1997 Bowman, Joe Long

#152 Joe Long

He is a Padrograph from Joe Long. Joe made 8 relief appearances for the Padres in 1997. He pitched 11 innings and gave up 10 earned runs. He struck out 8, but he also walked 8. He had 1 wild pitch, gave up 1 home run (to Chris Widger), and hit 1 batter. But, he didn't have any balks.

That was the only taste of the Big Leagues that Joe ever got. He spent the next two years playing AAA for the Expos and Pirates. He played for Newark, of the Atlantic League, in 2000 and then hung them up after that season.

This card would have been a really good looking card if Topps would not have put the flag on it backwards. Good job, Topps.

1997 Best Lancaster Jethawks, Jim Slaton

#2 Jim Slaton

Believe it or not, this is actually the third Jim Slaton card that I have posted on here. I got all three cards signed at an Oklahoma Redhawks game in '08 while Jim was the pitching coach for the Las Vegas 51s. The first two cards were posted in this blog's infancy over a year ago. The first one was posted in August of '08 and the second one was done in October of '08. So far, that is the biggest gap between cards that were signed together.

I didn't say much about Jim in the first two Jim Slaton posts, so I will take care of that now. Jim had a 16-year career with the Brewers, Tigers, and Angels. He made one All Star team as a Brewer in 1977 as he went on to record a career high 17 wins. After the season, the Brew Crew shipped him to Detroit for Ben Oglivie and then was able to sign as a free agent the following season. He had a career 4.03 ERA and he is the Brewers all-time leader in wins, innings, starts, and shutouts. He started coaching after his playing days and he was still the Dodgers AAA pitching coach this past season.

As for this card, I got the team set for cheap at a Lancaster JetHawks game last year. The 'Hawks revamped their logo prior to last season and they were trying to get rid of anything with an old logo on it in their gift shop. So I was able to pick up two or three old JetHawk team sets and a California/Carolina League All Star set for a buck or two each. It is hard for me to believe that it takes a logo change to drop the prices of old team sets. It amazes me that some teams keep trying to sell five to ten year old team sets for the usual eight or nine dollars. You would think that they would drop the price after a year or two.

1996 Ultra, Scott Livingstone

#560 Scott Livingstone

I started out my 1996s with a Padrograph and I am going to end it with one as well.

This one features Scott Livingstone. Scott had a eight-year Major League career with the Tigers, Padres, Cardinals, and Expos. He was originally drafted by the Blue Jays in the sixth round in 1984, but he decided to go to Texas A&M instead. The Yankees drafted him in the twenty-sixth round two years later, but he still didn't sign. The A's took their chance in the third round the following year without any luck. Finally, in 1988, the Tigers drafted him in the second round and signed him.

Scott hit .281 as a big-leaguer, but his power numbers weren't there. Luckily, I got to see him play one time in a game that I will never forget.

The game was in 1996 in Denver Colorado while Scott was still a Padre. San Diego jumped to a quick lead early in the game and had a nice 9-2 lead after the top of the seventh. Then the skies opened up and it poured for a good thirty to fourty minutes. The field was drenched and I didn't think that there was any way that they were going to finish the game. Luckily, the game was at the year and a half old Coors Field which had a very good drainage system.

When the game restarted, many people had left. So we moved up from the Rock Pile to the left field bleachers to watch the remainder of the game. I wish I would have had a camera then because we were sitting pretty close to Ricky Henderson.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Rockies managed to put 11 runs on the board off of five different Padre relievers. The best part about it was how they did it. The first batter of the inning grounded out. Then, it went HBP, single, single, single, walk, single, double, intentional walk. By this point, the Rockies have scored five runs to make the score 9-7 San Diego. Plus, they have the bases loaded. Vinny Castilla is up and he is the only batter to make an out that inning so far. Vinny hits the first pitch he sees for a grand slam and gives the Rockies an 11-9 lead. They tack on two more in the inning for a 13-9 lead. But, what does this have to do with Scott Livingstone?

Well, Scott ended up pinch hitting in the top of the ninth. He had two on with one out and was down in the count 1-2 when he hit a home run to make it a one-run ballgame. Rickey got a single after him, but the next batter hit into a game-ending double play. Final score was 13-12 Colorado. That was only the second Major League ballgame that I had been to and it is one that I will never forget.

To this day, Scott and Jeff Blauser are the only two players that I have seen for only one at-bat and have hit a home run.

1996 Topps, Chris Hoiles

#191 Chris Hoiles

This is the final card that I got signed at the Orioles alumni signing at Camden Yards in September. Joe Orsulak and Ken Dixon were the other two alums that signed that day. Just like those two, this card was provided to me by Ryan of the Great Orioles Autograph Project. He had a few Hoiles cards to choose from and I picked this one because I didn't think I had a card from this set signed. I guess that I forgot about the Eisenreich card I posted yesterday.

Chris had a pretty good ten-year career, all with the O's. He was a career .262 hitter that slugged 151 home runs including a career high of 29 in 1993. According to Wikipedia, Chris is the only player to ever hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, a 3-2 count, and down by three. That is pretty cool. He even had a two grand slam game a couple of years later. He finished with eight grand slams for his career.

Chris managed the York Revolution for two and a half years. He stepped down during this past season. Paul, from Paul's Random Stuff, was going to try to get a card signed for me, but Chris left the team before that could come about. So, I was pretty happy that Chris was present at the alumni signing.

This is an interesting looking Topps set. It could have been a little better if a different picture was used by the name. Just cropping a picture of the face on the main picture doesn't quite do it for me. I'm glad that they didn't do that on their '83 or '84 set.

1996 Topps, Jim Eisenrreich

#66 Jim Eisenriech

This is the third and final Jim Eisenreich card that I got signed at last years Royals Fanfest. You can see the first one here and the second one here. The first two were Royals cards. So, I had to mix it up a bit with a Phillies card.

Prior to that Fanfest, I had two Eisenreich autographs and neither one was on a card. Here is the first one that I got.



This is a roster from a Dodger-Cardinal game that I attended in 1998. I realize that it is upside down, but that is the way that it is signed. Jim's signature is on the right. I'm not positively sure who signed the other side, but my guess is Wilton Guerrero. You can see that Jim's signature changed slightly since 1998.

Here is the other autograph that I had from him.



This is a picture that I took of Jim signing autographs at the Dodger-Cardinal game. I got this 8x10 signed at the Turkey Bowl in 2003. Jim told the other players around him that this was one of the rare photos of him as a Dodger since he didn't play too much with them. The signature is kind of hard to make out over the jersey, but that is the way it goes sometimes. It is still a neat piece of memorabilia.

1996 Signature Rookies Autobilia, Johnny Damon

#B4 Johnny Damon

First off, I don't know too much about this card. It is a preview card for a set that never came out. I can't even remember which set I got it out of. It might have been from the Autobilia football cards that Signature Rookies defaulted on. I can't even find this card on Beckett.com. There were a few more preview cards, but the only other one I remember is A-Rod. But, I think that it is a good looking card. If nothing else, it is original.

I got this card signed at a Royals Caravan appearance at the mall when I was in high school. Johnny was there with Micheal Tucker. That was probably the best caravan I attended until 2008. They usually had some rookies signing prior to that, but it was more like Kevin Koslofski than anyone that would be around for awhile.

I wish that I would have had him sign another card for me. But, this was the only card I took. I bought a pennent there and had him and Tucker sign that. I still have that. I may have a signed Royals-issued photo, too. I'm not sure if I grabbed one of those or not.

I first became a Royals fan in college when I realized I only had to drive an hour and forty-five minutes to get to the ballpark. That was in 2000 and the Royals had the best offense in team history. Unfortunately, their pitching was horrible. The outfield consisted of Damon, Carlos Beltran, and Jermaine Dye while Joe Randa and Mike Sweeney were the main guys in the infield. That was a fun ballclub. You could pretty much expect a 9-7 game every night.

Here is a picture of Johnny from photo day that year.

1996 Score, Marc Kroon

#498 Marc Kroon

This is the third Padrograph of the week and the second Marc. If you have never heard of Marc Kroon, don't feel bad. He never had much Major League success.

He pitched in 16 games for the Padres between 1995 and 1998. In limited work, he had an ERA of 6.46. The Padres traded him to Cincinnati during the '98 season and in 5.33 innings with them, he gave up 8 earned runs. He wouldn't appear in the Majors again until the Rockies gave him a chance in 2004. It was more of the same with them.

For some reason, I cannot find any stats for him between the 2000 and 2004. He was signed by Anaheim during the 2003 season, but he has no stats. Either he was hurt for an extended period of time or maybe he pitched in Korea. I have no idea.

Anyway, after his failed endeavor with the Rockies, he headed over to Japan and has been a dominant closer over there. In 2008, with the Yomiuri Giants, he led the Central league in saves with 41. He even has his own website. Unfortunately, it is partly in Japanese. But, if you have some spare time, make sure to listen to his rap about himself during the into. It's classic! Also, he makes a big deal about pitching 161 kph. I am assuming that is fast, but I'm too lazy to figure it out on Thanksgiving.

"K, to the R, to the O-O-N"

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!