Everyone's Favorite Tiger (?)

In the past two years of collecting baseball cards and mostly Detroit Tigers cards at that I have finally added a Brandon Inge autograph. It comes from the 2001 Fleer Showcase set. Inge spent part of 12 of his 13 seasons with the Detroit Tigers before him and the Tigers cut ties with each other. Playing mostly third base for the Tigers Inge showed signs early on in his career as a fan favorite with his flashy leather and occasional pop at the plate. Towards the end of his stay in Detroit, many fans would feel frustrated with him at the plate where his average would slowly slip below the Mendoza line.

At the end of his career with the Tigers Inge would post a slash line of .234/.304/.387 with 140 home runs. In 2006 and 2009 he would have his career best of 27 home runs and even made the 2009 All Star game. He would also be selected for the Home Run Derby that year, but failed to hit one out of the park. Love him or hate him he will always be remembered by fans who grew up watching the Tigers during his stay in Detroit.

Off-season additions

The Detroit Tigers had a few holes to fill on their team this off-season. With Dave Dombrowski out of the picture as the GM and Al Avila stepping in he had some work to do. The Tigers do have the pleasure of having one of the greatest owners in all of sports in Mike Ilitch who isn't afraid to spend money.

The biggest need this off-season was fixing the horrific bullpen and Avila wasted no time on doing that. On November 18th the Tigers sent a pair of minor league prospects to the Brewers for Francisco Rodriguez. K-Rod is best known for setting the single season save record back in 2008 with 62 saves for the Los Angeles Angels. Over his career he has posted a career ERA+ of 156 with 386 saves.

The other need for the Tigers was to bolster their starting rotation. This off-season there were many good pitchers to pick from guys like David Price to low risk high reward guys like Doug Fister. I personally thought that the Tigers might go somewhere more in the middle with signing two guys, but instead they signed one of the top free agent pitchers, Jordan Zimmermann. He should slide into the number two spot right behind Justin Verlander in the rotation. He is a guy who can give you 200 innings year with an ERA+ of 118.

These were the two bigger moves of Avila this off-season. As it looks right now the Tigers should be pretty set with the other moves they have made and I personally think Avila had a good first off-season as the GM of the Detroit Tigers.

2015 Topps Update

A few weeks back Topps released their 2015 Update series. As always I buy my boxes from Big D's in North Carolina. I told Jimmy to hold onto my box until I came down to visit for Thanksgiving. I have finally got around to post my hits.

First up the buybacks from the series. I pulled 7 buybacks in my box. By far the coolest one I pulled was the Carl Yastrzemski In Action card. The bad news about that card is is was in the worse shape out of the 7. Nothing major but does have a few creases on it.

Next up are the Ice Paralles (or that's what I think they're called). I pulled four of them out of the box.

The other parallels that I pulled from the box were mostly gold parallels #/2015. The Lorenzo Cain, Brock Holt, and Zach Britton are the coolest ones from the gold parallels. I did pull a few other ones also. The Brett Lawrie is a camo parallel #/99.

My relic card that I pulled features Chicago White Sox ace pitcher Chris Sale. It is a uniform piece from his All-Star uniform this season.

Lastly, I pulled one short print which features free agent outfielder Justin Upton boxing up his bats. My favorite card that I pulled is Detroit Tigers shortstop, Jose Iglesias during the All-Star game. The card is a black parallel out of 64.

Card Collecting over Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving I was lucky enough to spend a few days in the warm weather in North Carolina visiting family. I cannot think of the last time my whole family was together for Thanksgiving. Along with the warm 70 degree with and the awesome dinner my sister made I was also able to talk baseball and card collecting with my brother-in-law The Snorting Bull. He was going through some cards and put some aside for me that he knew I would enjoy. Besides receiving some cool cards I also got some really good tips on collecting from him.

The first card that he had for me was from 1989 Bowman set that he was putting together. Being a huge Ken Griffey Jr. fan he had this awesome rookie for me. The thing that is cool about the card is the fact that it is slightly bigger then your typical baseball card.

The next three cards come from the 1998 E-X 2001 set. This is one of the coolest base set cards I have seen. I would have been 9 years old when this set came out and it was long before I serious collected. I could have a few of these in my collection as a kid, but with them being sold there is no way to tell. The cards feature Tony Clark (one of my favorite Tigers as a kid), Ivan, Pudge, Rodriguez (before he was a Tiger) and Justin Thompson.

After making the comment about how cool the E-X 2001 cards were, the Snorting Bull was talking to me about older card sets that had the same idea. He found a 1998 Topps Tek card of St. Louis Cardinals, Mark McGwire and he added it to my pile. He must have had a few of these to give up a Cardinals card.

The one current Tigers card that he had for me was of Miguel Cabrera from the 2015 Gypsy Queen set. It features a piece of his uniform and is #/25. Always great to add a Cabrera card to my collection.

The last card is a dual autograph card of early nineties Detroit Tigers, Frank Tanana (left) and Mickey Tettleton (right). During the nineties the Tigers didn't have any great teams. Tettleton had his best part of his career during his four years as a Tiger with a career OPS+ of 135 in Detroit. Tanana spent eight years in Detroit and had a career ERA+ 99 with the Tigers.

Buy Low, Sell High

It has been awhile since I have wrote about baseball and baseball cards on my blog. In the past week I have added a few more cards to my collection. I will start with my Victor Martinez lot that I bought off ebay for under $10. After getting the cards and going through what all I received I thought it was a pretty good purchase. It is a perfect example of collecting a player after he has had a down year. V-Mart battled injuries all season and had one of his worse season to date. I believe a healthy Martinez next year will be back to the .300 hitter with 15 home runs and 80 RBIs. Let's take a look at the cards that I received.

These two cards were the only ones that I knew where part of the deal. It was V-Mart lot and had both cards listed and said with extra V-Mart cards. The first card is from the 2011 Topps 60 relic set part of series 1 for that year. It is of V-Mart with the Boston Red Sox honoring his 2010 season when he lead the league with a .400 batting average against left handed pitching. The second card is from the 2015 Topps Stadium Club set. The member only stamp means it is a short print card and is one of 7 cards. Two really cool cards and I would have been happy to with both of them for $10, but there was more.

The lot also included a gold and purple parallel cards, a card /50 and a insert card honoring his first home run on September 29th, 2002. I also had some base cards to go with these 6 cards. All in all I was pretty impressed with all of the cards I received for a good buy.

A buy like this makes me think that collecting cards is somewhat like the stock market, you try to buy while the players value is low and sell them when their value high. I will probably not be looking to move these cards, because V-Mart is one of my favorite players, but I will continue to look for good buys.

A Pleasant Surprise

My first year of collecting baseball cards was two years ago in 2013. I started out with the Topps Series 1 buying a couple blaster packs from K-Mart (yes K-Mart I live in a small town and it is close to my house) before buying my first jumbo box. My next boxes that I bought were the 2013 Panini Team USA series. I pulled a Joey Gallo autograph was one of my two autos and then I pulled a couple relics. I did trade one of the relics to The Snorting Bull, but I do not remember that card. Being Team USA I wasn't sure who they were and more or less stored them away in my relic box and somewhat forgotten.

Well last night putting my Curtis Granderson card away I happened to flip past this Michael Conforto card that I pulled. A little background on Conforto he was a 10th overall pick in 2014 First Year Player Draft to the New York Mets. He made his debut this summer on July 24th. I remember hearing his name when he was called up. He put together a good half season for the Mets. In 56 games he hit .270/.335/.506 with 9 home runs and 26 RBIs. Needless to say I was pretty happy to see that I had pulled this card two years ago and it is still in my collection.

#MyCardMonday: Curtis Granderson

Sticking with the same game plan as last week I will pick a player who has been playing well during the playoffs for #MyCardMonday. This week I figured I would showcase one of my favorite former Detroit Tigers, Curtis Granderson. Drafted in 2002 by the Tigers, Granderson made his debut in 2004 and played for them until the off season following the 2009 season. During his time in Detroit Grandy would post a career OPS+ of 114 with a slash line of .272/.344/.484. He was involved in the trade with the Yankees and Diamondback that brought the Tigers Austin Jackson and Max Scherzer. During his 4 seasons as Yankee he would show off his power with 115 home runs. Last season he signed with the New York Mets and has been a huge contributor to them in their World Series push this season.

Grandy has done it all this post season. So far he is 9 for 24 with 3 runs and 7 RBIs. He has also stolen 3 bases for the Mets. Last night he flashed the leather with robbing Chris Coghlan of a home run.

#MYCARDMONDAY

A quick post for #MyCardMonday I thought I would go with someone who is currently playing for a playoff team. I have a trend of going with a relic or an autograph and thought I would switch it up with a gold parallel #/50 from the 2014 Bowman Chrome set. George Springer of the Houston Astros is coming off his second season where he hit .276/.367/.459 with 16 home runs and 41 RBIs this season. Currently the Astros won the AL Wildcard game against the New York Yankees where Springer went 1-4 with a double. Next up the Astros are taking on the Kansas City Royals as of right now (3:51 pm on 10/12) the Astos lead the Royals 5-2. If the Astros can hold on and win the game they will advance to the ALCS.

#MyCardMonday

With the regular season wrapping up this past weekend the Detroit Tigers did end on a high note. They beat the Chicago White Sox 6-0 with only giving up 3 hits, the young guys looked good with their hustle on Sunday, and Miguel Cabrera claimed his 4th batting title in 5 years.

In honor of Miggy winning another batting title I figured I would share another one of his cards for #MyCardMonday. This bat relic comes from the 2013 Topps Tier One set. This is my one and only bat relic that I have of Miggy and thought it was fitting for today.

Even the back of the card is pretty cool talking about Miggy's Triple Crown season of 2012 when he drove in 139 runs. The team had produced 726 runs that season. He drove in 19.15 percent of the runs that year which is the highest for a player whose team made the playoffs that year. He broke Johnny Bench of the Reds 1970 record of 19.10 percent.

Tigers vs. Twins 9/27/2015

Yesterday for my birthday I was able to spend the day down in Detroit watching the Tigers play the Twins thanks to my girlfriend. The Tigers had one bad inning that lead to the loss. It has been a rough season, but either way I cannot complain about spending my birthday watching the team that I love so much. I did have great seats right behind home plate which made it even better.

Sorry for my chicken scratch, but this is the scorecard from the game. If you look at (Bryon) Buxton last at bat for day in the 8th inning you will see that he hit a solo shot home run. This would be the first of his career. Pretty cool to be able to say that I saw the #1 prospect in all of baseball going into this season hit his first career home run. Check out the video below to watch it.

Take out the 2nd inning for the Tigers and they would have been right in the game. Randy Wolf the starting pitcher got shelled in that inning. It was base hit after base hit for him. Kyle Ryan came in next and looked pretty good outside of the two walks of his. I didn't take a lot of photos but I will share the couple that I did take below.

Through Detroit they have giant bobble heads of different Tigers, Lions, Red Wings, and Pistons. The Victor Martinez was at the stadium and the first one I saw. They did give away normal size bobble heads of Anibal Sanchez, but only to 14 years and younger.

To give you an idea of how close my seats where to the game I took a few pictures. Starting at the top with Rookie of the Year candidate Miguel Sano, former Tigers right fielder, Torii Hunter, and the generation player in my current generation, Miguel Cabrera.

The Tigers lost 7-1 to close out there home schedule. This has been a disappointing season, but with injuries to several key players hurt the Tigers a lot this season. It also forced the team to trade top players away to build for the future. Staying positive for next season!

Congrats V-Mart

This season might not have been the greatest for the Detroit Tigers designated hitter, Victor Martinez. Yesterday, though he did have a nice highlight slugging his 200th home run of his career. Even with the Tigers not making the playoffs they have had some good career highlights with players throughout the season, including V-Mart's 200th long ball.

We won't be seeing the Tigers in the playoffs this season, but I love the expression of V-Mart. He plays with a lot of passion and he shows with his picture on this card.

Congrats V-Mart and hope to see many more with you wearing the Old English D!

Short Prints and Parallels

This is my second post for the 2015 Topps Heritage Minors. Yesterday I posted my relic and autograph hits from the box that I busted open and today I will share my short prints and parallels that I opened. This series made it really easy to figure out what cards are the short prints. Cards numbered from 201-225 are the short prints. Makes it a lot easier then looking at the serial number on the bottom right hand corner.

I was actually more excited about these pulls then the my autographs and relic. I actually got a couple really good prospects. I won't go into much detail about each player but I will list who they are and what major league team they are associated with and their prospect rating.

Tyler Glasnow - Pittsburgh Pirates #7th top prospect (mlb.com)
Mark Appel - Houston Astros #44th top prospect
Hunter Harvey - Baltimore Orioles #62nd top prospect
Aaron Judge - New York Yankees #18th top prospect

My parallels were pretty good pulls as well. I pulled three blue and one orange and the orange parallel was probably the best one of the bunch. Orange parallels are #'d/25.

Jose De Leon - Los Angeles Dodgers #24th top prospect
Colin Moran - Houston Astros n/a rank
Erik Gonzalez - Cleveland Indians n/a rank
Kyle Crick - San Francisco Giant n/a rank

RIP Yogi Berra

Last night the baseball world lost a legend. At the age of 90 years old, Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra passed away. Berra's baseball career was highlighted with many awards including 3 MVPs, 10 World Series Rings, and he caught Don Larson's perfect game during the 1956 World Series. One thing that Berra will always his funny saying he always had.

Six or seven years ago I had bought the book Tales from the Dugout: The Greatest True Baseball Stories Ever Told by Mike Shannon. It is a collection of different stories from different people in the baseball world. My favorite story featured the New York Yankees playing the Detroit Tigers and Yogi Berra. I do not remember the other players involved other then Yogi, but the story goes the Tigers were pitching and every time the pitcher threw a fastball, the Yankees first base coach would whistle. If it was an off-speed pitch he wouldn't. After he did this a few times, the Tigers' pitcher walked over and told him next time I hear you whistle I'm beaning the batter. Now I believe it was Mickey Mantle at the plate and the first base coach did the same thing and the next pitch drilled Mantle. Next up to the plate was Yogi and the coach still was giving signs to him. After Yogi heard the whistle, he yelled to the pitcher "I hear him whistling, but I'm not listening to him!"

Rest in Peace Yogi Berra!

2015 Topps Heritage Minors

Last night I was greeted with a box on my front porch when I got home from work. I actually wasn't expecting the box until maybe today, but I was happy to see that my 2015 Topps Heritage Minors box showed up. I haven't had a chance to really go through and look for the short prints (#'d 201-225), but I figured I would start with my other hits.

First off my relic card I pulled is of Cincinnati Reds #2 prospect, Robert Stephenson. He is ranked as high as 16 overall (Baseball Prospectus) and low as 24 (MLB) in their top 100 prospects going into this season. Drafted out of high school in 2012 in the first round 27th overall. He has climbed through the minors and made it to AAA this season. His two best pitches is his fastball that can touch upper 90's and his his curveball that hits the low 80's with good break.

My first autograph is of Pittsburgh Pirates prospect Erich Weiss. Weiss was drafted in 2013 in the 11th round by the Pirates and has made it to AA this season. His career minor league slash line isn't all that bad being .281/.360/.364. The slugging percentage is what is holding Weiss back. He hasn't hit for really any power, but has stolen 40 bags in his minor league career.

Michael Gettys is actually the one name I was a little familiar with when I pulled his autograph. I have heard his name pop up a few times on my instragram page. He was a 2nd round pick in the 2014 draft to the San Diego Padres. He is currently ranked 8th overall in their system according to mlb.com. Gettys received plus grades in his speed, arm strength, and bat speed going into the draft. He was clocked going 6.43 in a 60 yard dash and hit 100 mph on an outfield throw. He downside is his pitch recognition. If he can start to recognize better pitches his bat should start to come around with his plus bat speed.

#MyCardMonday

Last night Torii Hunter launched his 350th home run of his career and I couldn't think of a better ball player to do a #MyCardMonday then Hunter. Being a Tigers fan I have had a lot of chances to watch him play when he started his career in Minnesota to him playing for the Tigers for two years after he left the Angels and now that he is back with the Twins. Hunter has to be one of the most liked guys in the game. He always plays with a smile and always gives it his all.

In his two years in Detroit he batted .295/.327/.456 with an OPS+ of 115. His defensive had taken a step back from his early years when he won 9 straight gold gloves from 2001-2009. Along with his 9 gold gloves and 350 home runs he has 2,435 and counting hits in his 19 year career. He has been selected to 5 all star games and won two silver sluggers. At the end of his career I believe Hunter will be a borderline Hall of famer. 350 home runs and 9 gold gloves is nothing to go unnoticed on his resume. I would give him the nod if I had the vote.

Topps Chrome Break

This past week I have been slacking on writing on here and a week ago this past Monday I opened a box of Topps Chrome and just now getting around to posting the cards. With work and the long weekend I have been busy, but lets look at my hits from this box.

In this box I pulled two parallels, a Ryan Braun purple and a Carlos Gonzalez blue. I was excited to get the CarGo with him having a decent year, but the Braun I am not a huge fan of him, but being a purple parallel still a cool card.

One of the inserts the Chrome has produced this year is their future stars. Cory Spangenberg and Dalton Pompey both have had a couple cups of coffee in the majors. Both of them show promise if they can put it all together.

My first autograph actually came in the first pack that I ripped open, Cuban born Raisel Iglesias for the Reds. In his first season he is having a slightly below average season with an ERA+ of 94. He has struck out 101 batters in 90.1 innings so far though.

My second autograph belongs to the Texas Rangers Ryan Rua. He has had a couple call ups this year and last year. A career .276/.359/.477 hitter in the minors, but the numbers haven't transferred to the majors just let.

#MyCardMonday

#MyCardMonday goes out to the 2014 Topps Series 1 Justin Verlander Rookie All-Stars. I love this card and I love the fact that I pulled it out of a box myself. It is really thick card featuring the Topps All-Star Rookie award. JV has battled back to his all star form this year and I thought this would be a fitting card for today.

This time last year Justin Verlander was struggling on the mound and probably was our fifth best pitcher on the team. Now after having core muscle surgery in the off-season and finally making it back to the team healthy he is showing his dominance once again. In his last start he took a no hitter into the 9th before giving up his first. He would finish the inning out with leaving the runner stranded. I really think JV never lost anything after his past 8 starts it was all a matter of dealing with the core muscle injury and getting healthy. With our bullpen in shambles and our starting rotation struggling, JV is one of the bright spots for the team right now. He takes the mound again tomorrow night against Johnny Cueto and the Royals. Should be a good pitching match up with those two on the mound.

2015 Topps Allen & Ginter Box Break

The other night when I got home from work I was greeted with a package on my doorstep. I knew exactly what it was and couldn't wait to open it. I had bought a box of Allen & Ginter and Topps Chrome from Big D's Cards in North Carolina. Jimmy the owner has been great to me with buying box from him. Today I thought I would share my hits from A&G. I will be honest I wasn't sure if I want to buy a box or not due to the fact that I haven't had the greatest luck in the past. I will let everyone judge if I did good or not.

The first cool card I pulled was a 10th anniversary issue border card of Chad Tracy. I recognized the name, but wasn't really familiar with how he was a player. After doing some research I found he only played 9 years spending 6 of them with the Diamondbacks. He actually had a good career with them, but the next three years he really didn't do much else. I believe now he is a special instructor with the Nationals.

My first relic that I pulled took me about half way through the box before I pulled it. A Ryan Braun uniform piece relic. It is just a plain white piece of the uniform, but it is in the shape of the number 10 for their anniversary (10 is also my favorite number which I wear for playing sports). Now with the Braun card I wasn't overally excited about either. He has been linked to steroids and he has lied about the use of them I could care less.

Next relic another uniform piece, but featuring a gray away uniform of the Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia. Captain Crunch as has struggle lately, but at one point in his career he was one of the most feared pitcher in the game. Maybe he can bounce back to his old self or maybe he will have luck pitching out of the bullpen which I just read a rumor about today.

I don't if this card is any good or not. Some young pitcher for the New York Mets, Noah Syndergaard. I also read that the autographs come in two colors, blue which is common and red which is out of /10. This is probably one of the best cards that I have actually ever pulled. It didn't come until the second to the last pack in the box. When I looked at it, I knew this card made the box for me.
 

#MyCardMonday: Justin Verlander

I have been doing a #MyCardMonday for awhile now and I really never have talk much about the card that I have posted, but more about the player that is featured on the card. Well today the card and the reason why I picked the card goes hand in hand. I will do my best to explain why I picked this card over the other ones I could choose from.

For starters I have a few of different relic cards of Justin Verlander that I could have picked from, but this one was sitting on my kitchen table and its from this years Topps Series. The relics and even the autographs even the set features a feat from the player on the card. In Verlander case it features the 24 wins he posted in his Cy Young/ MVP season of 2011.

Now the second part of why I picked Verlander and the reason why I picked this card is to talk about how much better Verlander has pitched as of late and why wins for pitchers are pretty much a pointless stat.

Verlander last season had one of his worst seasons, but was dealing with a core muscle injury. He started this season on the DL and has only made 11 starts so far this season and has an ERA of 4.11. Now if you look at his last 7 starts he is 1-3 with a 2.85 ERA and a WHIP of 1.01 while only walking 7 batters and striking out 42. Now if you watch Verlander pitch or only look at his starts the record and the rest of his stats do not go together. The Tigers have average 2.71 runs per game during those 7 starts of his and even his win the final score was 2-1. It just goes to show the the number of wins and losses for a pitcher does not tell the whole story on how the pitcher is actually pitching.

Collecting the Tigers: Daniel Norris

The key piece to the David Price trade was the top 25 prospect, Daniel Norris. Norris has a lot of potential and in his first 3 starts give the Detroit Tigers a glimpse into what the future might hold for the Tigers and Norris. In his 3 starts he has had one good outing, one bad outing, and one okay outing. Last night Ausmus left him in the game in 6th (I believe could be the 5th) and he was able to get out of the jam. He seems to be attacking the strike zone with averaging just over 52 strikes thrown out of the 87 pitches a game he has averaged. It is hard to really get into his stats this early into his career with the Tigers, but from  what I have seen I like what the future could hold for Norris. Only 22 years old he has plenty room to grow and with him making plays like this below it will be fun to watch him pitch.

#MyCardMonday: Placido Polanco

As a Detroit Tigers fan everyone knows that 2006 was a magical season for the Tigers. To me it was the season that turn the Tigers into one of the worse teams of the decade into a team that showed they could compete. We all know that season was capped with a World Series run. Out of all of the players on that team, Placido Polanco was probably my favorite player out of them all.

Saturday night I was watching the Tigers pregame show and they were talking with Polanco before he was honored during the game. They were celebrating the 10th anniversary of Fiesta Tigres which honors Latin-American ball players. Polanco spent five seasons in Detroit as our second basemen and our number 2 hitter in the lineup. As a hitter I cannot think of anyone who was better then Polanco batting second. He wasn't a power guy, but he could move the runner over and hit for average (.311 as a Tiger) along with getting a walk (.355 OBP). Defensively he was one of the best defenders in the game at second. He posted a career dWAR of 6.8 and won two gold gloves in Detroit. His defensive career is highlight by him setting the record of 144 straight games at second without an error.

In 2009 Polanco would reach free agency and would sign with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Tigers hoped that upcoming prospect Scott Sizemore could hold down second base for them. I thought they should have kept Polanco and have him work with Sizemore at second before letting he have full control. That didn't work out for the Tigers as plan. The Tigers didn't have a second basemen until they traded for Omar Infante in 2012.

Mail Day!: Ty Cobb

I have been really impressed with some of the commemorative cards that Topps put in their series 1 and 2 this year. They have honored players with a commemorative medallion celebrating their first home run and they have also issued a nice thick card with a commemorative bat knob.

Ty Cobb is one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game of baseball. There are not many people that are around that can say that they have seen him play in real life. I have enjoyed reading and learning about Cobb and he has became one of my favorite ball players. Here are a couple cards I picked up honoring Cobb.

On September 23rd, 1905 Ty Cobb would hit his first home run. He would hit a total of 117 in his career. Nowadays that doesn't sound like many home runs, but he did play during the dead ball era. His career high in a season was 12 which he did twice 1921 and 1925. 

This is one of my favorite cards in the series. It was part of series 2 and I did pull a Robinson Cano bat knob in my box. I have been looking for a bit to add a Ty Cobb commemorative bat knob card to my collection and I finally found one that I thought was a good deal and snagged it.

Welcome to the Show: Richie Shaffer

On Monday night Richie Shaffer made his major league debut for the Tampa Bay Rays after doing nothing but hit home runs in the minors. He spent time in both Double A and Triple A before the call up. In Triple A for the Durham Bulls Shaffer hit .265/.359/.595 with 16 home runs and 32 RBIs in 55 games. In his debut for the Rays he started out playing first base going 0-2 with a walk, but last night he got his first major league hit. Not only was it a hit, but also his first career home run in the 7th inning against the Chicago White Sox.

Shaffer has played third mostly for his minor league career, but with Evan Longoria penciled in as the Rays everyday third basemen, Shaffer might see more reps at first base. Good luck with your career Richie Shaffer!

The Real Life Crash Davis

Most baseball fans are familiar with the baseball classic movie, Bull Durham. It stars Kevin Costner as Crash Davis, an aging minor league catcher who sets the minor league home run record. Yesterday (Monday August 3rd) the Toledo Mud Hens Mike Hessman put his name in the history books.

In the 7th inning against Lehigh Valley IronPigs, Hessman stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and the Mud hens trailing 4-6. With one swing of the bat Hessman put the Mud Hens in the lead and also set the minor league home run record at 433 career long balls. He passed Buzz Arlett who starred for the Phillies farm team in the 1920s and 30s. I purchased this bobblehead last year. It was for setting the home run record for just the International league that he did on June 30th, 2014.

It is a pretty cool bobblehead featuring Hessman wearing a crown on top of his helmet. Congrats on this amazing feat in your career and good luck to you in the future Mr. Hessman!