yanks39 IP thread

[yanks39]

Hi everybody-

I'm new to this site but have been collecting for 35+ years. I collect sigs. from baseball, Nascar, boxing, music and Hollywood. I go to AAA games in Rochester and Syracuse, and am friends with bronxbomber33 and his family. I do a lot of TTM as well, sending out about 500 requests a year.

I've had a great IP month in June, that I will summarize here in this post and then update more frequently...

Lindsey Buckingham- (Fleetwood Mac guitarist) He did a show near home and I was able to get 3 sigs from him; 8x10 signed, Rumours LP signed, both before the show when he arrived, and he signed my ticket stub onstage just before his encore. Really great show.

Boxing HOF- I do the Saturday of Induction ceremonies weekend every year, and have landed some huge names over the years. This year was highlighted by sigs from Marvin Hagler (2) Tommy Hearns, Michael Moorer, Micky Ward, George Chuvalo, Carlos Ortiz, Dicky Eklund, Ray Mercer and a couple others.

I also went to 4 baseball games in the North country, and most of them I met up with bronxbombers33. Highlights here include Evan Longoria, Dave Stewart, Jeff Keppinger, Pedro Florimon, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Chris Archer and Jacob Turner. Also got Brett Gardner a while back while he was rehabbing, and have gotten a lot of the SWB Yankees as well.

This past weekend the Rolex series guys were in town. Patrick Dempsey drives a Mazda in the series and he helps draw a nice crowd. He has always been very cool to me and calls me "Cosby" in reference to a horrific IP encounter I had with Bill Cosby that I told him about last year. He signed 2 8x10s for me on Friday, and 3 more yesterday. I also got sigs from the whole field at the 1 hour signing session, but unless you're a road racing fan you wouldn't recognize any of the names outside of Boris Said, Scott Pruett, Memo Rojas and Paul Tracy.

So there it is. It's been a pretty good month and I'm looking forward to July and hopefully sharing some great successes. I'll probably start a ttm thread as well, though the past month I haven't sent out too many and am not expecting much in returns, but you never know...I have a few hundred out there that are several months or a couple years old.

[SMVintage]

Welcome to the site! I'm curious as to what happened with this "horrific IP encounter" you speak of!

[yanks39]

Welcome to the site! I'm curious as to what happened with this "horrific IP encounter" you speak of!

He did a show near home and I tried to get him after it as he was leaving the theater. His handler came out and told me (I was the only one waiting) that "Mr. Cosby isn't going to sign. His pilot is waiting for him and he has to go"...So I drove over to the airport and went to the very desolate part of it where all the private jets land and take off. Again I was the only one there. His car pulls in about 15 minutes later and when he stepped out I told him "Thanks for coming to Elmira" to which I got a fairly sincere-sounding "Thank you" Then I asked him if he could please sign a photo before he left. He went nuts and started yelling at me, "I'm NOT SIGNING!! I ALREADY TOLD YOUR BUDDIES THAT I"M NOT SIGNING!! Then he just stood there glaring at me. I told him "Sorry that I bothered you" and left.

It took a couple days to figure out what his comment meant, as another collector told me that when he was in Pittsburgh a couple days before that when he was signing at the venue he said to "tell your other online buddies that I don't sign at the airport"

That happened in February, and then in November he came back to Syracuse to do a show and a book signing. I went to the book signing, kind of looking for a little redemption. I told him that our last meeting didn't go so well and he looked up at me rather puzzled. I told him I was the guy that asked him to sign at the Elmira airport after his show. He of course remembered the ordeal, and then spent like the next 5 minutes explaining to me his policy and how he always signs at the venue because he realizes that people expect that. etc...etc... he was actually very nice about it and apologized and told me to not take it personally. I told him I was glad I got to clear the air with him and he told me that he appreciated me being man enough to tell him about it. I got my books signed there, and then went over to the theater and got my photos signed from February.

All is good with me and the Coz.

[bronxbomber33]

Welcome to the site Brian, glad to have you on here!!

[yanks39]

Went to Rochester tonight for Redwings vs. LHV Iron Pigs and did pretty well...

Pre-game:

Ryne Sandberg- 1/1. Rawlings Big Stick bat w/ HOF '05.
Tom Brunansky- 2/2.

Post game:

Tsuyoshi Nishioka- 1/1.
Chris Parmalee- 1/1.
Sean Burroughs- 3/3.
Danny Valencia- 1/1.
Wilkin Ramirez- 1/1.
Joe Savery- 1/1.
Nick Blackburn- 1/1.
Liam Hendriks- 1/1. Pitched 7 innings of shutout baseball tonight.

[yanks39]

While I don't typically bother players at home, I've known Kirt Manwaring for a few years and have even done a private signing with him. I was in his neighborhood this afternoon and stopped by for a visit and to see what his interest level was in doing another signing. Kirt still works for the Giants and travels alot, but said he would be into it.

I'll have to get the details ironed out and would like to make an "official" announcement once I have the blessings of the moderators to do so, but I can tell you that autographs would be $5 each on any item, and any reasonable inscriptions would be included in that price as well...All the money raised goes to Kirt's son's travel baseball team as it did last time.

Please send me a PM if this is something you might be interested in. Last signing we had 110 items, and I would want to come close to that to make it worth my time and effort. Time-wise we are looking at early Sept. or late Oct. as he will be in AZ in between.

But for today-

Kirt Manwaring- 3/3.

[yanks39]

Went to Rochester Red Wings vs. Syracuse Chiefs tonight for the Jim Kaat signing that coincided with Jayson Werth's rehab assignment.

Pre-game:
Jayson Werth- 1/1, 1/1. Was able to dip him and got 2011 Heritage and 2012 Archives card signed.
Ray Chang- 1/1.

With the help of Bronxbombers33 and his Mom I was able to get 5 Jim Kaat cards done, including my 1976 Topps set card. I now have 418 signed in that set.

Post game:

Tsuyoshi Nishioka- 1/1
John Lannan- 1/1
Zach Duke- 2/2
Chris Parmelee- 1/1
Liam Hendriks- 1/1
JR Towles- 1/1
Kyle Waldrop- 1/1
Danny Valencia- 1/1

Overall a pretty good night and definately "Werth" the trip.

[yanks39]

Went to Ithaca this morning as Dustin Brown was making an appearance with the Stanley Cup. I got there early (so I thought) and found myself a couple hundred back in line. Security told me the first arrivals were there at 1:30 AM. I no sooner than got in line and it started to pour. (That $8 Walmart umbrella has more than paid for itself) I had no items of my own to get signed, but for a $5 donation you got a pretty sharp-looking photo (see Bronxbomber33's IP thread)


Dustin Brown- 4/0 with $20 donation. (2 for Bb33)

[yanks39]

Went to Syracuse last night for Chiefs vs. Iron Pigs. I hadn't really planned on going, but there was a soap opera actor there that my sister wanted to meet, and she bought tickets for the meet and greet and dinner, so I decided to ride along. Sandberg was a factor, as was Jayson Werth still rehabbing.

We got there early, but still managed to miss Werth going in by 15 minutes, and also missed Sandberg when I took a much-needed bathroom break. I was gone less than 5 minutes, and he signed one each for the 6 graphers that were there. Off the bus I did get:

Domonic Brown- 1/1.
Scott Elarton- 1/1. (He drove in by himself)

Pre- game:

Ryne Sandberg- 1/1 (Thanks sister)
Chad Tracy- 1/1, 1/1(help)

And that's all!!
Werth never came out til the game started, and post game he drove by on his phone with the windows up. I didn't really have anything else to get done. So I finished with low totals, but happy with what I got.

[yanks39]

I've had a couple interesting days of IP graphing. Tuesday I went with bronxbombers33 and his folks for the Cal Ripken Jr. international league HOF ceremony in Rochester. We went with little expectations as we had heard for a couple weeks that there was no scheduled signing to take place. We showed up plenty early enough hoping to catch him after the luncheon, and figured we could knock off some players coming in. The results did not disappoint:

Paul Molitor- 1/1. Nice surprise there.
Liam Hendriks*- 1/1.
Chris Parmelee*- 1/1.
Kyle Waldrop*- 1/1.
Matt Carson- 1/1.
Melky Mesa- 1/1.
Russell Branyan- 1/1.
John Maine- 1/1. Charting.
Jim Kelly- 1/1. NOT thrilled to be spotted or signing.

* With these three guys I finished a 4-player Heritage rookie card that started with Joe Benson, who was the first autograph I got to start the season.

Cal Ripken Jr.- 1/1. 8x10 photo. Absolutely awesome and chatty with everyone. Did the best he could, signing for a solid 30 minutes before the start of the ceremony, but as you can guess lots of people went away empty-handed. This one will be hard to top as an all-time favorite encounter.

So back home to sleep for 3 and a half hours, and back to meet bronxbombers33 and his Mom for a quick trip to Ithaca, where Goose Gossage was making an appearance to open a new Ollie's Discount store. I was able to score two tickets to go through the line, and ended up with 2 of my own cards signed, and two of his hand-outs signed.

So all in all a very successful 2 days of adventure, and now the Nascar guys roll into town for the weekend. I'm hoping for some more successes there.