Today was a fun mail day. I received a scorecard signed by John Smoltz I had sent in for a private signing at Waukesha Sportscards via Mark G (hofcs on SCN). Smoltz signed it exactly as requested. It was from his 188th career win on August 21, 2006. John went 8 innings giving up 3 hits walking 1 and striking out 10.
The other package I received was from Howard C (favorite_things on SCN) who was breaking up a signed near set of 1961 Topps. I purchased four cards from Howard. Three were upgrades and one was a need. I am pretty familiar with two of the signatures on two of the cards. Of the other two, I was fairly confident one was bad but the other was good. I paid for a Beckett Quick Opinion on the two cards and, just as I suspected, the one that I thought was bad was confirmed as bad and the other good. Howard said he would give me a money back guarantee within 60 days so I will send the one back. The other three are beautiful cards and got me within three signed Twins cards to complete the set. The three cards I added to my collection are:
1961 Topps Zoilo Versalles
1961 Topps Jim Lemon
1961 Topps Pete Whisenant
Category: Misc
I Got Goosed!
If you have been following my blog, you have seen a recent trend with getting Lanny Frattare’s scorecards signed. I expect to receive another one tomorrow but today’s scorecard was signed by Goose Gossage. Many will not remember his single season pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1977. I know I did not realize it until I was going through the list of available scorecards and saw Goose pitched for them. I acquired the scorecard for the 06.22.1977 game in which the Pirates beat Padres in San Diego 3-1. What is cool about this game is Gossage pitched to four batters and struck each out and picked up the save. When I sent him the scorecard to sign, I requested he add “4 Up! 4 Down!” and “42nd MLB Save” to it. Not only did he do that, he also included “HOF 2008” and the following “They never had a chance, fun!” to it. I thought that was awesome. Thanks for making a cool scorecard even cooler Goose!
Lefty
Today I received another one of Lanny Frattare’s scorecards signed to add to the collection. Steve Carlton signed the scorecard from 08.06.1978 and included “37th Complete Game Shutout”. Pretty cool scorecard! I have two more out waiting for Hall of Famers to sign!
A Wild Moose!
Today I received a pair of items for the collection.
The first was a box that had three baseballs I had sent to Lucky’s Sportscards for a private signing they were having with James “Wild Thing” Karinchak. James is a hard throwing reliever in the Indians organization who will be a top rated closer real soon. Vinny (owner of Lucky’s) also email me a photo of James holding the actual three baseballs he had just signed for me. I was really impressed with the service I received from Lucky’s. I got JSA on each ball too.
The other package was a Lanny Frattare scorecard I had sent to Mike Mussina. It was from the game on 06.14.2005 when Moose threw a complete game shutout against the Pirates at Yankee Stadium. I had sent a real nice note and even extra money to have it inscribed with “22nd CG SO” but all I got was “HOF 19”. Oh well. At least I got it back and got it back signed.