Today I received a baseball from Christian B (hheroes10 on SCN) who recently got back from Arizona after a week there. He was unable to get any of the items I sent to him signed but did sell me some baseballs he got signed this spring and previous springs by other players. The balls I got today are:
Clint Frazier w/”Indians #1 Pick”
Chris Sale
Jedd Gyorko
Leonys Martin
Raisel Iglesias
Scott Boras
While I am not a fan of Scott Boras’ tactics when negotiating for his clients, I do think he, much like Dr Frank Jobe and Dr James Andrews, have an amazing influence on the game.
It was a real nice box of baseballs!
Category: Baseballs
Hurt Me!
Today I received a baseball signed by Frank Thomas. Leaf Authentics was running a special on them and could not pass it up. I got one from them a couple weeks ago that had the “Big Hurt” inscription. This one today has “HOF 2014”. Not bad at all!
Yankees Luncheon Haul
Every year the Yankees have a luncheon during spring training to benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Tampa and all the players, except that day’s starter, must attend and sign autographs. Over the past couple years, the two most difficult autograph signers to obtain has arguably been Anthony Gose and Masahiro Tanaka. It is widely known that Tanaka only signs at the Luncheon and avoids signing otherwise. Unfortunately for Sports Illustrated collectors, Tanaka was on a regional issue as part of the 2014 Baseball Preview. I had an issue and figured I would never get it signed. A couple weeks before the luncheon, I received a message via SCN from Joshua S (jslaw) that he was going and was seeing if I was interested in anyone. He offered a fair price for Tanaka and others so I jumped at the chance. He has taken REALLY GOOD care of me over the years during spring training and the Marlins season and is one of just a handful of guys I totally trust with getting me autographs. I sent him a few things and hoped Tanaka would not be that day’s starter.
I received a message after the event to send my email address to Joshua so he could send me a pic of what he got. He came through big time. I was pumped. Today I picked up the package as it was insured and I had to sign for it. In it was the following items all beautifully signed exactly where and how I would have liked it.
Masahiro Tanaka 04.24.2014 Sports Illustrated
Alex Rodriguez 02.16.2009 Sports Illustrated
Jacoby Ellsbury 03.31.2008 Sports Illustrated (now signed by four of the six cover guys)
Mark Teixeira ML Debut ticket with “MLB Debut”
Nathan Eovaldi SS baseball
I cannot express in this post how excited I am to have a Tanaka autograph in the collection. Maybe next year I can add a baseball! THANK YOU JOSHUA for all you do for me and my collection!
Vacation Mail Day
One part of coming home that was actually fun was seeing all the mail piled up in the house. My in-laws are awesome and not only watched the crazy dog for us but also got the mail each day and kept watch of things at home. Going through the mail yielded the following items:
- Joc Peterson signed baseball I sent in to a private signing with this top prospect via Lojo Sports
- Bill Mazeroski to complete my 1961 Dell Sports Baseball Magazine. It has Maz, Whitey Ford, Bobby Richardson and Hal Smith on it and looks awesome.
- Roger Clemens, Frank Thomas, and Juan Lagares signed baseballs via a promotion Leaf Authentics ran at a nice price.
It was a nice run of mail to go through!