1994 Signature Rookies Tetrad, Phil Geisler

#88 Phil Geisler

I got this card in a pack of Tetrad in 1994. Tetrad was Signature Rookies version if Classic 4-Sport. I'm not sure if they had hockey cards in the product or not, but they did have baseball, basketball, and football. Each pack had one autograph in it. I only bought a few packs of Tetrad and my best autograph is of the late basketball player, Yinka Dare.

As for Phil, he was a career minor leaguer. He was the Phillies number three prospect in 1994. While he raked in the lower levels of the minors, he really struggled in AAA. In '94, he hit .197 for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 183 at-bats. The next season, he hit .186 in limited at-bats for SWB. He went to the Mets organization after that and hit just over .250 in AA ('96) and AAA (97). In 1998, he played 42 games with three different teams at the AAA level. That was his final year in pro ball.

This is the last Signature Rookie card for 1994.

1994 Signaute Rookies Draft Picks, The Rest, part 2

Well, I made it back from Pocono today. I went to one game while I was there and got to check out another baseball hot-spot. But, I will save that post for tomorrow. Tonight, I will finish up with the Signature Rookies Draft Picks and then do some catching up with the blogs.

Here are the players on this sheet, left to right, top to bottom- Carlton Loewer, Paul Wilson, Aaron Boone, Jason Sikes (check out his dollar sign "S"), Ryan Nye, Doug Jennings, Paul Failla, Tommy Davis, and Corey Pointer.

Unlike the last page, only six of these guys got a chance in the Major Leagues.

Carlton Loewer- For some reason, this card was a short print autograph. Only 3,350 of these were signed. Carlton was drafted 23rd overall in the draft. I'm not sure why they thought he was so special that he didn't need to sign as many cards as the rest of the players.

Carlton made 41 appearances with the Phillies in 1998 and '99, with less than spectacular results. He resurfaced a couple more times as a Padre and didn't do well there, either. He has a 10-18 record as a Major Leaguer, with a 6.12 ERA.

Paul Wilson- Paul was the number one draft pick that year and this was the card to get. But, the thing that sucks about getting draft pick autograph cards is the wait. For most of these guys, I'm just now realizing that they ever made it to the Majors. That was not the case for Paul Wilson. I only had to wait two seasons for him to make his debut with the Mets. Then, after arm problems, I had to wait four more seasons for him to appear again in the Majors with the D-Rays. He went on to pitch for the Reds and seemed to be doing pretty well until he had more arm problems in 2005. He spent all 0f '06 in the minors and was released by the Reds in Spring Training in 2007. He tried to make a comeback last year with Reno in the Golden Baseball League, but got released after five games.

For me, my lasting memory of Paul Wilson will be him getting speared by Kyle Farnsworth.

Aaron Boone- Here is a card that I didn't realize I had for some time. I always had the card, I just didn't realize that I had a card of an everyday Major League player until maybe 2001 or 2002. Aaron will probably be remembered the most for his pennant winning home run off of Tim Wakefield.

Aaron was supposed to play for the Astros this year, but he ended up having heart surgery in March.

Jason Nye- Jason made five appearances with the Phillies in 1997 and '98. He had five Major League appearances and was 0-2 with a 9.69 ERA. He recorded 10 strikeouts, but issued 9 walks.

Doug Jennings- Here is another questionable addition to this set. By the time this set came out, Doug's Major League playing days were over. Doug was a second round pick in 1984. He made his Major League debut in 1988 with the A's and played his final Major league game with the Cubs in 1993. On this card, he appears to be wearing an Indianapolis batting jersey. Maybe this was 10-year anniversary of the '84 draft commemorative card.

Tommy Davis- Tommy Davis' Major League was very short. In 1999, he went 1-6 with the Orioles. He played three more seasons in AAA, but he never got another shot in the big leagues. At least he got a taste.

Also, there is still time to enter Trader Crack's contest for a Razor Cut Signature. You don't want to miss out on this one.

1994 Signature Rookies Draft Picks- The Rest, part 1

I got a box of this stuff for Christmas or my birthday in 1994. Each pack contained one autograph. Rather than go through them one by one, I'll divide them up into two posts.

From left to right, top to bottom, this page has- Andrew Lorraine, Mark Farris, Oscar Robles, Jayson Peterson, Jacob Cruz, John Dettmer, Hiram Bocachica, Kevin Witt, and Mark Johnson.

Out of those nine, seven of these players made it the Major Leagues.

Andrew Lorraine- This card was some sort of insert card. For starters, Andrew was drafted in 1993. Also, the card itself is number to 20,000 and the signature is numbered to 2,100. I'm not sure what uniform he is wearing, though. I always thought that it was a Vancouver Canadians uniform, but he wasn't traded to the White Sox until 1995. Plus, it looks like he has a 125th anniversary patch on his sleeve. Is this an Angels jersey that is really doctored up?

Andrew pitched in parts of seven seasons with seven different clubs.

Oscar Robles- Oscar got into 110 games with the Dodgers in 2005. It took him eleven years to make the Majors, but he made the most of it and hit.272 that year. Unfortunately, he didn't do as well the next year as he only hit .152 in 29 games. He appeared in 24 games in 2007 with the Padres, as well. He played for Portland and Lehigh Valley last year and this year has played in the Mexican League.

Oscar was an undrafted free agent. I'm not sure why he is in a draft pick set.

Jacob Cruz- Jacob's career was similar to Andrew Lorraine's. He played parts of nine seasons in the Majors with five different clubs. The only season that he got any decent playing time was in 2005 for the Reds. He appeared in 110 games that year, almost exclusively as a pinch hitter. He finished the season at .236 mark with 4 homers and 18 RBI. He also played in Mexico this year.

John Dettmer- Out of the seven guys with Major League experience, this guy has the least amount. He only got into 12 games with the Rangers- 11 in '94 and 1 in '95. He has a 0-6 record and a 4.47 ERA for his career.

John was drafted in 1992. This is another questionable addition to the set.

Hiram Bocachica- Hiram appeared in 273 Major League games, with five teams, before taking off for Japan. He was a .215 career hitter in the States. Last year, he hit .251 with 20 home runs and only 47 RBI with the Seibu Lions. He played for Puerto Rico in the WBC this year.

Kevin Witt- Kevin played for four different teams in the five seasons he spent in the big leagues. His most successful season was with the Tigers in 2003, when he .263 with 10 home runs in 93 games.

Mark Johnson- This is one of three Mark Johnsons that have played Major League baseball. One was a first basemen/outfielder, one was a catcher, and one pitched. This is the catcher. This Mark has played parts of eight season in the Majors with four different teams. Most of his time was with the White Sox. I was amazed to see that he appeared in 10 games last year with the Cardinals. This season, he is playing for the Iowa Cubs and is currently on the DL.

Tomorrow, I will post the second, and final, group from this set. I didn't do a post yesterday because I am in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. I am helping out a friend who is racing in the ARCA series out here. The last three posts were written on Tuesday night. I started to run out of time, so I skipped Wendesday and Friday. I should be home tomorrow and will get another post in.

1994 Signature Rookies Draft Picks, Steve Woodard

#82 Steve Woodard

To be honest, I still am not sure how I got this card signed. I got it signed last year while I was at a Round Rock Express game. Steve was pitching for the Albuquerque Isotopes at the time.

Now, in order to set this story straight, I have to start at the beginning. And the beginning of this story starts in the seventh inning. Albuquerque's Scott Nestor is pitching and he is the thrid Isotope pitcher at that point and the team was down 6-2. Nestor gave up three straight singles (and a run) and was facing Yordany Ramirez with no outs and runners on first and third. Yordany had hit a two-run home run in the previous at-bat. On the first pitch, Nestor hit him with a curve ball and immediately got tossed by the home plate umpire. The Isotopes manager came out and argued for a good twenty minutes. He had been tossed early in the argument, but he was reluctant to leave the field. Whoever took charge of the 'Topes didn't even bother to bring in a new pitcher until the manager left the field. When he finally left, Steve Woodard was brought into the game. Since he was entering the game because of an ejection, he had all the time he needed to warm up.

As he was warming up, he kept saying stuff to the third base umpire. He finally threw his final warm-up pitch and got ready to face the hitter. He said something else to the third base umpire (who said something back) and finally toed the rubber with the bases loaded and no outs. Before he even got the sign, he looked over at the third base umpire. I'm not sure if he said anything or not, but he got tossed before he even threw a single pitch. I've been to quite a few games, but that was a first for me.

So, the 'Topes had to bring in another pitcher that had as much time as was needed to warm up. From the time of the beaning to the next pitch was a good 45 minutes. It was pretty ridicoulous.

So, Steve headed for the locker room. In Round Rock, the locker room is behind the left field fence. In fact, it is so far behind the fence that the players have to walk across the concourse to get from the field to the locker room (it is a great place for autographs, by the way).

Steve ended up watching the rest of the game from the concourse there. I went up to him and asked for an autograph and he told me that they weren't allowed to sign during the game. So, I waited around that area until the game was over.

While I was waiting, I ended up standing next to one of the EMTs that was assigned to the game. I must have been going through my book to see who I still needed because she ended up asking about it. She thought that it was pretty cool and I told her that I was waiting for the game to get over so that I could get Woodard's autograph and I pointed to him so she could see who I was talking about.

As soon as the last out was recorded, I walked straight over to Steve, but he had already started to head back to the locker room. I asked him to sign and he either didn't hear me or ignored me, and he kept on walking. So, I found a spot to stand to wait for the other players that would be coming across the concourse when the EMT walked up to me. She told me that if I wanted Woodard's autograph, I had better get it now and pointed to where he was. I headed over to him and he signed my three cards and headed back into the clubhouse.

Apparently the EMT was able to get him back out there for a second. I have no idea how she did it, but I certainly appreciated it.

Click on the Steve Woodard link at the top. It will take you to the Baseball Almanac page that has this card on it. But their card was one of the insert autographs from this set. Check out how much his signature has changed from 1994 to 2008. It's pretty drastic.

1994 Signature Rookies Draft Picks, Jason Camilli

#39 Jason Camilli

I got this card signed last summer at a Staten Island Yankees game. The Yanks were playing the Vermont Lake Monsters and Jason was their hitting coach. I got him to sign the card before the game. While he was signing it, a few of his players came over to check out the card. He told them, "yeah, that was me in rookie ball". You could definitely sense that he missed playing in the way he said that.

Jason never made it to the Majors. He played in the minors for nine seasons, but only got into 56 AAA games in two different stints. He spent most of the time in the Montreal organization and was a .238 hitter for his career.

Check out that jersey. Signature Rookies didn't have a minor league licence. They were like the '90s version of modern day Donruss. Rather than just airbrush out the team name, they decided to add some ridiculously large numbers to the front of the jersey. It looks like he is wearing a cheap, button-down, football jersey.

1994 Signature Rookies, John Burke

#21 John Burke

John Burke was drafted three times. He was drafted in the 34th round by the Orioles in 1989. He didn't sign, and instead attended the University of Florida. Two years later, he got drafted again. This time it was by the Astros in the 1st round, 6th overall. Again, he didn't sign and he went back to school. In 1992, he was drafted a third time. This time he had the distinction of being the Rockies first ever draft pick (1st round, 27th overall). He signed with the Rockies and even made 10 starts with the Bend Rockies that year where he went 2-0 with a 2.41 ERA.

The next year, he made 28 starts between high A Central Valley and AAA Colorado Springs. After that season, it seems that he started getting injured. And with a pitcher, that usually means arm problems. In 1994, he only made 12 appearances. In '95, he made 19 appearances. He must have been feeling much better in '96 as he made 38 appearances, 11 of them with the Colorado Rockies. He pitched 15.2 innings for the Rockies and had a 7.47 ERA. The next year, he had 17 appearances, 8 of them starts, for the Rockies and finished with a 2-5 record and a 6.56 ERA. In 1998, he made 2 appearances with Salem and 6 with Colorado Springs. He hung up the spikes after that.

I bought this card for $5, around 1994 or '95, at the local card shop (which is still alive and kickin'). Signature Rookies usually came with one autograph per pack, but the packs usually consisted of minor leaguers or draft picks. I never bought any packs of from this. I just bought this one card of a player that I was hoping was an up-and-comer. I didn't do too well on that one.

1994 Select, James Mouton

#184 James Mouton

Here is another James Mouton card that I got signed at Astros Fanfest right before the season started. This is the second Mouton autograph that I have shown on here. The first one was posted back in April, about a week after 'Strosfest.

James, in my opinion, falls into the same catagory that John Hudek and Brian Williams fell into. To me, they seem like some lesser players that had very short tenures with the team. I've only been to one 'Strosfest and I am hoping that these guys aren't invited every year. If they aren't, then it is a great idea to have some different lesser players come in every year. It wouldn't be much fun to go to the event every year if it is just the same people signing. That is how Royals Fanfest is starting to look after only its second year. Hopefully, both teams will mix it up next year, even though I probably will not be going to either one.

These rookie prospect cards are completely different than the base cards. They still keep a portion of the front tinted, but that is about the only resemblence to the base cards. I do, for some reason, like the tear going through the card. It is very subtle and divides the tint and non-tint nicely.