1993 Bowman, Kevin Higgins

#574 Kevin Higgins

Here is the final 1993 Bowman card that I have to show. This is another signed Padre card courtesy of Rod, of Padrographs.

Kevin only played in 71 Major League games, getting 181 at-bats. All of those games came during the 1993 season. He spent all of 1994 in AAA and that was his last season in baseball. One of his stats that stands to me is his strikeouts. They are consistently low throughout his career. The most he ever struck out was 38 times and that was a season in which he had 403 ABs. Unfortunately, he never walked much, or he might have been a good on base guy.

Another thing that stands out is the positions he played. In his one season in the Majors, he caught 59 games, played third four times, played outfield and first three times each, and played second base once. This guy had some versatility.

I love the photo on this card. There is about to be a play at the plate and you can see the ball almost to the catcher and the on deck batter telling the runner that he had better get down. It doesn't get much better than that.

1993 Bowman, Matt Walbeck

#384 Matt Walbeck

Here is the one '93 Bowmans that I was able to get autographed by myself. I got this card signed in Kansas City last summer when the Rangers visited the K. Matt was their third base coach last season. At the ballpark, the Rangers were all stretching and getting ready to take batting practice. Matt was warming up with one of the other coaches. He had his catchers glove on and was down in a squat helping the other coach get ready to throw some BP. While he was doing that, I asked him if he would sign and he said something to the effect of "yeah, sure, just give me a minute". He caught a few more balls and then came over and signed all three cards that I had.

If you look at the Baseball Almanac autograph and compare it to this one, you can see how his signature has changed over the years. Both of them start off the same. But that is where the similarities end. On BA's auto, you can see two distinct names and Matt is easy to make out. On mine, it just looks like one word.

1993 Bowman, Tim Worrell

#138 Tim Worrell

Here is another card from Rod, of Padrographs. This one features long-time reliever Tim Worrell, the brother of Todd Worrell.

Tim pitched in the big leagues for 14 seasons with nine different clubs. He has a lifetime ERA of 3.97. He only had 71 saves, so he must have had a few different positions in the pen. He did have 38 saves for the Giants in 2003, though. That was good enough for fourth in the league, behind Gagne, Smoltz, and Wagner.

This makes two posts in a row where Baseball Almanac didn't have an autographed card of the player I was posting. That kind of makes me feel special. Thanks Rod!

1993 Bowman, Kerry Taylor

#63 Kerry Taylor

This card was given to me by Rod, of Padrographs. Before Rod gave me a bunch of autographed Padre cards, I had one card from this set signed. Now, I have four. One of the reasons I didn't have more of these signed is because I don't own too many of them. When the Bowman cards started to be more of a premium brand, I stuck more to the fifty cent packs. You could get at least twice as many cards that way.

As for Kerry Taylor, he had a brief Major League career. He was a Rule V pick by the Padres after playing A ball the year before. Somehow, the Padres kept him on their roster the whole season and he ended up with a 6.45 ERA with 49 walks and 45 strikeouts. The next season, he went to AAA. At some point during the year, he got called up to make a start for the Pads. He pitched 4.1 innings, giving up 4 runs on 9 hits. That was his last outing in the Majors. He played four more seasons in AAA before calling it quits after his 2000 season.

What is this card worth to You?

I just got a couple of blasters of '09 Heritage at Target. I was kind of disappointed in the packs until the second to last one that I ripped. And in disappointed, I mean that I got very few SPs and chrome cards. I'm usually not a big chrome person, but I've been getting them at about a 4:5 pack rate from the Wal-Mart 14 card packs. So, I guess that I just got used to them. In these two blasters, I only got four SPs and three chrome. And this...





The reason why I asked the question in the title is because I have no idea what this card is worth. I usually base stuff like this off of ebay sales, but I couldn't find one of these on ebay. I checked for other black refractors and found an Chipper Jones going for about $11, an Alex Gordon going for almost $18, and a Tim Lincecum going for around $22. I figured that this thing is worth at least the same price of the Lincecum and feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

So here is the deal. I am offering this card to anybody that will trade me a certified autograph. But, not just anybody. This card goes to whoever offers me the best auto'd card. I'm going to let this run until midnight, April 5th. The reason that I am letting it last that long is because I have to go down to Houston for a wedding next weekend and I do not not want anything of importance showing up while I am out of town. So, if I get some good offers, great. If not, I will just post this on ebay and see what I can get for it.

On a side note, this may be the lowest numbered card that I have ever pulled from a pack. I was pretty stoked at first. But, as an autograph collector, reality set in and I realized that it would be near impossible to get this card signed and have it look good.

1991 Procards, Trey Hillman

#3075 Trey Hillman

Here is the last card from Fanfest. Actually, it is the last pre-1993 card. Tomorrow, I'll be jumping into 1993 and I will have a few Padrographs leading off.

As for this card, it is the only card of the set that I have. I bought it on ebay about a week before Fanfest and it arrived at my house the day before. I was cutting it close with this card (and another one).

Trey put his number on the card. I thought that that was something new since he didn't do that on my '08 card that I got signed at the Royals parking lot. But, I was looking through some of my Royals-provided pictures and I found the one that he signed last year at Fanfest and it has the 22 also. So, maybe it is only something he does at signings.

Since this is my last Fanfest post for a while, here is another autograph that I got there.



These buttons were given out at a Royals game in 2007 after the Royals broadcaster, Denny Matthews, was elected to the Hall of Fame. I didn't even think to take this to Fanfest last year. I remembered this year and it turned out pretty good. I like how he added the Hall of Fame inscription without being asked.

1990 Donruss Best, Kevin Seitzer

#91 Kevin Seitzer

Here is yet another card from Fanfest. Kevin is the new hitting coach for the Royals. Therefore, he was signing with the players and coaches and not with the alumni. Unfortunately, he only signed one of my three cards.

At Fanfest, there was two separate autograph lines going at a time that featured current players/coaches. I spent most of my time in line B and the alumni line. Kevin was signing at B during the last session of the day. I was at the beginning of line A when the signing started. I told my dad to stay at the end of line B (ie, keep letting people in front of him). I got my cards signed from the line A guys and headed down to B to get in there. Well, my dad was nowhere to be found. After a few minutes, I found him in the middle of the line. He tried to get me to cut in there with him, but I wasn't about to skip over that many people. So, I just gave him what I wanted signed and he got what he could. Kevin, incidentally, was the only person in line B that only signed one item for me (or my father). Even Zack Grienke signed two cards, which amazed me.

I remember the '87 Fleer Kevin Seitzer/Stefaro (I think that is his name) card. In '87, that was the card to get here in Kansas. The year I went to the Danny Tartabull card show, I bought the Seitzer card for $5. I also bought a few packs of '87 Fleer and got one in there. I thought that I did pretty well that day.

This is another card that I got from Stats on the Back. This is also another card set that I had never seen before. I did a little looking and I guess Donruss made their "The Rookies" set just like this, but in green. While I'm not a big fan of the red borders, I can't say that I'm a big fan of the blue either. With the Royals powder blue uniforms, there is a ton blueish tint on this card. This might have the '88 Topps Thad Bosley card beat. Maybe.

Kevin has an interesting signature. It looks like there is an M in the middle of it. Also, I'm not sure if I can make out the inscription. John 3:3?

1990 Bowman, Jim Eisenreich

#374 Jim Eisenreich

This is the second Eisenreich that I got at Fanfest. The first one was a 1992 Topps card that I posted when I was going through my '92s.

Jim was at the Willie Wilson Classic last summer. I didn't see him after the game, so I was unable to get his autograph at that time. Luckily, he made it to Fanfest this year.

As for the Willie Wilson Classic this year, it is getting a makeover. The last few have been held at the Kansas City T-Bones ballpark (independent, Northern League). There, the game was for charity and they tried to sell autograph tickets for $10 per autograph. For last year's game, the tickets were originally $20. I bought two of them thinking that you could get everyone's autograph with the ticket. When I heard that each ticket was only good for one autograph, I called and complained and they told me to send them back to the ticket office for a refund. I did that, but never got my refund. They claimed to have never received them. So, I was out $40. But, I did manage to get twenty-some cards signed after the game. At that ballpark, the clubhouse is behind rightfield. The players have to cross the concourse to get to the clubhouse, so it ended up working out just fine.

Well, this year it is going to be called the Willie Wilson Hall of Fame Classic and is going to be played at Kauffman Stadium prior to a Royals game. So, I have no idea how this is going to work. Last year, I went up to Dennis Leonard during batting practice to get his autograph and he wouldn't sign. He said that they weren't allowed to since they were trying to raise money for charity. So, who knows what it will be like this year.

1989 Score Hottest 100 Rookies, Mike Macfarlane

#97 Mike Macfarlane

Here is the second card that Mike signed for me at Fanfest. As for this card, I got it from Stats on the Back, just like the last Macfarlane card. This is probably the only card that I have from this set. I had never even seen this card set before I was given this card. I am kind of curious who else was in the set. It is a 100 card set (obviuosly) and I think it is funny that Score actually thought that there was 100 hot rookies in the league that year. How many hot rookies were there in 2008? Ten? Also, I wonder if the numbering system was a way to rank them. For example, #1 would be the hottest rookie out there.

2003 Upper Deck Vintage, George Kell

#191 George Kell

In case you haven't heard, Hall of Fame third baseman George Kell passed away this morning. You can read about it here.

I got this card signed through the mail just this past November. This was the first card that I had ever received that had a Hall of Fame inscription.

That was around the time when I first got involved writing to retired players. I found The Bench and it's free list of player addresses and starting TTMing consistently for the first time since high school. One of the hard things for me to do when I ask for an autograph is to relate to a player whose career was way before I was even born. That was the case when I wrote to Mr. Kell. When I was reading the list of players, I recognized his name. I looked him up and saw that he was a Hall of Famer. After seeing that, I decided to write to him. I don't remember what I wrote in the letter, but I'm sure it was pretty short. Nevertheless, Mr. Kell was nice enough to sign and return my card in just a couple of weeks.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

1989 Donruss, Mark Grace

#17 Mark Grace

I got this card signed through the mail on the fifth of February. It took less than a month to get this card back.

When I opened the envelope that this card came back in, my first thought was "sweet, Mark Grace". Then I looked at it a little closer and thought "what the hell happened to my card". This thing took a beating. The corners are all dinged up. The top edge is kind of frayed. There are two wierd creases in the middle of the card (can't see them on the scan, though) that are not deep enough to be creased on the back. The black edges are faded. And part of the signature rubbed off, just like my Sid Bream card. I still don't know what to think of this card. I don't know if it's because of the USPS or if Mark Grace treats cards like crap. The reason why I even bring that up is because 30-Year Old Cardboard had the exact same problem the first time he went for Grace TTM. I may have to do the same thing he did and send one out to him again.

This is the only Diamond King card that I have had signed.

Also, when I got back from the Wichita State game on Saturday, I had a couple of packages stuffed into my mail box. The first one was from Paul of Paul's Random Stuff. He traded me some 2008 Royals cards that I did not have. I sent him a couple of cool Mets cards that I figured would mean more to him than to me. I also had a box from Motherscratcher of Achiever Card Blog. A while back, he got some cards in a trade or something and posted them. I saw an Al Fitzmorris card and I asked if he would be willing to trade it. He said that I could have it and he mailed to me along with some random packs. So, that was very cool, especially the Mega Metal cards. Those were fun.

So, thanks Paul and Motherscratcher. Sorry I kept forgetting.

1988 Topps Stickers, Frank White

#39 Frank White

Actually, that should probably be "#39 Glenn Davis" since he is on the front of the card (the sticker portion). But, since it isn't signed by Glenn Davis, I am listing it as a Frank White card.

I got this card in a repack box a few weeks before Royals Fanfest. That was the only pack of this stuff that I have ever ripped. They are smaller than regular cards. There is a regular card behind this one in the scan so that you can see the difference in size. I'm not sure why there is a sticker on one side and baseball card like thing on the back. I guess Topps did this so you would still have something to collect and trade even if you removed the sticker.

I got this card signed at Fanfest this year. Just like with the Royals Caravan, Frank stuck to the rules and only signed one of my cards. He was the only player in the alumni lines that only signed one. I had three cards in my book and he decided to sign the one in the middle, this one. While he signed it, he said "it's been a long time since I have seen this card". And that was that.

1988 Score, Jamie Quirk

#577 Jamie Quirk

Here is the third and final card that Jamie Quirk signed for me at Fanfest.

Today, I went to my first baseball game of the year. No, I wasn't able to make it to Spring Training. But I was able to make it to a Division 1 NCAA game. I went to Wichita and saw the Wichita State Shockers defeat the Long Beach State Dirtbags, 7-5. It was a great game that went back and forth until the seventh when the Shockers scored four to take the lead and hold it. Here is a picture of my first pitch of the year.



I bought a ten dollar ticket that should have had me sitting in a seat behind the third base dugout. But, I decided that I wanted to sit in the sun since it was 60 degrees. So, I went and sat in the left field bleachers. I didn't wear a hat, so half of my face and forehead got burnt. I even have a nice raccoon eye from wearing my sunglasses. But, it was well worth it to see these two great baseball schools battle it out.

It looks like a sparse crowd in the stands, but that is not the case. Most of the people that go to WSU games sit in the outfield. It costs $6 for a GA ticket (outfield berm). They all bring at least two of three products when they sit out there- lawn chair, cooler, and/or grill. That's right, you can bring a grill to the game at Wichita State (no charcoal grills, though). How cool is that? I have been to over 50 professional ballparks and have never seen one that allows that. As for the coolers, you can bring anything in them that is not in a glass bottle. Yes, even canned beer. Again, this is the only park that I have ever been to that lets you bring your own beer. I didn't take a picture of the area today, but here is a picture from a game I was at last year. Keep in mind that at last year's game, it was about 10 degrees cooler and was played against Harvard.



This area was packed today.

I'm sorry to get side-tracked from the autographed card tonight. But, I love going to games and I love talking up the local teams. I originally started this blog to get used to blogger so that I could start a blog about all of the ballparks that I have been to. Well, I have enjoyed this one so much (and contributing at Auto-Matic For the People) that the ballpark page has been moved to the back-burner. I just need to figure out how to make a website and then I wouldn't have to worry about a ballpark blog. But, if anyone would like to see some of the ballparks that I have been to (and you have a myspace account) go here. If you don't have a myspace account (I don't blame you), you can still see most of the ballparks that I have been to. It isn't really up to date.

1988 Score, Jeff Montgomery

#497 Jeff Montgomery

It seems like I just posted a Jeff Montgomery card a few weeks ago. Actually, I did post one that I have had for a few years (see the senior picture card here). But, this one I got at Fanfest. He was in the same group as Mike Macfarlane. I took my dad with me to Fanfest to help me double up on autographs and to hold my place in line (yes, I have a great Dad). We both went through the alumni line together when Fanfest started. I had three cards of each player at the table. Usually, they only sign one card per person. So, I took one card out of my autograph book for each player and gave it to my dad. That way, I was guarenteed two autographs from each player. Well, all three of them signed both of my cards which means that they probably would have signed all three.

So, my dad wasted his time in the line. I should have sent him over to the current players line where Alex Gordon was signing. By the time we got there, they had cut the line off and I was pissed since they weren't running the line like they were supposed to. They tried to tell me that only 150 people are guarenteed autographs. I told them that I understood that, but the program says that they are signing for 90 minutes and it will probably take less than an hour to get 150 people through. They said that I was wrong and that they are supposed to cut the lines off at the 150th person. I basically told them that they were ate-up and needed to pull their heads out of their asses. But, that was the first line for Fanfest. After that, they must have took my advice (removed head from ass) and there were no more problems in the lines. They cut the lines off at 150, but would sprinkle groups in as the line got smaller.

Anyway, Jeff was almost a lifelong Royal. He spent his first season in Cincinnati and has three cards as a Red. I figured that I would mix it up and get one of the Reds cards signed.

1988 Donruss The Rookies, Mike Macfarlane

#55 Mike Macfarlane

I got this card signed at this year's Fanfest. Mike was nice enough to sign all three of my cards. As for this card, it was one of the odd-ball cards from Stats on the Back. I don't have too many cards from The Rookies sets. Most of the time, they were only availabe as a set. But, I do know of a couple sets that were put into packs.

Mike was a pretty decent catcher for the Royals in the '90s. In 1993, he hit 20 dingers. That seems like a pretty decent number for 1993. Out of all of the players to ever wear a Royals uniform, he is in tenth place in games played, ninth in doubles, and first in being hit by a pitch.

1988 Donruss, Terry McGriff

#556 Terry McGriff

This is one of the cards that Paul, from Paul's Random Stuff, sent me last week. Paul said that most of the cards he sent me he had had signed at Atlantic League games. I am assuming that this one is no different. It looks like Terry is the hitting coach for the Bridgeport Bluefish.

Terry is the cousin of Fred McGriff and the uncle of Charles Johnson. He finished his career with three home runs. That is 490 homers less than Fred and 164 less than Charles. But, it is three more than I have.

1987 Topps Traded, Ron Cey

#22T Ron Cey

I thought that I would be different and unique here. Out of all the cards that I could have sent to Ron Cey, I sent his lone A's card. I thought that I would be one of the few people that have bothered to get this card signed. Well, I was wrong. A couple of days after I sent this card and the other Cey card out, Dan from OMGautos posted his signed '87 Topps Traded Ron Cey card. Needless to say, I was disappointed to be beaten to the punch. But, it is good to see that there are some other autograph collectors out there that have a weird sense of humor like I do (or just like getting '87 Topps cards signed). Either way, good work Dan.

You will notice that Ron did not put his number on this card like he did the last one. It appears that he only includes his number on his Dodger cards.

Also, I got this card in one of those wierd repacks at Target. It is one of the ones with 100 cards and a couple of junk wax packs. This was one of about five or six of the '87 Topps Traded cards included in it.

It's good to see Ron wearing green on St. Patricks Day.

1987 Topps, Sid Bream

#35 Sid Bream

I got this card signed through the mail last month. Unfortunately, it did not come back as nice looking as it should have. A lot of the autograph rubbed off or something. I sent two cards to be signed and both of them were. And both of them ended up looking like this. Actually, the second one isn't quite as bad as this one, but it could have been much better. The bad thing is that the TTM request that I got back just before this one was about the same.

There are two reasons that I decided to go after Sid Bream's autograph. The first was seeing the success over at Paul's Random Stuff. The second thing that prompted me to send the cards out was the MLB Network. I don't know how many times I saw Sid's slide from game seven of the '92 NLCS on their commercials. So that combination prodded me to get Sid's autograph. That is kind of funny since I never bothered to write to him while he was playing.

1987 Donruss Opening Day, Frank White

#204 Frank White

This is the card that I got signed when the Royals Caravan came to town.

This card is from the 1987 Donruss Opening Day set. As far as I know, they only made this set that one year. It wasn't distributed in packs. It was only available as a set. And if I remember correctly, it came in a fancy plastic case with a clear lid. I got a few cards from the set when one of the local cards shops busted open a couple of sets and made their own packs. This Frank White card is kind of beat up, but I thought it would be cool to get one of these signed.

1987 Donruss, Greg Pryor

#378 Greg Pryor

Here is the third and final Greg Pryor card that I got signed at Fanfest.

While at Fanfest, there was another guy there that I saw quite often standing in the autograph lines. He was wearing a Greg Pryor jersey and looked almost exactly like him in this photo. I thought that was kind of funny. He is probably the only person that has a Greg Pryor jersey.

1985 Topps, Frank White

#743 Frank White

This is the third Frank White card that I have posted on here. The first two were both 1989 cards (a Topps and a Donruss). This one is by far my favorite of the three because it is an '85 Topps. The first pack of cards I ever got were '85 Topps, so this set is special for me in that way. Every now and then I will buy a rack pack or two of these off of ebay just to for the sake of doing it.

I got this card signed at the Royals Caravan in January. Frank is a big stickler for the rules (one autograph per person), so I had my dad get this one signed for me.

I like the photo on this card. It looks like Frank is running to third. It may have been a 3-2 count with runners on first and second. Frank was running on the pitch and was peeking in to see if the batter was going to swing or not when this picture was taken. I don't know; it's just a guess.

1985 Topps, Dave Owen

#642 Dave Owen

Here is the card that I was going to post yesterday until the Dodgers coaches card showed up in the mailbox.

I got this card signed at Fanfest. Dave was the Royals bench coach last year. This season, he will be their third base coach. Out of all of the players, coaches, and alumni at Royals Fanfest, Dave seemed to be the most talkative. I've interacted (or tried to) with most of the Royals coaches and players by the Royals parking lot. But, I have never had a card of Dave, so I never had a reason to stop him and ask for an autograph. He was one of the few people I let go by without really saying anything to. Well, at Fanfest, he was signing my card and I asked him if he was excited about moving to the third base coaches box. He basically told me that "it was going to be interesting; if you send a guy and he scores, you get a pat on the back; but if send a guy and he gets thrown out, it is all your fault". I told him that he will do fine and wished him luck this season. He seemed like a really nice guy.

I had this card listed on my want list or some time. While I was getting ready for fanfest, I finally found this card at checkoutmycards.com for about ten cents. I was happy to finally have a card for him to sign. As for checkoutmycards.com, I was very pleased with my transaction. You can get a bunch of cards from different people and only pay one shipping and handling charge. It seemed like a better deal than ebay.

Dave didn't have much of a Major League career. He played parts of four seasons with the Cubs and Royals. I just noticed that he went to college at the University of Texas at Arlington. I'm pretty sure that is the same school that Royals manager Trey Hillman went to. I bet that they were teammates.

Also, I wanted to mention some more mail that I got today. I got another card back today from Spring Training. It is an '81 Donruss, so I will probably wait to show that on here after I go through the 1993 cards. I also had two boxes from Night Owl Cards in the mail. These were the dollar store packs that he was nice enough to get for me. They are mostly '83, '84, and '85 Fleer. Those were years that I have few cards of, so that was a nice pickup for me. Thanks Greg! I really do appreciate it. Then was was another package in the mail. This one was from Paul of Paul's Random Stuff. A week or two ago, he told me that he did not have a card of Mets pitching coach, Dan Warthen. So, I went to my local card shop and grabbed Paul a 1976 Topps Warthen card and sent it to him. I really wasn't expecting anything in return. But, he decided to send me about ten autographed cards for the one card I sent him. How about that? Half of them were somewhat newer cards of players that didn't make it to the Majors. The other half were of legit Major Leaguers. I will post one of them next week. The older ones I will save for after the 1993 cards as well. Thank you, Paul. I owe you one.

2009 Topps Heritage, Bowa/Honeycutt/Duncan/Schaefer

#463 Larry Bowa, Rick Honeycutt, Mariano Duncan, and Bob Schaefer

If you have been by this blog more than once, you might have noticed a certain layout that I follow. I like to post my older cards first and move towards the newer ones. Well, tonight I am going to break the mold (just for one night, though). I got home from work tonight and found this card waiting for me. When I originally sent it out, I told myself that if it came back with four signatures on it, I would post it right then and there. So, here it is.

This is one of the short print coaches cards that is in the '09 Heritage. I got this card in one of the first five packs that I bought. After those five packs, I bought a box of Heritage and only got one coaches card (Indians). I guess that I was pretty lucky to get this one when I did.

I sent this card to Bob Schaefer on March 2nd. I sent it to Bob because he was a long time Royals coach and was even an interim manager with them on two seperate occasions. Plus, I have never seen a card of him, so I thought that it would be cool to get this one signed by him. When I wrote him the letter, I causualy mentioned that I would try to send it around to all of the coaches to see if I could get it signed by all four of them. Well Bob, being the great guy that he is, saved me some time and stamps and had the other guys sign it for me. Awesome!! Thank you Bob Schaefer!

As you all know, normally I am not a fan of the ballpoint pen signature. But, the Topps Heritage card stock seems to work well with it. With the small spaces that they signed in, a Sharpie probaly would not have looked too good. Also, on the scan, the Larry Bowa signature looks cut off. That is not the case. My scanner cut off part of the border.

1985 Fleer, John Wathan

#216 John Wathan

This is the third and final John Wathan signature from Fanfest. For me, it was a toss up between getting this card signed or his '88 Topps card where he was the manager with the batting helmet on. In the end, I obviously picked this one. The reason for that is that I did not have any '85 Fleer cards signed. Hell, I hardly have any '85 Fleer at all. The only reason why I have this one is because it was another card that I got from Stats on the Back.

1984 Fleer, Jamie Quirk

#332 Jamie Quirk

Here is the second of three Quirk cards that I got signed at Fanfest. Jamie played for eight different clubs throughout his career. He even did three different stints with the Royals. But, out all of those clubs, he only has a baseball card with four of them. With this addition, I now have a signed Jamie Quirk card for every team he has a card of (Royals, Brewers, Cardinals, and A's). For a guy that bounced around so much, I found it odd that he was only traded twice. Prior to the '77 season, he was part of a package that brought Darrell Porter to the Royals from the Brewers. Then, late in the '78 season, the Brewers traded him back to the Royals. After that, he was sold once, granted free agency five times (all by the Royals), and released seven times.

1983 Topps John Mayberry

#45 John Mayberry

Here is the third and final post of the night. I will probably do three more tomorrow, but the final one will be a new name for the blog (except for the want list page).

So, here is the fourth card that I got signed at the Royals Caravan by John Mayberry. I know that I said he signed all three of my cards. Well, I always try to drag my dad to these events so that I can get a few extra things signed. This is the one that my dad got signed for me. This is John Mayberry's last Topps card.

John was very nice at the signing. I took my six-year old cousin with me so that he could meet some ballplayers and get his first autographs. After he got his 4x6 photo signed, I asked him "What do say, Will?". He told John thanks and John said "you're welcome Will". So, I thought that was pretty cool.

1983 Topps, John Wathan

#6 John Wathan

Here is the second installment of the John Wathan cards. This one is his lone record breaker card (I am assuming). This card is commomorating John's record for most stolen bases in a season by a catcher. He tallied 36 stolen bases that year while only being thrown out 8 times. Not too shabby. I have no idea if he still holds this record.

I got this card from Stats on the Back a few months ago. It was part of the "Save the Cards" campaign to keep cards out of the dumpster.

1982 Donruss, Greg Pryor

#521 Greg Pryor

Here is the second Greg Pryor. Again, he is sporting the awesome Sox uniforms. I'm glad that Donruss had enough sense to list his position as infield istead of listing each and every position that he plays, like Topps does.

1982 Donruss, Jamie Quirk

#212 Jamie Quirk

Here is the first Jamie Quirk card that I have to show from Fanfest. Jamie was at Fanfest last year and I got a couple of cards signed then. This one is actually the first Royals card of him that I have got signed. One last year featured him as a Brewer (which I think is a pretty cool card) and the other one as an Athletic.

Jamie was the bench coach for the Rockies last year. I asked him if he was going back to Denver this year. He said that he wasn't, but he would be working with the Reds. I assumed that he meant as a coach, but as it turns out, he will be scouting for them.

1981 Topps, Greg Pryor

#608 Greg Pryor

Here is another card from Royals Fanfest. Pryor was one of many Royals Alumni that returned for the event. He was there the year before, as well, and I got this card signed by him. I didn't recognize him last year and had to ask someone who he was. This year, I remembered him from last year. But, it wouldn't have mattered since they had their names placed in front of them this time around.

I had another Greg Pryor autograph that I got at a card show signing in the late '80s.

Greg signed all three cards that I had of him. Two of them featured him as a White Sox and one had him as a Royal. This card, like the previous two I had of him, lists his position as 3B-SS-2B rather than just infield. This one also gives a nice close-up of the those classic collared White Sox jerseys.

I mentioned yesterday how nice autographs look on the '81 Donruss. Although I have a smaller sample size of '81 Topps, this autograph just doesn't match up with the '81 Donruss. The Donruss card fronts are much smoother than Topps. It doesn't make much of a difference if the player takes his time to sign like Bert Campaneris did. But a rushed signature turns out a little better on the Donruss, at least for the '81 cards. Unfortunately, I do not have a signed '81 Fleer to make a full comparision.

1981 Donruss, Ron Cey

#296 Ron Cey

Everyone else was getting Ron Cey autos through the mail (30-year old cardboard, OMGautos, and even Night Owl), so I figured that I might as well, too. I got this card and another one back in less than two weeks.

Ron played most of his career with the Dodgers. But, for me, I remember him as a Cub. When I first started to get into baseball, one of the things that helped spur my interest was WGN. I remember coming home from school and turning on the tube and watching the end of a Cubs game while I did my homework. That was how I was introduced to Ron Cey and that is how I remember him. But, unfortunately, I did not send him a Cubs card to sign. The ones I had weren't in that good of condition or didn't look like they would look good signed. So, I sent him this one and an odd one that I will post on here in about a week.

This is the eightteenth '81 Donruss that I have got signed. I love getting these cards signed for some reason. They always come out good, even when done in ballpoint pin. I would try to collect the whole set, but it would be counterproductive since I'm always trying to get these signed. I have three more of these cards out in the mail somewhere right now.

1981 Donruss, John Wathan

#221 John Wathan

Here is a card that I got signed at Fanfest in January. John (like most of the Royals alumni) signed all three cards for me. And, of course, if I have a 1981 Donruss card of a player, it is going to be one of the ones that I get signed.

I know that most of the photos for this set were taken in one of the Chicago ballparks. This one wasn't taken at Comiskey. Wrigley Wax did a couple of posts about this set and mentioned that some of the photos were taken at Milwaukee County Stadium. Does anyone know if that is County Stadium in the background?

Another thing that I notice about this card is the way the positions are listed. CAT? What's wrong with just a C? 1-B and O-F? What's up with the hyphens? Donruss is in its infancy here and it is almost amazing that they lasted as long as they have.

Like John Mayberry, I had one card signed by Wathan prior to this years Fanfest. I got it signed at the same event where I got the Mayberry card signed. I even posted those two cards on the same day.

1981 Donruss, John Mayberry

#29 John Mayberry

I warned you the Mayberry was going to three-peat here. But this time he is a Blue Jay (I had to mix it up somehow). Prior to the 1978 season, John was sold to the Blue Jays who were about to start their second season.

In 1975, John hit 34 home runs for the Royals, setting the team's single season home run mark. He held that mark for ten years until Steve Balboni broke it. In 1978, he set the Blue Jays single season home run mark with 22 and then set it again two years later when he hit 30. That mark lasted six years. Jesse Barfield broke it when he hit 40 in '86. I never realized Jesse ever hit that many home runs.

John is a member of the Royals Hall of Fame. I have no idea if he is honored in any way in Toronto.

1975 Topps, John Mayberry

#95 John Mayberry

I know. John Mayberry again? Yes and I apoligize. I know that I'm not mixing it up very well. The bad thing is that I have another Mayberry scheduled for tomorrow. But, it will be short and I will do another post after it to break up the monotany. I might do this a few times in the next couple of weeks since there are going to be some repeats.

Anyways, here is the second card that he signed for me last month. I actually bought this card a little over a year ago. I didn't have any Mayberrys and Royals Fanfest was coming up. So, about five days before the event, I decided to purchase one off of ebay. I figured that would be plenty of time to get it shipped to me since the dealer I bought it off of was in-state. Well, apperantly I did not read all of the information on the page because it turned out that the seller did not accept paypal (how does an ebay card dealer not except paypal?). So, I bought this card, sent a check, waited ten days for the check to clear, and then received the card two weeks after Fanfest. At least I was able to get it signed this year. Better late than never.

I love the '75 Topps. These cards were before my time, but I do have a few of them. This one is probably the one that is in the best shape for me. It's too bad Upper Deck couldn't do a better job with the OPC inserts this year. I guess we'll have to wait fifteen years and see how Topps does on their 2024 Topps Heritage.

1973 Topps, John Mayberry

#118 John Mayberry

I got this card signed last month when the Royals Caravan came to town. The Caravan came to Wal-Mart again, just like last year. I wonder if David Glass had anything to do with that. John was real nice and signed all three cards that I had. When he started to sign the second one, this guy came up to him and told him that they were only supposed to sign one card per person, but John just ignored him and continued signing the other two.

I got this card from Andy of 88 Score Rookie and Traded Set (and others). After he shut down his 78 Topps site, he offered up a bunch of older cards in trades. I asked him for some Royals. The next thing I know, there is a package in the mail one day with a bunch of '70s Royals cards. He just sent them to me. I eventually got him a couple of relic cards in return, but I thought that it was nice how he just sent them to me and then we worked out what I would send him.

This is the second John Mayberry card that I have posted on here. The first one was posted back in the early days of this blog.

1969 Topps, Frank Howard

#170 Frank Howard

Here is one of my more recent through the mail successes. I got this card returned in early February. It only took me about a week to get it back. As for the card itself, I got this card from Scott, a contributor to A Pack A Day. He checked out my want list and saw that I was needing a Frank Howard card. He emailed me that he had this card. He said that he got it to get signed, but he got in line too late and got cut off. I told him that I had the same experience a few years ago with Juan Marichal and asked him what he would like for it. He told me to just send him a self-addressed stamped envelope and it was mine. It was a good will offering for me missing out on Marichal since he met him in 1993. He even sent me a signed Sal Bando card, too. He said that he didn't want anything in return, but I sent him a few packs to rip for APAD.

When I had this card on my want list, I specified that I wanted him as a Senator on the card. It didn't matter if it was new or old, I just wanted to have a signed Senator card. The only one that I have now is of a Harrisburg Senator. I had an '84 Topps of Howard (Mets Manager) and I found some cheap cards of him on ebay as a Ranger, but I decided to hold off to see if the want list would pull through. And it did. Thanks Scott!

At the museum at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, they have a Frank Howard Senators/Rangers jersey. It was a Senator jersey in 1971. When they moved to Texas, they pulled the lettering off and sewed on Rangers. But, you can still see where it said Senators. I think that these were only used for Spring Training. Here is a picture I took when I was there in 2006.

1992 Upper Deck, Bob Tewksbury

#512 Bob Tewksbury

This is the last 1992 card that I will be posting on here for a while. Of course, I got this card signed through the mail. I probably sent this card off after Bob was named to the All-Star team that year.

As you can see, 1992 might have been the height of my card collecting (and autograph collecting at the time). I think that I had a little over forty cards from that year signed, mostly through the mail. Four of the cards were given to me by Rod last year, one I got this past year TTM, and I got seven of them signed in person within the past year. So, that means that one year ago, I had thirty-three of these forty-five cards signed. Four of them were signed in person and one was bought. So I had twenty-eight cards signed TTM that year (or shortly after it). Not bad for a twelve year-old kid in the days before the internet.

Anyways, back to Bob Tewksbury. The one thing that I remember about him was his insanely low walk rates. If you look at best lifetime BB/9, a majority of the leaders in that catagory pitched before 1900. On that list, Bob ranks 22nd at 1.454. But, if you look at pitchers that pitched their entire career in the 20th century, Bob ranks 4th. Babe Adams (#18) pitched from 1906-1926 and posted a 1.292 BB/9. Dan Quisenberry (#20) posted a 1.397. Addie Joss (#21) pitched from 1902-1910 and he posted a 1.408 BB/9. Bob fell into line right behind him (and right in front of Cy Young). That is an impressive stat.

1992 Upper Deck, Keith Miller

#383 Keith Miller

I got this card signed in 1993 at the mall when the Royals Caravan came to town. This was the same Royals Caravan that included Steve Shifflett and Kevin Koslofski. Obviously, it was not the best caravan stop that I have ever been to.

Keith had just come over to the Royals from the Mets. He was part of the Kevin McReynolds and Gregg Jefferies (and Miller) for Bret Saberhagen and Bill Pecota deal. That trade didn't really work out for either team. Saberhagen was hurt a bunch and Pecota only played one year for the Mets. For the Royals, McReynolds only played two seasons in KC (91 RBI in that span), Jefferies had a very decent year before being dealt to St. Louis for Felix Jose in the off-season, and Miller had a decent first year in KC before being hurt for most of the next three seasons. During those next three seasons, he only played in 51 games. So, overall, it was a neutral trade for both parties, although Kansas City might have benifitted from it more for the first year.

According to Wikipedia, Keith Miller is now an agent. He represents David Wright, Brandon Inge, and Scott Rolen.

1992 Upper Deck, Ted Wood

#12 Ted Wood

I got this card signed through the mail after Ted got called up to the Majors in 1992. In 1988, Ted was a first round draft pick of the Giants out of the University of New Orleans. He represented team USA in the Olympics that summer and the next year he reported to AA. He had to repeat AA in 1990. But, in 1991, he was in AAA most of the summer and got a cup of coffee in the big leagues. It was the same routine for the next two years. He only made it into 47 games in the Majors and he had 109 at-bats. He spent two more years in AAA before calling it quits.

Here is another example of me picking the wrong card to send (too much black jersey on the card). But, since Ted was a "Star Rookie", I didn't want to send a card that I didn't have a double of. So it was this or nothing. As for me picking the wrong cards to get signed, it only took me about sixteen more years to figure this out. Now, I'm a pro (or so I like to think).