Tuesday, April 29, 2014

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.

Monday, April 28, 2014

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.

Monday, April 21, 2014

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.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

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.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

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.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

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.