A Surprise From Nolan and Jenny

I got a message the other day from Jenny Reimold.  I had sent her and her family some extra Nolan cards that I had, figuring she, or someone in the family would want some of them.  When I saw that she had messaged me, I figured it was about the cards.  I was surprised that it was actually her asking me some questions about my collection, and also what my son's name was.  She messaged me a little later and told me that she had sent Chris and I a little something.

Well, a package arrived today that contained the above pair of batting gloves, as well as a couple personalized, signed post cards.  The gloves are amazing.  I love the orange.  They are signed by Nolan as well.  Chris and I really love them.

The personalized post cards are awesome, too.  Chris loves getting mail, but gets upset sometimes that most of the packages that come are for me, since I purchase a lot of cards online, or I complete a bunch of trades.  Chris gets letters here and there, mostly from his grandparents, but he doesn't really trade all that much, and he has never been on Ebay.

He was really excited to get something signed to him in the mail today.  I think the world of Nolan and Jenny.  They both are such awesome people.  They're really down-to-earth, and relate-able.  I think Jenny and my mom would really get along, especially if the two of them started swapping "kid stories."

Thanks so much, Nolan and Jenny for the gloves and post cards.  Chris and I love them, and can't express our thanks enough.  I hope you guys have a great offseason, and Nolan can come back to the O's next year.

A Gift From Nolan and Jenny

I got a package in the mail from Nolan and Jenny Reimold yesterday that I was expecting, but I wasn't quite sure what would be inside.  Jenny mentioned to me the Nolan had some extra equipment that he was going to get rid of and she asked me if there was anything I would be interested in.

Naturally, I said yes, since Nolan is one of my favorite players.  Inside the box was a pair of game used cleats, which Nolan had signed, and also a signed batting glove.

The cleats are really awesome.  I've actually never seen any with the metal spikes, since the two years I played in little league, I only had the plastic cleats.  These were really awesome and I would really feel bad if I stepped on someone's hand or slid into someone's leg wearing these.  Ouch!

The cleats had a little bit of dirt and grass on them, so you can definitely tell that they have been used.  I took a look at Nolan's 2013 Topps card, since you can see his feet in the card, but these cleats did not match those in the photo.  That would have been cool, but since that picture was taken in 2012, I figure that was an old pair of cleats and I should be looking at his 2014 Topps card to see if I can see them there.  As you can see from the top photo, Nolan signed the cleats in silver sharpie.

Also included in the box was this batting glove, which Nolan had also signed.  I love the glove, so it definitely will get displayed with the 2011 gloves that Jenny and Nolan sent me in exchange for the Bowie bobblehead that I 'traded' to them that Thanksgiving.

I talked to Nolan at Fan Fest this year and thanked him for the gloves and now I will have to meet him at this year's Fan Fest and thank him again.  I've already messaged Jenny thanking her for her generosity, but it can't be said enough.  Thanks Nolan and Jenny!  I know they read my blog, and so does Nolan's brother.  I've built a pretty respectable Nolan collection, if I do say so myself.  I'll have to put a page together on here next to my Virgil Trucks collection page so everything can be seen in one place.  That will definitely be a good rainy day project.

Anyway, thanks for the awesome stuff guys, thanks for reading and here's to a healthy and MVP-caliber 2014 season!

Orioles Fan Fest - More Nolan Reimold Memorabilia

After we finished up at Autograph Station 1, Ryan, Chris and I headed upstairs in the convention center to check out the memorabilia room.  Before we could get too far, I realized that I had a message on my phone.  I checked and it was a message from Nolan Reimold's wife, Jenny.  I had let her know that we would be at Fan Fest and wanted to be able to say hello if she and Nolan were able.  She was kind enough to let me know where she was at, so we made a beeline to that area.

Unfortunately, when we got there, Nolan was busy, but it was really awesome to meet Mrs. Reimold in person.  We also met Ryan Adams' girlfriend.  They both remarked about my replica 1938 Orioles jersey and Jenny handed me a nice surprise...

 More batting gloves!!  It was really cool, since we were meeting her next to the forum stage.  On the big screen there, they were showing the ground rule double that Nolan hit to tie the final game of the season against the Red Sox.  Ryan said "Hey, look, your batting gloves are on TV!"  That was really cool, then to be able to get more of them was even better.  According to Mrs. Reimold, these gloves were also worn in that game.  I guess Nolan uses more than one pair of gloves in a game, which makes sense.  These are signed with a thinner sharpie than the other pair.  I have these put away in my safe while the other pair is on display in my man cave (attached to my awesomely made glove stands).  We parted ways with Mrs. Reimold and worked our way back upstairs to the memorabilia room.  Mrs. Reimold reads this blog, so I would like to thank her again for her generosity.  It can't believe how lucky I am due to this blog.  It definitely is luck and I hope she and Nolan know how much I appreciate this!

In the memorabilia room, you can buy game used merchandise at some ridiculously cheap prices.  I wish I had more cash on me because there was a bunch of stuff that I would have liked to have taken home like a game used jersey, a lineup card or a cracked bat.

I did pick up this game used baseball.  This ball was a foul ball from the June 30, 2011 game between the Orioles and Cardinals.  The ball was hit foul by Nolan Reimold off of Cardinals' pitcher Jaime Garcia.  Reimold hit a home run in that game, by the way...  I got the ball for $20; had I waited til the end of the show, I would have gotten one for $10 but there was no guarantee that this one from Nolan would still be available.  I do know that if I go next year, I will be bringing enough money to buy a lineup card.  I know one will look good on the wall in the man cave...


Next up for my Fan Fest recap will be our second autograph station and meeting a Hall of Famer in person...  Stay tuned!

What I Did On My Day Off

I was off of work today in observance of New Years Day.  My son had to go to school and my wife had to work, so I had the place to myself.  Thing is, though, my son had to be on the bus at 7am and my wife had to work at 5am.  That means, even though I was off today, I had to get up early and get Chris on the bus.

That didn't matter much, because I was able to go back to bed for a bit afterward.  After that, though, I really wanted to spend some time on the Man Cave.  So, I went to Lowes and picked up some stuff so I could try to properly display my Nolan Reimold batting gloves and also find a way to display some of my jerseys.

What I'm going to show off on this post is what I attempted for the batting gloves that Nolan Reimold sent to me.  Above, you can see on the tailgate of my truck: 2 bases, 2 tops for a bannister (I don't know the term) and 2 dowel rods (I ended up needing only one).  A few friends had recommended that I try to find jewelry displays or mannequin hands, but a simple call to my mother-in-law set me off in a much simpler direction.

So, with a little bit of help from my son (when he got home from school), I cut the dowel rod into 10 pieces, based on the lengths of my fingers.  Kind of.  I don't own a table saw or anything like that, so I just used a straight hand saw to cut the pieces (as you can see, they ended up uneven and a little off, but in the end they worked out.  The posts came with screws attached and the bases were pre-drilled, so they screwed right in and made a simple stand.  I inserted the dowel pieces into the fingers of the gloves.  They fit perfectly.  I slid the first glove on the stand and found that they still needed to be filled out some, so I put a packing peanut underneath the thumb and tissue paper in the upper part of the hand.  When it went back on the stand, it looked pretty darn good.  The fingers stood on their own and could be manipulated a little bit, so I moved them to my liking and went ot work on the second glove.

Here is the finished product.  I want to stain the bases at some point, but for now they work fine.  I like that the signatures are very visible and the gloves aren't just laying on the china cabinet shelf.  They definitely add something 'different' to my collection.

Here the gloves are in their spot in my china cabinet.  My Hall of Fame signed baseballs make a nice backdrop for the batting gloves.  I'm really happy with how the stands turned out and I really want to thank my mother-in-law for the great help.

What do you all think?  I am really happy with how this turned out and I'm especially glad that I was able to put them together myself.

NOLAN REIMOLD IS AWESOME!!!

Do you all remember the Nolan Reimold bobblehead that I posted in this entry?  Or what about when I met Nolan, which I posted here.  Well, apparently when a google search is done for "Nolan Reimold bobblehead" on Google, my blog comes up.  I discovered this over the Thanksgiving holiday when I got an email message from Nolan's wife, Jenny.

The bobblehead, which was given out at Bowie during the 2010 season, has become pretty hard to come by.  From what I heard from a friend of mine who went to the actual game, a lot of them were broken when they were received.  I scored mine off of ebay right after the game and kept it on the file cabinet in my office.

When Mrs. Reimold emailed me, asking me if I would be willing to send her the bobblehead so she could surprise Nolan for Christmas, I didn't hesitate at all to send it to her.  In exchange for the bobblehead, Mrs. Reimold sent me some really cool stuff.

First, I got this signed 2010 Upper Deck.  I loved the design of the 2010 set, so this one is especially awesome with Nolan's auto on it.

But wait, there's more...  They also included these two signed, game used, batting gloves.  These are the first batting gloves of any kind that have been added to my collection.  I can't stress enough how amazing it was to get these in the mail!  They look so cool.  I need to figure out exactly how I want to display them.

Finally, in a complete surprise, I got this picture, which Mrs. Reimold got from my Facebook page (I think) and enlarged so that Nolan could sign it.  This is going to be taken tomorrow so that I can have it framed.  I'm pretty sure that I'm going to hang it on the wall in the 'man cave' so that everyone who comes over will see it upon entry.

I want to thank Nolan and his wife Jenny for being so completely awesome to me, all because I was fortunate enough to get one of his bobbleheads.  I have often wondered about whether or not actual players and/or their families see this blog.  I now know that at least one does, which is such a bonus for me.  I do this blog purely out of my love for the game and the joy of collecting.  I don't make any money from it (my career is in the geology/environmental consulting field).  I hope Nolan and Jenny check out the blog often, because in my opinion and the opinion of a lot of Orioles fans I know - NOLAN DOESN'T SUCK!!!

**UPDATE:  If you check out the comments below, the Reimolds read this post and informed me that those batting gloves are, in fact, the gloves that he wore on the final day of the 2011 season.  That was the game that the Orioles won to take the Red Sox out of contention for the playoffs.  Nolan went 1-3 that game and hit the game tying double in the 9th inning.  Wow, so amazing!