2009 California-Carolina All-Star Game

This year's California-Carolina All-Star Game was held in Lake Elsinore. The Storm made an All-Star card set and only four players out of the set did not make the trip - Brian Matusz (Frederick), Jason Heyward (Myrtle Beach), Alberto Bastardo (Inland Empire), and Christian Marrero (Winston-Salem).

There was an autograph session for both leagues of about an hour each. After years of going through a multitude of team autograph sessions it's always an amazing thing to witness. Since a different organization has the All-Star Game each year, no one has the experience to hold these sessions properly. This year's was your typical line-the-players-up and let people go down the line. That only works for so long until the line just never moves due to the sheer volume of people. While most people made it through the first session with the Carolina League, the line was so long that you have a slim chance of making it through again for the California League. When will teams learn to spread the players out, two or three to a table, and let people line up where they want to. This way most people will get some autographs instead of none which is what happened when the line stopped moving.

Thankfully the players continued to sign on the field on both sides so with a little bit of effort completing the team set was no problem. As for the game, the California League won with a 10th inning homer from Jon Gaston of the Lancaster JetHawks. Now to start planning for next year's game which is supposed to be with the Winston-Salem Dash.

MARY DOWNING HAHN - 06/14/09

While my main passion is baseball sometimes it's fun to go outside my box. On Sunday, June 14, I took my daughter to meet one of her favorite authors at a book signing. Mary Downing Hahn writes children's stories for 9-14 year olds but her adults love her books as well.

After my daughter got her 6-8 books signed I used one of our Universal Cards to get an autograph myself. It is signed in ballpoint and shows you that these cards great with just about any type of pen.

Potomac @ Frederick - 06/12/09

This was another Friday double-header with the Frederick Keys. The first game started at 5 p.m. but I was able to catch the second one which ended up going a full 9 innings thanks to a Michael Burgess 2-run homer in the 6th inning. Potomac then blew it wide-open in the 9th inning with 7 runs.

As for graphing after the game I was able to get Burgess, Danny Espinosa, and Francisco Plasencia coming off the field after the game. The Frederick Keys' 2009 team set was out so I also did what I could as the players left the stadium too.

Going For The Trifecta - 06/06/09

I was able to complete a trifecta this weekend collecting autographs. Starting out in Harrisburg graphing with the New Britain Rock Cats, then post game with the Salem Red Sox in Frederick, and then post game with the Lake County Captains in Hagerstown.

Rain outs and various starting time made this possible. Harrisburg started at 7 pm so I did pregame there. After getting the last couple of pitchers in the stands I headed to Frederick where they were just finishing their game that started at 6 pm. From there I headed to Hagerstown and got there about 10 minutes after the game ended but was able to do Lake County loading the bus. This was all possible with my wife's help who was keeping check of the games on the internet.

New Britain is good signing team. Never noticed any attitude with any of the players. Salem has a few players who have limits and Lin is tough to stop on the way to the field, but overall a great team too, as is Lake County.

The kicker was when I got the mail after getting home. Waiting on me was my first shipment of pre-ordered team sets waiting on my. I sort of expected the Lake County team set to be there, but so was New Britain. Luckily I will see them both later in the year.

New Hampshire @ Harrisburg 06/02/09

I went up to Harrisburg to see the Senators take on the New Hampshire Fisher Cats today and to do a little pre-game autographing. I hadn't seen NH yet and as it turned out they were one of the nicer teams to deal with in the Eastern League this year. Here's who I got pre-game today:

David Cooper (Toronto's 2008 1st Rd Draft Pick)
Brian Jeroloman
Al Quintana
Chris Gutierrez
Adrian Martin
Edgar Estanga
Sean Stidfole
Luis Sanchez
Nate Starner
Brad Emaus
Bryan Kervin
Brian Dopirak (finally got 2004 Just Rookies and 2005 Just Road to the Show)
Danny Farquhar
Tom Signore
Nick Gorneault
Adam Calderone
Cody Hearther

And I was able to get around to the Harrisburg side before the game started and got several cards from Joel Guzman.

By the way, Harrisburg does have their 2009 team set out, the first I've seen this year in person.