2025 National Pickup - John Donaldson Signed Card

While at the National, Jesse and I came across a vendor that had these signed cards showing Joe DiMaggio coaching a few Oakland A's.  I believe one of the guys seared is Catfish Hunter.

I bought the card because it is signed by John Donaldson, a North Carolina native, and someone I have met at the Wilson Hot Stove Event.  I figured the card would look cool in my album.

It turned out, the vendor knows Donaldson personally.  Donaldson signs a few of the cards and the vendor sells them, giving the money to Donaldson.  So, I was glad I picked one up, because Donaldson is a very nice guy.

November 12, 2024, Wilson Hot Stove Event

Last night was the 49th annual Wilson Hot Stove Event in the City of Wilson.  I went last year for the first time, so I was really looking forward to going again this year.  The attendees list came out very close to the event, so it was hard to get stuff here in time.  I also had some cards left over from last year, like the above 1968 Topps John Donaldson.  He missed last year, so i was glad to finally meet him in person.

I was glad to meet a guy who I had gotten TTM twice.  I got Donaldson to sign at the get-together at the North Carolina Baseball Museum prior to the start of the event.  He seemed genuinely happy I was there, and took my graphing book from me to see who else I had cards of.  I thought that was pretty cool.

This year's big guest scheduled to be there to receive the Gaylord Perry Pitching Award was former ECU pitcher and Blue Jays 2024 first round pick, Trey Yesavage.  I didnt have any of his cards, so i got him to sign this 1994 Score Blue Jays card.

Yesavage was really nice, and posed for a picture with me.  ECU coach Cliff Godwin was nice enough to get Yesavage's attention so we could get his autograph.

Jesse and Chris came with me to the event, and we met our friends Billy and John at the Museum.  Jesse gave me this 5 x 7 photo of Mike Caldwell to get signed.  It came out nicely. 

I did find a few cards in my boxes and one of my three packages from Sportlots came in before the event, so I did have a few cards.

Phil Mankowski thanked us several times for coming out and supporting the event.  I was glad he posed for a picture with me.  I jad also gotten him TTM once before, back in 2021.

Finally, event regular John Roper signed a few more cards for me.  I had ordered some nice cards of his, but they didn't get here in time.

In all, I got the following autographs: Mike Caldwell x 4, John Donaldson x 1, Alan Fowlkes x 4, Phil Mankowski x 3, John Roper x 3, Dick Such x 1 and Trey Yesavage x 2 (18)

Another TTM Success From John Donaldson

Last week, I had hoped to meet John Donaldson at the Wilson Hot Stove event, but he was unable to attend. I had picked up some of his cards for the event, but they went unsigned.  No matter, I sent to him TTM, and got my two cards back signed fairly quickly.  The above card is a 1969 Milton Bradley, and looks really cool.

I also got a 1969 Topps signed, which turned out great.  I was glad that I was able to get these to Donaldson and have them signed.  I hope he's able to get to the event next year. 

I mailed to Donaldson on November 15 and got the cards back on November 20, for a 5-day TAT.

The Topps Autograph Project Page Is Now Live

A project that I started last year finally is complete now that I have gotten the final piece blogged.  I was able to get at least one card signed from each year of Topps cards.  This included both 1951 Red and Blue Back.  I had to buy up some cards to send TTM to be able to get some of the autos, but none of the autographs were purchased from a secondary market or collector.

I have created a page on this blog showcasing each year of Topps with the corresponding card that I chose for each year.  Some choices were easier than others.  Some cards were chosen because it showed a big name player, or a team that was no longer around.  The above 1953 Mike Sandlock was chosen because he was 100 years old and the oldest living former MLB player at the time he signed it.

Lots of the cards have stories, like the one I chose for 1970.  I took one look at this John Donaldson card and knew right away that it would represent 1970 in my project.  The card itself is sharp and in great shape.  The card also features the now-defunct Seattle Pilots.  It is only right that the Pilots would be the team I showed on whichever 1970 I picked.  Most of all, though, I chose this one because it was given to me by Donaldson himself when I lamented in my TTM request that I wished I had my own copy of the 1970 card to send to him.  He must have had one, and sent it back signed with the other cards I sent him.  This was an awesome gesture that makes me happy to be able to immortalize this card in my project.

Many of the older cards I have sent TTM have had some pretty outlandish jerseys.  I had to make sure I had the crazy Astros jersey show up somewhere in this timeline.  Luckily, I just got this Ken Forsch signed.

Some of the cards I have gotten signed are pretty awesome.  Some are even more than that.  This Wade Boggs might be my favorite and was the very first card I pulled for the project this morning when I was lining things up.  I was really excited when I got this Boggs signed and it definitely is one of the best looking cards in the bunch.

This 2008 Jamie Moyer is the final year that I needed in order to complete my project.  I use the term "complete" loosely, because I will always have a preference toward Topps issues before any other brand when I am sending cards TTM.  I don't know why 2008 was the more difficult series to get signed, but for some reason it was.

Finally, I had several 2016 Topps to choose from, but chose the more recent of the bunch in this Pat Neshek.  The other 2016s I got signed were 50/50s from my friend, Dilan.  Many of the cards I had to chose from for other years came from the help of my great friend, Max.  Ryan from the blog "O No Another Orioles Blog" was also a huge help.

I hope you all enjoy checking out the page for this project.  The tabs are at the top of the blog, just below the banner.  If you are on a mobile device, you can access the page by clicking on the little white down arrow to the right of the little ribbon that says "home".  I hope you all can access it and give me your feedback on this.  I'm really excited about it!

Also, what do you all think of the choices I made for each year?  Thanks for reading, everyone!

TTM Success - John Donaldson

One of the coolest TTM successes I have gotten so far since I started this project was from a really unexpected source.  I mailed to John Donaldson for a couple reasons.  I had this 1968 Topps in my vintage Topps box, and I saw that Donaldson signed TTM, so I wanted to add a better signed 1968 to the Topps Autograph Project.  My other 1968 was the really bad Ken Holtzman auto, so I'm really glad I was able to get Donaldson on this one.  Another reason I wanted to get Donaldson was because he lives in Charlotte.  I always enjoy getting fellow North Carolinians TTM.

I noticed when I was looking him up, that Donaldson was a former Seattle Pilot.  I thought it would be cool as a bit of a "sub project" to get some autos of players playing for defunct teams.  I already had a couple St. Louis Browns, a few Expos, some Philadelphia and Kansas City A's, you get the point.  I didn't have any Pilots.  The problem was, though, I was set to send to Donaldson, but didn't have his 1970 Topps.  I figured I would try someone else, but I mentioned in my request letter that I had the 68 but really would have rather found the 1970 to send to him.  That's why I was really excited when I opened my envelope...

Donaldson had read my note and included this 1970 Topps showing him as a Seattle Pilot.  That was so nice of him to include the card.  It is in amazing shape, and looks awesome signed.  I was blown away by Mr. Donaldson's generosity.  I like this 1970 a lot more than the ones I have gotten so far.  I ended up picking up a few of the other Pilots who sign TTM, so I will be trying to add a few more as time goes on.

Donaldson (b.1943) played in the majors from 1966 to 1970 and 1974 for the Kansas City and Oakland A's and Seattle Pilots.  He had 292 hits, 4 home runs and a .238 lifetime batting average.

I mailed to Mr. Donaldson on April 11 and got the cards back on April 16 for a 5-day TAT.  This was another really quick TTM success, which I think was mainly due to him living in NC.