GraphLife.com

Summer of Sandberg

mstanger — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:43:51 +0000

Back in the winter it was announced that Ryne Sandberg was going to be managing the nearby AA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet him and get an autograph shortly thereafter. As the season approached I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Hall of Famer in regard to his signing habits. Boy was I surprised. Turns out, Sandberg has a real affinity for the fans and signed prior to every home game the Smokies played this year. Fans regularly lined up down the aisle by the Smokies’ dugout prior to gametime, and sure enough Sandberg would come out of the dugout and sign for as long as he was able (including multiples!). It was such a success that the Smokies’ management renamed that aisle “Sandberg Alley.” I made the trip over several times during the season and was lucky enough to get several items signed.

Although I am sure that Mr. Sandberg will never see this, I want to publicly thank him for his graciousness with the fans. It was a blessing having him here.

Jair Jurrjens – Publix Atlanta

mstanger — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:26:24 +0000

The Braves have recently been doing a promotional/community event called “Shopping With the Braves” with one of their corporate sponsors – Publix. About once a month, they send a couple of players out to one of the Atlanta area Publix and have them bag groceries and sign autographs. Being that the opportunity to get Braves autographs out in the community has decreased over the years, this was a welcomed event. The lineup for this event included Jair Jurrjens, Martin Prado, and Omar Infante. Unfortunately Prado was not able to make it over because he was suffering from some health problems incurred earlier in the week. Truth be told it was probably a blessing because had he not cancelled I wouldn’t have been able to make it through Jurrjens’ line and get my items signed. Jurrjens is, in my opinion, one of the most unheralded pitchers in baseball. He eats innings, has a miniscule ERA, and most importantly is 23 years old. I’ve become a big fan of his not only because of his success on the field, but also because he has come over to the fence several times at the Braves parking lot and signed for everybody. Good guy, great player.

Yunel Escobar – Collectors Show

mstanger — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:31:25 +0000

One of the reasons I decided to head on down to the ATL for the “Shopping with the Braves” event was because Yunel Escobar was also going to be doing a paid, public signing at a small memorabilia show nearby. If you have read through GraphLife before, you have probably noticed that I have gotten Yunel several times before without having to pay anything; however, I thought the autograph fee was pretty low considering he has become one of the best shortstops in baseball and I had a bat I wanted him to sign. (I want to send a special thanks to the folks over at Autographhelper.com for their help with this event. If you haven’t been over to their site, please be sure to check it out. ). Anyway, the signed bat turned out real well and I even picked up several other items that were being sold at the show. All-in-all it was a pretty good day.

GraphLife Retro – Andruw Jones

mstanger — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:52:41 +0000

When I started Graphlife in January of 2008, my desire was to simply begin with that year’s successes, thinking that it would be pretty tough to go back and chronicle some of the autographs that had come my way in prior years. As I have moved forward with my collecting I have often wanted to go back and share a few of the pre-Graphlife autographs I was lucky enough to come across.

That having been said, this is the first of a few new posts I will be doing in the coming weeks entitled Graphlife Retro, in which I look back and detail how I came across some of the autographs in my collection.

The first in this series is Andruw Jones. Back in April of 2007 we had decided to head down to Atlanta for the weekend to make the most of one of John Smoltz’s Food Bank autograph sessions. That Thursday I had luckily come across a web advertisement for a grand opening for a small business center in a strip mall. To promote the event they were having Andruw Jones come out and sign autographs. So, we headed down to the ATL on Saturday morning and got in line a couple hours before the event was scheduled to start. As it turned out, it wasn’t entirely necessary to get there so soon because they had done a poor job advertising the event and there were only about 50 or so people there. They were charging $5 an autograph while also selling bats, balls and 8×10’s at cost. It was completely awesome. I think I spent about $40 dollars and walked away with a signed magazine, (2) jersey numbers, a ball, and (2) 8×10’s. Ah….the good ole’ days, when the economy wasn’t in the tank and players would sign at grand openings! Anyway, here’s the stash, and a link about the event.

Press Release

Dale Murphy – Smokies Park

mstanger — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:26:48 +0000

As I have written several times before, Smokies Park has been very good to me. The Tennessee Smokies are the AA Affiliate for the Chicago Cubs and their stadium is only about 20 minutes from my house. In recent years I have been fortunate to get autographs of Ryne Sandberg, Clayton Kershaw, Jeff Francoeur, Gordon Beckham, and a rehabbing John Smoltz just to name a few. Now I need to add another name to the list – Dale Murphy.

Dale Murphy has been making appearances at various Southern League parks this summer in order to promote the Braves and his I Won’t Cheat Foundation. He made his appearance at Smokies Park on July 23. It consisted of a luncheon that we were able to attend and an autograph session at the game that night. The luncheon was awesome! We got to hear Dale tell some great stories and were able to get some autographs after he was finished speaking.

We returned later that night for the game at 5:30 pm. The gates didn’t open until 6:00, but there were already 100’s of Braves fans waiting in line when we got there. I was fortunate to have some box tickets for the game, so we were allowed to enter early with the season ticket holders, as long as we didn’t go the “meet and greet” as we were told. None of us realized that there was going to be a “meet and greet” but we knew now. He was seated down in the cafe and was signing autographs for a dozen or so season ticket holders. Naturally we crashed it and were able to get a few more things signed. All in all I ended up with 2 signed Sports Illustrateds and 2 mini-helmets. And I did it all without having to stand in line at the game that night.

It was a cool day for sure. It’s simply not every day that Dale Murphy is signing free autographs 20 minutes from my home in East Tennessee. Thanks Dale and Go Braves!

Gordon Beckham – In the Mail

mstanger — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:50:28 +0000

Earlier this season, I was fortunate enough to get a few autographs of White Sox rookie (and former University of Georgia star) Gordon Beckham while he was with the Birmingham Barons. I had a few 8×10’s left over that I wasn’t able to get signed, so I decided to send them off in the mail and see if they would come back. To my surprise I had them back within about 10 days. Needless to say, I was very excited to get these back in the mail. Thanks Gordon!

UGA Golf Tourney ‘09

mstanger — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:26:46 +0000

As I’ve posted before, one of my annual trips is down to Athen’s, GA to play golf with my beloved Bulldogs. It’s always a fun time and you get to meet many of the players, along with Coach Richt. He is always very gracious to spend a few minutes with us chatting, signing autographs, and taking pictures. It’s always a pleasure to get to hang out with him.

I spent most of my time (other than golf) getting signatures on a team ball. All the guys were very nice and more than happy to sign for me. I was also able to pick up a few 8×10’s of Georgia starters Joe Cox, Prince Miller, and Rennie Curran, and former kicker Brandon Coutu.

Oh yeah, one more thing…don’t sleep on those Bulldogs this year; they’re going to be good!

Coach Mark Richt; Brandon Wood #97; Vince Vance #72; Marquise Brown #20
Akeem Hebron #37; Vernon Spellman #87; Joe Cox #14; Brandon Boykin #2
Israel Troupe #28; Dallas Lee #64; Zach Mettenberger #5; Clint Boling #60
Fred Munzenmaier #48; Tavarres King #12; Shaun Chapas #49; Bryan Evans #3

Jordan Schafer – Turner Field

mstanger — Sun, 03 May 2009 15:08:12 +0000

Our last big break of this Sunday afternoon at Turner Field was getting Jordan Schafer, the Braves rookie center-fielder. He didn’t even give us a look on his way into the stadium, but on his way out he signed for about 15 minutes from his Land Rover. He was pretty cool, even when a girl asked him to sign her touch screen cell phone (he gave her a funny look, then obliged). I was able to hand him a couple of 8×10’s and he signed them both.

Jair Jurrjens – Turner Field

mstanger — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:45:34 +0000

Without a doubt, the Braves best pitcher right now is second-year ace Jair Jurrjens. Fran Wren stole him two winters ago from Detroit by swapping Edgar Rentaria for him and top prospect Gorkys Hernandez. He’s turned out to be quite a pitcher. He’s generally a good signer, and now that I think about it I’ve never been down there when he didn’t sign. That held true today as he came over and signed for about 10 minutes, knocking out a Chop Talk magazine I gave him.

Yunel Escobar – Turner Field

mstanger — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:37:45 +0000

Probably the biggest shocker as far as signers went this day was Yunel Escobar. I’ve seen him come over before, but not since he was a rookie (It’s funny how that dynamic works, because when he was in the minors he once knocked out 16 baseball cards for me at one time). It was pretty cool; he had his little boy with him and was really good with the fans. I was able to sneak in a min-helmet and 2 8×10’s. Kudos to Yunel.