Baseball: That's a wrap!

...On IP outings until the toy drive at least. Or at least it probably is. I don't foresee myself going for the playoffs at all unless I hit the tunnel on the weekend for what will undoubtedly be a pointless and graphless outing.

The season ended pretty well. I went for Tampa Bay two of their three games, and hit the tunnel on two of three days.  Friday started off pretty slowly. I got in and found out that the Rays weren't taking BP, so it was just pitchers. And bullpen pitchers at that. And bullpen pitchers whom I largely had nothing for just to top off that turd sandwich. I did at least have two cards for Erasmo Ramirez, one of Dana Eveland thanks to a trade with Arron, and two of Alex Cobb who was the lone starter out there besides Drew Smyly (who did not sign).

After the pitchers went in, We dashed over to the Alumni line where Pete Incaviglia was signing. And not just signing, but signing up a storm. He signed 8 cards and the promo photo for me, and then after jumping back in line another 8 cards and took a photo with me. That took a whole 15 minutes. I probably could have gone through again, but I wanted to make sure to get Brian Anderson. We went up to the booth and he wasn't there-- it turned out he was down on the field for the pregame, so we headed down there and he came over to us as soon as he was done.

Anderson is from Geneva, Ohio, which is about 30 minutes from my hometown of Painesville, so we got to talking about the Cavs' Championship Parade since the Rays played in Cleveland when it was going on, so he said he got to be right out in the streets watching the celebration: "Tens of thousands of people in the streets who were all friends. Sure, you might get beaten up by one of these guys tomorrow, but that night everyone was high-fiving, celebrating, no problems anywhere." He signed two cards for each of us.

After this, we figured we might as well try the field one more time and were we ever glad we did. Plenty of players made up for the lack of BP signing by coming over to us and signing early-- three cards from Logan Forsythe, one from Richie Shaffer, eight from Tom Foley, one from Chris Archer, and one from Evan Longoria for my '72 project.

Saturday the tunnel was bad. We got Delino Deshields as the lone player to stop, signing my mini-helmet. I decided I might as well bring the mini ice cream helmets with me and do something with those, and they look great signed with a light blue paint pen. Inside, I got Corey Dickerson on a card, Chris Archer on another, Kevin Kiermaier on three, and Mikie Mahtook on one. Over at the alumni line, Danny Darwin signed eight.

Sunday, I only did the tunnel. It was better, but not by much. I got Nick Martinez, Justin Mashore, Hector Ortiz, and Steve Busby each on a card, with Jake Diekman, Shawn Tolleson, and Eric Nadel each signing a helmet. Diekman and Tolleson each signed on the side, so I may put a few players on each of those.

In the mail since my last update...

SEPTEMBER 20
Gary Etherington, c/o home, 3/3, 2 weeks

SEPTEMBER 21
David Nied, c/o home, 6/6, 2 weeks

SEPTEMBER 22
Steve Zungul, c/o home, 7/7, 10 days
Tom Ragland, c/o home, 2/2, 2 weeks
Darren Daulton, c/o home, 2/4, 2 weeks, sent back two unsigned
Dale Hawerchuk, c/o Barrie Colts, 3/4, 4 months, kept one card

SEPTEMBER 23
Don Leppert, c/o home, 1/2, 2 weeks, kept my 1972 Pirates team card
Tim Teufel, c/o NY Mets, 3/6, 2 weeks, kept 3 Mets cards, but signed Padres cards

SEPTEMBER 26
Daryl Doran, c/o work, 5/5, 2 weeks
Steve Eise, c/o work, 1/1, 1 week
Tom Strunk, c/o home, 2/2, 1 week
Chris Kenny, c/o work, 2/1, 1 week, wrote a short note back

SEPTEMBER 28
Buzz Capra, c/o home, 1/1, 1 week

SEPTEMBER 29
Turk Wendell, c/o home, 4/4, 10 days
Dick Groat, c/o home, 1/1, 3 weeks

OCTOBER 1
Terry Kennedy, c/o home, 5/5, 1 month
Tom Kain, c/o work, 3/3, 1 month
Branko Segota, c/o home, 5/5, 2 weeks
Duncan MacEwan, c/o work, 2/1, 1 week, signed my letter as well - marks 500 for my MISL project (out of about 800 needed)

OCTOBER 3
Joe Nathan, c/o SF Giants, 2/2, 1 month
Theo Kulsdom, c/o home, 4/3, 2 weeks to the Netherlands, wrote a short note back
John Bain, c/o work, 2/1, 2 week, wrote a short note back
Jeff Cacciatore, c/o work, 2/1, 1 week, wrote a short note back

Just waiting on my European postage to get here and I'll have about 20 overseas requests to mail off as well-- mostly soccer, but two hockey ones in there as well.

Also, Alfredo Griffin came back... badly ghost-signed after a year and a half wait. Save your stamps.