The Richmond Flying Squirrels came to New Britain the first weekend in May and it worked out well.

I was able to get the Squirrels lineup card after the Friday night game.  It’s one of the nicer cards we got all season, with watermarks including the Eastern League (EL) logo, Rock Cat and Flying Squirrel logos.

It was also a great game, a 1-0 Rock Cats win.  The Squirrels were in the midst of a 15-game losing streak at the time, yet would still end up finishing the season with a winning record (72-68), just missing out on the EL playoffs.

Sean and I went to the May 3^rd Squirrels @ Rock Cats game.  We did not get a lineup card from this game, but Sean did score a broken bat from San Francisco Giants’ prospect Mac Williamson, which we were able to get signed by Williamson after he came out of the locker room.  Williamson got called up to play for the Giants for a few games when Major League rosters expanded in September.

Other May lineup cards of note:

• One of the least attractive lineup cards that we got all season was from the Camden Riversharks of the independent Atlantic League.  While it is a nice, big card (11” x “17) on solid cardboard stock, it is just a photo copy of the original card.  It became somewhat of a collector’s item recently when it was announced that the Riversharks organization folded.

• We went to three Atlantic League games in May.  Given that Atlantic League teams typically operate on a shoestring budget, the lineup cards are generally pretty dull.  Somerset Patriots manager Brett Jodie said they keep their dugout lineup card, but was nice enough to offer us the “official” lineup cards.  The Atlantic League official lineup cards, one for each team, are of the carbon copy variety and not nearly as nice as dugout lineup cards.  One upside is that the official lineup cards are signed by the manager.  Given that Atlantic League managers include former MLB players such as Gary Gaetti and Butch Hobson, the signatures are kind of cool.

• Speaking of Gaetti, Sean was able to get the Sugarland Skeeters lineup card from him (along with the much plainer Bridgeport Bluefish lineup card).  Because of the dugout setup at the Bridgeport Bluefish stadium, Sean didn’t know that Gaett had heard him and asked again, and I guess Gaetti got a little annoyed with him.  But he did give him the lineup card, and also signed it, which was cool.  I got another lineup card from Gaetti in September, and he seems like a real nice guy from my short interaction with him.

Arguably one of the the nicest and most interesting lineup cards we got in 2015 was from the Harrisburg Senators (we got three Senators cards in total).

There’s a nice ‘Curly W’ watermark as the Senators are a Nationals farm team.  It is also a large 11″ x 17″ (for comparison, the Rock Cats lineup card I got at the same game is 9″ x 14″) and has a glossy finish.

Also neat is the fact that one of the Senators coaches was keeping notes on the masking tape at the top of the card, tracking pitchers’ time to home plate, time to the base on a pickoff move, etc.