2008 salt lake bees dav team set review

2008 Salt Lake Bees DAV team set
Official Score – TWO RUN TRIPLE
Manufacturer: Disabled American Veterans (undetermined printer)
Sponsor: Disabled American Veterans
Retail price: FREE SGA– not available for purchase

The Salt Lake Bees are the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. A long-time member of the Pacific Coast League, the Bees play their home games at picturesque Franklin Covey Field, in Salt Lake City, Utah. If, like me, you guessed that Franklin Covey might be the name of a tough old mountain man who dedicated his life to hunting beaver along the streams that drain the nearby gorgeous Wasatch Mountains long before Brigham Young relocated his flock to the valley, you are wrong. Feel free to chuckle at my expense if you want as you click here to discover who (or what) Franklin Covey actually is.

Hopefully, you will find the names of Salt Lake players included in this team set more recognizable than the stadium’s namesake. I wonder why the set was split into two separate groups in the 2008 DAV minor league master set. It appears that the DAV could have utilized one or more of Franklin Covey’s planning tools in order to avoid the numbering gap.

Here’s the checklist for the entire 29-card set.

1 – [32] Nick Adenhart (p)
2 – [33] Giancarlo Alvarado (p)
3 – [34] Jose Arredondo (p)
4 – [35] Erik Bennett (pitching coach)
5 – [36] Henry Bonilla (p)
6 – [105] Dee Brown (of)
7 – [106] Matt Brown (if)
8 – [107] Ryan Budde (c)
9 – [108] Jason Bulger (p)
10 – [109] Brad Coon (of)
11 – [110] Jim Eppard (hitting coach)
12 – [111] Terry Evans (of)
13 – [112] Nick Green (p)
14 – [113] Jeff Kennard (p)
15 – [114] Shane Loux (p)
16 – [115] Bobby Mitchell (manager)
17 – [116] Kendry Morales (if)
18 – [117] Kasey Olenberger (p)
19 – [118] Gary Patchett (if)
20 – [119] Adam Pavkovich (if)
21 – [120] Sean Rodriguez (if)
22 – [121] Freddy Sandoval (if)
23 – [122] Alex Serrano (p)
24 – [123] Coby Smith (of)
25 – [124] Rich Thompson (p)
26 – [125] Matt Wilhite (p)
27 – [126] Reggie Willits (of)
28 – [127] Bobby Wilson (c)
29 – [128] Brandon Wood (if)

Let’s get to the cards…

While choosing which cards to highlight in this review, I had to decide between Kendry Morales and Dee Brown. Ultimately I went with Brown based on his willingness to sign autographs for fans without acting as if they have just asked him to jump-start their car in the middle of a hailstorm. That’s a beauty of a grass stain on Dee’s left knee. Those pants would certainly make for an interesting batch of game-used relic cards.

Brandon Wood is one of those unpredictable players that you never can tell how they are going to react to an autograph request. Normally he will sign one item per fan per day without having much to say. Catch him away from the crowd and you might see him chat up a storm while signing a handful of cards. My take Wood is that he’s a nice kid who is still learning to deal with the pressure of having been billed as the next Cal Ripken Jr. before he was old enough to buy a beer. At any rate, this card is going to autograph quite nicely, and I plan on being there when that happens to thank him for his time.

Hey, Jason Bulger makes an appearance in consecutive posts. This is starting to get out of control. Bulger is one of a dozen pitchers included in this set. While a few of the faces are obscured by shadows, all but two of the photos are serviceable. All but two of the cards featuring non-pitching players depict the players in the act of hitting. That gets a little tedious because we all know that there is so much more to baseball than just swinging a bat. The lack of variation stands out as an area where the set could easily be improved upon.

This is a very nice card of Bobby Wilson. An action photo in full catcher’s gear, yet a mask does not obscure his face. The focus is a bit soft, but I’m willing to forgive them given the overall appeal of the card. Wilson did appear in seven games with the parent Angels during the 2008 season.

Reggie Willits is a super nice guy who will always give his team 120 percent. He’s the kind of player who will crash into the wall in foul territory to make the third out in the top an inning, then some up to bat second in the bottom of the inning and lay down a sacrifice bunt to advance the runner from first into scoring position. Yet it appears that the jury is still out on whether or not that is going to be enough to land Reggie a full-time spot on a major league roster.

Willits is one of only three players in the team set not wearing a white jersey. From an autographing standpoint, if a team is going to feature the same style of uniform on the majority of the cards in the set, I would prefer that they follow Salt Lake’s lead and select the lightest color.

The Salt Lake Bees have one of the best looking logos and overall color schemes in the Pacific Coast League. The logo is most visible on the cards of manager Bobby Mitchell and pitching coach Erik Bennett.

As is the case with all cards from the 2008 DAV promotion, these puppies have a semi gloss surface that are ready for the Sharpie directly out of the pack. The card backs exhibit the standard DAV ad instead of stats. I am of the opinion that the Salt Lake Bees have one of the best looking team sets included in the 2008 DAV minor league master set. Weighing in at 26 players and 3 coaches, what you get here is basically a full team set. I haven’t seen the actual 2008 Salt Lake Bees team issued set, but I am guessing that the images used for that differ significantly from the ones utilized for the DAV set. While the Bees offer bracelets for sale thru their online team shop, they do not offer baseball cards. Go figure!

I did see one of the 2008 Salt Lake Bees DAV team sets sell on eBay for $7.50 plus shipping with five unique bidders showing interest. I would say that is about as low as you might expect to pick up one of these sets on the secondary market- assuming you are fortunate enough to find one for sale. After all, the Bees did finish 1st PCL Pacific North division.

– Kris

Tags: DAV, Kris, minor league baseball, PCL, Salt Lake Bees, Triple A baseball