The rest of the story and trip to K n T’s

In my last post, I mentioned about having the chance to trade Kenny Rogers' 1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection card to his mother, and Jafronious asked me the background of the story. I figured I would start off this post with the whole story.

The Rays were starting their inaugural season in 1998, and I scored tickets to a few games that year. The first one was on April 27, and it would be my first ever MLB regular season game (I had probably been to almost 10 Spring Training games by then). The Rays played Oakland at the Trop, and I was stoked, because Rafael Bournigal (who I met earlier that year at the YMCA by my house in a whole other story) was the backup infielder for Oakland, and I was hoping to see him play. Raffy didn't start, but he was called on as a defensive replacement in the late innings of the game. I did get to see Rickey Henderson play in person. I booed him when he came to the plate the first time, being a 15-year old Rays fan, and not knowing I was seeing greatness. Rickey didn't steal a base, but I'll take seeing him live. According to the box score, Rickey walked twice, Bournigal came in as a pinch-runner for Jason Giambi and played Shortstop, and Fred McGriff hit a HR in a 7-6 A's win. 

After the game, I tried to get autographs. I was lucky, and 2 people from the Tampa area (Kenny Rogers and Kurt Abbott) came over to sign autographs after the game. Abbott somehow ended up in the stands, and I got a picture with him. 

I don't really have any regular pictures since my mom and sisters decided to make a scrapbook. The top left is me and Kurt, the top and bottom right are of Kenny Rogers. 

So after getting Kurt to sign his 1994 Topps card, I went to get Kenny to sign his 1994 Pinnacle Museum card. A lady saw it and mentioned how she had never seen the card before. She mentioned that she was Kenny's mom and asked me to trade it to her. She pulled a stack of his cards out of her purse and offered a 1 for 1 trade. Nothing really stood out to me, and she kept pushing his 1990 Upper Deck card with him holding a football. I realized she would enjoy the '94 Pinnacle more than me, and swapped it for the '90 Upper Deck and got Kenny to sign it. Unfortunately, I sold the majority of my autographed cards, and that was one of them. Still, it was a cool memory. 

We got a t-shirt for signing up for a Rays credit card, and I got a picture with it. I wish I still had it. I do still have the ticket stubs from the game. One of the pictures of the field shows Rafael Bournigal during infield practice between innings. Had I been a more seasoned autograph collector, I would've came during BP and did a lot better, and also taken more pictures. It was still a fun game, and I'm happy to have the pictures and stubs from it. 

On Tuesday, I was off work, so I went to K n T Sportscards in Ormond after getting Karen lunch at her job in Port Orange. I feel like I made out pretty well, getting 20 cards from the dollar bins, 2 2-for-$5 cards, and a slew of dime box cards for 40 bucks. I didn't get too much time to dig through the dime bins as another customer was in the corner most of the time, and I didn't want to stay too late, but the guy was nice, and we actually talked about custom cards. He was needing a custom with a jersey piece and an autograph spot. I told him that was above my skill level, but mentioned Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown or Tanner from Tan Man Baseball Fan were good candidates. 

Those were my 2.50 cards. 

Most of my dollar ones were Rays parallels, and Junior Caminero rookies. If he turns out to be decent, the Rays sign him to an extension, or I have a good in-person experience with him at a game (when I start going again when the Rays change ownership), I might have to collect him officially. According to TCDB, I have 42 cards of him, including a ton of rookies, one jersey card, and one autograph. 

I found a handful of Topps needs, and somehow, a stack of cards I didn't need got in the pile (stack on bottom right). I was hoping to find a chunk of 2025 Topps cards to look through, as I am only 69 cards away from finishing the Series 1 and 2 sets. I didn't find any, but I did find a 2024 Topps Tyler Cropley to re-finish the 2025 set. My friend Jim, who collects Cardinals, and autographs, went to the first Stetson University baseball game back in February or March, and told me Cropley was a coach for Iowa, who they were playing. He didn't have a Cropley, and I had just the one, so I let him have it, and he got the autograph, and I figured I could replace it later, which I did today. I found out a few weeks ago that Jim's stepson passed away suddenly. They both collected cards and autographs, and Jim is up at his stepsons' house right now going through his things. He said he'll probably bring some of his collection down to DeLand and we could go through it together, but both of us are in no rush, and it will happen when it happens. It's nice to have a card friend like Jim to both have help you out with a need and who you can help out, and not only that, but just the friendship that happens from spending hours at games or wherever talking about cards, baseball, and life. I've texted him a few times during the last few weeks to check on him, and hopefully the rest of his year is smooth.

The dime cards were a hodgepodge of different things. I didn't organize them before I scanned them, but the basic groupings are as follows: Tigers, Rays, guys I collect, rookies, 1998 Upper Deck finds, and 1998 Fleer Tradition finds. While not normally a guy to pick out a non-Topps set, I think 1998 Upper Deck has a great design, and the '98 UD cards they had in the box were from Series 3, the ones that feature the first cards of the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks. Same thing with the Fleer cards. 

There were also some cards that probably shouldn't have been in the dime boxes. There was a '93 Select Jeter rookie. I loathe Jeter, but a rookie of his for a dime is a deal I couldn't pass up. I already have one, so if anyone is up for a trade, I'll be happy to throw this one in. The '25 Heritage Rays were all SPs. With last year's set having SPs in cards 1-100, I am sure there are a lot of dime boxes in various shops that have SPs thrown in them. I almost passed over the '20 Topps Update Devin Williams rookie, but when I flipped it over, I noticed a serial #, and noticed that it was a SABRMetric Stat parallel, so I picked it up. 

Most of the Rays were needs. The 2007 Upper Deck John McDonald is the one with the Hello Kitty notebook on it. The Quinton McCracken was a need, and with the amount of his cards that I have, it doesn't happen very often. 

The 2 Donruss cards came from what looked like a pack that someone left in the box. I was stoked that the 1998 Upper Deck Fielder was in the box. The Robert Campos looked like a normal Topps Pro Debut insert, but was actually a green parallel. I hear a ton of hype around Kyle Teel, so I took a gamble on his rookie, especially for 10 cents. The Astros World Series Heritage card is an SP, and the random '89 Bowman Stan Royer was just a cool card for me. I made most of his Topps cards that he didn't have, and I believe I used this card photo for his '89 Topps card. Most of the teams in the 1989 Topps set had #1 Draft Pick cards, but a few teams, like the Tigers, Royals, and A's didn't have any. Royer was the A's #1 pick, so he never got the '89 Topps card, so I feel like this '89 Bowman makes up for it. 

I kind of want to go back to the shop. Maybe next week. Hopefully they will have some '25 stuff in the boxes. We will see. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy