GB Autographs is a blog written by one 'grapher from New England that shares stories about meeting athletes,celebrities, and politicians through the point of view of a collector.
I had originally planned to go to Pawtucket tonight, but I woke up and realized that they had a day game so that was not happening. I knew baseball's #5 overall prospect, Fransisco Lindor of the Indians was in New Britain facing baseball's #3 overall prospect, Miguel Sano, so that was a great second option.
I wasn't able to make it for the buses, or even half of batting practice, but still got there decently early. I walked into the stadium, and WITHIN 30 SECONDS I had met Fransisco Lindor. He was walking into the dugout right when I got down. I was extremely lucky. My luck would not fade. I saw Miguel Sano walking towards the home dugout, ran over, and within 90 seconds, again this is no exaggeration, I had obtained autographs of 2 of the top 5 prospects in all of baseball.
My first Lindor:
Miguel Sano:
My dad got a Lindor for me soon after:
I was able to add another Lindor a little before the game:
I was able to nab another Sano when he came out to warm up:
Trevor May was in the dugout, and was nice enough to come out just for me:
After the game I was able to get Jesus Aguilar(Outside):
Jake Lowery:
After the game outside, we were each able to get a final Lindor, which was an awesome way to end the day:
I had been planning to go to McCoy for the first time in a while tonight for quite some time, but when I heard Braves superstar Jason Heyward would be rehabbing I was very excited, and knew this could either be a great or horrible trip.
It had been rainy all day, so there was no batting practice, but although it was absolutely freezing out, it cleared up nicely. I hung a photo for Jason before the game (you have to hang anything you want signed inside McCoy Stadium, if I have never mentioned that, because the seating bowl sits on top of the dugouts. This makes McCoy one of the toughest stadiums in America to 'graph inside). He did not sign my photo inside, so I was slightly disappointed, but I knew I had another shot.
When I was hanging for Heyward, I noticed that the Red Sox #2 Prospect, and Opening Day outfielder, Jackie Bradley Jr. was on the field on the Pawtucket side, greeting some dignitaries. I ran over, and was lucky enough to toss a baseball down for him to sign. As you can see, his autograph has changed very much since >last season when I met him< . I should mention everything is signed in blue, which is hard to see with the lighting in these photos.
That was all I ended up getting inside.
After the game, I headed outside, and the first player I met was Brandon Snyder. I had no cards for him, so I just got him on a team sheet:
I also ended up getting former Red Sox pitcher, and hot head, Alfredo Aceves. Aceves became my 99th Red Sox I have met! I know I'm probably the only real collector that would get him on a ball, but as you guys know, I love getting Red Sox players of any kind on baseballs (unless they have played like less than x amount of games). I am kinda mad that he side paneled it though.
The great part of postgame though, was meeting the Jay Hey kid, Jason Heyward. Jason was one of the last ones out of the clubhouse and I called his name twice. He didn't look over, but then he said, very nicely, "I'll be over in one minute." I think he put his bag on the bus, and then he came right over. He had no problem signing both a photo and a ball for me, and a ball for my dad, giving BEAUTIFUL signatures. This made my night.
The photo looks much better in person. The sharpie did skip a bit, becasue it was almost freezing out. That was my bad for not testing it. I'm happy nonetheless though:
You can watch the entire encounter here. Sorry about all of the darkness, they shut off the lights very early tonight, and my camera doesn't have a light for videos.:
Anyway, thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed everything. I rushed through a little bit because I will be on a train to NYC in less than 12 hours, 2 of which will be spent driving!
Total Autographs for 2013: 216
Top Autographs for 2013: 1)Rudy Giuliani 2)Sonia Sotomayor 3)Johnny Rzeznik 4)Paul Molitor 5)Jim Rice
For my first game of the season I decided to hit up New Britain, because the Red Sox AA affiliate was coming in for their home opener with many new faces.
I had originally wanted to go to the day game tomorrow(Friday), but it was looking like it would rain all day tomorrow. Another option was Pawtucket tonight or Friday night, but again, rain was going to be an issue.
I took the short drive to New Britain after class, and I got there just in time. I was SHOCKED when the bus pulled up because I had only been there for about 10 minutes.
Off of the first bus, it was hard to stop many guys because at that point there was only one other guy and I. We stopped the best 2 prospects, Connecticut native Matt Barnes, and Xander Bogaerts.
Bogaerts signed two, then said, " I sign 2. I get 2 hits and I sign more."
The second bus came in about an hour later, and nobody stopped at all. Daniel Bard seemed to want nothing to do with anything, and completely ignored us.
Anthony Ranaudo wouldn't sign inside for me, but I got a number of guys.
I was able to get Barnes again on a ball:
Former Red Sox catcher Rich Gedman:
He would have signed them all, but he seemed super paranoid about getting hit by a ball during BP.
Infielder Kolbrin Vitek(The scan got cut off just a bit):
Ryan Dent, who was nice as always:
And finally, Ronald Bermudez:
I tried to get Bob Kipper right before BP, but he said he would get me later. I left soon after.
Total Autographs for 2013:139
Top Autographs for 2013:1)Tommie Smith 2)Rudy Giuliani 3)Sonia Sotomayor 4)Jim Rice 5)Jeff Bridges
I had been planning for a few weeks to hit up this event at Mohegan Sun, but there was one issue.... it was in a bar and I'm only 20. Luckily for me, I have a nice beard going, and that is all I will say on the issue.
I was excited to meet these guys, because I had never met either. Jim Rice is of course in the Hall of Fame, and a Red Sox legend, and Dent is infamous for breaking members of Red Sox Nations' hearts in 1978.
I had brought my dad just in case I couldn't get in, and also for some good company during my wait. We got there at 5:00 for the 7:30 signing, and were probably 40 people back. I liked our chances, and it went as well as it possibly could have.
Bucky was more friendly, but both guys were Very quiet.
I saw a ton of familiar faces and it was cool to catch up with many of the New England regulars.
I was very shocked that Mohegan was allowing outside items, because for the Jon Lester signing last year, they only allowed their photo. They were actually allowing TWO outside items per person + the giveaway photo!
Between my father and I, we got 3 Jim Rice baseballs, a Sports Illustrated from 1979, 2 photos, 3 Bucky Dent baseballs, and 2 Bucky Dent photos.
I captured a video of my interaction with the baseball legends:
Karma... whether you believe in it or not, always seems to surface down the road.
Last summer... in July I believe. I spent one of my vacation days doing pre game in Pawtucket, not realizing how weird that day would end up.
I had started to bring my camera to games to try and capture video of guys signing, not to use to sell anything, because I don't do that. Without any true reason to take video, other than to share it on this blog to help others see what to expect from certain players, I quickly stopped on that day.
When Lars Anderson drove into McCoy that day, I prepared my camera. Quickly, I realized his father was with him so I figured he would be nicer than usual. There were only TWO people INCLUDING me there that afternoon, and Lars was his usual mean/rude/etc. self to us. If i remember correctly, the other kid was probably a junior high aged kid and had ONE card out to be signed. Here is how it went down:
When I got home that evening, I posted the video to facebook with the caption, "Typical Lars Being an Ass", or something like that.
I had forgotten that I was friends with former Red Sox player Michael Bowden, and Michael actually commented on it ripping me for "using a hidden camera". First of all, the camera is fairly large, and was around my neck, with a light lit on it, second of all, this is a baseball stadium, hundreds of people can have cameras.
Anyway, Michael kept going on to say how good of a guy Lars was, although I had seen differently dozens of times.
One time, I even saw Lars be rude to a mentally challenged gentleman without realizing it. After the man responded, Lars was really thrown aback.
So back to today. Something like 9 months later, Lars has been traded by the Red Sox, traded to the Indians, traded to the Diamondbacks, DFA'd by the Diamondbacks, claimed by the White Sox, DFA'd by the White Sox, claimed by the Blue Jays, and recently was DFA'd by the Blue Jays.
It seems as if the once Red Sox top prospect, is getting the treatment he deserves by the world of baseball.
This entry was not to attack someone who was rude one time to me for asking for an autograph, it was to show that acting like a big shot when you have played less than a dozen games in the majors(at the time), can really come back to bite you in the rear end.
Enjoy the Video. I realize this isn't that bad, but this was probably one of my BETTER experiences with Lars.
This week is my university's spring break, so for months my girlfriend and I had planned to go to New York City for our third book signing there in 2013. This one happened to feature Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of our late President, John F. Kennedy. Caroline was releasing a new book of poetry today, and although I am not a big poetry guy, I thought it would be cool to meet her.
Overall, it was a very mixed day. We got to the 7:00 PM signing just after 4, and were 5th-6th in line. The line never really got big until after 6:00 or so. Had we known that this wouldn't be as crowded as our other signings at the store, we probably would have went much later.
Anyway, Caroline literally talked about the book for 5 minutes and stopped. We got our books signed super quickly(3 for me, 2 of those were for friends who wanted me to hook them up), and 1 for my girlfriend. Jon Muth, the illustrator of all of the watercolor paintings in the book was with her, so we got him as well.
Sorry for the shaky video, and random close ups, I did not have my normal camera around my neck, I had a digital on my wrist, and just wanted to get some footage.
Here is the video, it's pretty raw footage:
I tried to get Caroline to sign a baseball during the signing, but she robotically replied, " I can't do that right now." I wanted to say something about spending $80 on books that she didn't even write, but obviously I didn't.
After the signing, we went to get some dinner a block away, and we decided to come back after we ate to see if she was still there, because I had seen where her SUV was parked.
We waited about 20 minutes and when she came out I asked again politely for her to sign, and she gave me the EXACT robotic response as during the book signing.
Here is another video of this exchange, please turn your volume up all of the way to hear it. Caroline gave my girlfriend a super dirty look so that is why the camera goes down haha.
Now that I think of it, I'm glad that I didn't waste a $15 baseball on her anyway.
Bob Woodward, who played a huge part in uncovering the Watergate scandal, was at my university tonight for a lecture, and to sign books afterwards. Mr. Woodward is considered by many to be one of the top, if not the best journalists of all time.
I found his lecture to be very good, and entertaining. Like Dan Rather, he had some clever anecdotes, and some of his stories about his experiences with colleagues, and politicians were really awesome.
He spoke a great deal about the Nixon files, Obama being anti -war, and his career in general.
With that said, and again, I praise Woodward for what he has done for our country, he was very disinterested in the signing and talking with people at the signing. He barely looked up at all, and I had to ask twice to get a picture out of him. He did sign my three books, but as you can see in the video below, he didn't seem very personable.
My girlfriend got a book signed for herself as well, and I'm not sure if he even talked to her.
