1999 Padres Keebler, Brian Boehringer

#20 Brian Boehringer

This awesome card is another Padrograph from Rod. If it wasn't for Rod's generosity, I would probably only have about ten signed Padre cards. But because of him, I have well over a hundred and more than any other team besides the Royals.

I'm guessing that this card came from a Padres team set. Oddball cards like this are tons of fun and are great cards for getting signed. I wish that the Royals would give out cards like this.

Brian pitched in the Majors for ten years with the Yankees, Padres, Giants, and Pirates. He was mainly a middle reliever, though he did start 21 games during his career and he recorded 3 saves. He never made an All Star team, but he did pitch in two World Series. 2004 was Brian's final season in the Major Leagues and 2007 was his last year in pro ball.

The green pen that Rod used here looks fantastic!

1999 Pacific Crown Collection, Wally Joyner

#245 Wally Joyner

Here is a Padrograph of Wally Joyner. Like the Alomar brothers and a few others, I actually had Wally's autograph prior to receiving that awesome package from Rod. The first Wally auto I had was actually my first TTM success and is still one of my favorites.

Wally appeared to be the next super star when he came into the league in 1986. He made his lone All Star team that year while hitting .290 with 22 home runs and 100 RBI. He followed that his sophomore year with 34 homers and 117 RBI. Unfortunately, he would only hit more than 20 home runs one more time in his 16 year career and he would never reach the 100 RBI plateau again. I have no idea if he just lost his power or if he was just content to be a contact hitter. Either way, he still had a nice career and finished with over 2,000 hits, more walks than strikeouts, and .994 fielding percentage.

Today, the Royals finally announced who all is going to be signing at Fanfest. I have many autographs of some of the players and former players. For the guys I do not need autos from, I would be willing to get some things signed for some of my readers. If interested, check back tomorrow for a detailed post about how it is going to work and which players are on the list.

1999 Pacific, Jamey Wright

#155 Jamey Wright

Here is the third and final Jamey Wright card that I got signed by the Royals parking lot last season. You can see the first one here and the second one here.

By the time Jamey got to the ballpark that day, it had began to sprinkle lightly. Somehow, I got lucky and only one card showed any sign of persipitation. That would be this card. You can see a little runoff on his middle initial and the Shaprie lost a little traction when it hit a wet spot by the "h" and "t" of his last name. I've had worse than this, so this is no problem at all.

I was surprised that I actually had this card to get signed. I probably bought two packs of this and this is the only one that I have signed so far.

The USA-Canada Worlds Juniors championship game is about to start, so I am going to end this post and go watch the game.

1999 Fleer Tradition, Stan Spencer

#496 Stan Spencer

Here is a Padrograph of Stan Spencer. Stan's Major League career spanned parts of three seasons and 23 games at the end of the last millinium. He was a former first round pick by the Expos and a Rule V pick of the Marlins. But, the only Major League team that he played for was San Diego.

Stan's career record is 3-9 with a 5.54 ERA and 107 strikeouts. Having pitched 118.2 innings, he was nearly a strikeout an inning type pitcher. His one drawback was giving up the long ball. In 38.1 innings in 1999, Stan served up 11 dingers. That's less than one every four innings and it helps to explain his 9.16 ERA that season. Some of the guys that hit home runs off of him that season include Barry Bonds, Jay Bell, Derek Lee, Robin Ventura, Mike Piazza, and Bobby Abreu. At least most of them came from some sluggers.

This is my earliest card from Fleer Tradition. Is this what they called their base set or did they not even have a base set at that point?

1999 Grandstand Hudsen Valley, Derek Anderson

#1 Derek Anderson

Here is a card that I got just before Christmas. Out of the blue one day, I got a random package in the mail from Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff. In it were about ten autographs and a heathy stack of Royals. Obviously, it was a very welcome surprise.

The wierd thing about this card, or Derek Anderson actually, is that I cannot find anything about him. My usual go-to place for minor leaguers is The Baseball Cube. On Derek's page there, all they have for him is that he was drafted by the Royals in 1994 and that he pitched for Somerset in 2005. Yet, here is a card of him from 1999 that shows him playing for the Hudson Valley Renegades of the New York-Penn League. The back of the card talks about him being a non-drafted free agent and mentions some of his stats through the first half of the season. So, he obviously pitched professionally beofre 2005.

As for the Renegades, they are still active in the New York-Penn League. They are also still affiliated with Tampa Bay, just like they were when this card came out.

I think that the coolest thing about this card is that it is from a short-season A ball team set. There can't be a ton of these out there. So, to randomly get a signed one is pretty neat.

1999 Donrus Signature Series, Bruce Chen

#120 Bruce Chen

Here is a card signed by journeyman pitcher, Bruce Chen. By journeyman, I am talking about pitching for ten different clubs in an eleven year Major League career. Bruce has pitched for the Braves, Phillies, Mets, Expos, Reds, Astros, Red Sox, Orioles, Rangers, and Royals. Bruce decided to test the free agent market this year and there must not have been much of a market for him since he signed a minor league deal with the Royals, the team he played for last year.

I got this card signed in June while attending an Omaha Royals/Iowa Cubs game in Des Moines. In the second game of the double header, Bruce pitched a seven inning shutout while only giving up two hits. He signed this card for me outside of the ballpark after the game. He seemed like a good signer because he signed for everyone. I thought that that was pretty cool since his wife and kids were in town and they were having to wait for him to do all of the signing. You don't see many players put the fans before their family. He only signed two out of the three cards I had, but in that situation, I thought I was lucky just to get one.

I bought this card for cheap at checkoutmycards.com and it is the only card from the set that I own. I have no idea if actual autographs came out of these packs or not. Based on the name of the set, I would hope that there would be quite a few.

1940 Play Ball, Bob "Suitcase" Seeds

#91 Bob Seeds

This right here was the coolest Christmas present that I recieved this year. Actually, this is the best present that I have recieved in some time. This was given to me by my best friend, Dustin. Dustin used to do all of my scans for me before I got my own scanner and he was my lone reader when I first started this blog. He picked this card up from ebay. Apparently, my Lou Brissie post caught his eye when I was talking about my oldest signed card and he decided to get me an older one. This card is nine years older than the Brissie card. Not only is it my oldest signed card, it is also the oldest card that I own.

Prior to this card, I had never heard of Bob Seeds (aka Suitcase). That just makes it more fun learning about him and checking his stats.

Bob played for five teams in his nine year career. He was mostly a backup player, with the exception of the 1932 season. He was a career .277 hitter who had career highs in home runs (9) and RBI (52) in 1938 while appearing in only 81 games for the Giants. In 1936, he played in 13 regular season games with the Yankees and made it onto their World Series roster. He only made one appearance in the Series and that was as a pinch runner in game five.

In that game, the Giants grabbed a one run lead in the top of the tenth. In the bottom half of the inning, Bill Dickey lead off with a single and Bob was sent in to pinch run for him. The next two batters popped out and Bob ended the game by trying to steal second. At that point in his career, Bob had been successful in only 13 of 28 base stealing attempts. With the bottom third of the order up, the Yankees must have been desperate (or Bob said "screw it" and took off anyway). Even though they lost the game, the Yanks still went on to win the Series in six games.

On the back of the card, it says that Bob is the only Major League player to own his own ball club. That was the Amirillo team in the West Texas-New Mexico League. Also, it says that the Giants purchased him from Newark and he is called Suitcase because he has switched teams so many times.

Bob has been deceased since 1993, so I guess that this card could be labeled an "unpossible autograph".

Here is the dilemma I have with this card. This card is graded.



I'm not into graded cards and I don't have anyway to display this. Generally, I like to keep all of my signed cards in binders. So here is the question. Do I leave the card in the case or do I remove it? If I were to remove it, does anyone know the best way to do that with these cases?