TTM Success - Jerry Watkins

This 2012 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions card had been in my box for a very long time.  I kept seeing it, and regretted not taking it with me when I went to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony when Deacon White was inducted.  I met his great grandson, Jerry Watkins, and stood with him for a photo.  He was very nice, then, and I kept kicking myself for not bringing the care with me.

In the time since that ceremony, I have gotten fairly decent in looking folks up, so I took a shot to see if I could get Watkins to sign his great-grandfather's card.  I was successful, and got a nice letter back, as well.

Deacon White (b. 1847 - d. 1939) played in the majors from 1871 to 1890 for the Cleveland Forest Citys, Boston Red Stockings, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Reds, Buffalo Bisons, Detroit Wolverines and Pittsburgh Alleghenys.  He had 2,067 hits, 24 home runs and a .312 batting average.  He was a two-time batting champ (1875, .367 and 1877, .387).  He won the 1887 championship with the Detroit Wolverines.  

White was inducted into the Hall of Fame via the Pre-Integration Era Committee in 2013.  He was one of the game's early stars, and a catcher back when catchers caught bare handed.

I mailed to Watkins on March 28 and got the card back on April 6, for a 9-day TAT.

Hall of Fame Induction Weekend - The Plaques

The most important part of the Hall of Fame, to me, is the plaque room.  That place, in my opinion, is hallowed ground.  I always enjoy myself in there and was really happy to share the experience with my son.  I walked him around and showed him several of the legends that he has heard me talking about.  The first plaque we went to was Brooks, which can be seen above.

Chris took this very unflattering picture of me in front of Brooks's plaque.  He kept begging me to let him take a picture, so I finally relented and let him take one.  Not bad.

Then, of course, Chris wanted to have his picture taken in front of the plaque, so I obliged him, of course.

With Chris being a huge fan of The Sandlot, he had to have his picture taken in front of Babe Ruth's plaque.  Any self respecting baseball fan should have a picture of themselves in front of The Babe's plague.  I'm just saying.  He also had to touch Babe's bust as well.  This will probably be a tradition for us, I think.

A really nice lady offered to take our picture in front of The Babe, so we were appreciative of the gesture.  When Chris then told her "Ok, you took our picture, now I'm going to take yours" I kind of freaked out, especially since she had one of those really awesome cameras.  She was really nice and showed Chris how to operate it and he took the picture for her.  Thankfully, he didn't drop her camera, which is what I was afraid of.  Maybe I should start trusting him more?

No, just by looking at that face, I know I can't trust him yet, haha.  He was happy to have his picture taken in front of Cal's plaque as well.  I read him Brooks's and Cal's plaques.  I did well reading Brooks's plaque, but when I read Cal's, I got a little choked up.  You know, reading the Hall of Fame plaque of my childhood hero to my son...  What an awesome moment.

Then something really cool happened.  The staff of the Hall of Fame closed off the section of the plaque room so that the plaques of the newly inducted Hall of Famers could be hung.  I'm really excited to say that we were there when there guys' plaques were hung.  That's so cool.

While we were standing and waiting for the plaque hanging to be finished, we noticed that the great-grandson of one of the inductees, Deacon White, was right beside us.  Jerry Watkins, White's great-grandson, accepted White's induction and gave a speech at the ceremony earlier that day.  He was really nice to us, spoke to us for a little bit, then posed for a photo.  I also thought this was really cool.

Finally, Drew did something really awesome for me as well.  I had no idea he was behind me taking this photo, but this is me reading Stan Musial's plaque to Chris.  It really meant a lot to me that my buddy was able to catch this candid moment of me sharing this experience with my son.  Thanks, Drew!

Hall of Fame Induction Weekend - The Ceremony

My parade post yesterday concluded the activities we did last Saturday.  Sunday, we had reserved for the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.  With an ominous forecast, we took our seats in the grass at the Clark Sports Center about an hour before the scheduled start time, only to learn that the beginning of the ceremony was to be delayed due to passing showers.  We (Me, Drew, Drew's dad, Chris and my brother Adam) each took turns hanging at our area while some of us would go eat, look at souvenirs, walk around, etc.  Soon, it began to rain... and rain... and rain.  We had to take cover under one of the tents near where we had set up.  Our folding chairs and the blanket we brought were soaked.  Finally, the rain let up and they began the induction.

They began with the customary introduction of the Hall of Famers present for the ceremony.  Present were Sandy Koufax (he wasn't in the parade) and Roberto Alomar (both shown above), Bob Gibson (not in the parade), Rollie Fingers (not in the parade), Don Sutton, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Gaylord Perry, Wade Boggs, Orlando Cepeda, Goose Gossage, Ralph Kiner, Phil Niekro, Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, Frank Robinson, Eddie Murray, Dennis Eckersley, Pat Gillick, Jim Bunning, Juan Marichal, Ozzie Smith, Andre Dawson, Barry Larkin, Bert Blyleven, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk, Rod Carew, Billy Williams, Hank Aaron and Rickey Henderson.  I think that was all.  I'm counting 31 of them, but I think I read that 32 were there.  I may have missed one.  Anyway, there were a couple who were in the parade, but not at the induction in Tony Gwynn and Whitey Ford.  Doug Harvey was supposed to be there, but apparently had a heart attack on the plane ride to the event and was hospitalized.  This is only something we overheard from one of the shop owners and have yet to see anything posted online.

The induction was of three people via the pre-integration era veteran's committee.  1880s star and barehanded catcher, Deacon White, former Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert and former umpire Hank O'Day were the three people being inducted.  Since all of them died in 1939 or prior, their distant relatives were present for their inductions.  The ceremony also consisted of the formal plaque readings of certain Hall of Famers who were elected during wartime but due to travel restrictions for World War II, they never got formal inductions.  There were guys such as Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby and guys from the HOF class of 1945.  Their plaques were read by current Hall of Famers.  The most compelling one was Cal Ripken's reading of Lou Gehrig's plaque.  Because of the lack of a superstar name, the ceremony was quite mundane.  While we were all happy for the relatives of the guys who were posthumously being inducted, it would have been cool to hear a speech from someone I had grown up watching.  I know I wasn't the only one who felt this way.  If you look closely at the pictures above and below, it definitely looks like Ralph Kiner is taking a nap.

Seriously, he is at the far left of the front row.  The poor guy had nodded off.  Well, you can't really expect a 90-year old to sit through all that talking.  Again, I commend him for making the trip, and I hope I am able to travel still when I reach that age (IF I reach that age).

Anyway, The ceremony was cool.  Drew and I can say now that we were present when these three guys were inducted into the Hall.  That is something really awesome when you think about  it, especially with us being such huge fans of the game and also such huge fans of the HISTORY of the game.

Remember to continue to check out Drew's blog for his take on these events and stay tuned to this one as I show some of the stuff we saw during my second ever trip to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Trip to the Card Shop From 2 Weeks Ago

I told you I was behind.  Anyway, I bought several packs of cards when I went to the LCS a couple weeks ago.  Two of the packs I picked up were 2012 UD Goodwin Champions and 2012 Panini Golden Age.  I also got some other stuff, but what I pulled out of those was unremarkable.  So, one of the cooler cards I got was the above Deacon White out of the pack of Goodwin.  White was one of three people elected posthumously into the Hall of Fame this year by the Veterans Committee.  White was one of the original stars of the game and played in the first game of the first professional baseball league.  He was also a 'barehanded' catcher.  I think that alone should have earned him a ticket to Cooperstown.  Go ahead and try catching barehand.  I'll wait.  Ouch, right?  Can you imagine having to catch Bob Feller or Randy Johnson barehanded?  That makes my hands swell up just thinking about it.

Something else that I pulled, even thought it is non-baseball, was this Gordie Howe signed card out of 2012 Panini Golden Age.  Golden Age has a mixture of subjects and sports, just like Goodwin, and normally, I don't gave a crap about hockey, but...  A RED WINGS PLAYER!  I was able to hand this over to my wife to justify my spending some money on cards.  Woo Hoo, things work out!

Seriously, though, this is a really cool card.  Even I can recognize that Howe is one of the all-time greats in Hockey.  Add in the fact that the auto is on card, makes it that much better.  Plus the wife is happy.  For once.