Keys to the Batter's Box

Monday, September 7, 2015

2015 Clearwater Threshers Team Set

Issued late in the 2015 Florida State League season, the Clearwater Threshers released their 29-card team set. I didn't finally get mine until yesterday, the final day of the regular season.

It was a great year for the Clearwater Threshers, the high A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. They were first half champions, and yesterday, with a win over the Dunedin Blue Jays, they clinched the second half. A feat that hasn't happened since the Fort Myers Miracle (Minnesota Twins) did it in 2009.
On Tuesday, the Threshers begin a best of 3 playoff series against the Daytona Tortugas (Cincinnati Reds).

As for the set, here they are in the order of how they were packaged. I did get 4 of the cards signed, so those will be mixed in.

J.P. Crawford

J.P. card back

Greg Legg, 2015 FSL Manager of the Year

My only complaint about the set is with the Matt Imhof card. The same image was used in the 2015 FSL Top Prospect set, which came out in June of this year.

Matt Imhof

Matt Imhof, Top Prospect Card

Steve Schrenk, Pitching Coach

Ricardo Pinto

Chase Harris

Miguel Nunez

Zach Green

Rob Ducey, Batting Coach

Mark Leiter, Jr.

Carlos Tocci

Brandon Leibrandt

Drew Stankiewicz

Angelo Mora

Jesen Therrien

Mitch Walding

Cody Forsythe

David Whitehead

Chace Numata

Victor Arano

Dylan Cozens

Edubray Ramos

Andrew Knapp

Willians Astudillo, 2015 FSL Batting Champion

Aaron Brown

Ulises Joaquin

Colin Kleven

Andrew Pullin, 2015 FSL Homerun Leader

Yacksel Rios

Friday, August 21, 2015

Instagram

With over 300 million monthly users, Instagram has become a dominating social network. With that in mind, I've decided to expand my autograph site, www.dailyautograph.com, and created an Instagram account for it.

Now you can view my collection easily on the go.

Or follow along via the web version.

It took me about a week to upload my collection just to catch up with my site. I didn't want to advertise the new account until I was all caught up.

I hope those of you on Instagram will follow me on there. The username is dailyautograph. You can also visit this link, https://instagram.com/dailyautograph, and click on "FOLLOW."

I'd love to follow other baseball card/autograph Instagram accounts. If you have one or know some that I should be following, let me know.

Of course, www.dailyautograph.com will continue to be my primary focus. Having added over 200 autographs this summer, my site already has scheduled posts into December 2017.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Weekend Plans

I've never been a fan of Major League Baseball's Interleague Play. I'm a baseball purist. I only want to see the American League teams play National League teams in the World Series...and Spring Training, that's it.

It was cool at first to see the Mets play the Yankees, or seeing the A's face the Giants, but then when Interleague expanded to where the Padres would play the Orioles, that's when I turned my back on baseball. I'd basically take a 2 week break from the season, and then once Interleague was over, I'd get right back into watching again. I just didn't care to watch games featuring different leagues playing different divisions.

Now I only appreciate Interleague Play every 3 years. The 2015 season is one of those years. The schedule is aligned to where National League East teams face American League East teams. As a Mets fan, I enjoy seeing the Mets/Yankees rivalry, especially this season, where both teams are doing well in the standings. Also, being a Mets fan living in the Tampa Bay Rays market, that means the Mets play the Rays, which brings me to my weekend plans, hence the subject title.

Today, I made my way down to Tropicana Field to buy tickets for all three games of the Rays/Mets series. I found it was much cheaper to buy in person rather than purchasing online or over the phone. I fully expected to pay close to $50 for all three tickets, but was shocked when the ticket agent said he could get me tickets for $7 for each game. I spent $21 for a MLB 3 game weekend series with no added fees. Sure, the tickets are in left field, but trust me, I won't be staying up there. I basically paid my way to enter the stadium.

Since it's a weekend series, that means the gates open 2 hours before game time. Usually that's plenty of time to get autographs from the visiting team. I'll be making my way down that 3rd base line, hoping to get autographs from my favorite team. A team I get to see play in person every 3 years.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

2015 Daytona Tortugas Team Set

I started following the Florida State League in 1993. That same year, the Chicago Cubs had a team enter the league and made their home at Jackie Robinson Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Florida. They called themselves the Daytona Cubs.
After the end of the 2014 season, the Cubs decided to end their affiliation with Daytona as well as the Florida State League.

Daytona is now a Cincinnati Reds affiliate and they're called the Daytona Tortugas. If you follow the Reds Minor League system, a player will typically play at low A Dayton and then move to Advanced A Daytona. I can imagine that stat readers might be confused and think they're the same team and possibly think there was a spelling mistake.

Anyhow, the Tortugas play in the north division of the FSL, so they play a lot of their road games in Clearwater and Dunedin, both teams which I frequent the most. I decided to order a team set from the Tortugas online store. It was only $8, though shipping was a little over $6.

Sealed Daytona Tortugas team set

Not exactly the sturdiest packaging, but the cards were sent in a bubble wrapped envelope and arrived without damage.

The hologram sticker on the package is to prove that it's an official set. I'm sure the small font signifies something, but I'm not sure.

The card stock seems a little thicker than the Dunedin Blue Jays set that I posted about yesterday.

Like that Blue Jays set, this one also has some great looking photography, but it does suffer from the same repetitive shots, with one exception, which I'll show later in this post.