Hey, 22, over here!

Remember when you were little and screamed at players for their autographs for a baseball game?  “Mr. Puckett!  Mr. Puckett!  Dave! Dave Winfield! Can I have your autograph?”

Of course, all of the good players were too busy doing important things, like, you know, getting ready for a baseball game.  Or drugs.  But if you kept your chin up and kept yelling, someone eventually would come over and sign for you.  You may never have heard of the guy, and even after getting him to scribble his name on your baseball you still didn’t know what you had, but it was better than walking away empty handed.

That guy was Keith Atherton.

Through the mail – Fernando Vina

I’d totally forgotten about Topps Gold Label – one of my favorite sets of all time – until I was searching through old boxes for cards of players who sign TTM.

If you want a considerate signer, look no further than Fernando Viña.  Not only did he pick the lightest part of the card for his autograph, he used the border between the name plate and photo as his base and chose a fine tipped sharpie to write with.

Classy.

Through the mail – Travis Lee

Was there a hotter prospect in the late ’90s than Travis Lee?  I remember desperately trying to find his 1997 Bowman rookie card in packs, to no avail.  Of course, shops were more than eager to sell me the card individually, but I’ve never been a huge fan of base singles, especially when it’d be a “buying high” situation with an unproven rookie.

Guys like Travis Lee (and Kerry Wood, and Mark Prior, and Jose Cruz, Jr., and…) are why I’ve always been hesitant to dive in to the world of prospecting.  I’m not dedicated enough to sniff out prospects, I don’t have deep enough pockets to take a chance on everyone, and I’m smart enough to know NOT to buy at peak value.

However, that doesn’t stop me from getting once mega-hyped prospects’ autographs through the mail. I’d seen that Lee was a signer and was surprised to discover that he was a Yankee (albeit briefly) in 2004 (he appeared in seven games… no wonder I missed it.  It was one of the busiest years of my life).

This is one of my favorite TTM successes – the silver sharpie (his decision, not mine) looks great over the darker chrome background.

Through the mail – Matthew Klimas

Whenever I sneak a pack of Bowman from the $1.59 box at Target I like to send the unknown prospect cards out for TTM autograph attempts.  I’ve (usually) never heard of them, but the “you-never-know” factor of Bowman is impossible to resist, as is the autograph of the potential next Albert Pujols.

Unfortunately for Matthew Klimas, he’s got some guy named Buster in front of him on the San Francisco organizational depth chart.

Also unfortunately, this is another Chrome card that was sent out with the slick top coat still intact, so I’m lucky that the autograph returned still somewhat legible.  It would’ve been nice had Klimas chosen to sign somewhere other than right over the facsimile signature, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Through the mail – A.J. Pierzynski

A.J. Pierzynski may not have many friends in the game, but anyone who returns a card signed is a friend of mine.  At least, if A.J. wants to go out for a beer I totally would.

I’ve had some troubles lately with forgetting to erase the glossy coating on some cards, so it’s always nice to send something out sans chrome, knowing with 100% confidence that if the card comes back signed there’ll be no fading or disappearing anywhere.

I think the autograph starts at the bottom of the card, but I’m not certain as neither end looks like an “A” or an “I”.  I’ll ask him which end is the front the next time we hang out.

An Ichiro autograph… or is it?

A quick back story:  I grew up a military kid and lived in Hawaii for three years between the ages (approximately) of 10 and 12.  Our family went to a Hawaii Winter League game – at least once – between the Honolulu Sharks and the Hilo Stars, and before it began my friend and I were collecting autographs on the styrofoam giveaway balls we got at the gate.  I never stopped to think that these guys might actually be legitimate prospects – I always thought it was more of a semi-pro caliber league, sort of along the lines of the Independent Leagues we’ve got here on the mainland.

Anyway, the date was December 5th, 1993.  I know because my dad documented it on the ball:

17 years later I stumbled on to a roster of the 1993 Hilo Stars team, and it featured a young, Japanese outfielder by the name of Ichiro Suzuki… you’ve probably heard of him.  I thought to myself, “Self, wouldn’t it be cool if one of those ‘no-names’ was Ichiro? I should call my dad and have him dig up the ball.”

Well, dad dug it up, and front and center was this autograph:

“I. Suzuki”

Now, this doesn’t appear at first glance to be an Ichiro autograph, because a quick ebay search shows that he clearly doesn’t sign his name in such a simplistic form.  But what leads me to believe that it is, in fact, an Ichiro autograph are the following reasons:

1. There were no other “I.Suzukis” on the team.
2. He would’ve been 19 or 20, so he probably wasn’t jaded by the limelight, and hence hadn’t yet learned to merely scribble some semblance of his name.
3. This is textbook English cursive writing.  I bet that if I attempted to sign my name for a 10 year old Japanese kid, in Japanese, it’d be the most basic, textbook form of Japanese writing.
4. This ball is a much cooler piece of memorabilia if it contains an Ichiro autograph than if it doesn’t.

Does anyone have any clue if this is or isn’t an Ichiro autograph?  My logic seems sound, and there’s no real reason to believe that it’s NOT an Ichiro signature, but it’s so perfectly legible that it’s hard to be fully confident one way or the other.  I have no intentions of selling this, so it doesn’t really matter either way, but it’d be nice to know.

A penny for your thoughts…

Blog bat around: 50K on ebay

Recently, Gellman of Sports Cards Uncensored posed an open question to the blogosphere:  If given $50,000 and 15 minutes to spend on cards on ebay, what would you buy? An interesting question, to say the least.  My first thought was that it was stupid, because there’s no way I could spend that much money in only 15 minutes.

But then I got to thinking that it wasn’t so much what you’d spend 50 thousand dollars, but what would you buy if money wasn’t an issue?  Now that was something I could wrap my brain around!

Like most of you, I’ll assume, my collecting has been on and off over the years.  I was a kid, and collected because my dad did.  I stopped in high school because I discovered video games.  I picked back up in high school because autographs and game used jerseys were being inserted in packs!  I stopped in college because I discovered beer.  I picked back up in college because I interned in minor league baseball and worked with an avid collector!  I stopped upon graduation because I had no money.  I picked back up because I got a job, found a card shop, and had money again!

My heyday, if you will, was the mid ’90s.  Not only does this mean that my collection is largely crap, but I also collected at the time relic cards were introduced. To this day, I’m still addicted to swatches of fabric in my cards.  Also, these were times when everybody thought that ALL cards would always go up in value and allow collectors to retire early because of their cards.  They’d be priceless!

So with my 15 minutes, I decided to find a mixture of cards that are timeless and define eras of collecting and cards that I’m currently obsessed with.  Yep – vintage and relics, polar opposites.  Hey, it’s my money!  First up, the singles.

1989 Upper Deck, Ken Griffey, Jr., RC.  PSA9:  $70. Not that I necessarily care about grading (I don’t own a single graded card, nor do I have any desire to), but I might as well make sure I’m getting the real thing since Gellman is paying for it.  This card defined Upper Deck, who, for those who don’t know, used to produce baseball cards.  The glossy card stock, high quality photos, counterfeit proof holograms and tamper proof foil packs revolutionized trading cards, and this card was the face of the revolution.  I’ve always wanted to add one to my collection.

1968 Topps Nolan Ryan RC, PSA 9: $900. This was THE card I wanted as a kid, though I never had the means to buy it.  I still don’t, without draining my savings account, but this is one of my top five or so favorite cards of all time.

1952 Topps Mickey Mantle RC, PSA 2:  $7,000. The condition stinks, but it’s guaranteed authentic.  One could argue that this is the most famous card of all time, other than perhaps the Honus Wagner card worth a small fortune.  I couldn’t find any of those on ebay, so I settled for the Mantle.

1989 Fleer Billy Ripken “error”: $18. Perhaps I’ve overpaying for this card, I don’t know.  The clock’s ticking, and I don’t have time to price shop!  I’ve always wanted this card.  The rules stated to keep things PG-13, so I picked up the blacked out version.

1963 Topps Pete Rose RC, PSA 6.5: $800. I’m not sure why this card popped in to my head other than the fact that I remember stumbling across it’s listing in a Beckett and noticing how much it booked for.  Again,  I generally don’t care much for graded cards, but it’s better to be safe than sorry with vintage cardboard.

2008 Topps Sterling Babe Ruth game used bats: $400. Or maybe these are seats – there’s no telling these days.  I love jerseys and relics, so it’s only fitting that I’ve hypothetically added a Ruth to my collection.

2005 Elite Babe Ruth pants: $400.

2005 Throwback Threads Babe Ruth/Ted Williams/Willie Mays triple game used: $400. There’s nothing particularly aesthetically pleasing about this card, but it came up when I search for “Ruth game used”.  I’ll take one, please.

OK, time is running out, I’ve got to cut the crap and go straight for the cases! I’ve always wanted to buy a case, but I could never justify spending $1,000 on something like Sweet Spot.  I can, however, justify spending Gellman’s money on Sweet Spot.  Unfortunately, pictures were generally not available for me to swipe, so I’ll list the cases in my virtual shopping cart.

• 2007 Sweet Spot Signature: $900
• 2007 Sweet Spot Classic: $1,450
• 2008 Sweet Spot Baseball: $1,589
• 2009 Sweet Spot Baseball: $2,255
• 2007 Topps Sterling Baseball, 10 box case: $2,069
• 2009 Topps Sterling Baseball, 10 box case: $2,189

And with that, my time is up.  My grand total is “only” $20,840.  I couldn’t think of any more singles that I had to have, and I suppose I would’ve tried to order more than one of each case if they were available.  This was a fun experiment, and I was able to hypothetically add a few of the cards I can only dream of owning to my collection in addition to the promise of great game used and autograph hits from the cases of Sweet Spot and Sterling.  Of course, now I’ll need to invest in quite a few virtual top loaders for my haul.

So… how’d I do?

Through the mail – Bobby Bonilla

It’s not often that I send two cards to be autographed in a TTM attempt.  It makes me feel greedy and a bit stalker-ish, and I don’t like it.  However, there are exceptions.  Mike Mussina was one, because the cards I was sending were from his Yankee years.  John Mabry was another because… I can’t remember why.  Must’ve been from my very first batch of attempts.

Bobby Bonilla was the next multi-card attempt, simply because he signs his name “Bo.”

I was never particularly a fan of the guy, but I never had anything against him, either.  In fact, he never even cracked my National League All-stars starting line-up on RBI Baseball 2.  I can still, to this day, set my lineup on that game in two seconds:

1. Gwynn
2. Hayes
3. G. Davis
4. Mitchell
5. E. Davis
6. Johnson
7. Sundberg (which I assume is supposed to be “Sandberg”)
8. Clark
9. Pitcher

I actually used to keep stats over the course of a 12 game season for my team.  Well, sort of.  I kept track of home runs.  Kevin Mitchell usually won this category, though Glen Davis was a perennial contender.  Eric Davis’s combination of power and speed was lethal, and even Tony Gwynn accounted for a couple each season, although they were typically of the in-the-ballpark variety.  I still fire up the NES on occasion to play RBI Baseball 2, a game that, in my mind, is one of the greatest ever.

Inside the Player’s Studio – Roger Clemens

Roger Clemens loves to face Mark McGwire.  Pretty juiced up match up, right??!?!  You could say Clemens gets “juiced” to face him.  Har, har….

Seriously though, I’ve met Roger Clemens in person at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (or whatever the current name of the golf tournament may be), and he was kind of a jerk.  Someone asked if the Yanks were going to win it all again, and he sighed and replied, “That’s the idea.”  As if he couldn’t possibly be bothered with that sort of jibberish.  Of course, it was a fairly stupid question, but he could’ve at least entertained the crowd.

Another funny side note about that tournament:  I believe I actually skipped a day of high school to attend day one or two of the tournament at Spyglass Hill in Pebble Beach, California (parents knew, don’t you worry), because it had the best overall field of professionals/celebrity amateurs on that particular day.  I brought a baseball to have signed by Clemens, which he autographed on the way through.  But the amusing part was that Donald Trump was in the foursome in front of Clemens, and when The Donald came through he reached for my ball and said, “Let me sign that for you!”.  I said, “No thanks, I’m actually waiting for Roger.”

Ha! Take that, Trump.

Donald moved along, but he can have the last laugh.  Our family dog ate the ball a few years later.

Box break, 2008 Razor Letterman: 1/1 alert

I mentioned previously that my relics heavily outweigh the autographs in my combined game used/autograph box, by a margin that’s not even close.  Even if you count the printing plate (all one that I own) and the cards with a jersey and autograph together, the relics still win easily.  I figured a box of ’08 Razor Letterman would be a quick, easy, and fun way to add a few nice looking cards to the autograph half of the storage box!

These cards used to be crazy expensive, somewhere in the vicinity of $20 per pack, but the bottom has fallen out for no apparent reason (to me, anyway).  This box only cost $32 from Blowout Cards.  Sure, it’s unlicensed, but it’s nearly all minor leaguers/prospects so it doesn’t really matter.  Or maybe it’s because the players are largely unknown, outside of a select few, but again, that’s kind of the point here.  Buy now, reap the rewards later!  The whole autograph-on-a-manufactured-patch thing is something most collectors no longer enjoy (or never did), but I think it beats the pants off stickers randomly placed on a card.  At least it’s a little original, no?  On to the break!

Five one touch magnetic cases!  These cost $2 a piece, so already the box has provided good value.  I took the cards out of them, since there’s no point in taking up any more room than necessary in the storage box.  Don’t fret, they haven’t been left exposed to the elements, I’ve simply transferred them to 130 pt top loaders.

Chris Smith, New York – A.  A Yankees prospect! This guy will be overhyped in no time.  I love how just the team’s location is listed, it’s very RBI Baseball-esque.

Jeremy Bleich, New York – A.  Another Yankee-to-be!

Ryan Lavarnway, Boston.  Booooo!  Though he has a nice looking signature, this guy will soon stop shaving, provide mediocre defense, hit a bunch of slap singles with little power, and we’ll all celebrate him for being “scrappy.”  It’s the Boston way.

Derrik Gibson, Boston.  He will also one day be an obnoxious, “scrappy” player.  This card is serial numbered to 20.

Brett Marshall, New York – A.  I didn’t realize this box was all Yankees and Sox until just now.  I can’t wait until Marshall is the next big thing in the  Bronx.  So he had Tommy John surgery at a young age… who hasn’t?  It’s the new BOTOX, everybody’s doing it.  Heck, I’ve even considering it for myself just to be proactive.  This card is numbered 1/1, although technically it’s more like 1/13 since there’s one of each letter in his name.

I didn’t pull any of the bigger names from the set, but it was a fun break for the money and I’ve now got five slick looking autographs for my collection that may someday be valuable, or not, and five one touch magnetic cases to boot!