Today was a great day! I got to spend all day with my buddy Shane. Shane and I have a tradition where we meet up at Twinsfest and spend all day Saturday together hanging out and talking and getting autographs, etc. Last year Shane was not able to make it because he nearly died due to health reasons. This year we resumed our tradition and boy was it fun!
I was to meet Shane and his wife in Plymouth around 8am to get him (he lives a couple hours North of the Twin Cities). I headed out of the house around 7am with the kids when I received a text that he was running about an hour late. So, I took that time to drive to Target Field and drop the kids off before I headed up to Plymouth. It was so cool to see Shane after everything he went through over the last couple years. Shane is a fraternity brother from college and our relationship is an example of brothers for life. I got Shane in the car and we headed to Target Field. I was able to push Shane around in his wheelchair all day which I was pretty nervous about. He told me later I bumped a few people with his feet. I knew of two and apologized but he said there were a couple more that did not say anything. I tried my best to be aware of my surroundings! Anyway, the kids got up to Joe Mauer’s line and was able to get through the line twice each. They got three cards signed for me and Cami got a photo of the last game signed for her photo collection. Cami stopped by where Shane and I were sitting at a table and she got to chat with us too. She went and bought four “Balls in a Bag” at the Twins players wives booth. We ended up with Trevor Hildenberger, Max Kepler, and a pair of bleeding Tyler Austin baseball. With the tickets, she ended up going and getting three items signed for her collection and gave me the remaining ticket. Shane and I decided to try something different this year and instead of work autograph lines, we decided to chill, hang out, and do things we have not done at Twinfest before. One of those things was doing the White Glove Tour of the archive room. We went to where the sign up area was and found there was still an opening for the tour hosted by Michael Cuddyer. This turned out to be one of the coolest “Hidden Gems” of Twinsfest. It was certainly the highlight of the day for things we did. Cuddy is one of the coolest guys around and he spoke candidly about a lot of things while sharing stories about his career and time in baseball. Cami had to leave by this point as she had a two day volleyball tournament so Amy drove down to Target Field to get her and take her to the tournament. Shane and I went around checking things out and just hung out. One of the places we went was we stopped to talk with Tony so Tony could see Shane who he always says hi to each year. While there, Tony gave me some more tickets (Tony is amazing). He gave me a ticket and a suite pass for a 5.24.2015 game (Brian Dozier hit a pair of home runs), an upgrade to my Puckett HR 72 to a full season version, Kris Bryant’s 100th HR ticket, and if all that was not enough, he gave me a bunch of Twins spring training tickets from 1996. Why is this significant you might ask? It was the last spring that Kirby Puckett played in before having to retire. My task over the next few weeks is to try to track down the date Puckett got his last hit and add it to the Puckett ticket archive. I will have to look for old spring boxscores in older newspapers, etc. It will be a fun project. Tony is awesome! Shane and I then went up to the Suite Level and got in line for Glen Perkins. I needed a few Perkins cards sign ed for the collection since he was not at last year’s Twinsfest. He did not disappoint. We got Joe Nathan to sign a couple cards, Eddie Guardado to sign a card and a photo Cami took and Perkins on five cards. The photo of Everyday Eddie had him as a coach with his arms crossed and one finger on his chin like he was deep in thought. I told him my daughter took the photo and it looked like he was a professor thinking about the meaning of life. He laughed with a loud robust laugh that showed he really enjoyed it. Afterwards Shane and I grabbed a table on the suite level to hang out and we ran into Caden (he needed more money). On his way out he called me and told me that Jonathan Schoop was at the Wives Booth and did not have a line so we went there with minutes to spare and Shane got a ticket from his MLB Debut signed with the inscription. We asked if he remembered how he did and he said “2 for 3 with a solo home run!” Pretty cool interaction with him. After that we listened to the WCCO Radio Show that was being broadcast from Target Field and decided to head out to eat dinner. We met up with his wife and one of his daughters and enjoyed dinner. Caden went to the hotel his buddies had and they ended up going to Top Golf before settling in for the night. It was a real fun day but the highlight was being able to hang out with Shane like “the old days”.
A summary of items signed for my collection, mostly by the kids for me, include:
Stephen Gonsalves ticket w/”MLB Debut”
Stephen Gonsalves ticket w/”1st MLB Win”
Cole DeVries ticket w/”MLB Debut”
Jonathan Schoop ticket w/”MLB Debut”
Trevor May ticket w/”1st ML Save”
Joe Mauer 2017 Allen & Ginter, 2018 Players Weekend Topps Now, 5/5/17 Topps Now
Jason Castro 2017 Wild Card Topps Now, 2017 Topps
Max Kepler 2017 Topps Heritage, 2016 Allen & Ginter
Mitch Garver 2018 Topps, 2018 Topps Heritage
Joe Nathan 2009 Topps Heritage, 2010 Topps
Eddie Guardado 1994 Topps
Greg Olson 1992 Topps, 1993 Topps
Jeremy Hefner 2014 Topps Heritage
Byron Buxton 2018 Gypsy Queen, 2018 Allen & Ginter
Michael Pineda 2016 Gypsy Queen, 2018 Topps
Glen Perkins 2016 Topps Heritage, 2016 Allen & Ginter, 2016 Topps, 2017 Topps, 2017 Topps Heritage
Category: Cami
2019 Twinsfest- Day 1
Today kicked off my most favorite weekend of the year, Twinsfest! This weekend I see old friends and new friends and hang out at the ballpark all weekend long spending money on autographs and making new memories.
I took today off so I can finish preparing for the weekend. I was woefully under prepared this weekend and this did bite me in the end but not too bad. Typically I get the kids out around 1 or so and we drive right from school to the ballpark. Since it was so cold today, we waited to head to Target Field until it was closer to the start time. The doors opened at 4pm so we planned on getting to the ballpark around 3:30. As we were walking to the ballpark, we noticed the skyway, where everyone waits, was empty. I said “Wow! We are lucky! Nobody is here!” to the kids. WRONG. The Twins did the right thing all three days and let people enter to get out of the cold and wait in the lobby areas. Pretty cool. We entered and went to the area away from the elevators where everyone was waiting. Once we were able to get in, we went to the Joe Mauer line. It was Caden, Cami, Caden’s friend, and I and we were like number 45 in line. Joe was his awesome self and signed Cami’s card as well as my card and commented how cool the Topps Now cards were to commemorate events. When Caden and his buddy got to him he signed both cards for each of them. Cami then took off to get Tony Oliva and others at that table and then to get her Zack Littel hat signed. I went back in line for Joe… two more times. Within an hour of Friday’s Twinsfest, I had eight Joe Mauer cards signed. Twinsfest was off to a great start for me!
Caden then left me to hang out with his friends and get his own autographs. The only time he looked for me was when he needed more money. Cami and I went our own ways too for the next stations. One station Cami went to had Tony Oliva. Cami met Tony O years ago and he remains one of her favorite former players. She never got to see him play so her interactions are limited to autograph and ballpark events but he never fails to make her smile. Cami got a card signed she had and told me the highlight was a short conversation in Spanish. Her exact words were “I had a conversation with Tony in Spanish!” I told her to tell her Spanish teacher and get some extra credit. Cami went to get a card signed by Rod Carew and a photo of Bert Blyleven. I went to get my call ball inscribed by Dan Gladden. I had sent a baseball to a signing for him to write his call of the walk off winner of the 2009 Game #163 and the ball was awesome but it was missing the inscription to tell you what it was! Dan grumpily signed the inscription so then I went to Scott Leius who signed a card for me. Next up was Kent Hrbek who signed a 1988 Baseball Illustrated magazine. The last person at the table was Scott Erickson who was cool and signed all three cards on my sheet for me. The kids continued to run around and do their thing and I went to the station that had Byron Buxton and others. The first person at the table was Joe Nathan. I congratulated him on being inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame (they announced it earlier today) and asked him to sign the ticket with “Final Save 377” which he did. Next up was Michael Cuddyer. Man, Cuddy is one heck of a guy. I had a ticket from the game he hit a cycle in when he played for the Rockies and it was a make up game so the ticket is from a game with a different date. Because of that I wanted him to put the date on it. He signed it with Cycle and the date although I wrote down 2018 for the year. He got to the year and looked at it and said “You have the wrong year on this.” He saved the ticket! He wrote in 14 and the ticket looks awesome.
Byron signed both of my cards and I went and met up with Tony S and his son Spencer. It is a highlight of each Twinsfest to meet up with Tony and chat tickets. He has helped me with my ticket collection more times than I could count. This year, after I showed him the Cuddyer cycle ticket, asked if I collected cycle tickets too. I told him really only Twins ones or players connected to the Twins at some point. He then pulled out a beautiful ticket from Paul Molitor’s cycle game against the Twins and gave it to me. He is just amazing. The kids did their thing while I did mine and we met up and headed home. The kids helped get some cards I needed signed so my day 1 tally was pretty good.
Michael Cuddyer ticket w/”Cycle 8/17/14″
Joe Nathan ticket w/”Final Save 377″
Taylor Rogers MLB debut ticket
Jonathan Schoop ticket w/”MLB Debut”
Joe Mauer cards: 9/30/18 Topps Now card, 7/21/18 Topps Now card, 9/25/18 Topps Now card, 2018 Players Weekend Topps Now card, 2017 Wild Card Topps Now card, 4/12/18 Topps Now card, 8/24/18 Topps Now card already signed by Rod Carew (he commented it was cool that Rod had signed it), 2018 Allen & Ginter
Jorge Polanco 2018 Gypsy Queen, 9/12/17 Topps Now
Byron Buxton 2018 Opening Day Topps Now, 2018 Topps Heritage
Tim Laudner 1987 Topps Team Card
Al Newman 1992 Topps Stadium Club
Nick Gordon 2017 Topps Heritage Minors
CJ Cron 2018 Opening Day Topps Now
LaMonte Wade 2018 Bowman Chrome
Alex Kirilloff 2017 Bowman
Twinsfest 2018 – Day 3
Today is always a bittersweet day. The final day of Twinsfest is exciting because it is Twinsfest but you know it is the last day. Both kids headed down with me today. Caden hung out with his friends for most of the day and Cami hung out with me for almost the entire day except when she went through a few lines for herself. I used today to finish off some players and to talk with a few friends. We arrived at Target Field around 7:30 this morning for the 9am opening. We went to the Brian Dozier line right away and I was able to knock off a couple Dozier autographs I needed. Then Caden took off with his friends while Cami and I walked to other lines. The next stop for us was Byron Buxton in the Twins Wives line. We each got a card signed. Cami went off to another couple lines while I got in line for Joe Mauer at the Twins Wives line. I had to wait a couple hours for that line to start but Cami was able to get through a pair of lines and got me a few items. When she arrived back the first words out of her mouth were “Well that was embarrassing!” I asked her what she meant. When she gave Aaron Slegers his debut ticket and asked him to inscribe the ticket ML Debut dated August 16, 2017 he said his debut was on August 17, 2017 and did not inscribe it. I told Cami that we were both right. His debut WAS on the 17th but it was the make up from the night before that was rained out so the correct ticket was the 16th. Oh well. It is signed. He probably thought she was crazy. We got through the Mauer line at the Twins Wives line and headed to the service level where we each went through a couple different lines. I headed to the Gonsalves/Mejia/Berrios line and Cami went to the Enns/Chargois/Rooker line. Once I finished the line I was in I headed to the Enns/Chargois/Rooker line and ended up running into Caden who was in that line too. After that I went and spent a fun time chatting with my friend Tony S and his son Spencer. Caden and Cami ran around to a couple more lines and we called it a day. The final day’s totals for me are (including items Caden and Cami got for me but not including things they got for themselves):
Brian Dozier: 06/01/2017 Topps Now
Joe Mauer: 06/01/2017 Topps Now, 2008 Topps 287
JT Chargois: 2 @ 2013 Bowman Chrome BCP137
Alalberto Mejia: 2017 Topps Now Wild Card, 2017 Topps Heritage 550
Byron Buxton: 11/10/2017 Topps Now, 2017 Wild Card Topps Now
Eddie Rosario: 09/13/2017 Topps Now
Jose Berrios: 2017 Wild Card Topps Now, 2017 Topps Heritage 566
Royce Lewis: OMLB
John Curtiss: 2 @ 2015 Choice
Travis Blankenhorn: 2016Bowman Chrome BCP185
Stephen Gonsalves: 2017 Bowman BP44, 2017 Topps Minors 191, 2014 Bowman BDPP49
Gene Glynn: 2 @ Minor League team issues
Garvin Alston: 1997 Fleer 582
Brent Rooker: OMLB, OMLB w/”2017 1st Round Pick”
Alex Kirilloff: OMLB
Fernando Rodney: Debut ticket
Dietrich Enns: 3 @ Debut ticket with “MLB Debut”
Lewis Thorpe: 2 @ 2014 Bowman BP32 (1 smudged)
Max Kepler: OMLB
Twinsfest 2018 – Day 1
Today kicked off my most favorite weekend of the year… Twinsfest! The morning started at an orthopedic surgery center as Amy had surgery on her broken ankle. She knew Cami and I were going to be heading to Twinsfest around 1:30 and made sure her mom and dad were with us to take her home in case she was not done in time. As luck would have it, the surgeon came out five minutes after we left. She got home ok and celebrated Caden’s 16th birthday that night.
Cami and I arrived at Target Field around 2pm and got in line to wait two hours until the gates opened. When they opened we headed to the Joe Mauer/Royce Lewis line. From there we headed to the Torii Hunter Twins Wives line and got his autograph. After we were done with Torii, we headed to the Kepler/Garver/Grossman/Hildenberger/Rogers line. One of the items I got Kepler to sign was his Players Weekend Topps Now card. The nickname he had on his jersey that weekend was Rozyki. I asked him if he would sign the card with that and he said “I have never signed anything like that but will give it a shot for you.” From there we went back to the Twins Wives and got Eduardo Escobar. Eduardo is awesome. He took a nice photo with Cami because the line was so short. After that we went back in line in the Twins Wives line for Ervin Santana. After that we went to a private Meet & Greet that I was chosen for as being a season ticket holder. Ervin Santana was the first player there and walked around and shook everyone’s hand and said hello. Ervin was asked a few questions about ice fishing. Had he ever been ice fishing or ever been on a frozen lake. In both cases he laughed and said “No way.” He said he does not like the cold weather at all. Seeing him in the environment of not locked in a focused during a game was pretty neat. He was really funny and personable. Cami asked him if he was not a pitcher, what position would be play. He replied with “Center field. I am faster than Byron (Buxton)! You get to see him run because he has a lot of room to run. If I was out there you would see me run faster than him!” It was pretty funny and he seemed pretty serious about it. Ervin left and then Eddie Rosario came in to do a similar Meet & Greet. After seeing that we did not have an opportunity for an autograph with Ervin, I got to Eddie while they were still taking photos with Ervin. Eddie signed a couple cards for me. One of them was his Players Weekend Topps Now card. His nickname on the card was Banidou. I asked him how he got the nickname and he said it was a nickname between him and his brothers. Every Saturday of Twinsfest for the last number of years I would spend the day with my buddy Shane. Shane had some very serious health issues and was unable to make it this year. Cami felt so bad for Shane that she skipped getting Eddie to sign her photo and decided to get a baseball signed by Rosario for him. She wanted him to write “To Shane. Get well soon!” but he did not understand the name Shane so Cami wrote it on a sheet of paper and skipped the get well soon part. Cami is pretty cool to think of someone like that. During the Q & A part with Rosario, Eddie mentioned he is really looking forward to playing in Puerto Rico this summer as that is his homeland. Cami’s question to Eddie was what is his favorite ballpark to play in and he replied “Here! I LOVE playing here!” Oh, one thing both players said that was interesting was when they were asked what their favorite city to play in was. They both replied Chicago. We again lined up and I got a photo of Eddie and Cami. We headed out and went to the final line of the evening which was Rosario/Polanco/Duke/Romero. On the way out I stopped by and chatted with my buddy Tony and his son Spencer. We headed home tired but excited for the next couple days. The final list of items for me are (including items Cami got for me but not including things she got for herself):
Joe Mauer: 2017 Topps 404, 2017 Topps Now Road to Opening Day
Royce Lewis: 2017 Bowman BD-1, OMLB
Torii Hunter: September 30, 2002 ESPN Magazine, 2015 Topps 590, 2016 Gypsy Queen 347
Max Kepler: 2017 Topps 405, 06/12/2017 Topps Now, 2017 Wild Card Topps Now, 2017 Players Weekend Topps Now
Mitch Garver: 8/19/2017 debut ticket w/”MLB Debut” inscription
Trevor Hildenberger: 2017 Wild Card Topps Now
Taylor Rogers: 04/14/2016 debut ticket w/”MLB Debut” inscription
Eduardo Escobar: 2017 Wild Card Topps Now
Ervin Santana: 2017 Topps 678, 04/15/2017 Topps Now
Eddie Rosario: 2017 Wild Card Topps Now, 2017 Players Weekend Topps Now
Jorge Polanco: 2017 Topps 684, 2017 Wild Card Topps Now, 2017 Topps Now Road to Opening Day, 08/29/2017 ticket (when he hit a HR from both sides of the plate)
Zach Duke: 2015 Topps 293, 2015 Topps US178
Fernando Romero: 2017 Bowman BP134, 2017 Topps Heritage Minor 107, 2017 Topps Minors 149, OMLB