My Day At The Westchester County Sports Card Show

Sunday I decided to hit the Westchester County Sports Card show, which is held at the Westchester County Center every few months. My main goals, aside from getting autographs from the guests, was to add to my Yankees PC, to my Teixeira, Tino and Clemente PC's and find pocket schedules and pins. I wasn't able to add to the player PC's on this day, but I got some nice goodies for the Yankees PC.

It's usually a busy day of thumbing through boxes for gold, looking at dealer tables and trying to make deals when attending the card show. This day was no different. When I first got there though, I made sure to pick up an 8x10 of Ron Hansen and  jump on his autograph line. He was the free autograph for the day, so the line was sure to get long fast. My plan was to get Hansen and then jump on the line for Bobby Richardson. Then spend the rest of the afternoon looking at tables.

The Hansen line was long, but it went by pretty quick. I was able to meet Mr. Hansen and get my photo signed by the former Rookie Of The Year.

After meeting Mr. Hansen, I looked at the time and saw that I had about 10 minutes before Bobby Richardson would start signing, so I went over to his autograph line and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Apparently, 1pm is more like 1:30pm to the promoters, who no doubt had Bobby signing the mail order stuff. I don't understand why not have him sign those after signing for the fans who were actually on line waiting. 

I passed the time talking to the people who were waiting on line as well. We spoke about the Yankees and other autograph shows that were attended and how they stack up. Finally Mr. Richardson came out and started signing.

When I got to him, we discussed the final out of the 1963 World Series when Willie McCovey lined out to Richardson, who was playing out of position, for the final out of the Series. Richardson told me that every time McCovey sees him he always asks if his hand is still hurting. I was so glad I met Bobby Richardson as he is one of the nicest athletes I have ever met.

I got Bobby to sign a baseball for me. It was the Yankees 100th Anniversary ball. The one time I wanted a side panel auto, I get the sweet spot, lol. Not complaining. I'll take it everyday.

After meeting Mr. Richardson, I hit the dealer floor. The problem I faced was, by the time I was done with my autographs, it was after 2 and some of the dealers were closing shop. I had to rush to look at the tables, which I don't really like. I like to take my time and look at what the dealers were selling. I may circle the floor about 3 times before I make up my mind as to what I would buy. Today, I had to make up my mind a lot quicker.

I saw a table that had vintage cards for about 35-50 cents a piece. He had a lot of vintage cards going back to the 50's. Knowing I needed to fill some holes in my Yankees team sets from these years, I grabbed a spot and started cherry picking through packs looking for Yankees I needed. I bought these cards for the sets I am working on:

Love that card of the future Yankees and Royals manager.

Future Batting coach for the Mets and Yankees.

This won't be the last time you'll see this family swapping son of a gun in this post.

That took a while. Maybe I should have scanned the cards in groups, lol.

Trying to put together the 1971 Yankees set as that is my birth year. (No age jokes, please. I'm like fine wine :P)

Then  I saw a booth that was selling 8x10's of past guests for $5.00 each, so I bought 2 photos.

I told you you would see Peterson again. I needed his autograph in my Yankees collection. Now I can cross off ole Fritz off the list. Love the vintage shot in Spring Training. I think that's in their old Fort Lauderdale camp.

I grabbed this Johnny Mitchell autographed photo because not only did I need his auto, but I loved this throwback uni he's wearing. I will admit, when the Jets wore these throwbacks during the 1994 season  which was the NFL's 75th Anniversary, I was puzzled by the green helmets instead of the white ones they wore during the 60's and early to mid 70's. Now I know that all the Jets did was take the decals off the current green helmets they were wearing at the time and put these decals on. They weren't the only team to do it. The Bills wore a red helmet and not the old white ones also. I kind of like the helmet and wouldn't mind seeing it again.

I then wandered over to a table and saw a 11x14 picture of Don Maynard signed with COA for only 10.00. I know Maynard's signature and it was legit. Problem was there was no one manning the table. I waited for a bit and when the seller didn't return, I left without the picture. A friend of mine asked why didn't I just take the picture. Not my style, plain and simple. I'm no thief. I would have loved to own the picture, but it just wasn't in the cards. Maybe next time.

I then made a major purchase, but there was a mix up and I am not currently in possession of what I bought. As soon as it arrives, I will post a blog about what happened and show off what I bought.

I leave you guessing what it could be.

The Start Of A New Collection: Pocket Schedules

I recently embarked on starting 3 new collections; 2 for the Yankees PC and one of a player that never played a game for the Yankees. Today, I am going to discuss my new Yankees pocket schedule collection.

Collecting pocket schedules is something I have thought about collecting, but never really pursued them the way I would an autograph or a bobble-head. I always picked up a pocket schedule when I went to a Yankees game or was in a team store. I would pick it up, look it over then just casually put it aside, never really looking at it again.

I remember as a kid eagerly awaiting the release of the Preliminary schedules the Yankees would release in February. I remember going to Yankee Stadium with my buddies to pick up these larger schedules that would give you the dates of games, price of admission and would hawk their season ticket packages. As a kid, I would always look for the SGA dates, but those were never released on the preliminary schedules. I always saved them until my mom would tell me they were clutter and toss them out. I wish I still had them.

I have always wanted to collect yearbooks and programs, but with the prices on those being a bit high, I realize that pocket schedules fit my budget and also gave you a glimpse into where the team was at that point in their history. It's pretty cool looking through them, seeing where the team was on my birthday, what they gave out that year and the price of tickets at that point. The prices have skyrocketed from when I started going to games, I can tell you.

I don't have many in my collection right now, just 9 schedules, 6 of them are Yankees . I am pretty sure I have more somewhere, but here are the ones I have right now:

1970 Yankees Schedule. This I just picked up of eBay for a low price. I had seen other 1970 schedules go for as much as 20.00 and that was a price I was looking to avoid. I got this one for under 5 bucks and the seller included a 1966 Topps Yankees Team Card which I need for my Yankees card PC.

2004 Yankees Schedule. I had this one in a drawer with some other pocket schedules. The condition is not bad, but not great. There's fraying on the top of it. When I can, I will replace this one.

2007 Yankees Schedule. Another which falls into a less than perfect conditioned schedule. 

2008 Yankees Schedule. As with the others, the condition is not the greatest. Fraying on the bottom of the schedule this time. This season is near and dear to my heart. I got to the Futures Game for All Star Weekend and got to enjoy my final few times in a place I considered my second home. I am not ashamed to say I cried while watching the Yankees take the final lap around the Stadium as Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" played in the background. I miss that place to this day.

2009 Yankees Preliminary Schedule. Without a doubt this is in the worst shape of all my schedules. Would actually be in perfect shape if not for all the water marks on it. The good thing about collecting pocket schedules is that these are all easily replaced at a great price. 

2013 Yankees Schedule. Picked this one up at the Yankees team store recently. The Yankees have started printing up multiple schedules with different players on the cover. I have this Jeter.

And this Teixeria, which I keep in my Teixeria PC Binder along with the 2008 Braves Schedule with Tex on the cover. I also picked up an Andy Pettitte Schedule which I forgot to scan. 

I also have a few non-Yankees pocket schedules:

2012-13 New York Knicks Schedule with Carmello Anthony, Tyson Chandler and Amar'e Stoutmire on the cover. Grabbed this at MSG when I was in the area. I also grabbed a 2012-2013 New York Rangers schedule which is definitely for trade. 

2009 Staten Island Yankees Schedule. I was a season ticket holder with them for 5 years and this is the only schedule I managed to pick up. I will pick up this years when I take in a game, for sure.

2007-08 New Jersey Devils Schedule. It's beat up, that's for sure. But I won't be replacing it as it's from my very first Devils game. I have been a fan since the 1990-91 season and never made it out to the Meadowlands to see a game, but went to the celebration they had for the 2002 Stanley Cup, go figure. I had this schedule in my pocket the whole game and it came out in pretty bad shape because of it. Because of the sentimental value, it will stay in my collection. 

My goal with my Yankees pocket schedule is to collect from 1970 seasons to present day, same with the Jets and Knicks. With the Devils, I'll start with their first season and move on from there. I just need to find pocket pages that fit them as the nine pocket pages are too small for the current schedules.

I am looking forward to add to my pocket schedule collection. I think it's a fun and cheap way to enjoy your teams history as well as they are cool to look through. If you also collect schedules, leave the link to your collection in the comments below. I would love to look at your collection.

New Teixeria Additions

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge Mark Teixeira fan. So much that he is the focus of one of my player collections. I'm currently collection Tex, Tino Martinez and Roberto Clemente for baseball, Wayne Chrebet for football, Mike Bossy and Martin Brodeur for hockey and David Lee and Patrick Ewing for basketball. A lot of player collections, I know. But it makes collecting that much more fun because you not just limited to cards. There are other stuff like bobble heads, figurines, magazines and other oddball items you can add to your collections.

Right now, my Teixeria collection stands at 281 different cards in my collection. I believe there are a few more that I'm sitting on that I haven't scanned yet, so that number may grow. My goal is to have 400 different Teixeria cards by the end of 2013. I believe that's a goal I can easily attain if I keep spending money, lol. 

Here are the newest additions:

These are from different members in my Team Collectors community

My buddy Kerry sent me these Tex cards as well as a Braves schedule with Teixeria on it's cover

I'm hoping Tex will be back this season. The wrist injury he suffered while hitting off a tee while with Team USA seems to be more serious than initially thought. The Yankees will need his bat nd glove at first base if they have a shot at repeating as AL East Division Champions. Maybe one day I will post my favorite Teixeira cards in my collection. I just wanted to update this blog as I have not done so in a while, concentrating on other things. With baseball season coming soon, I will be posting more often on here. Hopefully, it will be a great season for Tex and the Yankees.