2015 Dodgers Fan Fest Recap

The yearly Dodger extravaganza known as Fan Fest was this past Saturday and once again I attended and couldn't be happier to be back among my "friends" in blue. Official baseball season is just around the corner and this event starts the countdown to it in earnest.

While there are other things to do and see the main reason I and a lot of people attend Fan Fest is to acquire autographs of current and retired players along with some coaches. As a season ticket holder I had the opportunity to purchase tickets prior to the general public and also the chance to buy during that time as well. My main focus was to get Mark McGwire and to hopefully get more than one ticket as I had a photo and a black ball I wanted signed by big Mac. After all was said and done from the two sale times I ended up with 9 autograph vouchers with each one getting you autographs from two separate players. Unlike last year they were not spread out as I was double dipping in a couple sessions and I was scheduled to be done around 1:30.

I decided to arrive early as I did not want to deal with the massive onslaught of cars entering the parking area. Mark was in the 1st session so I wanted to be near the front of the line. I also had another person that I bought a voucher for but more on that tomorrow as that changed mid last week. Even with me being in the stadium parking area early I still ended up being around 40th in Mark's line. No biggie. First up in the Dodger pairing though was Zach Lee

Zach was probably the nicest and most engaging Dodger of the day. Hopefully he can help the big league club this year as I am sure he will get called up at some point even if it is just in September. He has a "quick" signature which made the autograph streak a little. Little disappointed in that.

... but since I had two vouchers I switched to blue sharpie for the second auto. Came out a tad better but his pen stroke causes streaks either way. Still came out good though.

Big Mac hitting dingers. I couldn't find a good enough picture of Mark in Dodger blue to my likely so I went with one during his glory days with St. Louis. Love this pic as the bat is just "floating" in the air and with his hand gesture it looks like he is commanding it. My favorite picture of the day. No streaking here.

And with the second voucher I got this black ball signed. This was the main focus of the whole event as I wanted Mark on the sweet spot of a black ball. I knew that he signed slow so the odds of streaking would be minimized and the result did not disappointed. Don't have many signed  balls left but this one is a keeper.

While I was acquiring those four autographs my friend Jimmy was in line for Orel Hershiser's autograph who was paired with Chris Withrow. He didn't really want or need Chris's autograph so he was willing to trade it off. Again, I had a ticket for that line but more on that in tomorrow's post. I handed him a photo and a pen and he got this 8x10 for me. Great signature with no issues. Thank you again Jimmy for the autograph.

I had a hour till kill before my next autograph session so I decided to roam around and saw that there were camera lights on near the 1st base dugout. I decided to see what was going on and I'm glad I did. Jerry Hariston was setting up for an interview and he started to engage with the fans and sign autographs. I did not buy a voucher for his session so this was a nice little bonus for the day. Great signature and placement.

Resting time was over and it was time to double dip again as I had two vouchers for Joc Pederson and Mickey Hatcher. Found this great photo of Mickey from an Old Timer's game but when I approached the table I found out that my silver decos (all of them) had run dry. Ugh. Hence why his autograph is on his leg. I only had blue pens left to use for the remainder of the day and a blue autograph on a blue background doesn't look good. Asked him to sign on his leg which was no problem. Odd placement but Mickey was accommodating.

Now for the odd signature of the day. When I approached Joc's part of the table he asked me my name which I found odd and knew right then what he was planning to and did do. He personalized the photo. What? Why did he do that? Didn't notice him do that to anyone else. Why me? You notice though that he also added his old number to the autograph as that is the number he is wearing in the photo. So since I had two vouchers what would he do on the ball?

Well he knew my name but thankfully he did not personalize the ball as well. You notice on this though he put his new number on it. So I ended up with a 65 and a 31. Nice. This was a replacement for a black ball I got signed by Joc last year at Frank and Sons where the signature streaked a little. This time it's much better with minimal "issues"

Down to the last two (4 autographs) sessions of the day. I needed to reacquire Tim's autograph as I sold the signed ball that I had of his but I couldn't find a decent picture of him playing as a Dodger. I decided to go back to his roots and printed out one of him as an Expo. The only issue I have here is the placement of the autograph as he put it right on his uniform which would be fine if the pen wasn't blue !!! Still a nice autograph though.

I acquired Howie's autograph last year when he was an Angel but I wanted to get one of him as a Dodger but since he hasn't played on the field yet there are no photos of him in that situation. So why not print one of him in a Dodger hat and jersey during his press conference? Good enough for me. As always, Howie is one of the nicer players and his signature is one of the best.

Last session and I finally got get Kenley's autograph in person. To me it is still one of the odder ones out there as is looks like a seven but hey, we all have different signatures and this just happens to be his.

What better way to end the week and Fan Fest than to get the Penguin's autograph one more time. I started off the week getting Ron's signature on a photo at Select a Seat and now he was last on my to do list for Fan Fest. Once again, Ron as always was cordial and pleasant.

That finishes up my day at Fan Fest. 13 signatures in under 4 hours. Not too shabby. Thank you again to Jimmy for the trade and it was great seeing friends such as Luis, Bill, Eddie of Harry's Dugout Fame, Franz among others. Thank you again to the Dodgers for hosting another smooth running Fan Fest event and I look forward to next year's when we celebrate the 2015 World Series Championship team.

= )

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.
-Penguin

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Whole Lot of Blue, Silver Ice, Home/State and Chrome of Multiple Dodgers

Silver Ice of Ryu, Greinke, Coyle and Crawford

The latest and probably last big purchase (volume wise) of 2014 Bowman has hit my mailbox. Wanted to put a big dent in my need list so I went back to one of my most reliable sellers on eBay to see what he might have in stock for me purchase. Still needing over 30 cards I was hoping to comply a big buy from him.

Silver Ice of Yimi and Ethier

At the same time I wanted to keep costs at a minimum. One reason I always go back to this seller is that he has most of his cards up on BIN auctions but if you are a past customer and you don't try to low ball him on offers he is receptive to working with you.

Blue parallels of Trinkwon, Crawford and Yimi

302 of 500

427 of 500

209 of 500

Needing all different types of parallels with the blue ones being a priority I searched his store and came up with a nice sized list of what I wanted. Every single one was a BIN auction with prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.25. Started shooting him the offers as fast as I could so he saw that I was intending to buy more than one.

Mini chromes of Yimi and Coyle

402 of 500

204 of 500

After about the 5th offer ( not even half way done ) I started to receive emails stated he was accepting my offers which gave me the go ahead in my head to keep going as I assumed he would accept them all. 

Mini chrome blue parallels of Zach and Corey

129 of 250

235 of 250

In the end I sent him 13 offers for 13 cards and he accepted every single one of them. The grand total would have been an average of a $1 a card but Corey's blue mini was "pricey" which bumped up the average to a little over $1.40. 

Reasonable I thought. As always I promptly paid him and he promptly shipped out the cards the next day and I had them in hand within a few days. Another smooth and painless transaction with a trusted eBay seller. The end is in sight for the 2014 Bowman set.

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Zach Lee, Joc Pederson and Chris Anderson Mini Chrome Insert Plus Others

Another multiple card purchase where I didn't need all of the cards within the auction but unlike the big blue purchase awhile back I do not intend to sell the ones I don't need as the money factor will not work in my favor and I would end up losing money. So I will hold them over for some trade down the road.

I needed Joc, Zach and Chris in their mini chrome form from the 2014 Bowman set but couldn't find them at a reasonable price. A seller happen to have all 3 along with duplicates of Joc and Zach and a Corey Seager which I already had. Asking price for all 3? 99 cents for the starting bid. I put my bid in at the very end and won it for the grand total of just $1.04 for all 6 cards.

So each card I needed cost me only 35 cents with the other 3 as trade bait. Anybody looking for these? Contact me if interested.

Trade with Fellow Blogger : Nomo's Sushi Platter

When I got back into the hobby my goal was to collect as many Dodger cards and more specifically autographed cards of Dodgers, past and present. I knew that eBay would take care of most of my wants and local shops or shows would fill in some holes but I would always have unwanted cards from box breaking or duplicates of others. I can't sell them all so one main thing I wanted to do is to be able to trade with fellow bloggers and start a trading relationship with them so we could help each other out. This past week I finalized my first ever trade and it went down perfectly.

The blogger who made this happen was one nomo's sushi platter who happened to see one of my blog entries with multiple Cory Seager's that I did not need. I ended up sending him one of them and couple other cards of some Dodgers and a couple days ago I received the package he sent me. Couldn't be happier with the result of the trade.

The first couple for me I just consider a bonus as I don't really seek out Panini baseball cards but they do show off two great young players in the Dodger system that hopefully show up in the bigs soon.

No. #1 Pitching Prospect Zach Lee and Possible 3rd Baseman Corey Seager

Next up in the package were 3 cards from this years Topps set. Nomo asked me what years I collected and probably noticed I didn't have any of the Topps cards as I have been concentrating on Bowman and other "higher grade" card sets. While the 3 players depicted are not the higher caliber players on the team they are Dodgers and I would need them sooner or later to complete the set and thanks to Nomo I will be on the hunt for the other Dodger cards now that I have these 3.

Train wreck Joe Blanton, Oft Injured Lilly and Fast but no much else Dee.

Next was an old timer and this one happened to be autographed. I love me some autograph cards and thankfully I did not have Dave Anderson in my collection so this fits right in.





Past Dodger Shortstop Mr. Anderson

Last but not least as he is my favorite player and I consider this the best card of the bunch, Matt Kemp. I love these mini's and this is now my second Kemp mini. Though not numbered like my first one this is still a great card of the man himself in Beastmode. A great last card in the package of a lot of needed cards. Thank you again to Nomo and hopefully this is the first of many trades with him and fellow bloggers in the internet world.



Card of the Day - 2013 Bowman : Zach Lee Mini Refractor Insert Blue Variant

Getting closer to completing my set with only Joc Pederson and Zach Lee left. Zach I thought would be the easiest as the other 4 in the set have taken over all the headlines with Zach while still a good talent isn't in the same class with the others in terms of collectability for this insert set. Went to find my copy and buy it and I was right.

There were plenty of auctions to chose from so I just looked for one that had a low staring bid with minimal shipping. This is one card I wasn't going to overpay for and didn't according to book. Auction started at .99 cents with shipping less than $2 and I ended being the one and only bidder. So for a couple of dollars and some change I was one step closer to finishing the blue set. Joc is the only one left now.

Card(s) of the Day - 2013 Topps Heritage : Blue Border Matt Kemp Variant / 2013 Bowman Mini Refractor Zach Lee

A new day a new envelope of baseball cards.

Today I received 2 cards that came to me for a total of just 4 measly dollars. Can't beat that.

The first one is a 2013 Bowman mini refractor of Zach Lee from the Top 5 prospects insert set. My Dodger set is almost complete as all I need now is Joc Pederson to finish it off. Zach may or may not see the big leagues this year but when he does I think he would be a great complement to Greinke and Kershaw.

The second card is the blue border variant of Matt Kemp from this years Heritage set. I already have the regular SP card of Matt but now it looks almost complete next this blue one. I now only need the black bordered version. Almost there.