2014 Bowman 4 Box Break

It's been a while since I've posted & here I am with something new. About a week ago I entered a 4 box break for the 2014 Bowman set & just received my cards yesterday. Normally I'd go for the Dodgers, but I decided I'd try something new. So what did I do ? I went with the Seattle Mariners. The break didn't contain a big hit for me but I still got a good amount of cards, for what the break cost me.

I got a fair amount of base cards including a few duplicates. I'd like to think I got the entire Mariners set, but I'm too lazy to actually go look at the checklist, so I'll just tell myself I did.

These next two are base cards as well, but this player is the main reason I decided to roll with the Mariners. I was hoping to get an auto of Taijuan Walker, but that didn't happen especially since the breaker said a blue refractor auto of him was pulled the night before from the same case. If I only knew. Sighh.

I also got a few of the prospect chrome cards, but nothing too good.

These next three cards will actually be the better pulls from the break. First is this mini refractor of Chris Taylor. I love getting minis so I was pretty happy to pull one from the break.

Next I was able to get one of these cool looking inserts of the hometown & state parallels of Abraham Almonte. Not necessarily too great, but still a cool card. Next would be the best card I pulled.

The last pull from the break & it came on the last pack, is this blue paper card of Hisashi Iwakuma. It is #'d 110/500. Definetly the best card in my opinion. Well that about wraps up the pulls from my first break of any kind for me. I really enjoyed the experience from this break & will definetly plan to enter a few more in the near future. Once again thank you for reading.

Another TTM Success !!

Well a while back I got back my first ttm response & it was from Yoenis Cespedes. It was certainly uplifting to see that it is worth trying this method out if you get a response. With that in mind I decided to do some homework & see who else signs ttm. With this next person I had seen that there was a very high amount of people getting successes. So with that being said I decided to send out a baseball to Hall of Famer Wade Boggs. A few weeks later I received this back:

I couldn't be happier !! I sent out my baseball with a letter written to Mr. Boggs, as well as a small donation asking if he could sign my ball & just under 2 weeks later I'm able to add his signature to my collection. It's great that some athletes are willing to sign ttm, as it can be very difficult to add their autograph to your collection especially after they're retired. I'm very glad with the outcome of this baseball & I've already got a few more former players that I will be sending out baseballs to, so hopefully I get the same results. Once again thank you for reading.

A New Autograph Added.

Like most people probably are, I'm always on the lookout on ebay trying to find a good deal. Most of the time I end up paying a bit more, or get tempted to bid more than I would've originally liked to. However, this past week I found a nice autograph card that I believe I got a great deal on.

I was able to pick up this 2013 Allen & Ginters auto of Paul Goldschmidt. I still hope to add Paul's autograph on a ball one day, but I was able to pick up his autograph card here for less than the cost of a new baseball, so I'm more than happy with this for now. I have a few more ebay purchases that I will be showing in the next few days, but once again Thank you for reading.

Weekend Autograph Recap Cont.

Sunday the 27th. Well after attending the previous two signings the day before, I decided to head to good ol' Dodger stadium to watch the Dodgers take on the Rockies. I headed out to the game with my girlfriend & my two younger brothers. We arrived to Dodger stadium around 10:30 & we made our way over to the Viva Los Dodgers event in the parking lot.

 We really didn't have much interest there other then the fact that Mickey Hatcher was going to be signing. We made line for the signing at 10:45 with Mickey scheduled to start signing at 11. We were only 10 people back so we were going to be able to enter the stadium rather quickly. While in line we saw the Dodgers Foundation was selling Mystery Autograph baseball bags for $40. They featured 2 current players ( Andre Ethier & Zack Grienke) & 8 former players ( Lee Lacy, Al Ferrara, Derrel Thomas, Dennis Powell, Tim Leary, Don Newcombe, Nomar Garciaparra & Tommy Davis). Well I was somewhat intrigued with Grienke, Garciaparra & Newcombe as I have yet to add their autographs to my collection. Well my two brothers decided they wanted to get one so my girlfriend saved our spots in line & we went over. My first brother bought his ball & he pulled Nomar. That was a good pull in my opinion. Then my other brother pulled Derrel Thomas, what a waste. They were then able to convince me to get one & I pulled Derell Thomas too, what a waste again.

This ball I will definetly try to get rid of whether sell or trade, but it will go. We got back in line & Mickey Hatcher arrived a bit after 11. We made our way up quickly to get our stuff signed. First up was my youngest brother who got Mickey on a card:

Then next up my girlfriend got me my 1988 World Series trophy photo signed by Mickey:

Followed by that I got another photo signed by Mickey:

My other brother then got a mini bat signed:

After that we went into the stadium & my brothers got the promotional Hanley Ramirez batting practice jersey. The Dodgers have continued to have Alumni signing autographs at bote the right & left field side of the field so we headed out to that. Not anybody too good was there as it was Sweet Lou Johnson, Billy Ashley & Dennis Powell. Lou Johnson's line was too long so we skipped him & got Billy Ashley on these postcards the Dodgers provided him with & the mini bat:

I think these post cards are pretty cool looking. We made our way over to Dennis Powell just to get him on the mini bat:

We then made our way down to the front of the field by the Dodgers bullpen. Not many players signed as it was little league day & thousands of little leaguers were walking around the field. This was my second time this year not being able to get autographs due to little league day as it happened to me a few weeks ago at Angel stadium. Well a few players still signed over the bullpen. Brandon League signed for a bit, but only for kids. I hate him anyways so I didn't care. Then Tim Federowicz signed a bit & I don't like him too much. While everyone one was focused on him I saw Steve Yeager there in the bullpen & I called him over to see if he could sign my '81 team ball & sure enough he did:

After that I left as it grew closer to game time & I heard only Chris Withrow signed, so I didn't miss out. The game then started & it was a long game since the Dodgers got killed. Twice this year Ryu gets rocked while I'm there, just great. Well after the game we spotted no other than Vin Scully himself!! Well he was being escorted by 2 security guards. However, it was only us 4 around him so my younger 11 year old brother went up to Vin to ask him to sign a ball & failed as Vin & the security walked right by him. Well that didn't work out too well but one day we'll get him.

It still was a great day at Dodger Stadium & a great weekend in general. Once again, Thank you for reading!

Weekend Autograph Recap.

This past weekend had some great opportunities for autographs & I decided to take advantage this time around. First off I had planned to go down to Rancho Cucamonga to watch the Quakes play friday night, with the hopes of getting some great prospect autos & watch Kershaw pitch, & not to mention the Brian Wilson bobblehead, but things didn't go as planned so I had to skip that. Well I still had two days left of my free weekend.

Saturday the 26th, well this day I decided to attend two paid signings. Other than fan fest I have never paid for an in person autograph, so this was a first for me. The first one I attended was at the Optometry office of Alex Liu. Former Dodger Paul Lo Duca was scheduled to sign from 10-11 & for a flat price of $20 per item. I arrived there around 9:45 & there were only about 20-30 people in line. I figured the line would go pretty quick once Paul started signing. Paul started signing around 10 or 15 past 10 & sure enough it moved quickly. Once inside it was great to me Paul since I grew up watching him play for the Dodgers & I had him sign my 2006 All star ball:

Well with the first autograph signing of the day done, I decided to head out to Whittier for the second signing of the day. The second signing featured Dee "Flash" Gordon at Harry's Dugout. I arrived right at the scheduled starting time of 11. I was not prepared for what I saw. The line was between 150-200 people long. Damn it I thought !!! Well I had my little brother make line for me as I went inside to purchase my ticket. We had already made the drive out here so we might as well have waited to see the out some. Well it was about 20 minutes into the signing & we had only moved about 10 feet. However, patience paid off. Right after that the line started moving at a quick pace. At about 11:40 we were into the store at about 11:45 & I was stoked how quick & efficient the signing went. Once I got up to the front we were able to get a quick pic of Dee signing my photo.

Here is the final outcome of my 11x14 photo:

It was a great signing & experience at both events. It was great for Dr. Liu bringing out a former Dodger that I grew up watching & for Harry's Dugout bringing out Dee who's off to an amazing start this season. I will definetly be back at some point to these places for future signings after these great experiences.

A new autograph quest.

Well once again I've had a bit of time in between posts & that is largely due to a lot of school work that has came up. However, here I am with a new post. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had attended a Steve Garvey autograph signing at Hamer Toyota some weeks back. While there I noticed a few guys had gotten autographs on bobbleheads. More like the promotional ones they give out at the stadium. I decided I would try getting some of my bobbleheads autographed. Well I looked through my collection & noticed I didn't have any current Dodgers, so when I got the spare time I went down to my LCS.

When I got there, they had a big selection of bobbleheads. I wanted to go with the Hanley Ramirez one, but they had such a good selection I ended up switching my mind. So I went with this one:

I couldn't go wrong with Don Mattingly. Many people have a different opinion about him, but I think he's done a pretty good job managing the Dodgers so far. Well I'm hoping to get this or any of my Dodger bobbles signed soon & it'll definetly be a new segment of my autograph collecting purposes. I do have some extra bobbleheads from past years that I'd be willing to trade for different ones or possibly even sell. If you're interested just let me know & I can give you a list. Once again thank you for reading.

Autographed Ball of the Day

Here we are, another baseball that is currently in my collection. This ball here I got autographed by Carl Crawford during an autograph signing he did at a Sony store last year. I had found out about this signing the night before & I was out of new baseballs. Well I wasn't going to pass up on getting Carl's autograph so I just took one of the better looking batting practice balls I had.

I believe the signing was at 11 o'clock or so & I had arrived at the mall it was going to be held out at about 8 o'clock. I remember Carl only signed for an hour & I had gotten my ball signed with about 10 minutes left of that hour. It was great to get Carl's autograph & it helped towards my goal of getting an individual ball signed by each of the Dodgers main players. Out of the outfielders I only need Ethier & Puig, of course Puig will be the harder to get of the two. But I still believe I will complete my goal by the end of the season. Once again thank you for reading.

Dodgers Opening Day Recap

Yesterday kicked off the baseball season at Dodger stadium & it was a great day. Unfortunately the Dodgers lost to the Giants but overall it was a great day. I got to the stadium a little before 10 o'clock when they were going to open the gates, so there was a lot of time to kill. After walking around the stadium looking at all the booths I was able to pick up some free towels & a free t-shirt. I then entered the stadium & here's a great view of the field:

This was on the second level of the field & it paid off visiting here. Just a little after taking this picture I spotted former Dodger Manny Mota by one of the booths here. I asked manny for an autograph & picture & I was able to get him to sign a ball for me:

I walked around this level for a bit & I picked up a nice Dodgers Opening Day pin. I've seen a few fans with a bunch of pins on their hats & while I'm not a pin collector I just thought it'd be an awesome souvenir:

After that I made my way down to the field level to get Ken Landreaux's signature on a few items, as he was scheduled to sign by the right field entrance. Ken was a cool guy to meet & first I got him to sign a '81 team ball that I'm working on:

The line was really short so I was able to get him on my '81 team mini bat as well:

And lastly I had Ken sign a card for me as well:

After getting Ken on my items I made my way over to my seat & decided to pass on Lou Johnson who was scheduled to sign on the other side as I didn't have/need him on anything. Me & my father got to our seats & it was a great view! The Dodgers had a great pre-game ceremony to start off the season. They had navy personal parachute into the stadium & they honored a few former players. After the ceremonies the former players started leaving & I was hoping to get some of them to sign. They all immediately left, but I luckily was able to get Ron Cey's autograph on my '81 mini bat :

I felt fortunate as the only reason Ron had stopped by was to say hi to a friend. Right after he was done talking & he started leaving, I asked him if he could sign & he did. I was the only person he had signed for & I totally forgot I needed him on my team ball as well. But it's all good, I'm just happy I was able to get him. The game then started & it was great to see Matt Kemp back out there. Here's the view of the field that we had: 

That was an amazing sight right there! And as you could see Magic Johnson & Tommy Lasorda were just a few rows in front of us, but there was a small wall separating us from getting to the section they were in. I was really hoping to get their autographs & a few people were going up to them during the game getting autographs & taking pictures with them. I kept trying to ask people if they could get me one of my baseballs signed by them, but no luck :/ Ryu was pulled early from the game as the first two innings were disastrous. Eventually at some point Brandon League started pitching & 

surprisingly didn't give up a run. I swear he's my least favorite Dodger pitcher. Well anyways to end the top of the 6th inning he struck out Pablo Sandoval. Aj Ellis then on his way back to the dugout tossed the ball that was used to strike Sandoval into the stands & guess who ended up getting it: 

I like this ball especially as it has the opening day symbol on it. After that the game continued on & the Dodgers didn't mount a come back. The final score was 8-4.

I held out hope of getting either Tommy's or Magic's autograph after the game. I debated about hopping over the small wall, but chose not to after some guy did it around the 8th inning & ended up getting kicked out. Well as I waited the ball boy came out & tossed a few balls into the stands & I was able to get a second ball :

The ball is in pretty bad shape, but the sweet spot is relatively clean, so I might use it in the future on someone who I wouldn't use a new ball on. People then were lining up by the field to get a picture or autograph from Tommy Lasorda & I saw a guy who just finished getting a picture with Tommy. I 

asked him if he would mind getting me Tommy's autograph & he said sure no problem. Finally 

someone who was kind enough to help me out! After a minute or so the guy came back with my ball:

I thanked him for his help & I was finally able to add Mr. Lasorda's autograph to my collection. After a long day me & my father decided to head home. I keep telling myself to try getting autographs after the game, but that is something I haven't tried yet. One of these days I will though. Overall it was a great day at Dodger Stadium & I look forward to many more. Thank you again for reading.

Mail Day: TTM SUCESS

First of all here I am back with another post, I missed a few days & that's my bad as I've been pretty busy, but here's something new. Some months ago, I'd say maybe 6 or 7 I decided to try out getting autographs through the mail. I sent out 4 or 5 "test" letters to see how many I'd get back. If I got back atleast one, then I'd probably keep trying that out. As the months passed by I pretty much gave up hope. Yesterday however, I got back a response & I was shocked that I got one back. Well here's who it was:

Yoenis Cespedes!! His auto is really nice & clean , & it also looks great on the card. The envelope was stamped from Florida so that threw out my idea that he signed it at spring training. I then decided to check out other autos of him & I saw a lot of his shorter sigs but it looks like a match.

Here's the closest match I found & they look pretty similar to me. Now I have slight hope of maybe getting back another one of my letters, but if not I'll definitely send out a few more. If anyone has any idea of why the envelope was stamped in Florida be sure to let me know, as I'm still trying to figure that one out. Maybe he lives there ? Well anyways thanks for reading & I should be back to consistent  posting, so be sure to check back.

Steve Garvey Autograph Signing Recap

Well I just got back from the Steve Garvey autograph signing at Hamer Toyota in Mission Hills & let's just say it went great. I arrived at Hamer Toyota a little before 11 ( the time Garvey was scheduled to sign). There were about 100 people ahead of me, but I knew I'd get my autograph. I went with my father & brother, so we were going to get a total of 3 autographs from Steve.

We went inside the dealership & got these tickets for the line, I ofcourse ended up losing mine sometime after I got out of line. It was a great event, they even were giving out free sodas & hot dogs. Then they had a special guest:

For those of you who don't know, that is Roger Owens, or better known as the legendary Dodger peanut guy. Roger is a really cool guy & pretty hilarious as well. I ended up talking to Roger after I got Steve's autograph, but I'll talk more about that later. My father then joined in on a peanut throwing contest with Roger, & what was on the line ? Some cash & a pair of opening day tickets to the Dodgers game sponsored by AM570 radio. Well after all was said & done, We're going to opening day :) After that the line was starting to move as Steve started signing. We got up to Steve at about 11:45 & here's what we got signed:

My little brother isn't quite into autograph collecting yet so he always helps me out with an extra auto, especially at events like this where they only allow one per person. He ended up getting Steve to sign a mini bat that was previously signed by Fernando Valenzuela as well. Next it was my turn:

I've noticed that some people have gotten a ball signed by the Dodgers record setting infield on the four corners of the sweet spot, so I decided to try out that project. I noticed that Steve only had a 

black pen & a blue sharpie with him, but luckily I always take some extra supplies. I popped out a blue pen & it didn't write extremely clean, but still a nice auto. Next up is my father: 

He got this nice photo of Steve & Tommy Lasorda signed. He isn't too much into autograph collecting, but I can see he is starting to warm up to the hobby. The photo was for me, since he's not full on into autographs & Steve inscribed "Tough Loss" after my father asked him if he & Tommy were mad at each other. Well anyways, Steve left a few minutes after we were out of line & we stuck around for a bit enjoying the event. AM570 was raffling off some shirts & DVD's. However, most people stayed since they were going to raffle off another pair of opening day tickets. That would make it the third pair of the day!! Well after a bit we went of to talk to Roger the peanut guy. While getting Steve's autograph again was great, I have to say this next one by far is definetly the most unique one I have in my collection : 

A signed peanut bag by Roger himself !! Now I definetly remember Roger since I was about five years old. I remember going to the games & him tossing out peanuts with all his crazy throws & this autograph is definetly one that will be treasured in my collection. Roger was great to talk to & he's been with the Dodgers for 56 years!! He said he's been there since the stadium opened, now that is truly unbelievable. After a while we decided to leave & it was a great experience. It was a greatly organized event & we have to thank the guys at Hamer Toyota for putting together this awesome event. That's what I have for this recap & once again to you all, Thank you for reading.

Contest winner !!

Well my first contest is officially over. First of all I'd like to thank everyone who entered & has read my blog, it's very much appreciated. So let's get down to the entries, CaptKirk & Dhoff both had one entry a piece. Alex then had 2 entries & Matthew led by far with 9 entries. Like I listed in my previous posting I would be randomizing the list twice & whoever came out on top would be the winner. So here's the results :

Well there we have it, Alex is the winner. Surprisingly his name came out on top of the list both times. So Alex make sure to send your address my way & I will ship out your cards soon. Thank you again to all who entered & I will be holding another contest pretty soon so be sure to check back.

Ball of the Day

Well today I decided to post up this ball for a reason. The last time I went to a Dodger game was last year when they played the Yankees. That game I didn't go prepared with supplies for autographs & just had a few batting practice balls in the car. Well that was better then nothing. And well it paid off taking the balls anyways as I was able to come away with a Mariano Rivera signature . It would've been better if I would've taken a brand new ball, but I'm still pleased that I was able to get his autograph.

Today even though it's just an exhibition game, I will be there at the game. I will definitely be prepared with some supplies & hopefully I can have some same luck as last time. Be sure to stay tuned as I will have a recap of that tomorrow.

I will also be posting up the contest results in a few minutes & will be randomizing the list twice & the person on top of the list will be the winner. Thank you for reading & good luck to those in the contest.

2014 Topps Opening Day

 Well I just got back from target and picked up some packs of Topps opening day. I bought one jumbo pack & 2 regular retails. What I was hoping to pull was some mascot cards, I think it's pretty cool that topps incorporates them into the product. Well here we go with what came out:

Well this is the closest I got to a mascot card. On to the next:

I like these blue border cards. I prefer these over the red target borders, but I wish they would've been of some Dodgers. Next are the cards that I think were the best pulls:

These opening day stars are real nice inserts. The kershaw obviously is my favorite one. As you can tell with the kershaw card these have a 3D effect that make them really stand out.

 

And of course here's the stack of base cards. I thought thought this was a pretty decent pack of cards with the kershaw card being the highlight of it. All the other cards are up for grabs, & once again Thanks for reading.

A little bit of color

Here are three cards of one of my favorite card products, Bowman chrome. I absolutely love bowman chrome & all their color refractors. These are just a few of the colored refractors I  have, as I love collecting them. One of my current projects is to add the rainbow set of matt kemp, but I'm missing the black & red refractor. Ofcourse I gave up any hope of acquiring the 1 of 1's. I'm definetly looking forward to the release of this years addition, & adding more refractors. I'd be more than willing to trade any of these & don't let the picture trick you, but the Andrew McCutchen is the pink refractor not the red one. Thank you for reading once more & have a good day.

Ball of the day

Here we are. Today's autographed ball is one I received as a gift from my girlfriend this past Christmas. She knew I was trying to get as many Dodger autographs as I could so she went out & got me this Matt Kemp ball, I love it. I'm hoping to have a ball signed by every single one of the Dodgers better known players by the end of the season, so this is one less I have to worry about getting. I'm glad to know she also listens to all the things I blabber on about as she even made sure it was certified by Psa.

There we are, the Psa certification sticker. Of the 4 major outfielders the Dodgers have I have 2 of them on baseballs so I'm almost there. Another great autograph that's a part of the collection. I look forward to adding more & Thank you for reading.