With the latest downtime regarding autographs, I found that I was missing Carlton Fisk on my cover of the October 1979 issue of Baseball Magazine. I had Pete Rose, Don Larsen, and Bill Mazeroski on it but somehow missed adding Fisk when I was working on it. I sent it to him with his donation and requested him to inscribe it with “Stay Fair!!” which he did. The cover shows him waving his World Series home run to stay fair. Even though this issue includes Willie Mays on the cover, I will not be able to add him to it so I consider the cover completed!
Category: Non-SI Magazine
Kent Hrbeck
Today I received a great package of items that I had sent to Kent Hrbek to sign. I spelled his name incorrectly in the title on purpose as one of the items I got signed, a 1983 Ajax Dog Food card, had his name spelled incorrectly. It has a blank back and is really a unique item. He signed it beautifully in blue Sharpie. The other two items I sent to him was a Baseball Digest from November, 1982 and a final Metrodome Opening Day ticket that was already signed by Gary Gaetti. What a fun package to open for a Minnesota Twins fan!
2020 Twinsfest- Day 2
After spending a couple hours regrouping last night, Caden and I got up and headed to the ballpark around 7:15 am. We got there and, like yesterday, had a nice place in line. Since Johan Santana was signing in the first group this morning I wanted to make sure we had a shot at him. The doors opened at 9am and Caden and I headed to the Johan Santana/Michael Cuddyer/Joe Nathan line together. We were able to get through that group pretty fast. I was able to see my buddy’s wife Shelley (a volunteer for the event and a full time employee with the Twins) in this line as well as the usher in my section for my season tickets so it was nice to say hi to them. Cuddyer and Nathan are just genuine nice guys. After we were done, Caden and I split up like we did yesterday. Caden headed to the Josh Donaldson line which was forming two hours before he was scheduled to start. I went to the Jake Odorizzi/Trevor May/Luis Arraez line. While waiting in the line, my buddy Rob, who works for the Twins, stopped and we chatted for a bit. Rob and I go way back 20 years as he was the guy who first sold me season tickets back in November, 2000. We had a great time chatting. I then settled into my place in line and the gentleman next to me in line and I started talking. This guy was working on all Topps cards from 1952 to 2020! I was like “Holy Smokes! I thought I was crazy just doing Twins cards since 1961!”. As we were chatting, I asked if he was a member of Sports Collectors.net and he said he was. I told him I was kevin34 and he goes “I know you! I’m popbottleman!” So, here are two guys who knew each other in the virtual world standing together in line at Twinsfest. He and his wife were in town for Twinsfest from Cleveland. That was dedication! Nice guy too! After this line popbottleman and his wife and I headed to the Carew line. Well, that did not go so well as we were like 8 people back from where they cut the line off. I wished popbottleman well and they left to a different line and I decided to check out the line for the next group. Wow. It was already too long so I just cut my losses and decided to wait for the final session of the day which was three hours out. I waited there until they handed out numbered tickets and left to grab something to eat as well as to see Tony and his son Spencer. Spencer had the ticket he got signed for me last night by Josh Donaldson. It was cool to chat with those two guys which is part of our annual Twinfest tradition. I wished them well and headed up to the final station of Twinsfest for me. I got in line for the Justin Morneau/Trevor Plouffe/Darin Mastroianni line. I was texting Caden who was number four in line for Jose Berrios/Alex Avila/Jorge Polanco. We each got through our lines and met near where we were going to walk out to the car. While standing there, I saw that my buddy Rob was live on the radio doing an interview about Twins season tickets so I listened to part of it and we headed home.
The autographs we got today were:
-Johan Santana- 2007 Topps 80, 2007 Topps All Star UH236
-Michael Cuddyer- June/July 2005 Twins Magazine, 2013 Topps US145
-Joe Nathan- Aug/Sept 2004 Twins Magazine, 2010 Upper Deck 587
-Josh Donaldson- 01.14.2020 Topps Now OS-57 which Spencer got for me yesterday, 10.12.2015 Sports Illustrated
-Jake Odorizzi- 2018 Topps US47, 2019 Topps All Star US36, 2018 Topps Heritage 622
-Trevor May- 2 @ 2019 Topps US196 (one I gave to popbottleman as he needed it for his sets)
-Luis Arraez- 2019 Topps US247, 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-98, 07.05.2019 Topps Now #481
-Justin Morneau- 2009 Topps Heritage 450
-Trevor Plouffe- June 2015 Twins Magazine
-Darin Mastroianni- 2008 Bowman BDPP8, 2013 Topps 528
-Jose Berrios- 2019 Topps All Star US268, 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-100
-Alex Avila- Sweetspot OMLB
-Jorge Polanco-2019 Topps US10, 2019 Gypsy Queen 113, 04.05.2019 Topps Now Bonus ODB2
This was a really fun Twinsfest. It was weird how the autograph groups were made up which really caused weird results and some lines were REALLY long as people lined up a couple hours before and some you could have walked up about when they started and been fine. The Twins do a fantastic job on the event and all the volunteers who put it on are really appreciated. I cannot wait for next year’s Twinsfest!
2020 Twinsfest- Day 1
Today kicked off my most favorite weekend of the year. Twinsfest was shortened to two days this year so I was unsure what to expect.
The day started for me after requesting the kids to leave school at 1pm. This year Cami decided to bring a couple friends along so there was a car full heading down to Target Field. We arrived at 2pm and were in a pretty good spot in the parking ramp (skyway entrance from Ramp A). The plan was for Caden and I to head to Johan Santana’s line first and Cami and her two friends to head to get Max Kepler and his group. Two of Cami’s friends LOVE Max Kepler so I wanted to make sure they could meet him. Cami had to leave early tonight because of volleyball practice so I asked her to go to the Carew group line after she was done with the Kepler line. That did not work out as they got cut off from the Carew line as time ran out. So, the girls decided to run around and have fun at the ballpark doing the games and checking things out. While I got in line for the Johan Santana group, Caden went through the Rocco Baldelli/Ehire Adrianza/Jorge Polanco/Fernando Romero/Mike Bell line and got each guy to sign something. He then got in line with me for Johan Santana. I need a TON of Santana cards for all the projects I am working on. It seems like when he was with the Twins he had a Cy Young card, an All Star card, a base card, a couple league leader cards, and so on so I have a lot of catching up to do. Caden and I went through the Johan Santana/Jacque Jones/Carlos Silva/Tony Diaz/Sean Poppen line. After this, we went our separate ways. Let me say this now… Caden was a superstar. He waited in so many lines, without complaining, to get autographs for me. I kept telling him over and over how much I appreciated it. It got to the point where he was like “I GOT IT! YOU ARE WELCOME!” What an awesome kid. Caden headed to the Lewis Thorpe/Jorge Alcala/Dakota Chalmers/Luke Raley line and then to the Brusdar Graterol/LaMonte Wade Jr/Cody Stashak/Devin Smeltzer line while I went to the Royce Lewis/Brent Rooker/Jordan Balazovic/Gilberto Celestino/Jhoan Duran and Randy Dobnak/Bert Blyleven/Glen Perkins/Terry Steinbach/Brian Raabe lines. When I spoke with Royce Lewis, I told him he had a heck of an Arizona Fall League season. He replied that the hot air down there really helped the ball fly. Between the two lines, I headed down to say hi to my pal Tony Swann and his son Spencer. Tony is the guy who collects Carlton Fisk games played tickets. He is down to like 37 tickets from Fisk’s entire career. Tony is awesome too. He has helped me out many times with my ticket collection rarely asking for anything in return. As it turned out, we chatted for a few minutes and he asked me to run a bat to his son who was waiting in line to have Rich Hill sign it. It was a really cool bat with a ton of pitchers who threw no hitters. When I was there, Spencer asked if I needed anything from anyone else in the group and I gave him a Josh Donaldson card and headed to the Dobnak group. I gotta say that this station was the highlight of my night. First, I had Bert Blyleven sign a table tent from a Wendy’s promotion for Bert’s Burger from years ago. He looked at it and said “I remember this shit!”. Mind you, at this point Bert had a few beers and had one sitting on the table next to him. It was hilarious. When I got to Glen Perkins, I had a debut ticket for him and asked him to sign it with ML Debut. He did and I asked him if he had a ticket from the game. He said he thought his parents might but he was not sure and he did not have one. I had an extra so I gave it to him. He was like “Wow! Thank you! Thank you very much!”. I gave Kent Hrbek an extra debut ticket for his game a few years ago and he appreciated it as well. I really like sharing things like this with the players. I asked Glen if he remembered it and that I noticed he came in relief of Johan Santana. He said “The first batter I faced was Carlos Pena and I struck him out!” I am always amazed by what players remember from a game or event in their career.
While I was at the Dobnak group, Caden was at the Dan Gladden/Kent Hrbek/Tim Laudner/Tony Oliva line. He would have been cut off in that line but they kept it open about 15 minutes longer so everyone could get their autographs. I thought that was a really cool gesture by the guys signing.
Caden and I met up and we headed home looking forward to tomorrow, the final day of Twinsfest 2020.
The autographs we all got today are:
-Eddie Rosario- 2018 Topps Heritage #262, 2019 Gypsy Queen #37, 2019 Allen & Ginter #190
-Mitch Garver- 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-94, 11.07.2019 Topps Now, 08.31.2019 Topps Now
-Max Kepler- 2019 Topps Heritage 378, 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-105, 2019 Topps Now Opening Day #141, Topps Now 06.06.209 Bonus ODB-13, 2019 Topps (given to Cami’s friend), 2019 Gypsy Queen (given to Cami’s friend)
-Rocco Baldelli- Managerial Debut ticket from 03.28.2019
-Ehire Adrianza- 2019 Topps #608, 04.29.2019 Topps Now #155
-Jorge Polanco- Cycle ticket from 04.05.2019
-Fernando Romero- ML Debut ticket from 05.02.2018
-Mike Bell- 2019 Topps Target Field card #424
-Johan Santana- 2007 Topps Cy Young card #321, 2008 Topps #115
-Jacque Jones- June/July 2002 Twins Magazine, April/May 2005 Twins Magazine
-Carlos Silva- Ticket from 05.30.2005 when he threw a complete game in only 74 pitches, 2 @ 2008 Topps Heritage #187
-Tony Diaz- 2019 Topps Target Field card #424, Signature Card
-Sean Poppen- 2 @ ML Debut tickets from 06.19.2019 with one with “MLB Debut”
-Lewis Thorpe- ML Debut ticket from 06.30.2019
-Jorge Alcala- ML Debut ticket from 09.21.2019
-Dakota Chalmers- Sweetspot OMLB
-Luke Raley- Sweetspot OMLB
-Brusdar Graterol- 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-101
-LaMonte Wade Jr- ML Debut ticket from 07.28.2019
-Cody Stashak- Game used baseball that he used in his ML Debut for his 3rd career strikeout
-Devin Smeltzer- ML Debut ticket from 08.04.2019
-Royce Lewis- Bowman Next AZ Fall league AFL-37
-Brent Rooker- 2019 Topps Heritage Minor League #146, 2019 Bowman #BP-45
-Jordan Balazovic- Sweetspot OMLB
-Gilberto Celestino- Sweetspot OMLB
-Jhoan Duran- Sweetspot OMLB
-Randy Dobnak- ML Debut ticket from 08.09.2019 with “ML Debut!”
-Bert Blyleven- Wendy’s Table Tent
-Glen Perkins- ML Debut ticket from 09.21.2006 with “MLB Debut”
-Terry Steinbach- 1999 Topps #146
-Brian Raabe- Signature Card
-Dan Gladden- 1991 Topps #778
-Kent Hrbek- 1989 Upper Deck #213 (for Mark C- clubnuts on SCN)
-Tim Laudner- 1987 Twins Team card #206
-Tony Oliva- Big League Baseball 1965 Magazine