1991 Line Drive, Kenny Lofton

#614 Kenny Lofton

Here is a card that was signed by Kenny Lofton at this year's College World Series. Kenny was signing at the Capital One booth and I was able to get a handful of cards signed there.

It amazes me how different the autograph lines are at the College World Series Fanfest. The main one is the AT&T booth. They have been there since I started going in 2008 and they always have the big names, though one year they were kind of lacking. Sometimes, other booths will have signings and they are completely different from the AT&T booth. On a Saturday and Sunday, you can only get through the AT&T booth one time. But, if you go to another booth, you can go through the line multiple times. This year, John Kruk signed at the AT&T booth one day and the Buick booth the next. Even though John will talk to you like he has known you for years, you were only going to get through the AT&T booth once whereas I could have gone through the Buick booth multiple times if I still had more cards to get signed. Not that it mattered for Kruk as I saw him sign eight cards for one guy.

I guess all I am saying is that I was able to get about six cards signed by Kenny because I was able to go through his non-AT&T line multiple times. It helped that he didn't really interact with the fans, which is obviously not a good thing. When I had him sign this card, I said "I bet you didn't spend much time in Tuscon". He just chuckled to himself and then said "no".

Turns out he did play 130 games for the Toros. Considering he skipped AA, that was way more than I thought.

This is the last of the Line Drive cards. For some reason, I got a bunch of 1991 cards signed over the last couple of years. I've been posting '91s since the beginning of June and I still have nine more to go.

1991 Line Drive AAA, Terry Clark

#607 Terry Clark

Here is the third and final Terry Clark card that I got signed in Omaha this summer. Terry is the pitching coach for the Round Rock Express and he signed this card prior to a game in July.

I really have nothing else to say about Terry that I hadn't already said in the previous two posts. But, I will say this:

First- I love how well the blue Sharpie came out over the red jersey. The signature just pops off the card.

Second- I think it is funny that Line Drive dubbed this set as "pre-rookie" even though Terry and yesterdays post, Robbie Wine, had actual rookie cards in base sets in the late '80s. Maybe 'pre-rookie" is not the best moniker for a AAA set.

And Last- If I did not know any better, I would think that Terry's name is Ty Clark, based off his signature.

One Last Thing- Terry is still rocking the mustache.

1990 CMC, Terry Clark

#605 Terry Clark

Here is the second of three cards that Terry signed for me at a Omaha Storm Chasers game this summer. The first one can be seen by scrolling down a bit.

In the first Terry Clark post, I mentioned that he pitched over 1800 innings in the minors. So, it is only appropriate that I got him to sign a minor league card, too.

Thank goodness for the plethora of minor league cards that came out in the late '80s and early '90s. Most of them are about worthless now as the pre-rookie concept never really caught on. But, without all of those minor league sets, my autograph collection would be a little thinner since a minor league card is sometimes the only card available to get autographed.

In my last post about Doug Linton, I said that I was able to find two minor league cards of him and then not a single Major League card. I was a little more lucky with Terry. With him, I also quickly found two minor league cards of him. Then I started to look for a Major League card and I quickly found his '89 Donruss card that I posted previously. It turns out that that card is a double print. So, if I had continued to go through my '89 Donruss collection, I probably could have found seven more of the same card. Why couldn't Doug Linton have had a card doubled printed?

Terry is playing for the Tucson Toros in this card. They were the Astros AAA team at the time. The Toros (and Tucson Sidewinders) quit playing in the Pacific Coast League after the 1997 season. But, thanks to the banishment of baseball in Portland, Oregon, Tucson has a new AAA team- the Tucson Padres. Tucson is only supposed to be a temporary home for the Padres AAA team, so it will be interesting to see how long they stay there.