TTM Success - Yusniel Diaz

When I heard that Yusniel Diaz was doing a private signing, I was excited to get some of the cards I had pulled in the past signed.  In addition, I had pulled the above green foil parallel out of 2023 Topps series 2.  I was afraid it wouldn't get signed, but here we are.  The card turned out great!

I pulled a handful of my cards from the Box Of Shame and sent them along. I'd have sent more, but I felt like 5 cards was plenty.

Diaz (b. 1996) had one at bat for the Orioles in 2022.  That at bat ended in a strike out.  Diaz was the key piece coming from the Dodgers in the Manny Machado trade in 2018.  He didn't really pan out and has been surpassed by Dean Kremer, who has settled into a role at a back end starter for the Orioles.

I mailed to the signing on July 22 and got the cards back on August 7 for a 16-day TAT. I paid a fee of $5/card.

September 13, 2024, Graphing of the Revolution at Flying Boxcars

Last week was birthday week, so Chros and I took a little trip up to Baltimore for a Peark Jam concert on Thursday, September 12.  The day after, he and I drove an hour west of Baltimore and checked out the new ballpark in Hagerstown.

This season is the first season for the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars.  Their new ballpark is really nice, and it looks like Hagerstown is on a path toward affiliated ball again. 

I didn't have many cards on hand for the Flying Boxcars, so I did two Sportlots orders a week before we left.  One of the packages came in, and the other one was at the house by the time we got home.  The 2019 Topps Update showing Parker Markel was one of the cards I picked up.  The Yeudy Garcia at the top is one of the cards I had already, along with the 2009 O Pee Chee Manny Corpas.

Corpas was really nice.  He told Chris and I that we should make sure to get Markel as soon as possible, since he was about to retire.  Markel confirmed as much, but was super nice.

I got several 2016 Bowman Chrome Nellie Rodriguez signed that I picked up at the National.  I also cleaned out a few 2010 Pro Debut and 2010 Bowman Cito Culver cards from my box.

I had heard horror stories about how hard it was to graph at Hagerstown.  Chris and I got everyone we needed in the span of less than 10 minutes once the players started coming out of the dugout.  I treated it like being at the dugout in Durham; I put the book through the entrance in the netting and had no problems. 

In all, I got the following autographs: Manny Corpas x 4, Cito Culver x 4, Yeudy Garcia x 1, Parker Markel x 5 and Nellie Rodriguez x 3 (17 total autographs). 

Past 50-50s From Andrew

Graphing season is about to start up next week, and I have been thrashing to get some stuff together for an early-season series out of town.  In doing so, I had to search for a snap case of cards I didn't get signed last season, which led me to go through a ton of stuff on my desk.  I realized that I had a ton of stuff that still needed to be scanned and blogged.  That means I'm going to have to start back doing blogs at least twice a day to knock down some of the non-TTM stuff I have sitting here.  The first of which was a stack of cards I got back from Andrew while we were at the National.

Andrew actually had these cards since at least the 2019 season, when Chris and I visited him in Evansville.  He was going to get Wander Franco on a ball for me that year (he did, thanks, Buddy!) and also took some 50/50s.  COVID messed up us meeting in 2020, so I had to wait til the 2021 National to collect some of the cards he had waiting for me.  The above completed dual of Mike Siani and Jonathan India is one I actually forgot about, but was happy to see in the stack.

I'm pretty sure all of these came from Andrew.  The problem was, stacked fall over from time to time, and stuff gets mixed up.  I remember him giving me the Amir Garrett 2016 Heritage Minors and the Harrison Bader 2017 Bowman.  He maybe had the 2015 Naquin as well, or I may have picked it up, myself.  Andrew can tell me, but I think he did give it to me.

So, I'm hoping to reduce this stack of non-TTM autos in the coming days, but the fun part is that there is some nice stuff that I completely forgot about.  I guess that's a sad thing to say about the condition of my desk.  Thanks for the cards, Andrew!