Featured autograph - Nick Margevicius

This is an autograph I got last September of an anonymous Lake Elsinore pitcher who was playing long toss with a teammate - before doing some running across the warning track from foul pole to foul pole.

I waited around until he was walking to the dugout to ask him to sign one of those preprinted The Autograph Card blanks - “I don’t sign those” he said.

I don’t know why I wanted his autograph in the first place - for the 30 minutes I'd waited around, this guy shut me down rather quick and had to rummage through my autograph book to see if I had anything that could be signed.

Maybe just where the netting ends, he stopped to sign for at least a couple of kids and I whipped out a ticket stub from the previous night's game - he relented to scribble on that and my mission to get this random Cal League pitcher was done.

Featured autographs - A.J. Cole, Nolan Fontana and Nick Franklin

I finally completed a 2008 Upper Deck Team USA Youth Junior multiplayer card [previously signed by Franklin and Cole] by getting Fontana [playing for the Lancaster Jethawks in 2013] to ink it up - before a California League game at Inland Empire Thursday night.

Fontana currently has an on-base percentage of over .400 playing in the Cal League - though if he reaches the Major Leagues, he may end up as a utilityman somewhere.

Cole, a pitcher who was traded back to the Washington Nationals from Oakland, made an appearance at the 2013 Futures Game and closed things out for team USA - I got him to sign the card after a Cal League game in Lake Elsinore in 2012, when he was on Stockton [Oakland A's farm team].

Franklin has been 'star rookie' so far with the Seattle Mariners, though so was Dustin Ackley a few years ago - I got Franklin while he was playing in the Arizona Fall League in 2011.

Featured autograph - Donn Roach

My friend had a couple more cards [he always has a 'couple more cards' of minor league guys he needs to get signed] from the stash he gets from his card pimp overseas - so when we went to a minor league game in the California League last weekend, I got Roach to sign my friend's cards.

I would have never known this recently traded Angel farmhand [probably going from Inland Empire to Lake Elsinore] played junior college baseball with some guy named Harper in Nevada a couple of years ago - even though it says on the write-up on the back of the card I got signed.

Featured autograph - Doug Drabek

My friend and I went to a California League game this past Sunday [Visalia Rawhide at Inland Empire] and got former MLB pitcher and current Visalia Rawhide pitching coach Doug Drabek's autograph - he won a Cy Young in 1990 when the Pittsburgh Pirates were actually pretty good for a stretch in the early 90s.

Doug is also the father of current Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kyle Drabek - he has always been a good signer through the mail and in-person, though personalized everything sent through his mailing address.

The one card I wasn't sure about getting signed Sunday afternoon was a 1995 Topps Embossed - the card has an embossed, foil effect and I wasn't sure if the card was going to take the Sharpie well.

I don't particularly like the card but I think it stands out and did present somewhat of a challenge to possibly be autographed - fortunately as one of several cards Doug signed for me, it came out just fine and my needless worries about getting a 16-year old card worth about a nickel was unfounded.

I took a picture of Doug signing on the concourse when he finally came out of the clubhouse after the game - the coaches from Visalia must have taken an hour or so after the game to kick back after a 17-2 whipping of Inland Empire.

FYI - on Monday, they only scored one run in a 7-1 defeat against the same team.