Kenta Maeda pitched for the Twins for a few years before leaving and going to the Tigers. He was hurt the last few seasons and did not sign much so trying to obtain his cards is a little more difficult than most. I found Matt F from Triple F Sports had one for sale and bought it. Today I received the 2023 Topps Heritage #536 to add to the collection!
Oh Balls!
I received another box of signed prospect baseballs from Chris L (ChrisL999 on SCN) today. He does an awesome job of getting the prospects I need before they make it to the Majors and get much, much more difficult to obtain. It is always fun to see how many of the Top 100 prospects I have and Chris got for me. Today’s box included baseballs signed by:
Bryan Woo
Blake Sabol
Hayden Birdsong
Kyle Finnegan
Hunter Barco
Jackson Baumeister
Thomas Harrington
Otto Lopez
Brandon Sproat
George Wolkow
DJ Herz
Travis Sykora
As well as the following other items:
Julio Rodriguez debut ticket
George Kirby debut ticket
Jorge Polanco 2023 Topps #515 and 2023 Topps Heritage #276
What a fun package to open!
Damon
I thought I had everything I needed signed by Johnny Damon when I found a listing that Jamie B (jamieblye on SCN) had for a private signing and looked to make sure. Turns out I did not have his signature on the 04.04.2005 Sports Illustrated magazine. It is the 2005 Baseball Preview Issue and has Derek Jeter pictured with Damon. I will never finish this because Jeter’s autographs are astronomically priced and if I was to spend the money on something there are a half dozen items I would get signed before this SI. It looks great though!
Who’s Keeping Score?
Over that last half dozen years, or more, I have been purchasing scorecards from Lanny Frattare’s collection. Lanny was the Pirates KDKA radio broadcaster from 1976-2008 and at retirement put his entire collection of scorecards up for sale. His son David handles all the sales. All scorecards are signed by Lanny and I really like getting them signed by the person who made the event special. Today’s scorecards are:
05.03.1977 at Braves – Phil Niekro 11 IP CG Loss, 9Ks, 8ER, 12H
08.23.1985 vs Astros – Nolan Ryan 8 IP, 6K
06.17.2006 vs Twins – Joe Mauer 1-3, 2B – Joe Nathan 98th Career Save
08.17.2008 vs Mets- Johan Santana complete game shutout- 7Ks 3H
09.24.2008 at Brewers – CC Sabathia W 7 IP, 4H, 1R, 11K – Eric Gagne Final Career Hold #12
09.25.2008 at Brewers – Eric Gagne Final MLB Game & K, 718th Career K