Today I received three debut tickets that I sent out to be signed. I recently came across a website that listed players Major League debut dates and compared those dates to my list of trader ticket stubs. I found 14 and sent them out.
I received a ticket from Creighton Gubanich who made his debut in 1999. He signed the ticket with MLB Debut and wrote a note about what he remembered about it (he mentioned coming in for defense after someone pinch ran for Jason Varitek in the bottom of the 8th).
Another ticket I received was from Fritz Connally who made his debut in 1983. He also signed and inscribed it with ML Debut. He included a note about his debut that mentioned “… I struck out. Not a great start but at least a start.”
The third ticket I received was from Eddie Bane who signed it with ML Debut. He did not include a note but he made his debut for the Twins in 1973.
I have always enjoyed debut tickets as it was something every player had to have remembered. To hear these players mention something about their debuts is pretty neat.
Category: Tickets
La Tortuga
Today I received a pair of packages. The first was a numbered Willians Astudillo signed Topps Now post season card. I bought an autographed Topps Now post season set and La Tortuga was the signed card in the set. This is ironic because Willians was not on the post season roster. My card is numbered 10/10.
The other package I received was the first of hopefully many ML Debut tickets I sent out. I found a website that listed all the Major League debut games so I went through my trader list of tickets and found a bunch and sent them out. Bubba Trammell made his ML Debut on April 1, 1997 at the Metrodome. I had this ticket and mailed it to him. He signed it and included a nice note thanking me for the memory. Pretty fun return!
A Red Letter Cardinals Day!
Today I received a pair of packages and both are related to St Louis Cardinals!
The first was a pair of baseballs that I had sent to Tom Orr for Ted Simmons to sign. When they announced that Ted Simmons made the Hall of Fame, I realized I did not have any baseballs signed by him. Tom saved the day with a signing and I now have a pair of baseballs with one signed “Hall of Fame 2020” and the other “HOF 2020”. They are both signed beautifully!
The other package was three items that Derrick B (dlbiri1s on SCN) got signed for me at the Cardinals Winter Warm Up. The items I added to the collection include an Alex Reyes ML Debut ticket with “ML Debut”, my 10.10.2016 Sports Illustrated magazine that was already signed by Jake Arrieta is now signed by Dexter Fowler as well, and the last item was a ticket stub from the 1987 World Series Game 5 signed by Danny Cox. Danny included “WP” as he was the winning pitcher in the game. I got the ticket from my buddy Steve C who is a huge Cardinals fan and a great guy.
What a fun Cardinals mail day!
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!