Today was a day of an insane amount of free signings in Southern California. There was a Dee Gordon signing in LA (which ended up with Dee being a no show), James Worthy signing at Living Spaces in Rancho, Manny Mota signing at El Tepeyac Cafe in the City of Industry, and a Kenley Jansen signing at the Living Spaces in Monrovia. Although there were a ton of free signings I decided to pass on every event and decided to attend the paid signing of Vladimir Guerrero and Kendrys Morales at OC Sports Cards. I had no interested in driving around to all the free signings since i've gotten autographs of those players before and really didn't need anymore items signed by those guys. Plus I really needed to get my authentic Vladimir Guerrero Angels jersey signed. That's been on my wish list for quite some time.
OC sports cards were charging $30 for small and $40 for large items for Kendrys Morales and $70 for small and $100 for large for Vladimir Guerrero's autograph. For the first 50 fans they handed out Albert Pujols Topps Refractor Cards and the first 100 fans also got a random signed photo of a current or past Angels baseball player. I arrived around 8:15am and there were about 40 fans in line already.
The signings were scheduled to take place from 10:30-11:30 for Kendrys and 11-12 for Vladimir. At around 9am the staff opened the doors to the card shop and they let people in to purchase autograph tickets and to pick up tickets for people who prepaid online. There they handed out the Pujols refractor card and a mystery photo sealed in an envelope. I ended up getting a signed Peter Bourjos photo. Most of the fans ended up with either Peter Bourjos, Tim Salmon, Mark Trumbo or Mark Langston. One lucky fan got Jim Fregosi.
I ran into my buddy Kyle who was there to drop off a painting for Kendrys Morales. Here is a picture if his masterpiece.
Both Kendrys and Vladimir ended up showing up a bit late around 11:30. They arrived together in an Angels Red Range Rover.
As soon as they arrived OC Sports Cards closed off the store to prepare for the signing. They did allow me and Kyle to get inside since Kyle had a painting to present to Kendrys Morales. Here is a picture of Kyle presenting his painting to Kendrys.
Good job as usual Kyle. As soon as the signing began the staff divided us up into two lines. One line for Kendrys and the other for Vladimir. Since I only wanted Vlad's autograph I ended up going to the Vladimir line. I ended up telling Vladimir where to sign the jersey in my limited Spanish since he barely speaks a word of English. The signature came out great.
I am glad I told him where to sign since Benson saw a lady who ended up getting a side panel signature on her baseball since she didn't specify the location. The general rule in any signing both free and paid is to specify where to sign so that the player doesn't make the mistake for you. Otherwise you will regret it later especially at a paid signing.
Benson already had Vladimir sign a jersey and a baseball at a previous OC Sports Cards signing so he ended up getting his Kendrys Morales jersey signed.
After the signing Benson, Phil and I ended up heading out to the stadium to do some pregame graphing of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Great Recap David!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I do try my best when blogging each entry.
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