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Dale Murphy – Smokies Park II

mstanger — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:00:42 +0000

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, living near Smokies Park has been a tremendous resource. For the second time in as many years, the Tennessee Smokies held Dale Murphy appreciation night. I’m not really sure why they’ve had these for the last two seasons (no product to promote, no real tie to the team, etc), but I’m not complaining. As a rabid Atlanta Braves fan I wasn’t going to miss another opportunity to get a couple autographs from one of our team legends.

Just like the last year, the plan was to have Dale at the game that night to sign for a couple of hours, but you could also go to a luncheon preceeding the game for only $25. Instead of waiting in line forever at the game in 95 degree heat, I decided it would be a no-brainer to shell out the $25 and go to the luncheon. It was a fun event. Dale told a few funny stories, and we got to go through the line a couple of times to get some autographs. I ended up with a couple of signed magazines, a jersey number and an 8×10. As always, Dale was cordial and the autographs turned out great.

Greg McMichael & Brad Clontz – Braves Alumni Sunday

mstanger — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:16:54 +0000

Each Sunday Braves home game, the Braves welcome back former players for autograph sessions inside Turner Field. This particular Sunday the Braves had invited back Brad Clontz and Greg McMichael – two members of the 1995 World Series Championship Team. One of my collections that I have started in recent years was of autographed items from the 1995 team and I thought this was a great opportunity to add to that collection with a few autographed baseballs. Both guys were very nice and the autographs turned out great… I even talked Clontz into inscribing his autograph with “’95 World Series Champs!”

Bobby Cox – Turner Field

mstanger — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:05:38 +0000

Whenever I make a trip to Turner Field, I make it a point to get there as early as I can to try and pick up a Bobby Cox autograph as he arrives at the players’ parking lot. He is always very gracious with his time before the game and I hate to miss out on such an opportunity now that he is planning on retiring at the end of the year. As always, on this day Bobby took the time to sign for a few of us and I was able to get a recent Chop Talk autographed.

Billy Wagner – Turner Field

mstanger — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 05:00:51 +0000

It didn’t take us long this year to get down to the ATL to catch the Braves and try to get a few autographs back at the player’s parking lot. For the past few years it has been slim pickings back there as fewer and fewer players come over to sign. Your best bet is to hope that there are one or two guys who still regularly take the time to sign. Coming in to the weekend I had hoped Billy Wagner would be one of those guys and I was right. From everything I have heard he has been a great signer throughout the course of his career and that trend has continued in Atlanta. After arriving in his tricked out Ford truck, he calmy sauntered over in his cowboy boots and hat and signed for everybody. He seems like a really cool dude….so much so that my buddy Patrick decided that upon getting back home he was going to go buy a Ford truck and trick it out just like Wagner. Anyway, here are a couple of things I was able to pick up:

Jason Heyward, Frank Wren, Mike Minor – Braves Caravan

mstanger — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:45:42 +0000

As opposed to hosting a FanFest in Atlanta this year, the Braves decided to instead send out teams of players to various locations around the Southeast. One team made up of Frank Wren, Jason Heyward, and 1st Round draft choice Mike Minor was deployed to Nashville. Although I wasn’t able to make it because it was during the workweek, a good friend of mine was able to navigate the crowd pretty easily and pick up a few autographs for me.

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!