Always a New Project!

I love everything about autogrpah collecting-- buying, selling, trading, searching, finding, researching, and definitely writing about them!I can't get enough of this hobby!

For some reason, it seems I always end up finding a new project to work on. One of my favorite ones right now is my Yankees retired #'s project. My wrinkle is I am trying to get every player, save Ruth and Gehrig, that has had his number retired by the Yankees on a 3x5 in blue sharpie/marker.

I am also planning for the future by getting players such as Paul O'Neill in blue sharpie on a 3x5 because I feel like his number will be retired by the organization someday soon.

That project, and being from Ohio, got me thinking about Reds retired #'s. To my surprise, only three of the Reds that have had their number retired have passed on-- Fred Hutchinson, Ted Kluszewski, and Sparky Anderson. I have Kluszewski in black sharpie and thought I had Sparky Anderson as well. So I started writing some of the other names, Morgan and Bench with a 3x5, black sharpie theme in mind (and no I haven't heard from either yet).  I had met Byron Larkin last year at a Xavier-Dayton basketball game and am hopeful he can help me acquire the signature of his older brother, Barry, who just had his number retired by the Reds recently.

Anyways, when I pulled out my Sparky Anderson, I was shocked to see it was in blue ballpoint. It was Ernie Harwell that I had got from the Tigers in black sharpie.

I began searching for a black sharpie Sparky when I came across this great blog from Ben Wideman. He received a successful return from Sparky Anderson a few months prior to Sparky leaving us, and in black sharpie! I immediately e-mailed Ben and asked him if he'd be interested in trading? The next morning, he wrote me back and said he knows it's one-for-one, but would like to keep the one he got. Knowing he was a Hall-of-Fame signature collector, I knew I had to sweeten the pot. Since I had bought a blue sharpie Bill Dickey a few months prior, I had a blue ballpoint one still in my collection that I could use as a bargaining chip. 24 hours later, he agreed, and I had Dickey and Sparky in the mail to him with a return envelope so I could get Sparky Anderson for this project.

I was happy and so was Ben! And I am also happy I found a new friend that enjoys writing players through the mail! So add Reds retired #'s to the list of my open projects! :)