Today I received a magazine I sent to Dick Groat a week ago. I sent a silver paint pen along and hoped he would let it dry. Not only did Mr Groat return my donation, he also signed it with the paint pen and let it dry. It turned out perfectly! The magazine is a 1964 Baseball Guidebook and is has a real dark background and it exceeded my hopes!
An Early Morning Get Up
Today is Black Friday. Lots of places have early bird specials to entice people to come in to shop. I vowed years ago to never do the early Friday shopping and held strong until today. My buddy Joel told me about Barnes & Noble having a Black Friday special where they were selling a bunch of signed books and I was interested in a few. I picked out the ones I wanted last night and set my alarm for 5:15am so I could arrive there at 6am when the doors opened. I got there about five minutes before 6 and the place was dark and locked up and not a soul in the parking lot. I checked out the sign on the door and it said they opened at 8am. Man, my first time doing Black Friday and I screwed it up! I drove home and decided to lay down and if I got up at a decent time to go back I would go. I could not fall back asleep so I was able to get up and this time the kids both wanted to go so we all headed back to Barnes & Noble and arrived just after they opened the doors. I picked up the following signed books:
2 Hillary Clinton
2 George Bush
Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy (EL James)
Vampire Lestat (Anne Rice)
Yes Please (First Edition- Amy Poehler)
The Very Fairy Princess Sparkles in the Snow (Julie Andrews)
I called Joel on the way out of there and told him what I got and he said he bought five of the Bush books and said that I should get more. Amy and I went out shopping about a half hour after I got home and I decided to go back and ended up picking up three more Bush books and one more Hillary Clinton book. My intention is to keep a Bush and Clinton and eventually sell the rest… maybe when Clinton announces she will run for office.
When I got home I got an envelope I sent to Matt W (invctrl on SCN) and in it was a Kyle Gibson 2013 Topps Update card. I mailed one to Kyle during the season but he did not sign it for me so I went another route. Matt sent it to me for free although I did send him some money for a latte. Thanks Matt!
The White Rat!
Today’s mail brought a nice envelope with a pair of items from Whitey Herzog. For the longest time I have had a picture of Whitey and Tom Kelly shaking hands before Game 1 of the 1987 World Series already signed by TK and finally decided to mail it to Whitey along with a HOF Postcard. Both were signed beautifully in blue Sharpie.
He Gone!
Today I received a ball from Ken ‘Hawk’ Harrelson. Hawk is the White Sox broadcaster. I had requested his call of Tyler Flowers’ walk off in extra innings this season but all he wrote was “He Gone”
Another package I received was the final Michael Cuddyer card I needed for my collection. Last week I received a card of Cuddyer’s I sent in for a private signing but screwed up and sent in the wrong one. The person who had the private signing had the 2011 Allen & Ginter card for sale. It is in black so I may upgrade down the road but for now, I have all the Cuddyer cards I need.