2008 hickory crawdads dav team set review

2008 Hickory Crawdads DAV team set
Official Score – GROUND RULE DOUBLE
Manufacturer: Disabled American Veterans*
Sponsor: Disabled American Veterans
Retail price: FREE SGA– not available for purchase

This particular team set is a limited edition subset of the 2008 DAV minor league baseball set, organized almost entirely alphabetically and numbered 37-70. These cards were handed out to fans attending the Hickory Crawdads’ May 26, 2008 game vs. the Rome Braves at L.P Franz Stadium. (Note that the home team won the game by a score of six to five.) Who is L.P. Franz anyway?

* I don’t know who prints all the cards that the DAV distributes for free, but I really appreciate the effort.

According to the handy Crawdads pocket schedule, they have a second team set to give away to fans on Sunday, July 20th when they take on the Delmarva Shorebirds. If you happen to find yourself in the Hickory, North Carolina area, you won’t want to miss that evening as the fierce rivalry between two Northern Division teams heats up over bragging rights in the South Atlantic League. I presume this will be a set produced by the likes of MultiAd or Grandstand. If I can get my hands on the July set, I will gladly post a review of it as well.

Checklist: 34 cards (no printed checklist)

1 – [37] Victor Alvarez (inf)
2 – [38] Carlos Amaro (p)
3 – [39] Harrison Bishop (p)
4 – [40] Tom Boleska (p)
5 – [41] Danny Bomback (inf)
6 – [42] Bill Burgos (strength/conditioning)
7 – [43] Matt Cavagnaro (p)
8 – [44] Marcus Davis (of)
9 – [45] Jose De los Santos (inf)
10 – [46] Rafael De los Santos (p)
11 – [47] Jared Destro (trainer)
12 – [48] Miles Durham (inf)
13 – [49] Michael Felix (p)
14 – [50] Gary Green (manager)
15 – [51] Emilis Guerrero (p)
16 – [52] Tom Hagan (inf)
17 – [53] Eric Huber (of)
18 – [54] Jeff Johnson (pitching coach)
19 – [55] Chris Jones (c)
20 – [56] Austin McClune (of)
21 – [57] Matt McSwain (p)
22 – [58] Dustin Molleken (p)
23 – [59] Ronald Pena (c)
24 – [60] Rudy Pena (coach)
25 – [61] Silvio Pena (inf)
26 – [62] Moises Robles (p)
27 – [63] Diones Rodriguez (p)
28 – [64] Adam Simon (p)
29 – [65] Keanon Simon (of)
30 – [66] Bobby Spain (inf)
31 – [67] Ronald Uviedo (p)
32 – [68] Andrew Walker (c)
33 – [69] Duke Welker (p)
34 – [70] Bradley Ingels (veteran’s advocate – appears to work for “Armstrong Ford”)

Card thinness is present, yet the cards are reasonably firm. Surface treatment is a semi gloss that doesn’t require preparation prior to autographing. This is a slick product!

I rarely include scans of the backs of cards, but feel that these are unique enough that you may not be familiar with the format. Absent is any mention of anything from the front of the card- other than an explanation of the DAV logo. Just know if you are looking to purchase or make trades for cards like these in the future, you aren’t going to get any Hickory Crawdads player stats or bios.

This Emilis Guerrero card is the only one featuring a pitcher that I am going to show out of 13. Matt McSwain is the only card of the dozen remaining pitchers that has a different pose- that being a tight portrait. Don’t worry; if your stomach begins to become upset due to the fact that many of the hitters’ cards share common poses, the cards have a very soothing Pepto-Bismol glow about them. What follows then are a few representative cards from the set to give you an idea of the team uniforms and a few faces.

Miles Durham… seriously? A photo of a guy named “Miles” in the act of running? How could I pass on that?

Chris Jones… okay, THIS is how you shoot a photo of catcher wearing all his gear. Furthermore, if you are currently editing a team set, this is an outstanding lesson in how you select photos that have been taken of catchers wearing all of their gear.

Silvio Pena… this set has a few cards that suffer from hat shadowing, but this is probably worst case.

Bobby Spain… I wonder if he is related to Madrid. The look on his face suggests that this photo was taken while he was warming up in the on-deck circle before the bottom of the seventh inning when he overheard some fan butchering “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Marcus Davis has a sort of puzzled look of surprise on his face as if questioning whether or not he actually just heard the umpire call that last pitch a strike, or has just made a mistake in his pre-at bat superstition routine.

Danny Bomback provides an interesting variation to the “approach to batting” theme, bringing the self-assured look to the plate.

The Hickory Crawdads are currently the Low A affiliates of the Pittsburgh Pirates. So there.

This is a fun, value-packed team set. If you follow the Pirates organization, or collect South Atlantic League cards, it would be worth your effort to attempt to track down this set for yourself. I would place a value of a complete set as at least $9.00 (the price of a box ticket), and would not be at all surprised to see them move on the secondary market for $15.00 or more.

Don’t forget to check the 2008 DAV baseball schedule and make a point of attending a ballgame specifically when they are in your area this summer!

– Kris