National Sports Collectors Convention, Day 3

First I'd like to say hello and welcome to anyone I've chatted with this week at the National or the Indians game, or anywhere else around Cleveland.  Thanks for taking the time to check out my slice of the interwebs, and I hope you'll become regular readers and commenters.

Today was significantly lighter on the 'graphing front.  There were five signers, but only three I needed anything from, as I couldn't find anything for Jim Stillwagon and didn't feel like paying $5 for a photo, so I gave away my ticket for him.

Apparently Sonny Siebert fell ill, so he was a no-show; fortunately TriStar allowed us to use our Siebert tickets on any other VIP signer that day, so I got an idea.  Okay, I ripped off the idea from someone else. But only because it was a good one.  I'll get to that in a moment.

Al "Bubba" Baker had his timeslot moved up to 11:30 to accommodate the lack of Siebert.  He signed an 8x10 photo for me, even adding an inscription of his winning the Defensive Rookie of the Year in 1978.  Some may recognize him from the TV show Shark Tank, where he developed and patented a method for deboning ribs.  He owns Bubba's Q, a barbecue restaurant in Avon, Ohio.

Bubba said he smokes his briskets for 18 hours. I may have to sample it.

With some time before the two late signers, I finished walking the show aisles and checked out the cheap autograph tables. Sadly, there was nothing I could use for cheap. There were a few I need that were a bit pricier, but I'll wait until the last day before I make any big decisions. On the plus side though, I picked up a couple Hall of Famers' RCs for cheap.  I spent $8 total to get a Jari Kurri and Carlton Fisk. I have one more table to check out, we'll see what develops there.

I did get my business card out to a number of people this week, so hopefully I'll have a few more regular readers of this blog, and maybe a few who can help me out with the holes in my collection.  I was told to talk to a guy with Heritage Auctions as well; he's done a number of signed sets and has some excellent contacts.

I also helped out an SCF member with some signed items as contest prizes.  Dan left his tickets and 8x10 photos of Joe Charbonneau and Tom Browning with me to get signed, which I did.  Charbonneau also signed my 11x14 photo and shook my hand three times-- perhaps opening a beer bottle with one's eye too many times leads to short-term memory loss?  He did add 1980 AL ROY to all his sigs which was a nice touch.

Browning was who I used my Siebert ticket on. I picked up a ROMLB from a dealer ($19, which is more than I like to spend, but I think this will be worth it) along with Dan's photo and my 11x14 photo. He added P.G. 9/16/88 to them all. As you may notice in the picture, I had him sign off on the side panel. I'm going to get Len Barker on the other side panel, thus having the only two Ohio pitchers to toss perfect games post-World War One on the same ball.  Addie Joss is the only one I'd be missing if you include all of MLB history, and good luck getting him to sign it.

I'll get a better picture of the ball later.

Tomorrow I'll be taking my dad to the show, and hopefully will have a surprise in store on here. I can't say much more than that right now. I also have a few unsigned items to buy, and hopefully autographs from Hanford Dixon, Milt Plum, and Al Oliver.