Results tagged ‘ howie ’

Card Show

Sorry I have not posted in a while. Today I attended a card show. I usually went to these a lot when I was a little younger. This was the first time I’ve been to a card show in years. My father and I got there at about 12:30 pm and we immediately went to the back of the gym where former Mets Jack Fisher, Davey Johnson, Bruce Berenyi, Ron Darling, George Foster, Keith Hernandez and Kevin Elster were signing autographs. They all, cost a certain amount of money, except for Jack Fischer who was free with your paid admission. I bought 8×10 photographs of Foster and Fischer. How it worked was you would buy a card that entitles you to get 1 autograph from that player. You would give it to a person sitting next to the player then get the autograph. They gave you a card of Fischer with your admission. How the signing worked was there was 1 large table where all the players were sitting and signing. I went to George Foster first, but the  line for him was so short and I thought he wasn’t there yet. It turns out that the line for a former MVP, World Series Champion, and All-Star, was well, no one. I just walked straight up to him and got him to personalize the photo I had just bought and I got a (slightly blurry) picture with him. 

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It was surprising to see him decked out in Reds gear at a New York card show. 
Then we waited on line to get Jack Fisher. Thanks to a quick read on wikipedia earlier in the day, I found out that he was the Mets pitcher in the first ever game at old Shea Stadium, so I brought a Shea Stadium commemorative baseball with me and got him to sign it and an 8×10 with some inscriptions that I asked him to do. My father took a video of him signing, and you can check it out HERE. That is a good trivia question to stump your friend. Who threw the first pitch ever at Shea? Jack Fisher

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After that, we browsed the rows and rows of dealers. Recently, I was denied in the mail by Jeff Reardon, he returned my cards back unsigned, so when I saw a signed 8×10 of him as a Met for only $1, there was no way I could refuse, so I grabbed a dollar from my pocket, handed it to the dealer, said thanks, and walked away with this Jeff Reardon autograph:

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So, we looked around at the many dealers, saw some interesting stuff. Didn’t buy anything though except for a box of Topps Ticket To Stardom Baseball which contained 20 packs of 12 cards each and in one of the first packs my dad opened up, he saw this:
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Pretty nice. On the back it was numbered 338/489. Now here is the reason why the box is called Ticket to Stardom. 
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If you can’t tell, those are actual tickets from games in 2008. After that, we noticed the line for Davey Johnson, manager of the 1986 Mets, was small. So we bought a picture and a card needed for an autograph, and got on line. There was only one problem, we were on the line for Bruce Berenyi, and we didn’t realize that until we saw Davey Johnson get up to leave, so we ran over to him right before he was going to walk out the door, and got him to personalize an 8×10 for me. Here is a proof shot taken by my dad along with the photo itself. 
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That was it for the card show. Very successful. 

September 4, 2009 @ Citi Field

I went to Citi Field yesterday, here is the story. The night before the game, my father and I bought tickets in section 110 row D, which is 4 rows behind the field. It was quite a bargain if I should say so myself, the face value of the tickets is $270, and we paid $96 per ticket and it came with a free parking pass. We got there at about the time that the gates opened and I went straight into fair terratory in right field because the Mets were hitting. My father was standing in the 4th row near the foul line and I was in the front row. Daniel Murphy was hitting and he hit a homer into the 4th row then it almost hit my dad, hit a chair, rolled down to the 2nd row when I grabbed it with my bare hand, which then was grabbed by another kid who let go after I said, “It’s mine, It’s mine.” Upon looking at the ball, I realized that the stitches were not red, and the ball had a circular logo, it was: IMG_2145.JPG

That ball was the first commemorative one I have ever snagged, unless you count training balls commemorative. The area near the foul line was getting dead, so my dad stayed there and I went behind the Modell’s sign and near the bullpen when I saw K-Rod sign autographs for about 2 kids then left, I didn’t have anything on me to get signed but my hat, and I didn’t get him. I stayed near the Modell’s sign and when reliever Sean Green picked up a ball, I asked him for it, and he threw it to me. There was almost no one there when I got it. It was another 2008 All-Star Game ball, and when I looked at it after I caught it, there was a large black mark from where the hitter’s bat hit the ball. I have no idea who hit it.
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The rest of Mets BP was pretty dead, so while the Cubs were getting set up, I took a baseball, ran around to the field level in foul territory and got Pedro Feliciano and Nelson Figueroa to sign a baseball using their own black sharpies. Here is a picture of Pedro signing taken by my dad who kept my spot in fair territory. 
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I went back to my spot in fair territory and put on an old Cubs hat. The coaches were not giving anything into the crowd, so I moved behind the Modell’s sign in right field and tried to get a ball from a relief pitcher. And then a pitcher, whom I believe to be sean Marshall, to throw me a ball, I was in the corner near the bullpen, and I had to reach over and make a nice backhanded snow cone catch. Then he imitated me catching the ball and said nice catch or something, I couldn’t really see him. Here is a picture of Ball #3: 
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That was all I got for the Cubs portion of BP. After that, I had my picture taken with the 3 baseballs: 
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Then, my father and I returned to our seats before the game, and I just barely missed out on Anderson Hernandez. After the national anthem, Angel Pagan signed my other baseball in someone else’s black pen and I was almost crushed because there were so many people trying to get him. If you can see me, I am just standing there trying to leave.
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Then we took our seats and the game began. Bobby Parnell had easily the best game of his career. Cory Sullivan also had a pretty good game, as he started off the scoring with a second inning solo homer off the Pepsi Porch in right field off of Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano. Then, there was no scoring until the 8th inning, but the Cubs mounted a threat in the top of the 7th, the bases were loaded for pinch hitter Mike Fontenot, not even close to hitting anything, 1 out. Kosuke Fukudome, swinging at thin air, 2 outs. Ryan Theriot, hard shot off of Parnell’s hand, gets the ball and throws to first, inning over. In the 8th Brian Stokes could not hold on to a 1-0 lead as Jeff Baker got Milton Bradley home on an RBI single. In the bottom of the inning, the Mets exploded to score 5 runs against the Cubs bullpen capped off with a 2 RBI single by Omir Santos. In the 9th, the Mets brought in Frankie Rodriguez, who got save #29. 
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Winning Pitcher- Brian Stokes 
Losing Pitcher- Kevin Gregg
Save- Francisco Rodriguez
3 baseballs and 3 autographs, a pretty good day in my opinion. 
Here are the baseballs in the order I snagged them. 
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And here are the autographs, you could probably tell whose signatures they are. 
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Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave comments,
Howie

The 3 P’s

First P: Pete Rose. Two cards and a photo through the mail. I believe he should be in the Hall of Fame, and his managerial record erased from the record books. What do you think about him? 

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Second P: Preparation for tomorrow’s game at Citi Field.
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From left to right. Top Row: My glove, Cardinals hat, Mets hat. Bottom Row: Drawstring bag, Ice Cream helmet (For autographs.) 2 clean baseballs (For autographs.) Binder filled with cards for autographs. Shirt that I will be wearing. (Remember it.) Various sharpies and pens. 
Third P: Past experiences. Remember the shirt? Well, I wore that shirt to games where I had a hat of the visiting team to stand out. Last season at Yankee Stadium:
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Thrown to me by Mark Grudzielanek. 
Earlier this season at Citi Field: (Sorry about the poor photo quality.)
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Thrown by a player who I believe is Garret Mock. 
May 29th at Citi Field: See the speck of yellow?
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Shortly after getting Hanley Ramirez’s autographs. 
I hope my success with the shirt continues tomorrow. 
After tomorrow’s game, I will have one more entry, then I go away for the summer, and I probably can’t make any updates then. 
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