Friday, January 14, 2011

1981 Donruss, Floyd Bannister



#286 Floyd Bannister

Here is a card that I sent out on 10/27/10, the same day that I sent out Joe Amalfitano's card that I posted yesterday. This one, however, made it back to me about a week sooner than Joe's.

I was inspired to write to Floyd after talking to his son, Brian, at Royals Fanfest last year. Brian has one of the nicest and most deliberate signatures in baseball, and all of his in-person autographs look nearly identical (I've seen some sticker autos that have been shortened). I told Brian how much I enjoyed his signature and he thanked me and told me that he got it from his dad. He then added that if I haven't seen his dad's signature, I needed check it out. So that became one of my goals for 2010.

I have plenty of Floyd's cards that I could have sent him. The only thing was that I didn't want to just send him any card, I wanted to send him this card. The problem with that is that I didn't have this card at this time last year. Luckily, I acquired the card at some point over the summer (I'm not positive, but I think it might have been from Brian at Play at the Plate when I won the his first manager fired contest) and I finally got it mailed to him in the fall. I must say that I am not disappointed. Floyd does have a great-looking 'graph.

If I did not know any better, I would think that is a picture of Brian on this card. Speaking of Brian, he will be pitching for the Yomiuri Giants this season.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 81/100

5 comments:

Johngy said...

Back in the day, Floyd was one of my most sought-never gotten guys. Great post.

Anonymous said...

I think I'm going to have to try writing to Floyd soon. It would be nice to have his autograph to put with the Brian Bannister cards I have.

(And hopefully Brian will have a great year in Japan.)

zman40 said...

Best of luck Johngy. He seems like an easy auto these days.

Paul- I wish Brian the best of luck. He is a great guy and he is smart. He actually understands sabremetrics. I just hope that he can put two and two together in Japan. You always hear about American batters tearing up the Japanese Leagues, but you don't seem to hear too much about the pitchers (except for Marc Kroon).
I hope that he can change that.

Goose Joak said...

Only other one I can think of is Colby Lewis. Other than that...barren wasteland!

I love the uniform colors on this one. Is that some kind of jacket underneath his jersey? It looks shiny.

zman40 said...

Good point about Colby. I still forget that he pitched over there.

Nice eye on the jacket. It looks like the tarp is out on the field. Maybe the photographer called him out there in the rain and Floyd just threw his jersey on over his jacket. Either way, it still looks pretty cool.