Ebay win finally delivered

Back on the 4th of July , I won a 7card Rookie lot of Manny Machado. For $6 delivered , i was pretty stoked. I had been in Bignhamton the week before and caught a game between the Baysox and B- Mets. Wilmer Flores had just been called up from A or AA so it seemed for that game it was a Machado VS Flores. They both sent balls over the wall but the bay sox won 7-3. So from then on , i decided to get some of their rookies.
So when my package arrived , i trimmed the top of the mailer only to pull out a 2012 Topps Golden moments Chris Sale Auto. WTF was kinda my response to that.. I immediately taped up the top and RTS'd the package . After an email to the seller , he immediately refunded my purchase and would get back to me when he got a hold of the other buyer with my cards. Well , weeks went by and after the other buyer was done playing his wheres my card games , i am pleased to announce my cards have arrived..

Not bad in my book. I have since added the Bowman auto card. As far as Wilmer goes , his cards are getting more affordable and today I won a lot of his ( which will be a later post ).

2 for 2

My goal for the last 3 weeks of the month were to get Chase d'Arnaud , Ryne Sandberg and Zach Wheeler signed balls. And after 2 weeks , I am 2 for 2.

After waiting an hour or two in the afternoons of thursday and friday for him to arrive at the stadium without success, we arrived well early enough on game day to get to the wall to which he is known to sign at. I found out he will exit the dugout and start at the wall and continue to the netting. He does this roughly about 20 minutes before gametime. He had many of us wondering if he was going to sign as he sat in the dugout for 15 minutes by himself snacking on some seeds.But true to his routine , he came out and graciously signed for the people there. My son was having a rough time as to which card to have him sign and Mr. Sandberg made the decision for him that much easier.

I have read that the Phillies may pull the trigger on getting this HOF'er in the clubhouse sooner than later so I did not want to miss out on this.Thanks to Mr. Sandberg..

We also ran into the 1983 World Series Champion Baltimore Orioles manager Mr. Joe Altobelli

We spoke briefly about baseball and when I brought up Virgil Trucks he told me about watching him as a kid and that there was a reason they called him " Fire " Trucks .

Success 1a and 1b

Well , I wanted to post the 1b success on Friday , but an electric hedge clipper  changed that. I managed to nip my finger so posting was the last thing on my mind.But on to the successes.

I mentioned about the upcoming games I would be attending with hopes of getting some signed balls. Well Chase d'Arnaud was more than happy to comply with my request. Was hoping for the sweet spot but took his usual spot on the ball when he signs. I guess I should have told him that this was going to be a 1 and done ball and requested the SS.

Next up is HOFer Ryne Sandberg on friday...

The 1a success which , bear with me , I have to thank my wife for. You see , she is umm  , well , having a bad time right now due to some , um , womanly cycle.. And me being the good guy I am , set off to the local grocery to fetch some " products " for her. Well after getting the said products I went to get some Bic pens for the signing of balls I am after. Conveniently , the rack that holds packs and blasters was right there as well. I looked over what they had and didnt think much until hiding on the top was a Legends blaster of UD Masterpieces. If you read one of my previous posts , it was how I have never seen these and instantly loved them. Needless to say $10 was a ggod price to get 7 packs.Heres some of the cards.

These pictures do not do any justice.To me , this set is definately the card and not the player. I was pretty happy with what I had gotten and this just made it better. I give to you success 1a ....

Yep , my 1st MAJOR hit. My son who loves the Yankees and the " old timers " immediately claimed this one..

Meeting a World Series Champion

Back in June , I had the honor of meeting Johnny Antonelli , 1954 World Series Champion and 6x All Star. This gentleman has been very elusive as far as TTM's go. I started TTM'ing this year and my first thoughts were to collect from Rochester Athletes. Joe Altobelli being my first success , I looked hard into finding Mr. Antonelli . Unfortunately , the TTM sites that I use had nothing but failures.

Fast forward to May when his book that he has been working on " Johnny Antonelli , A baseball memoir " is released and that he is doing mini book signings in the Rochester and Santa Fe area ( his winter home I believe ) . So off I went to sit with my son Kyle to listen to stories about his career and hopefully get my 1st Baseball Auto.
It's amazing to me how you can think about things you want to ask someone and when the time comes how intimidating it is to go and possibly bother someone.Knowing that their have been a lot of TTM failures , my gut feeling was he was done signing for one reason or another. So i had emailed the co-writer and asked him what he thought about bringing a baseball. He said Johnny would be OK with it.And that he was. My son got the book and I got the ball. He had a lot of stories which honestly were in the book but I do recommend that if all possible ,  pick it up. He even set up Willie Mays for a meeting with the Firestone Tire Execs ( Mr Antonelli became one of the most successful Firestone store(s) owners in our area and beyond ) and well I will let the book tell that story.

He was a great guy and was very humble about his career and life in general. I was glad Kyle was able to meet him and see that 54 World Series ring. My only mistake was leaving the camera behind..DOH!!

Rackrs Contest

Rackrs is giving away a signed Ernie Banks card to the first 50 people who comment on their post. Get in while you can.  You have to register or be registered.

http://rackrs.com/Autograph/14753/1993-ernie-banks-nabisco-all-stars-auto-card

Masterpieces.. I'll say.

Arriving early for the LOC's trading day , I went through 1 of the boxes of dime cards and came across these beauties. I'm not sure why I have yet to come across these cards NFL or MLB for that matter. These are really great looking cards.So good , that it is now my goal to get as many as I can.Haven't even looked into how many there are but I got to have them.
I can look at at say a Topps Legends card of say Howie Long. Nice card looks good , but now look at the Brian Bosworth.I feel the energy or MOJO coming off the card. Does anyone else agree? This may be a beauty in the eyes of the beholder but i don't think so..

Feed back

I'm getting great feedback and I thank you for that. Slowly I am adding new things to this page so bear with me and by all means , keep the feedback coming. Baby steps...

Ebay Purchase

So I was able to have the winning bid on a lot of 6 Manny Machado rookies. 2010 / 2011 Bowman Chromes and 2011 Bowman plat's. This was back on July 4th. When I received my package , enclosed was a Chris Sale signed Bowman Platinum. Having only trimmed the top of the bubble wrap envelope , i taped it and returned to sender. Emailed the seller and he apologized and refunded my purchase price and said he would ship out cards when the Sale buyer returned my cards to him. Well , it's over a month and now that Machado has been called up it makes this worse.I did get an email from the seller stating the other buyer has yet to send the cards back to him and he hasn't received a reply from that person as far as emails go. So I am really bummed out about this.I am not out any money but the fact remains that those should be in my hands right now. Does anyone else have any ebay  stories that are similiar ?
As far as " prospecting " goes , Chase d Arnaud is in town this time next week , Ryne Sandberg is in town in 2 weeks and Zack Wheeler in 3 weeks.I am planning on getting an ROML baseball for Sandberg , do you think the other 2 are ball worthy ? These aren't for ebay , but just throwing it out there..

The Ironman Cometh

The Ironman himself was in Rochester today. He was to be officially inducted into the International League Hall of Fame. He was placed into the HoF last year but for some reason the ceremony was held tonight. I was thinking about going but could only imagine how crazy it was going to be and well I may have been wrong. f you are interested , a sports beat writer has checked in and wrote this on his site.

http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/extrabases/

The local card show will be starting up again at the end of the month. It took a 2 month recess for summer and I cant wait to get back. I spent allot of time on Ebay  and purchased probably more than I should have.
I am going to try and find some affordable Virgil Trucks and look for some Wilmer Flores and Manny Machado cards. I did win a lot of Manny cards but the seller shipped those cards to a person who won a Chris Sale Auto card with me getting the Sale card. I immediately shipped back and he refunded telling me the Machados are mine as soon as the other buyer sends them. Well long story short , he has yet to get them. So even though i was refunded , I am out the Machados... My reason for going after those 2 prospects are that I happened to be in Binghamton for business and caught a game between the Bowie Baysox VS Binghamton Mets. Both teams looked solid as far as future stars but those 2 stood out.

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