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!
Category: TTM
My Favorite Scribe
I grew up diligently reading the Star Tribune newspaper sports section reading about the Twins and other Minnesota sports teams. If I happen to walk past a newsstand and see that Patrick Reusse had an article in the St Paul Pioneer Press, I would buy it (it was a quarter… a dime cheaper than the Trib) just for the article written by Reusse. He was a great beat writer for the Twins for a long, long time. He eventually moved to the Star Tribune and wrote for them so I had the best of both worlds then. He has been a finalist for the JG Taylor Spink Award and I hope he someday wins it.
I recently sent him a baseball along with a box to return it in and a donation. I happened to include my Twitter handle on my letter which I rarely do but I am glad I did it this time. Out of the blue I receive a message on Twitter from Patrick telling me he tossed the return box accidently and would use the donation to securely mail it back to me. Sure enough, he went to the UPS Store and shipped it to me. I immediately returned the postage he paid so he can at least buy a Diet Coke on me. Oh, and the cool thing? He followed me on Twitter!
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!
Pronk
Today I received a couple items I am excited about. The first was a ticket I have had for a while. Back on 08.14.2003 Travis Hafner, Pronk, hit for the cycle at the Metrodome. I have sent this ticket in to a few consignors without luck in the past. I noticed he signed up for Past Pros so I sent my ticket in within the first couple days. He was not sure how I wanted it signed so he contacted Past Pros and they in turn contacted me. I provided a description and received the ticket today signed perfectly.
The other package was a baseball I sent to Ralph Garr on what it was like playing in the game when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. He wrote a short story on it and sent it back to me.