Rained Out

On Saturday I made my way to Staten Island to see a double header between the Yankees and the Connecticut Tigers (a Detroit Tigers affiliate). The game the night before on August 3rd had been postponed due to the field being declared unplayable.

Due to unplayable field conditions, both games of tonight's doubleheader (Saturday, August 4) have been postponed.

For more information, visit our website at https://t.co/9Pgt8nJ4fi. pic.twitter.com/Q3KUTV9QJl

— StatenIslandYankees (@SIYanks) August 4, 2018

Unfortunately a minute before the gates were set to open the games were postponed again due to wet grounds. On Saturday it was very sunny, hot and overall nice baseball weather but I guess the rain from the night before still left the field in poor condition.

It wasn't a total loss though. When life gives you lemons, you run to the employee entrance/exit to wait for players to come out to get autographs.

Ken Joyce is the current hitting coach for the Baby Bombers and he was one of the first to come out (which is odd since the coaching staff usually stays at the ballpark the longest). Mr. Joyce kindly signed both the card I wanted him to sign and the one I wanted to give him. Apparently he got a big stack of them for himself. I'm guessing that means the team/company started giving the card subjects some samples then? I hope so.

Thanks to Mr. Joyce I only need two more autographs to complete the 2018 SIY team set (minus the eight players who were already elsewhere when the set came out).

That was very cool and made making the trip out to SI worth it. But what really pushed the worthiness of the trip over the top was this.

BOOM!

This is a Recommended Viewing insert from 2017 Bowman Draft and the first ever dual autograph card I ever finished. Best of all it features Clarke Schmidt and Matt Sauer, who were the Yankees' first and second rounders in the 2017 draft respectively. I bought this card early last week on eBay (yes, I actually bought an insert card on eBay on it's own, don't judge me - the shipping was free!), it arrived on Friday and it was signed by both of the players on Saturday.

The card is a bit on the darker side in terms of lighting (the parallels don't appear to make it that much brighter FWIW) so the signatures are a bit tough to see. I'm aware that the 5x7 versions of this card a bit more lighter, but 5x7's suck.

Still though, it's not like the signatures are impossible to see and I love this card. Two top Yankees draft picks on one card (SIGNED!) is a quick way to my collecting heart. The best part is that no certified autograph version of this insert set exists. I have myself an exclusive here!

So yeah, the games not being played sucked. Especially since it was the very last Saturday game for the Yankees Pizza Rats this summer (according to the schedule there are only weekday games and one Sunday game left). Bummer. But on the bright side I can watch another game by trading in the ticket I scanned up top, and since I already got these sweet autographs today, whatever I get on that day will just be gravy (actually I still need two autographs of the SIY team set guys so maybe not just gravy).

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).

2018 IP Auto Count: 53