On the signing front!

Time for a On the signing front segment that will catch us up with the last few teams that we have seen.

The first team since our last update was the Myrtle Beach Pelicans in Frederick against the Keys.
The Pelicans were missing their two most heralded prospects as Jason Heyward and Freddy Freeman had recently been promoted to AA Mississippi,but powerhitting Cody Johnson was still there and signed his Pelican card.
Pitching prospect Cole Rohrbough signed a few cards for us (via Battlin' Bob) and Luis Sumoza,a outfield prospect obtained in the off season from Boston signed his 09 Bowman as well.
Sumoza was returned to Rome after this series,so assuming he stays there,he will be in Hagerstown in August when the Braves visit.
The Battler reports that Rohrbough was kind enough to swap small talk for a bit and thinks highly of the lefthander.
Special kudos go to Pelican bullpenner Mikey Mehlich,who saw that I had cards for him as he carried a plate of food for the pen.
Mehlich stopped and even though I told him I would get him later since he was busy,put his stuff down and signed anyway.

Next into the Muni was the Greenville Drive,who's visit in 2007 still ranks as the worst team in my experience to come through Hagerstown.
I never really expect much other than hassle from Red Sox teams and Salem didn't do very much to improve my opinion of Boston teams in their visit last season.
Greenville was better than expected though and a few players were really nice.
Will Middlebrooks was hard to stop in the field,but was very nice after the game.
Outfielder Pete Hissey might have been the nicest of the Drive and pitcher Brock Huntzinger made a fan of his from me after this exchange as he signed....

Me:"Thanks for signing,Brock".
Brock:"No Problem"
Background Noise:"GOOD EVENING SUNS FANS,,,BLAH BLAH CONTINUED SCREAMING BLAH BLAH"

Brock:"Great,another night with this guy,he sucks"
Me: Sarcastically: "But he's an intern".
Brock:"He still is Bleeping Horseshit"

Other notables were Stolmy Pimentel,Nick Hagadone and Ryan Dent,all of which signed everything that I had and a tip of the cap to the Greenville coaching staff as well.
Manager Kevin Boles and his coaches Bob Kipper and Billy McMillon were all class acts and signed for everyone.
McMillon was a riot in particular when I had him sign his MLB showdown game for Ryan.
Ryan is still attempting to make a set of those and has any player in that set sign their card.
When I told McMillon that his card was the most important to Ryan of all the Drive,he responded with this-"He needs to raise his goals in life" with a laugh.....

Last Thursday brought the Kinston Indians to Frederick and this is always a visit that I look forward to.
However,I had been warned about the K-Tribe's top two prospects that they didn't exactly enjoy signing.
That proved to be the case as Lonnie Chisenhall signed one card for two people and then left.
That didn't work out well for me as I had eight cards (seven different) for the Kinston third sacker.
Chisenhall has a mixed signing reputation though,so hopefully things will be better on Kinston's final visit in early September.
Wish that I could say the same for the NC Wahoo second baseman Cord Phelps,who seems determined to play the heel in his visits.
Phelps signed for no one and in what may have been great for a future in pro wrestling move,stuck up his nose,sniffed and shook his head no when a collector (not me) asked him to sign one card!
Kinston was good otherwise as pitching coach and former White Sox pitcher Greg Hibbard signed after numerous misses over the last few years and a few prospects from the 08 draft were added in pitchers Eric Berger,Bryce Stowell and outfielder Tim Fedroff.
All three were class acts especially Fedroff.

The signing front ended with the Asheville Tourists hitting Hagerstown.
The Tourists visit usually brings out of town collectors as Asheville is the only Rockies affiliate in the Eastern US,so it is get em now or dont get them situation.
However this Rockies club only has three members of the organizations top thirty prospects and all were nice enough to sign in pitcher Parker Frazier along with flychasers Delta Cleary and Tyler Massey.
Frazier was quite witty and is the son of former Indian pitcher and current Rockie TV announcer George Frazier.

A few thanks to my trading partners out there.
Jason Christensen sent me a Binghamton Mets set along with a few extra goodies that included former Yankee setup man Ramiro Mendoza,Tiger prospect Jon Kiebler and Red Sox power arm Justin Masterson.
Tom O'brien was able to add a Bowie BaySox set with some other nice cards for me as well in Jake Arrieta (Just before a AAA promotion) and Beau Mills.
Tom also was able to have Yunel Escobar sign a Gold card (48 of 50) that I pulled out of a pack when the Braves visited Washington.

Battlin Bob and Ryan usually are key to not only driving me to Frederick,but helping me when I get there-thanks to both of my buddies.

A final word of thanks to the local friends that help me all the time in both Hagerstown and Frederick.
Some of you don't always want your name mentioned here,but I did want to acknowledge your help and offer some thanks.

Looks like some downtime as only a game in Frederick against Lynchburg is likely for me to attend until West Virginia hits town here in ten days!!
C'mon Power-Get that team set out!!

A long and fun day

What a long and fun day.
Between a fruitless wait in an attempt to attend US Senator Ben Cardin's Health Care forum,a fun doubleheader at the Muni between the Suns and the visiting Rome Braves,the "Superfan" comparing a player in the game (sorry not naming the player) in looks to Bozo the Clown and coming home to watch a replay of a great game between the Giants and Dodgers,this was one terrific day.
The only downside is that I missed the Pirates game in Colorado due to the length of the Doubleheader and it doesn't seem like I missed much in a 8-0 Rockies rout.

We arrived at the Kepler Theater on the campus of Hagerstown Community College around 11;30 and hoped to get into the door as we settled into the line.
At various times,we saw HCC employees checking the crowd to try to see where the limit for the line would be when the theatre reached its capacity,we appeared to be about 20 people or so ahead of the expected cutoff.
After standing in the line for 90 minutes,that we spent talking to some very nice people in the line that disagreed with us on some things but shared an enjoyable conversation,we were unable to to enter as the cutoff turned out to be about 15-20 people ahead of us.
It appeared that the difference was basically the dignitaries that had to see and be seen were not accounted for by the counters.
I would wager that between 200-300 people behind us also didn't get entrance.
I thought most people were civil although there were exceptions from the Lyndon LaRouche fringe that showed the President with an Adolf Hitler mustache and there were always the confrontations from fringe believers from both ends of the spectrum left and right.
Many news channels were there to televise some parts of the proceedings and there were the usual parades of grandstanders throughout looking to gain attention for themselves.
The left was a little more subdued,but the left always seems to feature these Woodstock looking rejects that appear to be little more than advertising for being way out hippies.
The right has people that look more mainstream and then blow that away with ridiculous signs like the aforementioned Hitler poster.
This whole thing could have avoided,if someone at HCC had thought about perhaps using the HCC Arena which would have held the entire crowd with room to spare.
However,people underestimated the turnout,but the issue in going to the arena could have one of lack of security and if that was the case then I can see why that was not able to be used.
Check out our friends over at Bag of Health and Politics from their viewpoint and from someone that was able to actually get inside and watch the presentation.

The Braves-Suns doubleheader featured wild chat,political discussion,two good games (Rome swept both) and a lot of autographs from visiting Braves.
The BOHP blogger was there and willing to swap debate with the Old Dominion "Superfan" David Sloan,who appeared without blue face paint and cape for the evening.
"Doug Hopkins" attended the game and enjoyed spirited discussion with the Superfan on topics ranging from autographs,religion and the Superfan's views on pornography.
I was able to get most of the Rome top prospects as second baseman Joel Campusuano,outfielder Luis Sumoza and pitcher Julio Teheran all signed among others.

But the best part of the night was seeing Rome pitcher Mike Mehlich,who you may remember for signing for me in Frederick after taking the time to stop and sign for me there and put down a tray of food to do so.
I mentioned this as Mike signed for others and he asked "did you write about that on the internet" and after I said that was me,his reply was that his mom saw the post.
So,Mike's Mom if you are reading this one,thanks for stopping by!
Later between games,I told Mike even though I have nothing left for you to sign,you are still my favorite here.
Mike was the winning pitcher of Game two in relief and tossed me a foul ball late in the game.
Looks like we have another entry in the player list that we follow here at the blog!

After returning home,I watched the replay of the Giants-Dodgers game that I started watching before going to the Suns-Braves game.
I was able to pick up where I left off and watched a game that featured a near brawl,the Giants losing manager Bruce Bochy to ejection and his replacement Ron Wotus to the same fate later in the game,some awful umpiring that forced the game to extra innings (costing Tim Lincecum a win) and a walk off game winning homer by Juan Uribe in a 4-2 10 inning Giant win.
Great game and a great day!

I hope to be back tomorrow with another feature and some misc. notes before tomorrow's return to work!

Photo Credits
Bozo:Unknown
Mehlich:MiLB.com
Giants-Dodgers:Ben Margot-AP Photo