Jesuit Baseball Opening Night

Through twitter I was able to find out that none other than Rays ace David Price would be on hand to throw out the ceremonial first pitch for Tampa Jesuit baseball's first game of the season. I had been contemplating going just to get Lance McCullers Jr. on his Topps Team USA card, but the shot at Price was the clincher in my decision to make the drive.

I showed up a bit early hoping to grab McCullers as the early game (Jesuit was hosting a tournament)was going on. No luck there, so I wound up having to wait until just before the game. I hung out by the dugout and once I was able to make eye contact he came right over and signed my two color USA jersey card.

Almost immediately afterward, I realized David Price was walking in. He was with school personnel going over the plan for the pre game festivities. Knowing he is a great signer I chose not to interrupt and instead wait until after his first pitch for a shot. Also he brought along a friend, none other than BJ Upton. Upton signed a ton of baseballs for kids. I had nothing for him, not even a baseball. I wish I would have foreseen that one as he can be a tough graph. Better luck next time.

After the pre game ceremony for Lance McCullers and his Jackie Robinson award, Price threw his pitch and was taken to an area off to the side of the dugout. I followed the kids and they bugged him for autographs. Great kids, they all got in a single file line and Price happily obliged. So I jumped in behind all the kids and waited my turn. Got him to sign a 16x20 or so sized canvas print that was available at Target during last season.

Walked out with the goal accomplished, still wish I would have at least had something for Upton though.

Spring is in the air

The Baseball America Prospect handbook has arrived, the 18-wheelers are heading south loaded with bats and balls and jerseys and bubble gum, and this month the baseball world will celebrate its new year with those  famous four words, "pitchers and catchers report."

The autograph itch has been ever present over the winter, and to relieve that itch I decided to do something I haven't done in years. I sent out my first 16 TTM requests in over two years. I chose to send custom index cards to the top 16 members of Baseball America's early preseason top 100 draft eligible college players. So far I have had moderate success over the first 3 weeks of waiting for returns, going 5/16. Hands down the best return has been from the potential #1 overall pick in the 2012 MLB draft, Stanford ace Mark Appel.

Looking forward to 2012, I have a few plans and priorities set out. First off, I plan on visiting at the very least every Florida State League Stadium at least once. On top of that goal, there are a few AA stadiums in Florida I hope to visit if I get the chance, especially the stadium of the new Pensacola Blue Wahoos.

As for autographing, I will probably shy away from 8x10 pictures in favor of 4x6 post card style shots, something similar to what you see at most fan fests. I have a few designs I have been playing with and I am very excited about. There are two big benefits from making this switch. The obvious benefit is cost, I will be able to make almost ten 4x6 photos for the price of one 8x10. At that ratio I will be able to make an item for every player on a minor league teams roster for the cost of 8x10's of that teams top 3 or 4 players. The other benefit is not having to have a huge high quality photo to still make a quality item to get signed. Before, I had a hard time making quality 8x10 shots from game action photos just because I was generally too far away. Now I will be able to use somewhat smaller pictures and still be able to produce a high quality finished product.

Also, I hope to update this site a little bit more. I may review stadiums, add some more of my photography, anything relevant to post about. I obviously fell off after about May last summer after a very productive spring. This year it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Happy baseball everyone!

More FSL with a big league bonus...

More prospect fun, with the St. Lucie Mets coming to town. The Mets number two and number three prospects (according to BA) Wilmer Flores and Cesar Puello are with the club, as well as first round pick Matt Harvey and top ten organizational prospect Jeurys Familia. I was able to get all of them with relative ease, plus I was finally able to get Rays farmhand and top ten prospect Alex Colome.

But the best part of the night was the fact that the Mets decided to keep Jason Bay with St. Lucie for one more rehab start before being called up for the weekend series with the Diamondbacks. He signed a 4x6 Mets postcard for me, which I am very excited for as Jason is one guy who has always been a toughie for me.

Florida State League 4-19-11

Finally got a home Stone Crabs series with some worthwhile prospects coming into town. I took advantage of the day game Sunday to get a couple of 8x10 shots, namely Cardinals #2 top prospect Zach Cox, and Hak-Ju Lee and Jake Thompson, who both started the season in the top ten prospects for the Rays organization. I got all of those 3 signed tonight along with cards of Zach Cox and Jake Thompson. However, the big victory of the night was getting Shelby Miller, top Cardinals prospect, on a sweet spot ROMLB. He pitched tonight and I was able to get a few pictures of him before the shadows crept in, and hopefully I can get an 8x10 signed the next time he is in town.

Rays Vs. Jays 3-9-11

More of the same from Rays camp, plus a couple guys from the minor league camp. I believe today was the first day position players worked out.

Inside the park I got Don Zimmer during batting practice. I had nothing for the Jays, so I had some lunch and waited around for pregame warmups, hoping for a big name to sign like they have the past few games I have been too. While I was waiting for that to happen, I managed to recognize the familiar face of top prospect Matt Moore by the Rays minor league clubhouse in center field. I called him over and tossed my clipboard down to him and he signed a card for me.

Once pregame warmups started, I managed to get Matt Joyce and Manny Ramirez on 8x10 photos I took. I wish Manny didn't have the signature of a 3 year old, I may as well have scribbled on the photo myself. The Matt Joyce photo came out very nice though. Once the game started I decided I wasn't too keen on baking in the sun for the second day in a row, so I decided to wander on over to the minor league camp and catch the few guys remaining who were taking batting practice. On my way in I was able to grab a home run ball, its an official minor league baseball with a lot of use.

I lucked out inside, the players were just wrapping up as I arrived. I saw new addition Hak-Ju Lee, but didn't have anything for him to sign. I am pretty sure he will start out in Port Charlotte so I am not too worried about that. There were very few people I recognized as they were wearing warmups, but one of them was Josh Sale. He was very friendly and signed a card for me, and was very talkative and just an overall nice guy. I am very excited to see what he can do, he has a very powerful bat.

I'm almost getting bored graphing the Rays over and over. I'm pretty sure I'll mix it up next week. I can say I am very excited to start getting some minor league graphs though.

Rays Vs. Blue Jays 3-8-11

Today went well in the fact that I knocked out two of my more fun goals for the spring. The first of which was the first signature I got today, none other than Don Zimmer. Its a photo I took last spring, of his personal Zimmer Mobile that he rides around the Rays practice fields during early spring workouts and drills. He gave a chuckle when he saw the photo, asked where I got it and once I said I took the photo he asked whether it was this year or last year. Wish I could have talked to him more but there were very many people asking for his autograph and he wanted to accomodate everyone.

The second was a project that I stumbled upon in the offseason while I was amassing cards for the teams I graph each spring. While searching for Joe Maddon cards, I just so happened to find one dated from 1986. It's a Midland Angels minor league team set card, a team he managed in the mid 1980's. I love getting things like this signed, especially when whoever the signer is gets a kick out of it and shows anybody who's around what they looked like "back in the day."

I was able to come away with one more signature today, this one being from Sean Rodriguez. Sean is a ver nice guy with a very nice looking autograph. He signed a photo I took earlier this spring on the first day position players reported of him laughing at someones joke during some infield drills. He definitelt has one of the better looking autographs in baseball right now.

I wish every day was like this...

Not a bad day for showing up not expecting to really graph. I tend to be a minimalist when I go to spring training games... I'll bring my binder yes but I'm not pushing and I'm not shoving and I actually go to enjoy the games. Only around 3000 showed up and only about 50 of them wanted autographs it seemed. Price signed down the whole fence from the foul pole to the dugout, I got him to sign my plaid hat since I finished my stuff I had for him last week.

As the starting lineup was doing their sprints and throwing and such, I decided to wander as close as I could. As I got to a nice little spot... I realized Longoria was walking right up to the little kid in front of me. He got his shirt signed in red sharpie. And Longo ran with it... So my 8x10 is in red. I'm not complaining though I like how it matches the seams on the hologram ball. He walked down an entire section and signed for people. Nobody was pushing and he seemed more than happy to accomodate. Standing there surprised at the ease I just got Longoria with, I look to my right and Manny is walking up to a kid ten feet away. I jump a row of seats hoping I can somehow get into the swarm for him... And that's when I realized there was no swarm. I was the second person to get Manny, right after the kid he originially walked up too. It was weird to me after my past experiences with these two guys and getting swarmed and people pushing and shoving. But it was a very welcome change. I guess the dealers didn't do well enough at the camps to afford tickets to any games.

Rays 2/24 and Twins 2/25

I was kinda bummed out today after getting less autographs than hours of time spent earlier in the week so I seeked some solace in graphing my beloved Rays. They're 10 minutes from the house and I know the general signing habits of the players and of the camp itself so I knew I was able to sleep in a bit. Got there around 11 and met up with a few friends who had just gotten Farnsworth a minute before I walked in... But that was about it so far, just as I planned. I was focusing more on lesser named guys... Just mainly guys I don't have yet but want because the Rays are my team.

Managed to get these guys on cards:

Matt Joyce
Alex Torres
Jake McGee
Desmond Jennings
JJ Furmaniak
Robinson Chirinos
Jose Lobaton
Sean Rodriguez
Ben Zobrist
Nevin Ashley
Elliot Johnson

The big name of the day though was Johnny Damon, managed him on his photofile 8x10 of him holding his Rays jersey. Score.


As for Friday... I decided since it was my last camp day and the Twins out of the 4 teams I generally graph in the spring were the one I had done the worst with as of yet, I might as well try and make a day of it. Practice was pushed back due to physicals and or photos and or team meeting... Heard some variation of all of those from different security guards.

It again wasn't a great quality graphing day, got none of the big three being Thome Mauer and Morneau, but did manage enough to keep me from giving up on Twins camp forever. Granted those guys did sign, I just wasn't in the right place at the right time as I figured going for the easier guys and not risking wasting my time just to be skipped over would be the plan for the day.

I was excited to get Delmon, that's a first for me in at least 6 years of trying. Also got the Twins top prospect Kyle Gibson on a photo I took last season and a card, always good to get a top prospect. Also got Denard Span on an 8x10 photofile, as well as Alex Burnett on a card. Most of the stuff was inside, Jason Kubel and David Bromberg were in the parking lot.

It's not always easy...

I hit a deadspot this week. Seemed like every out of town dealer/collector managed to time their spring training vacations with my rotating plans of hitting all the local camps.

I arrived late to Twins camp on Tuesday due to a mandatory work meeting in the morning, ended up driving 2 and a half hours round trip to get two guys.

Spent last Wednesday at Orioles camp and came away with 4 guys in about 6 hours. Essentially nothing inside, and slim pickings in a crowded parking lot.

The problem with both of these days was the rediculous quantity of people. Got Mark Reynolds inside the O's complex, and the other few guys in the parking lot, with a crowd that fluctuated between 15-20 throughout the time I spent there. Its tough to get any names to stop there with any more than 10 people asking, as you can see by the results.

As for Twins camp, I arrived late, got Tolbert as he was walking off the side field as he was the last one in from the non mandatory early position player workouts. Went in the main stadium, caught the tail end of a popup fielding drill for catchers, and then proceeded to not be one of the lucky ones in the Mauer Mad Dash. He signed for about 20-30 ish, picking and choosing and personalizing most things. With nothing else happening, I decided to hit the parking lot. Got Alexi Casilla right away, he signed for the 5 of us waiting. I thought it was going to be a good day with so few people waiting, until they all showed up... Before the next player pulled out I was standing with about 50 of my not so closest autograph collecting friends. And they kept on coming. I threw in the towel and grabbed some orange/vanilla swirl ice cream at the citrus shop up the street so the trip wasn't a complete waste.

Rays Position Players Report 2-21-11

Headed to Port Charlotte again, this time for the first official workouts for position players. It was nice to see some live batting practice, and hear the crack of the bat a few times. Baseball is back and in full swing.

As for the autographs, it was a bit more quality over quantity. I grabbed Jeff Niemann and Andy Sonnanstine right off the bat, their workouts were done early and they signed for ever. I literally was going to pass up on them because I didn't want to get stuck in a crowd for guys I've already gotten plenty of, but they signed for EVERYONE to the point where the line went from a crowd of about 50 to a single file line of about 5 people. Great guys who always sign up a storm.

After that the going was slow, snagged Andrew Friedman on a franchise history card by Topps, and asked him if it was "buy one Johnny Damon get a Manny Ramirez half off, he said not quite but they did come together. More on Manny later.

As the pitchers finished throwing their BP sessions and bullpens and doing fielding drills they all filtered into the conditioning portion of the workouts, and pretty much all of them signed after they were done running. Heres an action shot of James Shields...

He's always very nice, looks out for the kids, talks up a storm as he is signing, makes getting his autograph fun. I got him to inscribe Big Game on a card, his nickname is Big Game James. Not that that name held up statistically last year, but that doesn't take away from him being a great guy.

David Price did his usual sign for everyone while making sure people don't push and shove. He keeps everyone in check by letting them know he's going to stop signing if everyone doesn't take a step back. He and James Shields were going back and forth with stuff like that. I got Price on his Sports Illustrated cover, he signed right over the bubble. He tends to do that, I don't think I have seen a signed one that wasnt over the bubble to be honest.

After the position players wrapped up, it was a mad scramble. Most guys signed, but it was in about a 15 foot section of fence and most guys signed for 10-15 people and ran in, names like Longo Damon Upton etc. I did manage Zobrist on an 8x10 in the scramble, and got it inscribed with his nickname ZORILLA.

After that, about 150 fans were left watching 4 guys shag balls, as they were the last people left on any of the 4 fields. Odd that many people would stay for 4 guys, except one of them was Manny. I lucked out, I stood next to a Dominican guy who had been yelling back and forth with Manny all throughout the practice day. The series of events that followed was one of my more akward autographing experiences, but hey I will take it. Here is the run down....

Manny finishes the workout, heads over to his bag along the foul line and puts his stuff away.

Dominican guy next to me yells in spanish, Manny looks up and nods.

Manny walks in our general direction.

I am annihilated by seemingly all 150 people who are still on the complex fields.

Manny takes the gold paint pen from the Dominican man, signs his black bat. It looks pretty nice.

Manny signs a red seat, presumably a Red Sox world series project someone was working on, in gold.

Manny signs about 5 balls, in gold, all side panel.

Manny takes a ball from the original Dominican man, and goes to sign it in gold.

The man rips the gold paint pen from Manny's hand and replaces it with a blue bic.

Manny puts the gold pen in his mouth, signs that one ball in blue bic, drops the bic.

Mind you, through out this whole ordeal the Dominican man and Manny are yelling at eachother in spanish.

He grabs the gold paint pen from his mouth and I'm the first signature after that ball, he signs my photofile from the press conference in gold paint pen. It took me two minutes to work my way out of the crowd.