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.