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!
Pronk
Today I received a couple items I am excited about. The first was a ticket I have had for a while. Back on 08.14.2003 Travis Hafner, Pronk, hit for the cycle at the Metrodome. I have sent this ticket in to a few consignors without luck in the past. I noticed he signed up for Past Pros so I sent my ticket in within the first couple days. He was not sure how I wanted it signed so he contacted Past Pros and they in turn contacted me. I provided a description and received the ticket today signed perfectly.
The other package was a baseball I sent to Ralph Garr on what it was like playing in the game when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. He wrote a short story on it and sent it back to me.
Papi
Today I received a pretty cool item. Famous Ink had a signing with David Ortiz recently and I mailed in my 11.08.2004 issue of Sports Illustrated that was already signed by Johnny Damon, Pedro Martinez, and Curt Schilling. This completed the group of four players on the cover. The magazine is perfect in every way! I am excited with the job everyone did on it.