One of my son’s best friends was drafted by the Oakland A’s a year and a half ago. He spent the first half season in rookie ball but last summer was assigned to the Stockton Ports Single A team. I was excited when the ticket manager responded to a couple emails of mine asking for tickets to his debut and first win. I was able to give a couple of each to his parents and added the others to my collection waiting until the off season to get them signed. Today my son hung out with Tucker Novotny and their other buddies and got Tucker to sign the tickets for me. Tucker is a great kid from a great family and I wish him the very best for a successful career. He signed three tickets with “Minor League Debut” and five tickets with “1st MiLB Win”. These are fun items for my collection! Thanks Tucker!
Category: Caden
Twinsfest 2023
Wow! What a blast today! Twinsfest is back after a couple year hiatus. While the autograph day was only one day this year, with some help from friends, I was able to add some amazing items to my collection.
The weekend started Friday morning when I met up with my buddy Shane in Anoka. His wife drove him down to meet up with me for our annual trip to Twinsfest. This year Shane’s son Mark joined us. We went out for dinner and got ready for a full day of fun today.
My alarm went off at 6:03am and I wanted to roll over and sleep another couple hours but I knew if we had a shot to get the players in the first group we had to get going. Shane, Mark, and I got to Target Field around 7:20 and the line to enter at the skyway level was well into the parking ramp. It was cold. It was REALLY COLD. We were at least blocked from any wind in the ramp but standing there for an hour and a half before the doors opened was not fun. Eventually my season ticket partner Carol and her crew arrived as well as Caden and his buddy and we all joined the line together to wait. Once we entered the stadium, Shane and I headed to the service level as did Caden and Noah. Caden and Noah helped me this year and I could not have been more grateful for their assistance. The items they got signed for my collection really helped make Twinsfest successful for me and having Shane with me was just as helpful. I am eternally grateful for what they did for me.
Shane and I waited in line for Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis, Austin Martin and Jose Miranda while Caden and Noah waited for Carlos Correa. All four of us were successful and while Shane and I headed into the next line, Caden and Noah were able to get through the Kyle Farmer, Joey Gallo, Ryan Jeffers, Bailey Ober, and Jayce Tingler line.
The next time slot found Shane and I getting Nick Gorden, Alex Kirilloff, Trevor Larnach, and David Popkins. Caden and Noah got through the Joe Ryan, Josh Winder, and Simeon Woods Richardson line. This was an important line for me because I had tickets for two of the three guys in this grouping.
Caden and Noah went to get into the next line but it was so long and they discovered that the Joe Mauer line was already forming so they got into that line and waited… and waited… and waited. They waited in the Mauer line for three plus hours for me.
Shane and I were invited to a season ticket holder Meet and Greet so we headed there. On the way there we stopped to say hi to my pal Tony and his son Spencer. I met Tony probably 25 years ago at Twinsfest and his son probably 10 years ago. Tony and his son are two of the nicest, kindest, thoughtful people you will ever meet. Tony is trying to collect a ticket stub from every game that Carlton Fisk played in. It is an amazing collection and I am always on the lookout for tickets he needs. His son has grown A LOT since I last saw him pre-covid. He is taking after his dad as being a phenomenal person. Tony gave me a ticket to add to my collection too. I found one ticket for him years ago but have been shut out since. I would give anything to find another one (or two) for him for all he has done for me as well as others.
We moved on to the Meet and Greet but were a little late. We were able to find a spot and enjoy a half hour of Royce Lewis and Pablo Lopez. Let me tell you, this was THE highlight of the weekend! Both players were so personable it was so cool to see them in a relaxed environment and answer questions from a handful of fans. We got a photo with them after the talking and found out my buddy Rob was looking for us so Shane and I waited outside the suite for Rob to show up. It has been a long standing highlight for Rob and I to meet up and spend a few minutes chatting at Twinsfest. We chat throughout the year and see each other as well but ALWAYS at Twinfest. Shane’s buddy Pete and his son Daniel joined us and we had a nice half hour chat and catch up with everyone.
From here we headed to our final line. Shane and I were able to get Jorge Polanco, Tom Quinlan, Brian Raabe, and Christian Vazquez. This was a fun line because everyone in this group was very personable too. As we left the area after getting the autographs we were met by Caden and Noah. They dropped off their goodies for me and they headed back to their apartment on campus at the U of M and Shane and I started heading to the car. I was hoping to chat with Tony and Spencer a little bit but Shane received a call that his father was not doing well so we wanted to head out as soon as possible. But, we had one more tradition we had to complete. The annual “Pick Dave Goltz’s Nose” photo. On the suite level at Target Field they have oversized Twins baseball cards from various years on the wall. It turns out that Shane used to work or know Dave’s nephew so what started as a joke for Shane to put his finger near to nose on the 1974 Topps Goltz card image has continued just about every year since. As we got to the card, we hear “Shane?” and look up and there was Terry “Bo” Boevers sitting at a table. Terry was a founding member of the fraternity Shane and I were in in college. It was AWESOME meeting Terry (I think I met him once about 30 plus years ago (Shane kept in better tough with him over the years)). We got a photo of the three of us together and THEN we headed home. I met up with Shane’s wife and dropped him and Mark off and they headed home (a couple hours plus away) as did I.
Twinsfest autographs were only one day this year but with the help of three other awesome people I was able to get a number of items signed for my collection. The lines were longer and very congested but it worked. After not having Twinsfest the last couple years it was very refreshing to be at the ballpark in January and get fired up for the season. It was also amazing to see new friends and old friends (the usher of my season ticket section even stopped by to say hi to me!). My most favorite weekend of the year did not disappoint!
Here is everything I was able to add to my collection this weekend:
Carlos Correa: Ticket with “1st MLB HR”, 2022 Topps US39, 2022 Topps us230
Brooks Lee: 2 OMLB
Royce Lewis: 2022 Topps US105, 2022 Topps Heritage 515, 2022 Allen & Ginter 290
Jose Miranda: 2022 Topps US5, 2022 Topps US120, 2022 Topps Heritage 503, 2022 Allen & Ginter 214
Austin Martin: 2 OMLB
Kyle Farmer: 2 OMLB
Joey Gallo: 2 OMLB
Ryan Jeffers: 2021 Allen & Ginter 242, 2021 Topps 552, 2021 Topps Heritage 49, 2022 Topps Heritage 76
Bailey Ober: 2021 Topps US84 (streaked- I did not prepare it?), 2022 Topps 590 (streaked), 2022 Topps Heritage 632
Nick Gordon: 2022 Topps 598, 2022 Topps Heritage 599
Alex Kirilloff: 2021 Topps US41 (photo variation), 2021 Topps US41, 2021 Topps 413, 2022 Topps 197
Trevor Larnach: 2021 Topps US6, 2022 Topps 596
David Popkins: 2 Target Field card 2019 Topps 424
Josh Winder: 2022 Allen & Ginter 256, 2022 Topps US6, 2022 Topps Heritage 621, 06.01.2022 Topps Now 116
Joe Ryan: Ticket with “MLB Debut”, Ticket with “1st MLB Win”
Simeon Woods Richardson: 2 tickets with “MLB Debut”
Jorge Polanco: 2020 Topps 31, 2020 Topps 82, 2021 Topps 598, 2022 Topps 417, 2022 Topps Heritage 257, 2020 Gypsy Queen 95
Tom Quinlan: 1993 Score 309, 1991 Topps Debut 127
Brian Raabe: Custom card for my buddy Greg, Generic card
Christian Vazquez: 2 OMLB
Joe Mauer: OMLB under the Twins 60th Anniversary Logo, Joe Mauer Model Catchers mitt
What a fun day! Can’t wait for Twinsfest 2024!
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!
2020 Twinsfest- Day 1
Today kicked off my most favorite weekend of the year. Twinsfest was shortened to two days this year so I was unsure what to expect.
The day started for me after requesting the kids to leave school at 1pm. This year Cami decided to bring a couple friends along so there was a car full heading down to Target Field. We arrived at 2pm and were in a pretty good spot in the parking ramp (skyway entrance from Ramp A). The plan was for Caden and I to head to Johan Santana’s line first and Cami and her two friends to head to get Max Kepler and his group. Two of Cami’s friends LOVE Max Kepler so I wanted to make sure they could meet him. Cami had to leave early tonight because of volleyball practice so I asked her to go to the Carew group line after she was done with the Kepler line. That did not work out as they got cut off from the Carew line as time ran out. So, the girls decided to run around and have fun at the ballpark doing the games and checking things out. While I got in line for the Johan Santana group, Caden went through the Rocco Baldelli/Ehire Adrianza/Jorge Polanco/Fernando Romero/Mike Bell line and got each guy to sign something. He then got in line with me for Johan Santana. I need a TON of Santana cards for all the projects I am working on. It seems like when he was with the Twins he had a Cy Young card, an All Star card, a base card, a couple league leader cards, and so on so I have a lot of catching up to do. Caden and I went through the Johan Santana/Jacque Jones/Carlos Silva/Tony Diaz/Sean Poppen line. After this, we went our separate ways. Let me say this now… Caden was a superstar. He waited in so many lines, without complaining, to get autographs for me. I kept telling him over and over how much I appreciated it. It got to the point where he was like “I GOT IT! YOU ARE WELCOME!” What an awesome kid. Caden headed to the Lewis Thorpe/Jorge Alcala/Dakota Chalmers/Luke Raley line and then to the Brusdar Graterol/LaMonte Wade Jr/Cody Stashak/Devin Smeltzer line while I went to the Royce Lewis/Brent Rooker/Jordan Balazovic/Gilberto Celestino/Jhoan Duran and Randy Dobnak/Bert Blyleven/Glen Perkins/Terry Steinbach/Brian Raabe lines. When I spoke with Royce Lewis, I told him he had a heck of an Arizona Fall League season. He replied that the hot air down there really helped the ball fly. Between the two lines, I headed down to say hi to my pal Tony Swann and his son Spencer. Tony is the guy who collects Carlton Fisk games played tickets. He is down to like 37 tickets from Fisk’s entire career. Tony is awesome too. He has helped me out many times with my ticket collection rarely asking for anything in return. As it turned out, we chatted for a few minutes and he asked me to run a bat to his son who was waiting in line to have Rich Hill sign it. It was a really cool bat with a ton of pitchers who threw no hitters. When I was there, Spencer asked if I needed anything from anyone else in the group and I gave him a Josh Donaldson card and headed to the Dobnak group. I gotta say that this station was the highlight of my night. First, I had Bert Blyleven sign a table tent from a Wendy’s promotion for Bert’s Burger from years ago. He looked at it and said “I remember this shit!”. Mind you, at this point Bert had a few beers and had one sitting on the table next to him. It was hilarious. When I got to Glen Perkins, I had a debut ticket for him and asked him to sign it with ML Debut. He did and I asked him if he had a ticket from the game. He said he thought his parents might but he was not sure and he did not have one. I had an extra so I gave it to him. He was like “Wow! Thank you! Thank you very much!”. I gave Kent Hrbek an extra debut ticket for his game a few years ago and he appreciated it as well. I really like sharing things like this with the players. I asked Glen if he remembered it and that I noticed he came in relief of Johan Santana. He said “The first batter I faced was Carlos Pena and I struck him out!” I am always amazed by what players remember from a game or event in their career.
While I was at the Dobnak group, Caden was at the Dan Gladden/Kent Hrbek/Tim Laudner/Tony Oliva line. He would have been cut off in that line but they kept it open about 15 minutes longer so everyone could get their autographs. I thought that was a really cool gesture by the guys signing.
Caden and I met up and we headed home looking forward to tomorrow, the final day of Twinsfest 2020.
The autographs we all got today are:
-Eddie Rosario- 2018 Topps Heritage #262, 2019 Gypsy Queen #37, 2019 Allen & Ginter #190
-Mitch Garver- 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-94, 11.07.2019 Topps Now, 08.31.2019 Topps Now
-Max Kepler- 2019 Topps Heritage 378, 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-105, 2019 Topps Now Opening Day #141, Topps Now 06.06.209 Bonus ODB-13, 2019 Topps (given to Cami’s friend), 2019 Gypsy Queen (given to Cami’s friend)
-Rocco Baldelli- Managerial Debut ticket from 03.28.2019
-Ehire Adrianza- 2019 Topps #608, 04.29.2019 Topps Now #155
-Jorge Polanco- Cycle ticket from 04.05.2019
-Fernando Romero- ML Debut ticket from 05.02.2018
-Mike Bell- 2019 Topps Target Field card #424
-Johan Santana- 2007 Topps Cy Young card #321, 2008 Topps #115
-Jacque Jones- June/July 2002 Twins Magazine, April/May 2005 Twins Magazine
-Carlos Silva- Ticket from 05.30.2005 when he threw a complete game in only 74 pitches, 2 @ 2008 Topps Heritage #187
-Tony Diaz- 2019 Topps Target Field card #424, Signature Card
-Sean Poppen- 2 @ ML Debut tickets from 06.19.2019 with one with “MLB Debut”
-Lewis Thorpe- ML Debut ticket from 06.30.2019
-Jorge Alcala- ML Debut ticket from 09.21.2019
-Dakota Chalmers- Sweetspot OMLB
-Luke Raley- Sweetspot OMLB
-Brusdar Graterol- 2019 Topps Now Post Season Team PS-101
-LaMonte Wade Jr- ML Debut ticket from 07.28.2019
-Cody Stashak- Game used baseball that he used in his ML Debut for his 3rd career strikeout
-Devin Smeltzer- ML Debut ticket from 08.04.2019
-Royce Lewis- Bowman Next AZ Fall league AFL-37
-Brent Rooker- 2019 Topps Heritage Minor League #146, 2019 Bowman #BP-45
-Jordan Balazovic- Sweetspot OMLB
-Gilberto Celestino- Sweetspot OMLB
-Jhoan Duran- Sweetspot OMLB
-Randy Dobnak- ML Debut ticket from 08.09.2019 with “ML Debut!”
-Bert Blyleven- Wendy’s Table Tent
-Glen Perkins- ML Debut ticket from 09.21.2006 with “MLB Debut”
-Terry Steinbach- 1999 Topps #146
-Brian Raabe- Signature Card
-Dan Gladden- 1991 Topps #778
-Kent Hrbek- 1989 Upper Deck #213 (for Mark C- clubnuts on SCN)
-Tim Laudner- 1987 Twins Team card #206
-Tony Oliva- Big League Baseball 1965 Magazine