Autograph Addict » TTM Autographs

Billy Raimondi

esiason14 — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:02:51 +0000

Billy Raimondi never had an at bat in the major leagues, but Billy is what baseball is all about…playing for the love of the game. Billy was a catcher in the minor leagues from 1931 through 1952, which was longer than any other position player in Pacific Coast League history (Herm Pillette pitched 23 seasons). He is probably best remembered as a member of the PCL Oakland Oaks. I won’t rehash his career here as it has already been written about, but I encourage you to read his story.

Billy Raimondi biography

Billy Raimondi stats

Billy’s PCL HOF page

Billy’s brother Ernie Raimondi who was a WWII hero.

Billy is now 97 years old. I recently wrote to him and included 3 different photos with duplicates for him to keep. Today I received a package, which included a letter from his son, Billy Jr.

Billy Jr. said,

“My father appreciates that you are interested in his baseball career and that he is still remembered…..his handwriting isn’t as good as it used to be, but he still managed to sign your pictures. Thanks very much for the duplicates and your kind words…”

Full note

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Billy in 2007 at the PCL Reunion

Thanks Mr. Raimondi!

Weekly TTM and other additions (2/15 – 2/21)

esiason14 — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:21:05 +0000

Not a bad week. I received several autographs TTM including a couple for my 1962 Topps set.
Jake Gibbs (1962 Topps)
Ed Hobaugh (2nd auto on 1962 Topps Senators team card)
Ed Roebuck (1962 Topps)
Jim Landis (1962 Topps)
Mike de la Hoz (1962 Topps)
Chuck Essegian (1962 Topps)
Jim Thome (2003 Upper Deck Vintage)
Ty Cline (1965 Topps)
Ty Cline (1966 Topps)
Ty Cline (1966 Topps Cubs team)
……
and my favorite return this week was from Marlan Coughtry. I have been looking for Mr. Coughtry for quite some time. Every once in a while I check to see if he is doing any signings. Each time I come up with nothing. I was finally able to locate Marlan and I wrote him a letter asking if it was ok if I sent him a card to sign. He wrote back in under a week giving me the okay. I was thrilled when I got this card back today along with a nice letter. I was able to finish off this Rookie Parade card for my set and met another nice former player TTM. Thanks again!

1962 Topps Rookie Parade Infielders

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I also made a couple of small purchases:
1951 Dell Sports Album signed by Bob Lemon, Stan Musial, and George Kell.

1951 Dell Sports Album (Lemon, Musial, Kell

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1959 Topps Pitching Partners (Pascual / Ramos

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1959 Topps Pitching Partners (Camilo Pascual / Pedro Ramos)

1969 Phillies Scorecard

esiason14 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:14:21 +0000

I picked up a pretty neat 40+ year old, 22 page Phillies scorecard today. It’s in great condition. I love finding stuff like this. It’s full of some great old ads (I wish a new car was still $1895), player info, and stats. This scorecard was actually scored. Some people don’t like that, but I do.

This particular scorecard was from a Phillies – Giants game. That day the Giants hit back-to-back-to-back homeruns.

The Giants lineup included: Bobby Bonds, Willie McCovey, Dave Marchall, Hal Lanier, Ron Hunt, Ken Henderson, Tito Fuentes, Bob Barton. Mike McCormick was the starting pitcher.

The Phillie lineup included: Tony Taylor, Johnny Callison, Dick Allen, Deron Johnson, Larry Hisle, Cookie Rojas, Don Money, Mike Ryan. The SP was John Boozer.

I plan on sending this out to a few of the old players. First up: Woodie Fryman. Woodie pitched in the majors from 1966-1983. In 18 seasons, he put up a record of 141-155.

1969 Phillies Scorecard Front

1969 Phillies Scorecard Back

1969 Phillies lineup and scoring

1969 Giants lineup and scoring

Questionnaire page added

esiason14 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:14:26 +0000

With many of the requests that we send TTM, we like to include a short Q&A for some of the older players. My son usually chooses the questions and we try to limit them to three. Sometimes we get back the questionnaire and it’s blank and other times we get them filled out…or even a hand-written letter. Whether they only answer one or they take the time to write a full letter, we are always more than happy to read their responses.

I decided to add a page to share these with fellow collectors. Right now I have ~40 up and I have more than 200 others that I will be posting shortly. I apologize for the poor quality, my scanner kicked the bucket. When I buy a new one I will post better quality images.

Baseball questionnaires
Football questionnaires

If anyone else has any stories about their correspondence with former players, we would love to hear about it.

UPDATE 1/07/10: Better scans of questionnaires have been uploaded!

1961 Topps AL Pitching Leaders: 4th auto

esiason14 — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:36:51 +0000

I received this card back today. Jim Perry, a great TTM signer, autographed the card in 7 days. I included his fee of $5. Now I’m down to two remaining signers: Art Ditmar and Frank Lary.

1961 Topps AL Pitching Leaders

Nice day at the mailbox

esiason14 — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:17:13 +0000

I got a couple of nice returns for my 1962 Topps project today along with the second signature on Rollie Fingers Rookie Card.

1962 Topps returns: Ron Santo in 10 days, Duke Snider in 9 days

1969 Topps return: Bobby Floyd in 24 days.

The ’69 Rookie Stars card was already put in the mail to Rollie today. I’m really looking forward to finishing this card off.

Ron Santo 1962 Topps

Duke Snider 1962 Topps

Bobby Floyd 1969 Topps

1961 AL Pitching Leaders – 3rd Auto

esiason14 — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:00:24 +0000

Click on the thumbnail above to view the full size.

I’m halfway done with this card. I received the card back today from Milt Pappas. He was the third autograph on this card after Bud Daley and Chuck Estrada. Milt signed pretty fast as well. It was sent out to him on 8/14 and I got it back today….an eight day turnout.

The card is already on it’s way to Jim Perry…another great TTM signer. After him there will be two guys left; Art Ditmar and Frank Lary. I’m a little worried about these guys. They have a spotty history with signing TTM, at least for me. I have a couple cards out to each of these guys and have yet to get them back. I’m pretty sure the cards have been out for a little over 2 months. Once I get Perry back, I might hold onto the card for while to see if I can get Ditmar or Lary in-person. We’ll see.

AL Pitching Leaders :: Bud Daley, Art Ditmar, Chuck Estrada, Milt Pappas, Jim Perry, Frank Lary

1961 Topps AL Pitching Leaders – 2nd Auto

esiason14 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:50:25 +0000

Just a quick update on my previous post about the 1961 AL Pitching Leaders card….

After getting the card back signed from Chuck Estrada I mailed it off to Bud Daley the next day. The card was mailed out on 8/04/09 and I got it back today in 9 days. Click on the thumbnail above to view the full size.

AL Pitching Leaders :: Bud Daley, Art Ditmar, Chuck Estrada, Milt Pappas, Jim Perry, Frank Lary

With each request I usually include an index card with a few questions. Once in a while I mix it up, but the questions are usually the same.

Here are the answers I got back with the Bud Daley return

Now the card is being sent off to Jim Perry!

1961 Topps AL Pitching Leaders

esiason14 — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:30:22 +0000

Probably one of my favorite types of cards to get signed are league leader or mutliple player rookie cards. I recently purchased a lot of 1960′s leaders cards (1960-1964) and couldn’t wait to get them in my hands so I could get them in the mail.

The first card that I decided to send out was the American League Pitching Leaders :: Games Won. This card pictures Bud Daley, Art Ditmar, Chuck Estrada, Milt Pappas, Jim Perry, and Frank Lary. I sent it off to Chuck Estrada first. The card was mailed out on 7/25/09 and I got it back today in 9 days. Click on the thumbnail above to view the full size.

AL Pitching Leaders :: Bud Daley, Art Ditmar, Chuck Estrada, Milt Pappas, Jim Perry, Frank Lary

With each request I usually include an index card with a few questions. Once in a while I mix it up, but the questions are usually the same.

Here are the answers I got back with the Chuck Estrada return

Orioles Custom Photo signed TTM

esiason14 — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:39:17 +0000

Tyler is an Orioles fan and he wanted to get autographs of some of the prospects in Orioles system. We found some nice individual cards, but we wanted to get all of their autographs on one card so we decided to make a custom 4×6 photo.

For the most part Tyler came up with the design and I made it in the GIMP. I used to have Photoshop, but my previous computer died, I lost the disk and key, and Adobe really wasn’t helpful in getting me a new copy. GIMP, while it does not have all the features that Photoshop does, comes really close to the full functionality.

First we sent the photo off to Jake Arrieta c/o of the Norfolk Tides. We included three photos and told him to keep one for himself and that we would be sending the photos to Chris Tillman next to be signed. About 9 days later we got it back in the mail. We opened it up and to our surprise it was signed by Arrieta and Tillman. Jake was nice enough to pass it on and it saved us some postage. So thanks Jake! Oh and they signed all three.

Next we sent it off to Brian Matusz c/o the Bowie Baysox. Bowie is only about 10 miles from our house so we thought it would be a fast return then I remembered it was the All-Star break. Doh. Anyway we ended up getting it back in about 20 days. Still not bad.

From start to finish, it took us about 30 days to get all three autos from the future Orioles aces. Not bad.

Future Stars (Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, Chris Tillman)