July 2009

Thursday, June 2nd: Mariners & Blue Jays @ Hotel

To begin with this was a last minute plan and the only reason I went was because I was going into the city anyway. I did not order anything for this team except a nice King Felix 8×10 from Costco. I had that and the cards I had from my house. Not a lot.
I took the 11:05am train, got to the city at 11:40, parted ways with my brother and headed off to the hotel. I got there in around 20 minutes. I joined two other graphers to make only three people waiting. We waited there for a good 35-40 minutes with absolutely no luck, nothing gotten, nor did I see anyone. Then a long time New York City grapher Howe showed up and just like that our luck changed. The four people there spotted Branyan and we ran over to the other side of the street to get Russell. For those who do not know much about Russell he is a big power hitter who has never gotten a full year of big league at bat until this season. He has rewarded the Mariners with 20 home runs, only second in the league to Carlos Pena. While Carlos Pena is hitting under .240 Branyan is hitting just under .300 marking in at .294. Anyway Russell came out with his kid and wife and nicely signed 2/2 for me. I talked to him for about 2 minutes and that is why I believe he signed both for me. He signed one per for the other three people in attendance.

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Within minutes Chris Woodward and Brandon Morrow came out. Woodward, who is always nice signed 2 of 2 for me on blanks. Morrow one of my favorite Mariners signed 3 of three giving a full signature. I then traded my Morrow duplicate to Howe for the one Branyan he had gotten signed.

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15 minutes later Jarrod Washburn came out. He is usually nice and signs 3-4 per person but he denied me and said “not now.” Around 12 minutes later him came back and AGAIN denied me. I was really looking forward to getting him and it stunk that I had not gotten his autograph.
Three players went to go into a cab. I recognized one as the coach, the other was Morrow (who returned from a walk with his girlfriend/wife) and the third one was David Aarsdma. I did not know who it was at the time asked him to sign a blank. When I realized who it was he was gone.

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It was okay because 10 minutes later I saw Mike Carp. I had a Bowman Heritage card for him. When he was playing with Binghamton I saw him in Trenton and he signed around 30 cards for me. I guess one was not signed. Notice how he has a horrible autograph. It was much the same in Double-A. I could easily spot him but I was a little thrown off because he lost a significant amount of weight and dyed his hair from blond to red. I wish him the best and he deserved the big league call up. He went 3 for 8, reaching base 6 of the 11 times before getting called down to make room for Shawn Kelley. I can definitely seeing him contributing in the future as a 20-25 homer guy.

 

pat mirror 018.JPGAs I had mentioned before I did not have much for this team: I did have 2 cards for Felix and an 8×10. I had not gotten him before so he was my goal, the reason why I went in today. 20 minutes after Carp signed for me Felix came out. By that time there were six graphers. I got Felix to sign the 8×10 for me nicely, and one of the other graphers Cliff got an Allen & Ginter signed for me. Thanks Cliff! Felix was nice and I was really happy to get him. My day was complete: I had gotten what I had arrived for.


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Jarrod Washburn came out and he finally signed for the collectors after denying us twice. He signed 1 per person and a big shout out goes out to Sadie the NYC grapher who got him for me. Sadie came for the Blue Jays who I thought were not going to be arriving until tomorrow. I had no plans to go to in for that.

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The bus pulled up and I went running. I had gotten most of the teams’ recognizable names (of course not Griffey or Ichiro) and the only main player I was missing was Erik Bedard. He came out and signed 1 per person for the 4 or 5 of us that were there. I asked him if he could do one for my brother so he did and personalized it to him. He spelled his name wrong but my brother was still happy to get his autograph.

 

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Then Sadie who had been on the other side of the hotel yelled for me. It was Kenji Johjima. I ran over saw him and as he got into the cab he straight up denied me. He signed 1 card for Sadie. By that time all the Mariners had left and so had the graphers. I stayed just to see if I could get lucky with Halladay and get a few guys on blank cards. The only other grapher left was Sadie so I “thought” I was going to possibly get a toughie.

Jeremy Accardo walked out. He was really nice and signed a blank card to my friend James who is his biggest fan. He was a cool guy and I wished the best to him.

 

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Brandon League also came out and signed a blank and he also personalized it “To James.”

 

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Then I went to the bathroom and Sadie said that she thought she saw Alex Rios walk across the street. I looked and I was 95% sure it was him so Sadie gave me two cards and I went running. I finally caught up to him and I nicely asked him in Spanish, 1 on 1. His girlfriend stopped and smiled but he said “Not right now sir,” in Spanish. Gosh. It really shows how tough Rios is. I had him 1 on 1 with no one around and he could not have signed for me. It was not like he was holding his kid’s hands or anything like that.
Speaking of holding their kids hand’s Lyle Overbay came out like that and neither of us asked him. When he returned we did and he signed one for each of us. Thanks for the card Sadie! It was good to get him because he denied EVERYONE the next day.

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Scott Downs came in and was really cool. He was traveling even though he was injured and signed two blanks for me.
Scott Richmond also stepped out with Romero who denied me. Richmond was nice enough to sign two blanks and I talked to him about playing in New Hampshire and playing Independent Ball.

 

 

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pat mirror 008.JPGWhen it got dark and crowded I spotted Roy Halladay I ran up to him just before he was going to enter the hotel and he said “not right now.” Now don’t get me wrong I was disappointed because I understood because…

1) He was with his kids
2) He was with his wife
3) He was holding his kids hands
I did well. I got Morrow, Branyan, Washburn, Erik Bedard, and King Felix.
thanks for reading,
Danilo
mlb4life12

Friday, June 3: Toronto Blue Jays

I had NO plans or intentions to go this morning. I had nothing for the Blue Jays except a Roy Halladay card and some blanks. At 11:30 PM last night I decided to go to the hotel to try to get a Roy Halladay autograph.

I woke up at 7:00 AM and arrived at the hotel at 8:00 AM. When I arrived their was only 2 other collectors, Vincent and one other man who’s name I do not recall. Here was the setup for the hotel, my view.

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Right after that I was told by the man (who’s name I do not know) that the 2003 American League Cy Young Award winner was in Starbucks. The man sold me a photofile of Halladay for $5. The three of us go over to Starbucks to try to confirm he is their. We see him and he sees us as well. Just when I thought he was going to go out from he went straight and we knew he would come out of the main entrance! We ran over, beat him their and we asked him to sign. He said yes and as his was going to sign a security gaurd started yelling at us and he got in the cab. But then he pointed to the street. Meanwhile the man ran over a few blocks to try to get him. Apparently he had no luck. The only ones their now was Vincent and I. We noticed that Roy’s cab was in traffic and we ran into the street during the red light. He had already pulled down his window and he signed 1 of 1 for both me and Vincent! Vincent asked him to incsribe 2003 A.L CY but he was denied. I got very nervous because as he was signing for me the light turned green and I thought I was going to get screwed over. I was so happy, my day was complete and he gave a pretty nice autograph. Here are the pictures:

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Here is the close up of the autograph:

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In the next 30 minutes about 20 more people looking for autographs showed up.

In the next 5 minutes Brett Cecil walked out. He signed a blank for me.

Here was the scan.

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Believe or not that was it. I would get a total of two autographs that day. One by the best pitcher in the American League and another by one of the top 100 prospects in baseball, the number 3 Toronto Blue Jays prospect. I was very happy, because most people got shut out.

As for all the other players they all said no, most of them took the bus and the only one who signed off the bus was Alan Ashby who did it for 4 people (thanks for pushing me out Shelden!).

That was it!

thanks for reading,

Danilo

 

Quick Update!

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the comments and all the support I have gotten towards this blog! I just wanted to let you know that I did not leave ya! It has been a HECTIC week! Here is how it went.

Tuesday – Renegades @ Cyclones

Wednesday – Grasshoppers @ Blueclaws

Thursday – Mariners & Jays @ Hotel

Friday – Jays @ Hotel

 

I DID AMAZING ON ALL FOUR DAYS! EXTREMELY PLEASE WITH MY RESULTS!

 

I should have an update of from at least 3 of the events by Sunday.

 

I also have to blog about a few weekends ago when I did the Rays.

 

Here is how my schedule for the next week should come out………

- Long Island Ducks @ Newark Bears

- Dodgers @ Hotel

- Reds @ Hotel

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