CBL Alumni Featured In First Minor League Baseball NFT Trading Card Team Set
In late January, two Continental Baseball League alumni were featured in the first-ever non-fungible token (NFT) minor league baseball trading card team set, either for affiliated minor leagues or for independent professional minor leagues. Other NFTs existed which were made by both MiLB (MLB affiliated teams) as well as independent professional baseball leagues (see here for those: Baseball NFT), but no previous traditional “team set” had yet been sold in the new NFT / cryptocurrency manner.
Andrew Dunn helped provide players early in the CBL’s history (2007) and later helped operate the Coastal Kingfish (2009) and then owned the 2010 Las Cruces Vaqueros. The Vaqueros then became a team in the Pecos League which started in 2011.
Matt McDermott played as a catcher, served as a backup catcher, and a team & league official in 2007 – playing with the Lewisville Lizards. He then served as a bullpen catcher and the assistant GM for the McKinney Blue Thunder in 2008; and then helped the league office in 2009.
Andrew owns and operates the Houston Apollos team, a team traditionally which plays in the Pecos Spring League – a developmental / instructional spring league to prepare players for spring training for Pecos League teams. During the 2021 season, the American Association needed a 12th team; and Andrew took some of the best Pecos League players and formed the roster for the road / travel team which played all 100 games of the 2021 season as the visiting team.
Andrew and Matt decided to make a traditional “team set” of baseball cards featuring many of the players who finished the season with the Apollos. The difference is that the cards would be sold exclusively as NFTs on the OpenSea.io platform. The team set collection can be seen here:
OpenSea.io Houston Apollos minor league baseball trading card NFT team set
Here is more about the project including quotes from Andrew and Matt: About The NFT Minor League Baseball Card Team Set
The following images are the NFTs for Andrew and Matt, including both the front & back of their respective NFT trading cards:
This video from KHOU 11 (Houston, TX – broadcast in early September 2021) goes into some detail about the Apollos grueling 100 games on the road. Andrew also is featured in this video clip:
