Signed Ball of the Day : Joel Guzman ( ROMLB Sweet Spot )

Joel Guzman? What waste a blog entry on barely an AAAA player? Normally I would never acquire an autograph of some fringe ( and that is stretching it ) player that did nothing for the Dodgers even though he did wear the blue in the big leagues. I would never turn down a free Dodger autograph but I actually went and paid money for this autograph and made sure it was authenticated. What was I thinking? My wife.

Back in 2006 I proposed to my wife at Dodger Stadium during a game between her crappy Angels and our beloved Dodgers. I made the Dodger magazine that July as Fan of the Month. On the magazine cover the Dodgers were showcasing their up and coming players. On the cover were Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Russell Martin, Jonathan Broxton, Willy Aybar and one Joel Guzman. I am still working on getting that magazine autographed ( thanks Russell for denying me last week ) and hope to show it off one day fully completed. In the mean time I wanted to acquire all of the guys on individual signed balls. I am still missing Aybar. Joel is impossible to find as he is basically out of baseball and no one it seems other than odd people like me care to own his autograph so there are hardly ever any on eBay to bid for. So literally for years I looked for it and finally late last year someone put one up that was PSA authenticated and had a starting bid of .99 cents. I was determined to acquire this as I did not want to wait anymore years trying to find it. As the auction neared it's end there was one bid on it for .99 cents so I found out that I wasn't the only wacko out there trying to buy Joel's autograph. At the last moment I put a bid on it for $25. Yeah, 25 dollars. I wanted to make sure I won this even though at .99 I think that is an overpay. To my surprise the winning bid was a tad over $10. Couldn't believe it went that high but thankfully my hunt was over on getting this highly elusive autograph. I am a proud owner of this "gem" only because of what it means to me. Now to get him to sign the magazine, that is going to be a problem.