I recently found a newly retired sports writer for various newspapers and he was selling some of his memorabilia from over the years. Some items that caught my eye were Hall of Fame induction tickets for seating in the Press area. These tickets were real nice with nice images and such and the writer got them stamped and cancelled at the Cooperstown Post Office during induction weekend. I purchased a couple tickets for the express reason of mailing them to the people on the ticket to have them signed. Today I received my first one back. Pat Gillick signed the 2011 ticket. It also features Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar so I will have to wait until Robbie is doing a signing. I hope to get Bert last and in person at Twinsfest and see his reaction to it since it is a real nice looking it.
Category: HOF
Here Kitty Kitty Kitty
With Jim Kaat being inducted into the Hall of Fame recently, there is very few items I needed for my collection. One of which is a baseball with HOF 22 which I picked up recently. The other is a Hall of Fame postcard after induction weekend. Topps Now sold a card commemorating Jim’s induction into the Hall of Fame the day after the announcement. I picked up a pair of these cards with the intention to get them signed. Jim works with Mike Macguire as his agent (and a lot of other former Twins players) and Mike set it up so that you could mail him any card to have signed and he will gather them and send them to Jim for his autograph and Mike would then return them to you. It is cool that Jim is making himself available like this for the same (or very close to) price point as prior to his induction. Today I received the pair of Topps Now cards signed beautifully by Jim!
WS MVP
Today’s mail brought a pair of Rod Carew and a pair of Jack Morris signed cards. Tom O (orr23mj on SCN) had a signing with each and I mailed in a pair of Topps Project 70 cards for Carew and a Topps Now 2020 Turn Back The Clock 10.27.1991 and a 2021 Allen & Ginter card for Morris. I had asked that the Carew cards be signed with a nice gold paint pen. Well, they were but they turned out really opaque and you could not see the autograph unless you tilted it towards the light. I reached out to Tom and he told me he would have them redone next time he has Carew for a signing. I am pleased with that outcome so stay tuned on the Carew follow up down the road!
HOF Postcards
I recently saw a post on a Facebook autograph collecting group where David McNaughton listed a bunch of Hall of Fame postcards he had available. I have dabbled in these postcards for a while but thought it might be a good time to jump in on these and pick up a bunch of older ones I needed. I ended up working out a deal for the following:
Earl Averill
James “Cool Papa” Bell
Stan Coveleski (red Dexter)
Joe Cronin
Bill Dickey
Charles Gehringer
Burleigh Grimes
Jim “Catfish” Hunter
Waite Hoyt (blue Dexter)
Judy Johnson
Buck Leonard
Freddie Lindstom
Rube Marquard
Pee Wee Reese
Edd Roush (red Dexter)
Lloyd Waner
This put a nice dent in my needs!