When It Was A Game

As stated in my last post, one of my baseball card collecting goals is to try and get one (certified) autographed Twins card of as many Twins ballplayers that I can. Since then, I now have an additional 221^st different ballplayer.

Earl Battey is one of the autograph cards I’d been watching for for a while now. He does not have many certified AU cards, and most of those are the “cut auto” type, where his signature on a previous item (letter, contract, check, etc) is cut to size and embedded into a baseball card. The one I finally nabbed was one of these:

2006 Upper Deck SP Legendary Cuts When It Was a Game #WGC-EB Earl Battey [16/25] (auto)

And here are a few other pick ups from the last few days:

clockwise, from top left: 2018 Topps Allen & Ginter Full-Size #FSRB-MS Miguel Sano (jersey); 2018 Topps Archives Signatures #313 Max Kepler [10/86] (uncirculated auto); 2005 Upper Deck Ultimate Dual Materials #UD-ME Joe Mauer w/Estrada [07/15] (dual jersey); 2011 Topps Triple Threads Relics Sepia “AL MVP ’09 .365 28 96” #TTR-TTR-68 Joe Mauer [02/27] (jersey)

Advertisement

Winfield Of Dreams

One of my goals is to try and get one (certified) autograph Twins card of as many Twins ballplayers that I can. I have 220 different ballplayers with the most recent one.

I had a gift card for a spot reward from work that I was hoping to turn around into a Kirby Puckett AU card, but the price for his cards are out the roof. There are 25 different Twins ballplayers that I know of with certified AU cards that I don’t have — some of them are cut autos of deceased players (Bob Allison, Earl Battey, Zoilo Versalles) which are difficult to find; some are Real One cards of past ballplayers from Heritage sets, others are just recent prospects whose AU cards are overpriced right now. And then there’s Dave Winfield.

There are autographed cards of Dave Winfield out there, but I only know of one which showed him in a Twins uniform. That finally changed last year when Topps included him in the Dynasty set with several autographed cards all showing him as a Twins player. I latched onto one of those that was uncirculated and a low serial number that included a slick jersey patch as well, and got it at a reasonable price.

2017 Topps Dynasty #AP-DW6 Dave Winfield [04/10] (uncirculated auto/jersey)

Additionally, here are some cards from my LCS (local card shop), from my Good Trading Buddy™ BobFranklin, or that I’ve just picked up in the past:

clockwise, from top left: 2018 Topps Major League Materials #MLM-MS Miguel Sano (jersey); 2018 Topps Commemorative All-Star Patch Red #ASP-HK Harmon Killebrew [08/25] (manu-patch); 2018 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection #CCR-JM Joe Mauer (jersey); 2018 Panini Diamond Kings Jumbo Materials Signatures #JRMS-ZG Zack Granite [20/99] (auto/jersey); 2004 Donruss Leaf Certified Materials Red #175 Shannon Stewart [139/150] (jersey); 2018 Topps Tier One #BA-MKE Max Kepler [097/275] (auto)

London, Part 2

Continuing our visit to London, we left Windsor and went to Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew and walked the beautiful grounds.

After a break at the hotel, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and strolled Kensington Gardens & Hyde Park.

The next morning we had breakfast across from Embassy Row in Kensington Gardens, then took the Kensington Palace tour. Following this, we made our way to Westminster Pier to catch a river cruise on Thames, which wound its way past The Eye, Globe Theater, the Tower Bridge, and on to Greenwich.

With the great weather, Greenwich Park was full of people playing and relaxing in the grass. We made our way up the hill and took our turns straddling the Prime Meridian and then walking through the Flamsteed House. While there I make my second observatory visit on this trip (first being The Round Tower in Copenhagen), and see the Great Equatorial Telescope at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

the business end of the 38″ Great Equatorial Telescope in Greenwich