Category: TTM

Today I received an fantastic baseball signed by the 10th rated prospect in the MLB, Bobby Witt, Jr. I had seen he was signing via his dad’s home and sent a baseball off. It seems shortly afterwards that he stopped signing. In the meantime, a private signing was announced so I sent in a baseball and a Sports Illustrated for that event not knowing if I would get this one back. I am excited to say I received it and it is signed exactly as requested with “2019 #2 Pick”. It was a nice surprise!

Today I received a baseball signed by Drew Coble. Drew was a Major League umpire who, I thought, witnessed one of the greatest pick offs in Twins history. I say “I thought” because I received an email from Drew’s wife Cindy and she informed me that the boxscore and Dick Bremer’s book were wrong stating Drew made the call of Darrell Evans getting picked off third base in Game 4 of the 1987 ALCS. I told her that cannot be as everything I found about the game stated it was Drew manning third base that night. After she insisted that was not the case, and that it was Joe Brinkman, I took a look at the dvd of the game. I had recorded the game on vhs and had it converted to dvd a few years ago. The quality is not the best but I could tell that the number on the jacket was NOT Drew Coble’s. I provided Cindy a screenshot of the play and told her she was right but I could not tell who it was. I compared what I could tell about the number and who the umpires were and said it looked like it was either Durwood Merrill or Joe Brinkman’s. She showed it to Drew and he stated it was Joe Brinkman. I am putting a package together and sending it to Mr Brinkman and we will get to the bottom of it! It was really fun emailing back and forth with Cindy and the photos of Joe and some of his memorabilia that she shared with me. Stay tuned for the final verdict on who threw the hammer down on Darrell Evans after Tim Laudner threw the ball to Gary Gaetti in the bottom of the 6th inning!