Twins Autograph Party

I attended the Minnesota Twins autograph party on Saturday. At the autograph party you pay one fee, all current players sign at the same time, and you are allowed to get autographs from as many players as you can in the hour and half they are signing.

In reality you either get an autograph from Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau or everyone else. I arrived at 8:30 a.m. to get in the Justin Morneau line. Morneau was scheduled to sign from 12:30-2:00. I got through the Morneau line with 10 minutes to spare. Yes, the line was so long that even arriving 4 hours early I barely made it through the line.

I knew this would likely be the case. In 2006 I spent all my time in the Johan Santana line to get him to sign a baseball. However in 2008 I avoided the Mauer and Morneau lines and was able to get 12 other players. It is an either or thing. Either you get Mauer, or you get Morneau, or you get a lot of the other players.

I wanted Justin to sign his 2007 Allen & Ginter's baseball card for me. He did so, and it looks great in my display case.

I like the Allen & Ginter's cards because they do have glossy coating that most Topps and Upper Deck cards have. The coating can sometimes cause smearing or create air bubbles in the player’s signature making the signature look bad. You can try “rubbing” the card down, but that does not always work.

For the record hitting coach Joe Vara was assigned the thankless task of signing with Morneau. Many people ignored Mr. Vara, but I did not as I needed him for my collection.

There are no Mr. Vara baseball cards that I know of, so I did had him sign a baseball card for the new Twins stadium.

Not able to get any more current Twins, I prepared to get some of the former Twins who were signing from 2:30-4. The Twins bring in the same former players every year. Why? Who knows for sure, but maybe they don’t want to pay too much in traveling expenses as the only guys they bring in from out of town are Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew.

With few new options available, I went with Rod Carew and Tom Kelly. Rod signed a 78 Topps baseball card for me, Tom an 87 Topps card. I had a few extra minutes so I went into the Roy Smalley, Tim Launder, and Ron Coomer line. I did not have a Coomer card, but a kind gentleman gave me one of his, so I was able to get all three players.

It was very hot day at the autograph party, but it beats getting rained on. All in all I had a good time, and look forward to attending next year.