Crave The Blue Sharpie Ink

(Editor's note: Apparently every card blogger ever has been to a show recently, here's another card show post)

Last year I had a pretty mediocre experience with a local card show. Nothing awful but enough to make me put not going to one in 2018 on my New Years Resolution goal.

Well here in October I failed my second NYR goal for the year by going to one anyway.

But this year's show wasn't all that bad. I actually stuck with my initial budget and kept costs down just enough that I wouldn't curse out the show's name when I went to withdraw money from the ATM. I picked up a fair number of things and just enough that'll ensure that I have plenty of blogging material this week. You've been warned.

Anyway, today will be part of the card show haul and features the main reason I went. As you all can imagine, it was for the autograph guests. The glorious, the stupendous, the expensive, autographs! Anything I do that's hobby related nowadays comes down to "Is this a Luis Torrens card or a card I have a chance of getting signed?" and nothing more. Feel free to look at me disapprovingly, but to me nothing makes a card cooler than getting some sharpie ink courtesy of the person featured on the card on it.

The local show was doing a reunion of sorts featuring some key members of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees. As a guy who's been slowly (but surely) working on the 1979 Topps Yankees team set for years now, this was a perfect opportunity to knock some obscure ones off of my list. Unfortunately a lot of the members were expensive ($29 for Ed Figueroa?!), so I dwindled it down to two players I decided to get ink of.

The first of which was Albert Walter "Sparky" Lyle.
Lyle was signed by the Baltimore Orioles as a free agent back in 1964 but later drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the MLB draft (I have no clue how things worked back then so I won't bother). He made his MLB debut in 1967 as a Red Sock and would serve as the team's closer for the late 60's and early 70's. Then in 1972 he was traded to the New York Yankees, a trade the Red Sox would really regret, as he racked up a ton of saves with the powerhouse Yankees in the 70's. During the six years Lyle was a Yankee he was named to three All Star Games, he won two World Series rings, won an AL Cy Young and was twice the league leader in saves. Lyle was eventually traded to the Texas Rangers following the 1978 trade along with several other people in exchange for Dave Righetti and several more people. After that his effectiveness started to ware off and by 1983 his career was over. He later went to be a manager for the Somerset Patriots (indy ball).

Lyle was pretty nice and the line for him was the biggest. I waited until 30 minutes before his session was due to end to get into line and it still took a line for me to finally get his signature. I attribute that to him having a friendly personality as he made conversations with pretty much all of the people looking to get his signature.
Sidenote, it doesn't surprise me at all that the show organizers scheduled Lyle and Graig Nettles on separate dates.

The second but definitely not least autograph I got was from long time journeyman MLBer, Mike Heath.
Heath was drafted by the New York Yankees in the second round of the 1973 MLB Player Draft. Originally Heath was a shortstop/infielder but in 1976 he was converted into a catcher where his strong arm could be a really useful asset. He was a pretty okay catcher offensively but with Thurman Munson behind the plate at the time he was blocked and spent most of his time in the minors. Even in 1978 when he won a World Series Ring he spent a lot of time in the minors. Heath was part of the trade I mentioned earlier that sent Lyle (and others) to Texas for Righetti (and others), and spent some time with the Rangers org before being traded again to the A's in a minor trade. With the A's he found his playing time increasing as well him being relied upon to man more than one position. He played second, third, short and all three outfield spots. Basically he was the super utility guy and that goes a long way in explaining how he managed to carve out a very nice 20 year career as a professional baseball player.

Heath was also an extremely friendly person. I gave him a card of his for him to keep and he offered to sign it for me in addition to the RC above. Of course I declined and asked him to keep it but that little gesture goes a long way.

So yeah, no "wow, I wasted money to meet a jerk" stories thank goodness. Then again Lyle has always had a reputation as a practical joker and someone who can laugh at everything in life, while Heath literally made the most of every situation he was ever thrust into. So I guess it shouldn't be too surprising.

The two signature combined cost me $49. A steep cost I know, but to be honest I'm pretty satisfied. I made huge strides with my 1979 project thanks to the Lyle autograph. And I'm only one Dave Rajsich signature away from completing my first ever tri-auto! Best of all, he's signing at another card show so I may attempt a mail in request. Fingers crossed.

So big thanks to Mr. Lyle and Mr. Heath for the awesome autographs.

Stay tuned for some more posts about the card show this week.

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

2018 IP Auto Count: 83