2001 Topps, Luis Cotto

#713 Luis Cotto

This neat card was sent to me by Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff. I think that it is neat because it features two Royals draft picks that I have never heard of. Luis Cotto was the Royals 8th round pick in 2000 and the other guy was the Royals 9th round pick.

Luis made it into one AA game in the Royals organization before the Royals traded him to Cleveland in 2003. He played in the Indians organization for three seasons (again, only playing one game at AA) before he ended up in the Cardinals organization. He played there for one season of A ball before finding his way to the Atlantic League in 2007. No, he didn't play for Somerset, either. He played for York.

As for the other guy on the card, he played two seasons in the Gulf Coast League before being let go. It would probably be pretty difficult to get his signature on this card.

So much for the 8th and 9th round picks that year.

2001 Topps, Brian Tollberg

#713 Brian Tollberg

Here is a Padrograph of Brian Tollberg. Brian has done something that very few players have done. He went undrafted and started his career in an independent league and made it to the Major Leagues. While most people think of the indy leagues as a place for players that couldn't hack it in affiliated ball, many players do begin their pro careers in them. However, most of them aren't able to climb all the way to the top like Brian did.

Brian played college ball at North Florida. He didn't get drafted, but he was able to earn a spot on the Chillicothe Paints in the Frontier League. He went 7-4 there and was signed by the Brewers the following season. He advanced up to AA with them before being traded to the Padres. After four seasons with the Padre organization, he finally made his Major League debut in 2000. He spent all or parts of four seasons with the Padres and he finished his Major League career with a 15-16 record and a 4.48 ERA.

After his stint in San Diego, Brian spent a couple of seasons in AAA and the Atlantic League. 2008 was his final season playing and he finished his career the same way he started it- in an independent league.

This card must be the most commonly available card of Brian Tollberg. It is the only one that I think I have and it is the card that Baseball Almanac and The Baseball Cube use on their Tollberg pages.

2001 Topps, Jim Thome

#15 Jim Thome

Here is a card that I got signed through the mail last year. I sent the card to Jim at the beginning of Spring Training and got it back on April 9th.

I don't think I need to tell you who Jim Thome is, but I will remind you that he is a five-time All Star that has 564 Major League home runs. This season will mark the 20th season that he has been on a Major League roster, as long as he makes the Twins team.

After about a twelve year absence from TTMing, I started to get back into it in the fall of 2008. It's amazing how much easier it is to TTM with the help of the internet. You can find retired player's addresses and see which active players actually sign TTM. Obviously, I was a little bit surprised to see that Jim Thome still signs TTM. It is hard to find active 500 home run club members that do that. Heck, it is hard to find any player with 500 homers that sign TTM for free. The only other one that might, that I can think off of the top of my head, is Frank Thomas (and I may be wrong on that claim).

When I was deciding on which card to send to Jim, it was a tough task. Jim has a ton of cards with him on it. Ultimately, I decided on this card for two reasons. The first is that I mainly remember Jim as an Indian. They had some great teams in the '90s and he was one of the main reasons that they were so good. The second reason I sent this one to him is because I have very few 2001 Topps cards. This is the only '01 Topps card that I got signed. The rest of them were sent to me by other bloggers.

2001 Royal Rookies Futures, Mike Lockwood

#22 Mike Lockwood

Here is another Royal Rookies from the binder of Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff. This one features former A's and Red Sox farmhand, Mike Lockwood.

Mike was drafted by the A's out of Ohio State in the 23rd round of the 1999 draft. Looking at his numbers from his first two professional seasons, he looks like one of Billy Bean's prototypical Moneyball picks. In his first season, he posted an OPB of .451 in low A ball. He moved up to high A in his second season and his OBP was .463. After just 47 games of high A ball, he got bumped up to AA. There, he hit .309, but his OBP dropped to .377. But after 56 games at the AA level, he got promoted to AAA (all of this in his second season). He got into 36 games there and hit .254 with a .340 OBP.

Then after a fast ascent to AAA, he spent the next two seasons playing AA. He hit .260 and .242 there with an OBP around .330 each season. He started out in AA again in 2003, but he hit good enough to move up to AAA again. He started out the '04 season in AAA and was struggling at the plate before the A's traded him to the Red Sox. The Sox sent him down to AA for the rest of the year. In 2005, he spent the whole season on the Sox AAA team and he hit .229. That was his last season in affiliated ball.

After that, he went to the Atlantic League and played for the Somerset Patriots. He played for them for three years and finally retired after the 2008 season. It seems like Paul sends me quite a few cards from players that played for Somerset. They must either have some of the best talent in the league (ie, guys who have cards) or are some of the best signers.

Mike has a unique signature. I cannot make out a single letter in it except for an "R" and an "S"?

Also, I like how Royal Rookies airbrushed his hat and still had the integrity to leave all of the sweat stains untouched. That's a good-looking hat!

The Joy of a Completed Page, 1986 Topps

When I did my first JoaCP, I said I wasn't going to show one from this set. Well, I got bored and changed my mind. Here it is.

I only have nine cards from the set signed (and yes, the Leonard card is from the traded set), so I figured that I might as well post this while they still fit into one page.

Here is the final tally for this sheet.

Game: 4
AAA game: 1 (Ready)- he signs his first and last name the same
Indy game (NL): 1 (Youmans)
Charity Game: 1 (Johnstone)- one of he few autographs across the face
NCAA: 1 (Law)- his signature looks a lot like his dad's
TTM: 2 ( Swift and Russell)-aka- Swift and Eastwood
Padrographs: 1 (Bochy)
College World Series: 1 (Fingers)- Hall of Famer
Spring into Sports: 1 (Leonard)- Probably has the most unique "D" in pro sports

2001 Royal Rookies Futures, Brett Jodie

#21 Brett Jodie

Here are a couple of cards that were given to me by Paul, of Paul's Random Stuff. I was pretty impressed the first time he gave me the card because I had never seen a signed Royals Rookies card that wasn't inserted into a pack. I was even more impressed the second time he gave me the card for a couple of reasons. One is beacuse I had only recently heard of Royal Rookies and that is because I got a few packs of the 2000 set in a repack box. I didn't know that they came out with a 2001 set until I got the first card. The second thing that impressed me about the second card is that Paul had enough of these cards signed that he was able to give me two of them and still hold at least one in reserve. I count this set as an odd-ball set and Paul did a fine job of scrounging up these cards to get signed.

As for Brett's playing career, he made eight Major League appearances (three starts) in 2001. He made his debut with the Yankees and pitched 2 innings (this was one of his starts) and gave up 6 earned runs on three round-trippers. Jose Cruz, Jr. hit two of them and Raul Mondesi hit the third. Ten days later, the Yankees traded him to the Padres for Sterling Hitchcock. His seven other appearances all happened with San Diego and he pitched 23.1 innings with them and had a 4.63 ERA.

After that season, the Yankees picked him back up off of the waiver wire. He only pitched in eight minor league games with them, so he must have been hurt. He got released after the season and ended up in the Atlantic League for 2003 where he had a 12-5 record for the Somerset Patriots. He went to Spring Training in 2004 with the Red Sox and got released before the season started and ended up sitting out that year. He pitched one final season with Somerset in 2005 before retiring to become the team's pitching coach.

If anyone would like one of these cards, just let me know.

2001 Quad City River Bandits Grandstand, Terry Tiffee

#24 Terry Tiffee

Here is the second card that Tiffee gave me when he came by my house while I was in college. You can read about that here.

Surprisingly, these are the only two cards that I have signed by Terry. I have two of his 2003 Topps cards (one regular and one gold), but I have been unable to get those signed so far. I had planned on getting the regular issue one signed at a Oklahoma Red Hawks game in 2008. Terry was with the Las Vegas 51s at that time. But, he got picked to represent Team USA in the summer Olympics that year. It worked out well for him, though, as he was able to capture the bronze medal at the games. I do, however, have a few signed balls from him and an autographed bat that looks great.

Terry made his "#" sign on his "ff" on this card and then forgot to add his number.