Today I received a couple Sports Illustrated magazines in the mail. The first was my 10.10.2016 issue that was already signed by five Cubs players from the World Series Champion team. I was able to get Aroldis Chapman to sign it via a private signing with Josh R out of Chicago. That brings me up to six different players on the cover.
The other issue was a 08.16.1994 issue signed beautifully by Eddie Mathews. It is the 40th anniversary issue and depicted the original issue on the cover. I bought this from Eric A via Facebook.
Not Justin
Today I received a package of a couple items from a private signing Matthew P (Mac6185 on SCN) had with Shane Bieber. They turned out flawlessly! I got a baseball signed on the sweetspot with JSA authentication and a debut ticket, also with JSA authentication, with an inscription of “ML Debut 05/31/18”. I thought about getting an inscription on the baseball with 2020 AL CY or something but he might win another and I do not want to have a baseball that does not have all the CY years on it (like I got with Johan Santana after he won his first). The Twins tickets from 2018 are tough to come by as you had to pay for printed tickets. I have had a number of people reach out to me to see if I had this ticket for sale. It was in my Sano home run collection but since printed tickets are SO hard to get for so many teams nowadays, I might scrap the Sano run so this was a perfect opportunity to do that.
A Whise(nant) Man
Today was a fun mail day. I received a scorecard signed by John Smoltz I had sent in for a private signing at Waukesha Sportscards via Mark G (hofcs on SCN). Smoltz signed it exactly as requested. It was from his 188th career win on August 21, 2006. John went 8 innings giving up 3 hits walking 1 and striking out 10.
The other package I received was from Howard C (favorite_things on SCN) who was breaking up a signed near set of 1961 Topps. I purchased four cards from Howard. Three were upgrades and one was a need. I am pretty familiar with two of the signatures on two of the cards. Of the other two, I was fairly confident one was bad but the other was good. I paid for a Beckett Quick Opinion on the two cards and, just as I suspected, the one that I thought was bad was confirmed as bad and the other good. Howard said he would give me a money back guarantee within 60 days so I will send the one back. The other three are beautiful cards and got me within three signed Twins cards to complete the set. The three cards I added to my collection are:
1961 Topps Zoilo Versalles
1961 Topps Jim Lemon
1961 Topps Pete Whisenant
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!