TTM autographs received: Tony La Russa

The longtime manager signed my cards in about three weeks c/o the Chicago White Sox back in August - at 77, he finally got a bit long in the tooth and stepped down as a big league manager after the White Sox season ended.

About fan favorites and catch all binders

This is a mock up page I made for Ray Lankford, a guy who might have been hobby relevant for just a 'moment,' 30 years ago, but is largely forgotten in the here and now - I want to say he occupied at least a page in my decade stars collection through the late 1990s and even through the early 2000s before I weeded out his cards from my binders.

I’m picky and I always want demarcation points deciding which prominent players I want to highlight and which guys don’t make the cut - the minor star, semi star types who might have been ‘baseball good,’ but perhaps generated little or no buzz hobby wise might not ever be considered as decade stars guys in my book.

Lankford was part of the MLB fabric of a decade or an era, but more solid than superstar, as his career petered out - there wasn't as big of a sentiment left to keep his card displayed in pages.

Now, I might want a ‘place’ for these players, where I have a re-imagined specialty binder to give certain players a second or third look - it might be fun to get re-acquianted with former players I've ceased to care about or didn't really have that faux nostalgic, emotional attachment to, but I'm looking for ideas to change things up and play with my cards that are otherwise archived in my A-Z commons collection.

Maybe in reality, I can do blog posts for some of these former players obscured by history - where for space considerations, boxes are fine to store these types of players’ cards where I can't get too sentimental.

TTM autographs received: Tom Walker

The former big league pitcher from the 1970s signed my two cards in three weeks - I wanted to send a request because of the 'beyond the glory' story he shared about nearly joining Roberto Clemente in the legend's fatal plane flight in December 1972.

There is a bloodlines tie where the elder Walker is the father of a former big leaguer [Neil], who played for 12 seasons through 2020 - I added an extra card of Neil to my request for Tom to keep.

Looking up his stats, it just happens he pitched in one game for the Angels back in 1977 - so he was a retired player I needed in my Angels all-time autograph collection.

Autograph request through the mail received: Carl Warwick

Carl Warwick c/o home - the 1964 World Series hero personalized and signed my card in blue ink in about a week.

Featured autograph - David Freese

I probably didn't think much of David Freese when he signed for me back in 2010 - he came over to the railing about 10-15 minutes before a San Diego Padres / St. Louis Cardinals game at Petco Park and must have signed at least three cards for me.

I thought he was pretty accomodating but saw him only as a player who broke into the Major Leagues as an older rookie - who had been busted up with injuries several times over and at one point was also arrested for DUI.

I would have never guessed he'd seize the second chances afforded to him as a Major League player and become a folk hero in St. Louis for his 2011 postseason heroics - particularly in the 2011 World Series where he was named the MVP of a team seemingly panned as probably not being good enough to battle it out against the Rangers for a championship.