Today I received a 1991 Topps Kirby Puckett signed card. I bought it from John I (playrzink on SCN). It is signed in blue ink and is PSA certified. I probably over paid for it but for some reason, I thought it looked cool being in ink rather than the typical Sharpie. Either way, with adding that one to the collection, I need only two more cards to complete my signed Twins 1991 set (Allan Anderson and Tim Drummond).
What a Golden Day!
As most of you know, I really only collect MLB autographs. A few years ago I had the opportunity to add a couple 1980 US Olympic hockey players to a couple Sports Illustrated magazines so I guess I started that project. Today George Johnson from SportsNewsShows.com had most of the Miracle on Ice team at a local show so I decided to get the ones I needed on just one of my SI’s as I was not about to pay $29 per for a second SI.
Over the course of the day I added the following players to my team celebration SI:
Jack O’Callahan
Steve Janaszak
Ken Morrow
Bob Suter
Rob McClanahan
Eric Strobel
Mark Wells
I had a ticket for Dave Silk but he arrived early and I was going by the time. When his time was up to sign, he was already gone and I missed him. I did get a refund but I was still disappointed. One of the issues I have about this show is the poor communication. You have one guy yelling what ticket numbers and person was ready and everyone all standing around the entry way. If you are off to the side, you cannot hear anything (props to the guy for not losing his mind though with everyone asking every 30 seconds “Is my number ready?”). I doubt Silk will ever be back in the Twin Cities so I suppose I will never have him on it. Oh well.
In between all the hockey players I added the following autographs to my collection… all on Sports Illustrated magazines:
Lou Brock on the 10.16.1967 issue and adding him to my 10.17.1968 issue. He commented on the 1967 issue that it was “… from the 1967 World Series and I was trying to trick them I was going to steal. And it worked!”.
Ozzie Smith on my 9.28.1987 issue. Ozzie is as class as they come.
Roberto Alomar on my 10.14.1996 issue and adding him to my 10.26.1992 issue already signed by John Smoltz. Roberto commented that “I cannot believe he got me out!” While getting Alomar to sign, my buddy Joel B came with me because he purchased a “game used” bat from a local dealer but wanted to ask Alomar if it was truly game used. He showed it to Alomar and he said he used that brand but not that bat. He took a couple swings with it and said the bats he used were not flame tempered as this one was and when he found out it was purchased from Kirby Puckett’s collection he said he would have given Kirby a nicer bat than that one. (note: Joel brought it back to the person he bought it from and got his money back). It was really cool hanging with Joel all day and he rally came down just to hang with me and to find out about the bat. Had it been real, he would have gotten it autographed. At one point Joel and I went out to my car to get some stuff I bought from Joel a while ago and on the way out, I ran into a loyal blog reader Mike!
Throughout the day I made a couple purchases. I bought a 1987 Twins pocket schedule I did not have and a Puckett home run ticket stub from 1994 I did not have. I also picked up a season ticket version from Paul Molitor’s 3000th hit game. The biggest purchase though was three full 1961 Peter’s Meats panels I needed. I now only need 10 more to complete the 25 card set.
After missing Dave Silk, I am down to needing four more autographs on the Celebration Sports Illustrated to have the entire team.
All in all it was a long but fun day!
The Exceptional Mr Elliott!
I always love a mail day after a holiday. I get two days worth of mail. Even better is when the holiday is a Monday as yesterday was. Today’s mail day fit the bill!
Back in August I emailed Mr Bob Elliott asking him if he would be willing to autograph a baseball along with “2012 J G Taylor Spink Award” and if he had a charity of choice. He replied he would be delighted to and his donations go to the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation. I mailed it off and received it today. We have emailed a couple times in the meantime and I found him to be very receptive and kind. In fact, in one reply he told me that he had signed 100’s of baseballs and my package was the most organized of all. I am guessing it was because I provided an envelope already addressed to the charity with all it needing was postage from Canada. I included cash for return postage as well as the postage to mail the donation and he returned it and paid the postage himself. I am very excited to add Mr Elliott’s autograph to my collection and to have the interaction I had with him. Thank you Mr Elliott!
Also in today’s mail was an envelope with two autographed cards I bought from Mickey’s Sports Cards. They both had real nice blue ink signatures on them. They were a 1968 Bob Allison and a 1967 Zoilo Versalles.
Dandy Dave!
Today’s mail brought a really cool baseball. I was watching MLB tv a couple weeks ago and they had on some great Divisional Series games from the past and one of them was from Game 4 of the 2003 NLDS. They played the audio of Dave O’Brien calling the game and the exciting finish when a collision between Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez and JT Snow at home plate ended the game. Pudge hung on to the ball after getting hammered by Snow. It was a great ending. Not only did Mr O’Brien write his call on the ball but also returned my donation to him and wrote a note thanking me for “bringing back one amazing memory”. Not too many times the signer is as happy as the recipient but this might just be the case here! THANK YOU Dave!