Welcome to my blog!!!

I have collected baseball cards and autographs over the years. I still have boxes full of cards (as well as newer cards) that are just sitting there. So, I have decided to see how many of them I can get autographed. I use through the mail as my preferred route for this adventure. I also have an account on Zistle and The Trading Card Database for trading purposes (stevienicks77).



Friday, May 31, 2013

100

I am kinda a big nerd, and I have a spread sheet where I keep track of what cards I send out and the dates.  If you follow my blog, you know I had an incident last summer where my spread sheet got deleted, went MIA, whatever.  Anyway, I keep track of what I send to the big leagues, minor leagues, home addresses, and other categories.  I received this week my 100th TTM from home address mailings.  I have a 69% success rate from TTM home address mailings.  I don't think that's too bad! 

Chris Donnels is someone I had tried to send TTM to once before, but it came back as return to sender.  Well, after looking at Sports Card Forum, I discovered his new address.  I really wanted to get his signature to add to my Mets pages.

Chris Donnels
Signed 2/2
Sent c/o Home adress
12 days

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Brandon Beachy from Spring Training

Wow!  One that I thought was long gone from Spring Training this year showed up in my mailbox from Brandon Beachy of the Braves.  Beachy is rehabbing in the minors from Tommy John surgery last June.  He only has a few more starts to make before he rejoins the dangerous Braves!  I might have to look at him as a waiver wire pick up in fantasy baseball!

Brandon Beachy
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Braves ST
103 days

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Another trade with hpennington22

I got another hook-up via Zistle from hpennington22.

Cubbies!
 

Mets!

Mark McGwire!

2011 Bowman!


Royals!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Bob Boone again!

I received cards back from Bob Boone today.  This was the second time I have gotten a return from him, however, this time was longer than the last time.   This TTM request was a victim of my lost spread sheet, but it was somewhere around a year to get this back.

Bob Boone
Signed 3/3
Sent c/o Washington Nationals
~ 1 year

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Koji Uehara

I also got another return from Koji Uehara.  He's currently in Boston's bullpen.  I was worried about sending the Cognac card; I wasn't sure if the autograph would take or not, but it looks great!


Saturday, May 18, 2013

Rex Hudler

I got another return from Royals TV guy Rex Hudler.  This time, he kept one of my cards, which is totally fine!  He's signing mail on the road because this envelope came from California.

Rex Hudler
Signed 2/3 (didn't return one card)
Sent c/o Kansas City Royals
24 days

Friday, May 17, 2013

Ryan Roberts

I got a few returns this week, one of them from Florida, courtesy of Ryan Roberts.  I don't have many Diamondback signed cards, so this will be great for my collection!

Ryan Roberts
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Tampa Bay Rays
30 days

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Ed Hearn

This was a nice return from former Royal and Met Ed Hearn.  He only returned one of my cards, but he sent an autographed insert that includes info on his websites and Bottom of the 9th

Ed Hearn
Signed 1/2 (didn't return second card)
Sent c/o Home address
168 days


Monday, May 13, 2013

Ron Karkovice

Another exciting TTM return last week; this fills my need to have a TTM of a White Sox catcher!

Ron Karkovice
Signed 3/3
Sent c/o Home address
14 days

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Justin Masterson

I got mail back from Justin Masterson this week.  I was really excited to get this back because I picked him up off the free agent list for my fantasy baseball team, and he's doing what I need him to do...win me games!

Justin Masterson
Signed 2/2
Sent c/o Cleveland Indians
24 days

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Greg Booker and Travis Ishikawa

To finish up my pretty successful week, I got my first 2013 minor league signature.

Travis Ishikawa is currently in the Orioles minor league system, after playing at the major league level with the Giants and the Brewers.  He won a World Series ring in 2010 with the Giants!

Travis Ishikawa
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Norfolk Tides
10 days


Next up, Greg Booker.  He's currently the pitching coach for the Syracuse Chiefs, AAA team of the Nationals.  He played his MLB ball with the Padres, Twins, and Giants. 

Greg Booker
Signed 4/4
Sent c/o Syracuse Chiefs
10 days

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Last post from my big TTM week

I was really excited when I got home Wednesday to see that I had 3 familiar looking envelopes on my counter!

Shawn Camp is currently pitching for my Cubs.  I am hoping to get more current Cubs autographs this year.  When I buy baseball cards, I never get many Cubs cards, but that could be because they haven't had very many players to get excited about, or make cards of.  Who knows?  I think he has a very interesting signature.

Shawn Camp
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Chicago Cubs
6 days
















Fredi Gonzalez is currently the manager of the Braves.  He's been an excellent replacement for Bobby Cox for the Braves.  Unfortunately, my card's lower right hand corner got dinged up in the mail.  :(

Fredi Gonzalez
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Atlanta Braves
14 days

Finally, I had a few cards signed by Tom Lawless.  He's currently a coach for the Oklahoma City RedHawks, AAA team of the Astros.

Tom Lawless
Signed 3/3
Sent c/o Oklahoma City RedHawks
8 days


Friday, May 3, 2013

Chiefs Hall of Famer!!

I got a awesome return this week from Jan Stenerud...CHIEFS HALL OF FAMER!!!  This is exciting for me, because I also have an autograph of Chiefs legend Ed Podolak.  I sent this to his work address here in Kansas City.

Jan Stenerud
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Work address
7 days

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Trade with Rsgreen55

I recently completed another Zistle trade, this time with Rsgreen55.  I believe this was his first Zistle trade.  It was a small deal, but it met my needs!

Pat Neshek and Buck Showalter

I've had a pretty big week of TTMs this week, getting back a total of 6 letters!  I'm going to spread them out over several posts. 

First one back this week is from Pat Neshek.  He currently pitches for the A's, and he is a huge autograph collector, as well.  I follow his website and his Twitter account.   He is currently working on getting the 1985 Topps set signed.  He needs are on his website.  I can't remember how I found Pat's web page, but it helped inspire me to doing TTM autographs again!

Pat Neshek
Signed 2/2 (plus threw in a bunch of 2013 Topps cards)
Sent c/o Oakland A's
6 days


Next up is Buck Showalter.  He's been doing an excellent job up in Baltimore.  I can't wait until they come to KC.  Hopefully, I'll be able to catch a game when they're in town!

Buck Showalter
Signed 1/1
Sent c/o Baltimore Orioles
13 days