yankees were always in the World Series then. Either way, it just seems like he has not been the same since he left the Bronx and signed with the Red Sox.

Ramiro is not on the Newark Bears roster this year and I do not know if he is playing for anyone else.