2006 Bowman, Mike Aviles

#BC114 Mike Aviles

Here is a card that I got signed at an Albuequerque Isotopes game in 2008. Mike was playing for the Omaha Royals at the time and he signed this card for me after taking infield practice.

When I got this card signed, I figured that this would be the only Mike Aviles autograph I ever got. Mike was 27 years old that season and he was spending his third straight year playing for Omaha. Clearly, the Royals didn't think too highly of him and he was basically a filler for the AAA team. Lucky for Mike, Tony Pena Jr. started to forget how to hit and Mike started to tear up the Pacific Coast League. Mike's average rose to .336 in the PCL and the Royals finally figured that they had to give him a shot in Kansas City. Mike responded by hitting .325 over the rest of the season while notching 41 extra base hits in 102 games. For his effort, Mike was named the Royals Player of the Year.

Since he then spent the next two and a half years with the Royals, I now have multiple signatures from Mike. He was always willing to sign autographs by the Royals parking lot and was very consistent by signing no more than two items.

I'm actually very lucky that this card came out looking as good as it does. 2008 was my first year back in autograph collecting and, after a twelve year hiatus, I really had no clue what I was doing. So, I would buy whatever cards I could find on ebay and take my chances. I knew some glossy cards from 1994 did not take signatures too well, but I figured that they had fixed that problem by 2008. Therefore, the concept of prepping cards never came to mind. If I were to get this card signed today, I would give it a good dousing of baby powder to get the auto to stick and not bubble. But, being clueless, that thought never came to mind and I am just lucky this card came out this good.