Category: Sports Illustrated

A Couple Great Packages!

Today’s mail brought a couple great packages of autographed items.

The first I opened was a great package from my pal Kyle S (esiason14 on SCN).  In it was a card I traded for (SGC slabbed 1962 Topps Jack Kralik), and a couple cards I bought (PSA slabbed 1962 Topps Earl Battey and 1962 Topps Billy Martin).  Kyle decided to change his focus of his collection and instead of working towards the 1962 signed set work on other things.  Knowing I collect Twins cards he contacted me first to see if he had anything I needed.  As always, thanks Kyle!

The other package was the items I sent to Kevin W (kdubs on SCN) that he got signed at the Cardinals Winter Warm Up (like Twinsfest) event.  In it was a 05.27.2013 Sports Illustrated signed by Shelby Miller and Lance Lynn.  Also was two baseballs signed by Trevor Rosenthal and Matt Carpenter.  I had sent a Michael Wacha debut ticket but they sold out before Kevin could by a ticket for him.  I also sent a ticket stub from Game 3 of the 2013 World Series to get signed by Allen Craig but it fell out of Kevin’s notebook thankfully while he was at home (he thought he lost it at the event) but as a result did not get signed. Thanks for the great autographs and your efforts at the Winter Warm Up Kevin!

Twinsfest 2014 – Day 2

Today’s morning started with me meeting my buddy Shane outside Gate 29 at 8am.  After not knowing what was going to happen in the skyway entrance from the previous night, I did not want to take any chances so I went to Gate 29.  We were probably 50th in line or so.  The weather was nicer than it was Friday afternoon which was nice.  They opened the gates and Shane and I headed to Joe Mauer’s line.  We ended up being in the 110 or so range for numbers.  I thought “heck I was around 250 yesterday so today will be a piece of cake!”  Shane got a Sports Illustrated signed and I got Joe’s 2007 Topps card signed.  We then headed to the next station we were hoping to get.  There was no line for the current group so I went through and got Chris Colabello and and asked him to write 1st MLB Home Run on the ticket and he replied “I love to write that!” and did.  I got Nate Hanson on Cami’s baseball and get to Jason Kubel.  I handed him a pair of cards for my friend Greg N (justgreg on SCN).  He signed them both and showed Nate the one and said “Look at this” with a smirk.  Nate looks at it and says “Is that even you?  It does not look like you!”  Jason smirked again and said “I guess so!”  The card was a 2003 Donruss Diamond King card.  It does not look like him at all and the whole interaction between Jason and Nate was pretty funny.  I got back in the line with Shane and we waited for the next group to start. I got Josh Willingham on his 2013 Allen & Ginter card and Sean Gilmartin, Austin Malinowski and Mudcat Grant on Cami’s baseball.  After this Shane and I split up.  Shane headed to get me a couple autographs while I waited in another line.  Shane and I have been going to Twinsfest for a long, long time.  We joke that he is “my mule” helping me get autographs.  He is awesome.  It is just about the only time we get to hang out together every year but we have so much fun doing it.  Shane headed to another station and got me Scott Erickson on my 1991 Sports Illustrated magazine and Kevin Correia on a 2013 Topps update card.  In my line I was able to get Trevor Plouffe on his 2013 Topps card.  Next up was Andrew Albers.  I respect Albers a lot.  It was announced that he signed (or was about to sign) with a baseball team from Korea.  He still honored his commitment to the Twins to show up to Twinsfest.  That was a classy move by Andrew.  He was really friendly and was thanking everyone.  I got to him and put down a ticket from his ML debut game and asked him to signed it with ML Debut and 1st Win and he did.  I asked him if he had a ticket to that game and he said he did not so I gave him one.  He was very thankful for it.  After seeing how much fun he was having there I was glad I gave him it.  Shane went in another line and got me a couple Jose Berrios cards signed.  After that I got in line for Call a Friend.  Call a Friend is a new feature at Twinsfest where a player will call a friend of yours or leave your outgoing voicemail message.  I got to the line about a half hour before it was to start and waited for Brian Dozier to show up.  A friend of mine in Rochester, NY got me a ton of autographed cards for my Twins collection over the past few seasons and while there, his young son got to know Brian Dozier.  I thought it would be awesome for Brian to call and talk to Tyler and was not at all let down!  Dozier was PHENOMENAL.  He talked to Tyler for a minute or so and had a smile the entire time.  I could only imagine Tyler on the other side of the call doing the same.  It made me really happy to facilitate that moment between Tyler and his hero Brian.  After that, Shane and I bummed around the dealer area and walked through the Champions Club area and waited for the final group time of the day.  Shane and I headed to the final group of the day which was one I knew I had to get through.  All day I lugged around a photo/artwork case that held my 1995 Twins poster schedule already signed by Kirby Puckett, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva as well as my 1978 Twins poster schedule already signed by Dave Goltz.  Both were just waiting for Rod Carew’s autograph to be added.  Shane got my 1978 poster signed (finishing that poster) and I got the 1995 signed and asked Rod to add his #29 to match the others on the poster.  He added it and it looks awesome.  The other person in the group was Tony Oliva.  Shane got me a 1975 SSPC signed and I got Tony O’s rookie card signed beautifully for my friend Robert T (lutherlafy on SCN).

I headed down to say hi to Joel and Tony and Tony gave me a couple Puckett tickets.  One was the game he announced his retirement and the other when the Twins retired his #34. Tony is the man!  He is so, so thoughtful and his gestures are greatly appreciated. Thanks again Tony!

That wrapped up Day 2 of Twinsfest.  Shane and I headed to Huberts by the Metrodome for dinner telling stories and laughing.  We headed home and I looked forward to the final day of Twinsfest 2014 with the kids tomorrow!

Smooooth as Silk

Today I received my Sports Illustrated issue with the 1980 Olympic hockey team celebration on the cover signed by Jim Craig and Dave Silk.  They were signing on the East Coast and Scott Smith (siKing) got it signed for me.  I am now down to just two more hockey players needed on the cover.  There were a couple no shows with Rick Aguilera being the one I wanted most.

What a Golden Day!

As most of you know, I really only collect MLB autographs.  A few years ago I had the opportunity to add a couple 1980 US Olympic hockey players to a couple Sports Illustrated magazines so I guess I started that project.  Today George Johnson from SportsNewsShows.com had most of the Miracle on Ice team at a local show so I decided to get the ones I needed on just one of my SI’s as I was not about to pay $29 per for a second SI.

Over the course of the day I added the following players to my team celebration SI:
Jack O’Callahan
Steve Janaszak
Ken Morrow
Bob Suter
Rob McClanahan
Eric Strobel
Mark Wells
I had a ticket for Dave Silk but he arrived early and I was going by the time.  When his time was up to sign, he was already gone and I missed him.  I did get a refund but I was still disappointed.  One of the issues I have about this show is the poor communication.  You have one guy yelling what ticket numbers and person was ready and everyone all standing around the entry way.  If you are off to the side, you cannot hear anything (props to the guy for not losing his mind though with everyone asking every 30 seconds “Is my number ready?”).  I doubt Silk will ever be back in the Twin Cities so I suppose I will never have him on it.  Oh well.

In between all the hockey players I added the following autographs to my collection… all on Sports Illustrated magazines:
Lou Brock on the 10.16.1967 issue and adding him to my 10.17.1968 issue.  He commented on the 1967 issue that it was “… from the 1967 World Series and I was trying to trick them I was going to steal.  And it worked!”.
Ozzie Smith on my 9.28.1987 issue.  Ozzie is as class as they come.
Roberto Alomar on my 10.14.1996 issue and adding him to my 10.26.1992 issue already signed by John Smoltz.  Roberto commented that “I cannot believe he got me out!”  While getting Alomar to sign, my buddy Joel B came with me because he purchased a “game used” bat from a local dealer but wanted to ask Alomar if it was truly game used.  He showed it to Alomar and he said he used that brand but not that bat.  He took a couple swings with it and said the bats he used were not flame tempered as this one was and when he found out it was purchased from Kirby Puckett’s collection he said he would have given Kirby a nicer bat than that one.  (note:  Joel brought it back to the person he bought it from and got his money back).  It was really cool hanging with Joel all day and he rally came down just to hang with me and to find out about the bat.  Had it been real, he would have gotten it autographed.  At one point Joel and I went out to my car to get some stuff I bought from Joel a while ago and on the way out, I ran into a loyal blog reader Mike!

Throughout the day I made a couple purchases.  I bought a 1987 Twins pocket schedule I did not have and a Puckett home run ticket stub from 1994 I did not have.  I also picked up a season ticket version from Paul Molitor’s 3000th hit game.  The biggest purchase though was three full 1961 Peter’s Meats panels I needed.  I now only need 10 more to complete the 25 card set.

After missing Dave Silk, I am down to needing four more autographs on the Celebration Sports Illustrated to have the entire team.

All in all it was a long but fun day!