1981 Donruss, Manny Mota

#299 Manny Mota

How cool is this card? If you are not sure, just look at the position listed on it- coach/OF. By 1980, Manny was the Dodgers batting coach. But, once the rosters expanded in September, he got activated as a pinch hitter. He went 3-7 down the stretch with 2 RBI. Manny did not play at all during the strike-shortened 1981 season, but he did get one more at-bat in '82 at the age of 44.

Somehow, Topps failed to capitalize on making a card of Manny in 1981. The two new kids on the block did, though Fleer left out the coach part of the position.

I got this card signed through the mail in 2014. Manny is a broadcaster for the Dodgers and I mailed the card to the team. It took less than three weeks to get it back.

Are you tired of '81 Donruss yet? This card basically marks the halfway point of the set. Even though I have posted about 25 cards from the set, I think I only have 18 more to go and two of those are of Hall of Famers.

'81 Donruss Tracker: #203

1991 Line Drive AA, Dave Jorn

#25 Dave Jorn

Here is a card that I unexpectedly got signed in Manhattan, Kansas last year. Dave is the pitching coach for Arkansas and they made the trip north to play in the Regional hosted by Kansas State. Since it was the first Regional ever hosted by K-State, I bought session passes and then reworked my work schedule to make most of the games. Before leaving town, I checked the coaching staffs to the non-Kansas schools and found that Dave had a card that I actually had in my collection. How about that? I was able to get the card signed on the first day of action before the Razorbacks were upset by Bryant.

Dave pitched in the minors for White Sox and Cardinals for six seasons. He was mainly used as a starter and made it all the way to AAA. He didn't do too well at that level in his nine starts and he retired after the 1981 season. He started coaching at Arkansas in 1983 and was their pitching coach for six seasons. He left the college game to join the Yankees minor league coaching staff in 1989. He stayed a minor league coach/manager through 2001 and then rejoined the Arkansas staff in 2003 and has been there ever since.

Some of the Arkansas pitchers to work under Dave include Dallas Keuchel, Drew Smyly, and Duke Welker.

I have no idea who Bob Mariano is and I have not yet taken the time to look him up. But if anyone has any clues, please let me know as I would love to get this card completed.

This is the third straight Yankees card that I have posted. That may never happen again.

Update: Bob apparently is the manager for the Fresno Grizzlies. I have sent out one TTM request to a AAA manager this year and have not received it back yet. What should I do? Do I send it out and try to get it completed or just keep it as it is? I'm leaning with testing my luck.

1991 Line Drive AAA, Rick Adair/Jim Gabella

#100 Rick Adair and Jim Gabella

I originally posted this card about two and half years ago and that post can be seen here. The original post only contained Jim Gabella's signature, so I am re-posting the card now that I have been able to add Rick Adair's signature to the card.

A few weeks ago, I was browsing the blogs when I noticed a post on The Great Orioles Autograph Project that included a signed Orioles postcard of Rick Adair. I didn't even realize that Rick was with the O's now and I left a comment asking Ryan what Rick's signing habits were. The O's are in Kansas City in May and I have tickets to one of the games. So, I was basically just trying to gauge what my chances of getting Rick's autograph at that game were going to be like.

Much to my surprise, Ryan emailed me the next day saying that he was heading down to Florida for Spring Training and that if I sent the card to him, he would try to get it signed for me. So, I did just that and Ryan obviously got it signed.

Thanks a lot, Ryan! I really do appreciate it.

This is definitely the oddest card that I have signed by two people. The photos are split up a little differently than usual. But, both coaches signed the card at the same angle as the line that divides them and it came out looking great.

This is actually the second card that is signed by two players that Ryan has helped me out on. A few years ago, he got the ball rolling on a 1987 Fleer John Stefero/Kevin Seitzer card. You're the best, Ryan!

2004 Upper Deck National Pride, Eddie Rodriguez

#NPJ-ER Eddie Rodriguez

Here is a card that I got signed prior to the Royals last home game of the season. That day, I took advantage of the "Early Bird Special" stadium tour and I got to go in and watch the Royals take batting practice an hour before the gates opened. It worked out really great as I was finally able to land a few Royals signatures that I had not had yet.

One of those new additions was Eddie Rodriguez, who has been with the Royals since 2009. I've had plenty of opportunities to have Eddie sign for me, but there has been one problem. It is extremely had to find cards of him. Eddie never played in the Majors and his minor league playing days took place in the late '70s and early '80s when minor league cards were less prevalent. He managed in the minors and coached in the Majors, but there were not any major issue cards made of him. He has a few minor league cards from team sets, but I have never seen any of them show up on checkoutmycards.com. I'm sure that I could find some on Minor League Singles, but I am lazy and comc.com is so much easier.

Eventually, though, this card appeared on comc.com for less than two dollars and I was more than happy to pick it up. I like getting jersey cards signed and this one came out looking good.

When I originally got this card, I just assumed it was from the same set that my Luke Hochevar jersey card was from. Turns out that I was off on that assumption. But, to my defense, if you check out the card of Luke, you will be able to see why I thought that.

1991 Sport Pro Butte Copper Kings, Doug Sisson

#27 Doug Sisson

Here is a card that I got signed at the Royals last home game of the season on Wednesday. Doug is the Royals first base coach and I was able to get this card signed before batting practice started.

If you have never heard of Doug, don't feel bad. I was the same way when the Royals announced his addition to the coaching staff. I promptly looked at checkoutmycards.com to see what cards he had and was disappointed to see that he didn't have one on there. But, thanks to a seller on there by the name of "minorleaguemania", some Doug Sisson cards eventually became available and I picked a couple up and finally got them signed at the last home game.

Amazingly, Doug has never played pro ball. Wikipedia says that he was signed by the Twins, but I can't find any stats of his on Baseball Reference. In fact, when I typed his name in there, it took me directly to his minor league managing page. I didn't even know such a page existed.

But, let me tell you what Doug has done this year for the Royals. He is not only their first base coach, but he is also the outfielders coach. And under his watch, the Royals have quietly put together one of the best outfields in baseball. This year, the Royals became the first team in the history of the game to have three outfielders with forty or more doubles. Now, that probably has more to do with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer than it does with the outfielders coach. But, the Royals outfielder's play in the field has been pretty good, too. For instance, the Royals outfield leads the Majors in assists. Plus, Alex Gordon leads the Majors in outfield assists this year with twenty (a new Royals record) while Jeff Francouer is second with four less. Did I mention that Alex Gordon was a third baseman until a season and a half ago?

Doug is also the base running coach and the Royals somehow lead the American League in stolen bases right now. Francouer has somehow swiped twenty-two bases and that broke his previous career high of eight. As Mel Allen would have said- "How about that?"

Doug is pictured with the Butte Copper Kings on this card. The Copper Kings are no longer playing in Butte, though, as they relocated to Casper, Wyoming in 2001. The Copper Kings played in the Pioneer League and were affiliated with the Texas Rangers when this card came out.

1990 CMC, Jim Wright

#249 Jim Wright

Here is the second and final card that I got signed by Jim Wright prior to the '85 Classic. You can see the first card here.

Like I said in the first post, I got the cards signed by the players entrance as they were arriving for the game. After Jim signed my cards, I went over to where my buddy was having a beer and he asked me if I got Jim Wright's autograph. I was amazed that he knew who Jim was since he isn't much of a baseball fan. I asked him how he knew who it was and he said his name was embroidered on his luggage. I wasn't as amazed after that.

This card is the third Red Barons card that I have signed from this set. The cards feature the manager, the pitching coach, and a player at the end of his career that would eventually be a coach. All three cards have the close-up mug shot with the player/coach wearing his navy warm-up jacket. I just went through the rest of the Red Baron cards that I have from the set and they are all similar. These cards are the worst to get signed since most guys don't sign across their face and the dark colored jacket makes it hard to see the signature. But, when it is the only card you have of a player, it is either that or nothing.

1988 Iowa Cubs Procards, Jim Wright

#542 Jim Wright

Here is a card that I got signed on the day of the '85 Classic. I got to the game early to attend a tailgate party. But when I found out that the party was on the opposite side of Arrowhead Stadium and that the players were still arriving for the game, I opted to stay by Kauffman to get some autographs. That is how I got this card signed. Jim is the bullpen coach for the Rockies and he was nice enough to sign for everyone that wanted his autograph. The only two cards that I had of him were minor league cards, so I was surprised to see so many people wanting his autograph. It looked like most of the people had his '82 Topps card that Beckett lists as an error because it has a picture of a different Jim Wright. But Jim signed those cards nonetheless.

Jim's Major League career only lasted parts of two seasons with the Royals in 1981 and 1982. He was a pitcher and he has a career line of 2-3 with a 4.04 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 75.2 innings of work.

I've had this Iowa Cubs teamset for almost twenty years and I had forgot about it until I found it in a binder last year. Some notable names in the set include Mark Grace and Bob Tewksbury.

I have no idea who the I-Cubs could be honoring with the black armband. Any ideas?

I wonder what Fleer thought about this set.

The Iowa Cubs are still around today and they are still the AAA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. They play in the same ballpark that this photo was taken in, but you couldn't tell if you went there today because of massive renovations.

1997 Best Lancaster Jethawks, Jim Slaton

#2 Jim Slaton

Believe it or not, this is actually the third Jim Slaton card that I have posted on here. I got all three cards signed at an Oklahoma Redhawks game in '08 while Jim was the pitching coach for the Las Vegas 51s. The first two cards were posted in this blog's infancy over a year ago. The first one was posted in August of '08 and the second one was done in October of '08. So far, that is the biggest gap between cards that were signed together.

I didn't say much about Jim in the first two Jim Slaton posts, so I will take care of that now. Jim had a 16-year career with the Brewers, Tigers, and Angels. He made one All Star team as a Brewer in 1977 as he went on to record a career high 17 wins. After the season, the Brew Crew shipped him to Detroit for Ben Oglivie and then was able to sign as a free agent the following season. He had a career 4.03 ERA and he is the Brewers all-time leader in wins, innings, starts, and shutouts. He started coaching after his playing days and he was still the Dodgers AAA pitching coach this past season.

As for this card, I got the team set for cheap at a Lancaster JetHawks game last year. The 'Hawks revamped their logo prior to last season and they were trying to get rid of anything with an old logo on it in their gift shop. So I was able to pick up two or three old JetHawk team sets and a California/Carolina League All Star set for a buck or two each. It is hard for me to believe that it takes a logo change to drop the prices of old team sets. It amazes me that some teams keep trying to sell five to ten year old team sets for the usual eight or nine dollars. You would think that they would drop the price after a year or two.

1991 Line Drive AAA, Jim Gabella

#100 Jim Gabella

I got this card signed the day before the Futures Game when I went to a game in Burlington, Iowa. Jim is the manager of the Burlington Bees. He signed both cards I had of him, this one and a Bees team card.

Jim never made it to the Major Leagues. In fact, he never made it above A ball. A majority of his time in pro ball has been as a coach or manager in the minors. In this card, he is a AAA hitting coach. Close to twenty years later, he is managing a low A team. I couldn't find out much more about him, but I think that it would be safe to assume that he has been coaching in some sort ever since he quit playing in 1980. I'm sure that he knows a thing or two about the game.

The other guy on the card is the pitching coach for the Mariners. I didn't get to see them play this year. But the next time I do, if Rick is still with them, I will try to get him so sign it.

I typed this post last night since I am out of town for a few days. I'm running short on time, so there will not be any posts on Saturday. I'll be back on Sunday and will have a couple of cards up then.

If you are not a Yankee, Mariner, or Tiger fan (or Twins), make sure to root on Zack Grienke tomorrow when he takes on the Twins on Fox.

2009 Topps Heritage, Bowa/Honeycutt/Duncan/Schaefer

#463 Larry Bowa, Rick Honeycutt, Mariano Duncan, and Bob Schaefer

If you have been by this blog more than once, you might have noticed a certain layout that I follow. I like to post my older cards first and move towards the newer ones. Well, tonight I am going to break the mold (just for one night, though). I got home from work tonight and found this card waiting for me. When I originally sent it out, I told myself that if it came back with four signatures on it, I would post it right then and there. So, here it is.

This is one of the short print coaches cards that is in the '09 Heritage. I got this card in one of the first five packs that I bought. After those five packs, I bought a box of Heritage and only got one coaches card (Indians). I guess that I was pretty lucky to get this one when I did.

I sent this card to Bob Schaefer on March 2nd. I sent it to Bob because he was a long time Royals coach and was even an interim manager with them on two seperate occasions. Plus, I have never seen a card of him, so I thought that it would be cool to get this one signed by him. When I wrote him the letter, I causualy mentioned that I would try to send it around to all of the coaches to see if I could get it signed by all four of them. Well Bob, being the great guy that he is, saved me some time and stamps and had the other guys sign it for me. Awesome!! Thank you Bob Schaefer!

As you all know, normally I am not a fan of the ballpoint pen signature. But, the Topps Heritage card stock seems to work well with it. With the small spaces that they signed in, a Sharpie probaly would not have looked too good. Also, on the scan, the Larry Bowa signature looks cut off. That is not the case. My scanner cut off part of the border.

1989 Bowman

#261 Mel Stottlemyre Sr/Mel Jr/Todd

I went 19 years without getting one of these big beasts signed. I resisted so long just because of it's odd size. I always liked the card design (of the regular looking cards, not this one) but hated the size. But, last month I went to a Ranger's game against the Mariners and Mel was the M's pitching coach. This is the only Mel Sr card I have, so it was this or nothing. If the M's bring him back next year, I'll get an older card of him off of ebay and try to get that signed.

At the game, Mel was in the dugout talking to the bullpen coach, Norm Charlton (who I didn't even recognise). I asked him to sign and was going to throw my book at him, and he said "not over the dugout". So, he walked out by the tarp and signed it there.

I guess that this card is supposed to be a modern take on the 1955 Bowman, but, to me, it came up short.