Signature Saturday - Tony Campana

For those tired of me talking about Tony Campana, you may want to skip this post. There's a lot of reading but also a lot of pictures!

So what would you do if you found out your favorite (current) player was offering a free signing, but it was almost 500 miles away? Would you make the trip? Would you just say, oh well, maybe next time? Well if you're me, you'd find somebody who was going and try to piggyback a few things onto their stuff.

I was just about to post a request on the SCN message board to see if anybody was going when, lo and behold, somebody preemptively made a post offering help! As I said, it was a free signing but I offered a little something extra for his time and effort and we struck a deal.

The signing was in Knoxville, TN where Campana played AA ball with the Tennessee Smokies. It was free autographs from a player who has a small cult following so I had no idea how big the crowd would be. A list of things immediately sprung to mind to get signed but I couldn't choose. I ended up sending a bunch of items and figured I'd be happy with whatever came back.

And boy am I happy! You've seen these enough on this blog so I won't go into too much detail here. These are Tony's two Topps base cards.

Sticking with cards, below are a couple of my Tony Campana custom cards. The Pass custom on the left has been in my blog header for a couple of weeks now. The black shadow on the left side of the card is from the scan. There's a slight curvature of the card due to it being printed on photo paper. The Hustle, Not Muscle card was recently featured here on the blog and talks about Campana's only MLB home run so far, an inside the park job.

This is the third version of a Tony Campana card from the 2012 Team Set that I've gotten signed but it was actually the first one I made. After realizing, he basically had the same pose on his two Topps cards, I decided to make one of him batting instead. And also one of him running the bases. But this one had such a nice signing area, I decided to send it too.

Another thing I mentioned fairly recently was trying to get an 8x10 signed from the pictures used on Campana's Topps cards. Misson accomplished! I went with the vertical option for both and am excited with how they turned out. Not sure when I'll get these framed up because that project will probably cost a whole lot more than I spent gathering all the pieces!

I also picked up two more 8x10's. The first one is from Campana's 1st MLB home run and is the same photo I used in the custom card. This is the only piece I wanted an inscription on (something denoting the feat) but I can't really complain about a free signing, right? Looks good anyway!

This last 8x10 just looked like a fun picture. Nothing much to add, just really liked it.

Some of you may remember that I am slowly but surely adding ice cream helmets signed by "significant" Cubs players. I'm pretty sure all of the ones I have gotten have won some kind of award or honor while with the Cubs. All-Star. Gold Glove. HOF. But I'm also pretty sure being considered a favorite player is "significant" enough. It's my collection, I make the rules, so shutup already!

And last but not least, we have a staple to most autograph collections, a signed baseball. I have a few signed baseballs but not too many of them survived one of my purges. The balls tend to discolor or the ink fades or bleeds so I've stayed away from getting any new ones. This is an official Major League Baseball signed in blue ink so I'm hoping this one holds up.

Anybody else have multiple autographs from one player of the non-certified variety? I have many more Ryne Sandberg autographs but most of them are certified cards from packs.

Hustle, Not Muscle?

This Tony Campana custom has been on the back burner for a while now, mostly due to the fact that I was stumped for a headline. I know I've been asking for a lot of input/help lately (Name that Set, Campana Display, Fantasy Baseball League) but sometimes I get stuck in a creative tunnel and don't see a way out. And who doesn't like an interactive blog, amiright? 

I've heard the phrase "Hustle, Not Muscle" used many times to describe guys that play like Tony Campana. I like it but I'm just not sure it works here as a headline. If anybody has any ideas to top it, please leave a comment. Approximate character count would be 17-20.

For a little background, Tony Campana's first (and thus far, only) MLB home run was of the inside the park variety. Granted he got a fortunate carom off the wall, but most inside the parkers benefit from one or more lucky bounces. Check out this video of the video...

ZAMBRANO-NO!

Last night's near no-hitter of the Cubs by Pittsburgh's AJ Burnett reminded me of a custom card I made a few weeks ago but never posted. In the same series as Darwin Barney's Sweep and Anthony Rizzo's Riz-zonkulous, I bring you:

Of course, Zambrano-no is a play on his last name and the term no-no which is used as slang for a no-hitter. Much of the 2008 season is a blur for me and I'd rather it stayed in the past. It marks the last time the Cubs went to the post-season and the second first round exit in a row. Both sweeps, too. Blech.

And the location listed on the card is no mistake. Zambrano of the Chicago Cubs no-hit the Houston Astros in Milwaukee. The Astros were technically the home team but were displaced because of a hurricane (Ike?) so they played at a "neutral" location. Of course, this was controversial for the Astros because Milwaukee is so close to Chicago that the although the Astros batted second, the Cubs definitely had the crowd behind them for a "home field" advantage.

This would have been the most I have ever seen of a real time no-hitter. I usually only get to see highlights after the fact or maybe the last inning if they do a live cut-in. I tuned in to WGN around the 4th inning so I got to see a good chunk of this game. Stark contrast to Sunday night's slug fest.

After watching Burnett's little hissy fit though, I'm glad Adrian Cardenas was able to poke one through to the outfield. Nowhere near the grace that Armando Galarraga showed during his blown perfect game and the umpire was correct in this game.

There isn't much to cheer about when you almost get no-hit. Except maybe that the Cubs extended their current MLB record of longest time period of not being no-hit (or team hitting streak if you want to call it that). The last time the Cubs were no-hit was Sandy Koufax's perfect game against them on September 9, 1965. So the Cubs may not have won a World Series in my lifetime, but they've hit in every game!

A little blog cleaning starts with a good...

SWEEP!

Most of the time, sweeping the worst team in baseball (Sorry Marcus!) isn't something to get all excited about. But when your team gets swept in 4 consecutive series to make for a 12 game losing streak, there probably isn't a whole lot to get excited about anyway. I wasn't able to watch yesterday's Cubs game (stupid CSN, more games on WGN please!) but I followed the game log online while doing a few other things. These days, I'll take any victory and the come from behind walk-off variety makes it that much sweeter. 

I've been fiddling with some other custom card designs and a great photo from yesterday's game inspired this newspaper-ish one:

   

I originally had it all black and white but it looked a little too blah so I kept Darwin Barney in color. The design was loosely based on this old Ernie Banks card although I'm not a big fan of the red lettering: 

(Ernie Banks 1961 Nu Card, photo courtesy of Wrigley Wax)

I would love to hear any feedback, suggestions and even critiques. 

On to the housecleaning...

I went through my list of those following my blog and if I wasn't following their blog(s) yet, I am now. If I missed you or know of one I should be following, let me know because I'm always looking for more. 

So after I mentioned the other day that I regretted selling someone a couple of teams from the Case Break at a cheaper price just to be rid of them and that it may have unintentionally given them an edge on winning anything randomized, that said someone felt besmirched. That was not my intent! I explained that I didn't realize the possible implications and was merely disappointed in myself for not seeing it. He explained his team had already been selected, he was merely looking for trade bait and that anything extra would have been just that, extra.

Well, we hugged it out (email wise) and decided to dissolve our transaction. I refunded the money, no hard feelings, no backroom deal shenanigans or collusion (as alluded to in a separate email by a third party). Maybe this only worked out because I didn't pull anything worth randomizing but I wanted to air everything out and put it to bed now. Learn something new every time I do a break.

That said, I now have a couple of teams available for trade bait of my own from the break. Willing to move these as team lots or pick and choose to help fill your sets:

Angels - Jered Weaver x7, Dan Haren x8, Albert Pujols x9, Ervin Santana x6, Jordan Walden x9, Torii Hunter x6, Mark Trumbo x8, Howie Kendrick x6

Indians - Grady Sizemore x7, Shin-Soo Choo x8, Justin Masterson x7, Ubaldo Jimenez x9, Carlos Santana x8, Asdrubal Cabrera x6, Lonnie Chisenhall x8, Casey Kotchman x8

Mets - Tom Seaver x6, Johan Santana x7, Darryl Strawberry x7, Ike Davis x7, RA Dickey x6, Lucas Duda x9, David Wright x9, Gary Carter x7

Rays - Matt Moore x6, Jeremy Hellickson x8, BJ Upton x6, Desmond Jennings x6, Evan Longoria x8, Ben Zobrist x8, David Price x8, James Shields x9

Rockies - Drew Pomeranz x6, Troy Tulowitski x6, Todd Helton x8, Marco Scutaro x7, Carlos Gonzalez x9

Twins - Joe Mauer x7, Justin Morneau x6

I could probably be persuaded to part with some of the Cubs and Nationals team sets as well.

Also, my Want List has been updated for Archives. I'm in the middle of some trades for GQ and Bowman so those lists are completely up to date just yet. Thanks for any help!