Johan Santana recently appeared at his first signing in a long, long time; at least since he was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame and before that probably Twinsfest. When I saw he was signing I had to decide what to send in as I need a handful of cards signed and a couple magazines but at the price point he was at I could barely justify sending in a pair of tickets. I am glad I did though as they arrived today. I sent in a full ticket from his Major League Debut which he signed and inscribed the full “Major League Debut” on it. The other ticket I sent in was from his first win in Houston and he inscribed that with “1st MLB Win”. Chris R (rifon on SCN) did a great job handling my tickets! It was not cheap but they turned out great and I am happy I sent them in.
Category: Private Signing
‘Nother Cub
I am getting to the point where my 2016 Cubs Champion Sports Illustrated will be next to impossible to add any more autographs to it. Not because of space but because of the availability of the other signers. I think the only one left that is reasonably easy to obtain will be Pedro Strop (poor guy has the barcode over half his picture) but for now, I just added Addison Russell to it.
Jeremy F (jeremymichael on SCN) had a signing with Russell and I sent it in along with a debut ticket. Both were signed perfectly and the ticket also included MLB Debut.
Frankie
I often think how the Twins postseason would have gone had Francisco Liriano not gotten injured in 2006. We had Justin Morneau winning the AL MVP and Johan Santana winning the AL Cy Young award and the 1-2 punch of Johan and Frankie was probably the best in baseball. Alas, Frankie had to be shut down and eventually had Tommy John Surgery and the Twins got swept by the A’s in the divisional round.
Today, however, I was able to add a couple items to my collection signed by Liriano. The first was a Topps Now Turn Back The Clock card from when he threw his no hitter. The other was a pair of tickets from his ML Debut. Ryan S (rls2239 on SCN) held a private signing and got these items signed for me.
Sir Rodney
A pile of Rod Carew signed items showed up today! Tom O (orr23mj on SCN) had a signing with Rod Carew as well as with Travis Wood. I started to acquire oddball Carew items since I had just about everything else signed by him and sent in a few of those oddball items. Travis Wood was signing at a different date but they were close enough that I mailed one package to Tom. Travis signed my 10.10.2016 Sports Illustrated issue. It now has been signed by twelve out of the nineteen players on the cover. This started on a whim knowing I would probably not get even half and here I am 63% complete! The Carew items I received today are:
1971 Cord Sportfacts magazine
07.01.1974 Sports Illustrated magazine
June 1975 Baseball Digest
1977 Sertoma Stars card
March 1978 Baseball Digest
Also arriving today was my April 1961 Baseball Digest signed by Al Spangler. Now that issue is off to Tony Kubek for completion!