Some Random Twins Thoughts

• Starting pitcher Scott Baker’s Twins career has come to an end with a dud. Baker had to have Tommy John surgery which means he is lost for the season which due to his contract status means the end of his Twins career. I had multiple encounters with Baker and he always was nice to me. I hope he can recover and revive his career.

• The Twins also released infielder Luke Hughes who was promptly picked up by Oakland. Hughes never came to Twinsfest or made in person appearances, still I was able to get a signed card of him because he was fairly decent at answering his fan mail. Thanks Luke best of luck to you in Oakland.

• Back in 2009 I was at Twinsfest and amongst the players I got to sign a card for me was Philip Humber a pitcher who had looked pretty bad in 2008. But I wanted signed cards from every living current and former Twin so Humber qualified. Humber was pretty bad in 2009, and was released. On April 21, 2012 Philip Humber pitched a perfect game for the Chicago White Soxs. How much would it cost me know to get Humber’s autograph? I bet a lot more than I paid at Twinsfest. This only proves that you should get guys autographs when you can, because you never know how their career will eventually turn out.

• Twins first base coach Jerry White set a record for me. It took him 4 years 6 months 15 days to return a baseball card I had sent him to autograph. Since then I have gotten him twice in person. Jerry, you gotta work on getting to your fan mail faster.

• My thanks to former Twins pitcher Eric Milton who took only 171 days to sign 3 cards for me which is great because I liked Eric a lot when he played for the Twins. Eric also threw a no-hitter when he was with the Twins which means he will always be a player remembered by future generations of Twins fans as no-hitters are rare.

• On the negative side former Twin Ken Landreaux took a few days over 4 years and 5 months to return my cards UNSIGNED with a note asking for $10 a card. He needed over 4 years to decide he wanted to charge for his autograph? Come on Ken you can do better than that. As it was, I had bought autographed Ken Landreaux for $5. 

• I had sent cards to Jose Mijares, Rob Delaney, and Chuck James when they played in the Twins organization and never heard back from them. They promptly leave the Twins, I send them cards, and they autograph them and send them right back. This makes me wonder how good the Twins are at distributing fan mail to their players.

• I currently have signed cards from 399 current and former Twins. I have 2 more I will be picking up soon via private signings, so I will be over 400 soon. I have 245 more to go.