Bobblehead of the Week- Northwest Arkansas Naturals' Vance Wilson

As some of you might recall, I have family who lives in the Northwestern corner of Arkansas. If I'm lucky, I travel out that way once every few summers to visit them, and my visits typically coincide with a Naturals' (the Royals' AA affiliate) homestand. Weird how that works out for a baseball fan, am I right? 

I believe during the summer of 2009, my visit also matched up with a Naturals' bobblehead giveaway of then Nats' catcher and former big leaguer, Vance Wilson. Vance was, and maybe still is, a neighbor of my Aunt's in Springdale, Arkansas, and the ballpark was only about ten minutes from his house. He recently agreed to become the manager of the hi-A Carolina League Wilmington Blue Rocks, based in Wilmington, Delaware, which I know is quite a distance from Springdale. Since the Blue Rocks play the Frederick Keys a few times each summer, I hope to have Lance sign my bobblehead at some point. 

The bobblehead is pretty decent looking, if not a bit wobbly on it's base, and the pose is very unique, in my collection at least. Since I attended this game with my family, I ended up with a few extra copies of this bobble, if anyone is interested in one, let me know. 

I'm a big fan of the Naturals' lightning bolt N logo, and now own a cap with a variation of it. 

The Royals' farm system has had a bunch of top prospects pass through town in recent years, so the Naturals' are competitive most seasons and my family is regularly treated to some exciting baseball action. The team has only been around for maybe five years, so the ballpark is new and has been mostly full each time I've attended a game. 

Autos from 6/27 Naturals-Travelers game

As was the case with yesterday's post, I am catching up on autographs from my trip two weeks ago. Here is the link to the post about the trip.

Since only one of these guys has any affiliation with the Orioles organization, I will not write too much about any of them but just want to show the autographs I was able to get.

The Naturals stadium (Arvest Ballpark) has an excellent set-up for getting both the home and visiting teams' autographs. Everyone has pre- & post-game access to a side of the player tunnel that connects the dugout to the clubhouse. So you can pretty much walk halfway up the player tunnel (25-30 ft) to try to get autographs and everyone has to walk by you. I wish that I had taken a picture so that it would be easier to visualize, but it was very cool and the Nats all signed for a bunch of fans. You can tell by this map of the ballpark that you can stand between sections 107 & 108 for the Naturals and sections 114 & 115 for the visiting teams.

Terry Bradshaw (you have to Google search "Terry Bradshaw, baseball" to find him online) is the hitting coach for the Naturals and played 34 games for the St. Louis Cardinals over the course of the 1995-96 seasons. He was a really nice guy and asked my permission to use my sharpie to sign another fan's picture.


Larry Carter is the pitching coach for the Naturals. He went 1-5 for the SF Giants in 1992.


Brian Poldberg is the manager of the Nats and has spent the past 20 years as a coach in the Royals organization.


Vance Wilson was a backup catcher for the Mets & Tigers from 1999-2006. He was known for his ability to throw out opposing basestealers and backed up Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez over his years in the Bigs.

He currently resides in Springdale, AR, where the Naturals play, and actually lives across the street from my aunt. Vance is in the twilight of his career, but the game I went to was his bobblehead night, so that was probably a highlight for him.


Dan Cortes is listed by Baseball America as the Royals #2 prospect but isn't having a great year for the Naturals. He pitched the game I was at and didn't look like much to write home about. But he does share his name with the former host of "MTV Sports".

Jose Duarte (dwar-tay)
Hip, hip, Duarte!

Cody Clark

Corey Smith was absolutely raking when I saw him play. I think that he had hit 13-15 HRs on the season as of a few weeks ago. He also had put on some weight since this picture was taken.

Cody Strait

Kalina and my dad were able to get an autograph from the only former Oriole on the Travelers, Val Majewski!
Val played a few games for the O's in 2004 and was released by the Birds during spring training 2008. I'm told that he was very nice and willingly signed anything that the fans had for him. I recall getting his autograph at an Orioles-Cardinals spring training game in 2006.

Some pictures from my trip

The vacation that I took with my family last week started at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, MD at an Ironbirds game; they play in the NY-Penn League, short season class A ball. The Ironbirds were playing the Staten Island Yankees, but the game wasn't our main focus, and I, amazingly only saw about 2 innings of baseball. We were there for the all-you-can-eat crab feast, but of course, I had to get a few autographs before the food arrived, including Blake Davis who is there from AAA Norfolk on a rehab assignment. I will have pictures of all the autographs from this trip in a future post.

The Ironbirds have pictures all along their concourse of their former players that have reached the major leagues. I found this '03 picture of a very young Nick Markakis specifically cool. He looks so tiny and high school-ish.

The Ironbirds' Stadium has recreated the warehouse at Camden Yards off of the third base side of the park. It is some sort of hotel, but a very cool addition to the Stadium's aura.


After a night spent in PA, we were all westward bound. We passed multiple baseball towns and stadiums but didn't get any good pictures of them. The next sports-related picture Kalina was able to take was of the Colts' Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. I made everyone in the car boo as we drove by it. Booo Colts! (I'm a Titans fan.)



As we continued south and west, we drove through St. Louis and took some time to check out Busch Stadium and the arch.

Impressive, isn't it?

But if you want to get to the top, this is literally one of the elevator cars. I kid you not, and they ask that 5 people fit in there for the 4 minute trip up/3 minute trip down. It's kinda cozy, but how else can you get up a curved arch?



From the top (630 feet up!), we found Busch Stadium.



And once we got back to the ground, we located Busch Stadium for a close-up shot. Unfortunately, the Cardinals were out of town or we would have gone to a game. Oh well, I guess we couldn't go to a baseball game every stop of the way.



Since St. Louis is hosting the All-Star game in a few weeks, they had all of these mini arches decorated with the teams and league names all around the stadium. Those statues in the background are of past Cardinals greats.



While we were at the arch, Kalina made the good call to take this picture.

And since you read this blog, you probably watch baseball on TV. This is me mimicking the All-Star game commercials that feature a magnetized arch sweeping across the country to pick up baseball players and fans to take them to the All-Star game in St. Louie. No one told me that the metal would be hot though!


We finally reached our destination, Springdale, Arkansas, the home to some of my family and the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. The Nats play in the AA Southern League and are the AA affiliate of the KC Royals; they played the Arkansas Travelers (AA affiliate of the LAAAA Angels) at the game we attended on Saturday. If you look closely at the picture of Vance Wilson on the jumbo-tron, you can see that picture is of his bobblehead, as that was the giveaway of the evening. Hooray unexpected bobblehead!



What does this game have to do with the Orioles you might ask?

Well one Val Majewski (Orioles class of 2004) was manning right field for the Travelers. Val was a really cool guy and signed a card for my dad and Kalina while I covered the Naturals side for autos. (Again, all of the autograph pictures will be coming in a post sometime soon.) Val homered during Friday's game but put up a goose-egg on Saturday. I think he was intimidated knowing that there were O's fans in attendance. Either that or he just had an off day at the plate.


Here is the Naturals mascot, Strike. I swear he is a caveman, but Kalina (and the Naturals) say that he is a Sasquatch. What do you think? I want your opinion, the poll is on the left.



The Naturals were nice enough the treat us to a walk-off win in the bottom of the 10th inning. Jeff Bianchi, from nearby Lancaster, PA, capped off a 5-5 night by hitting the 2nd walk-off HR in Naturals history. This is the Nats 2nd year of existence which explains why it is only the second one.

It was a very exciting finish to a great trip. I hope that you all enjoyed the pictures!