TTM autographs received: Sherman Corbett

The former big league reliever and one time Angel from the late 1980s through early 1990s signed my cards and added a tract business card in about a month - even for rank-and-file guys like Corbett, who may not get as many requests and can take the time, I really appreciate it when cards I've sent comes back with clean, bold signatures.

TTM autographs received: David West

The former big league lefty signed my cards in several months - he had his best run in parts of 4 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, where he appeared in 122 games and struck out 217 batters in 251.2 innings.

I guess I knew of him as a rank-and-file guy who pitched through the junk wax era - so he was someone whose cards seemed to always kind of 'just there' through the masses of random baseball cards produced from 1986-1992.

TTM autographs received: Charlie Puleo

Puleo signed my cards in about a month and answered a couple of questions - it's a nice bonus when I write a former MLB player and get any sort of personal response.

About his preference between being a starting pitcher or a reliever - he wrote he was "more effective in the big leagues as a reliever."

How a pitcher, his catcher and pitching coach may have a game plan for an outing - he wrote "all 3 work together, but pitcher always had final say."

Featured autograph - Torey Lovullo

Over the years, there have been an endless archive of major league games posted on YouTube and for now, MLB has been sort of liberal as far as not flagging down the games not posted through their actual account - while the concept of watching archived games isn't new to me, maybe my attention span is much shorter than it was 25 years ago.

I could probably sit through a minute MLB highlight at best, rather than get lost watching significant parts of game - that has already happened and is otherwise ancient history.

At the very least, I'm thankful for what the streaming video era has brought over the past 10-15 years - to help form a better idea of players I might have only read about and/or remind me how just good certain players were, besides just glancing at Baseball Reference and checking to see who had the biggest WAR.

There is a ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast of a game posted where Lovullo, a journeyman who played in parts of 8 seasons in the majors - hit a home run off Roger Clemens as an early season highlight in what would be a 91 loss season for the Halos.

In the grand scheme of things, that home run means nothing except to Lovullo and perhaps his family - however, seeing the clip as a fan it helps me picture at least one neat thing this otherwise anonymous guy did as an Angels player.

Featured autograph - Tommy Gregg

At times I try to find about the signing habits of players and coaches to at least account for guys with certain quirks - from players / coaches with limits [i.e. maybe signing one or two cards at a time] to guys who won't sign certain cards for whatever reason.

The thing I learned about Gregg is he will not sign Atlanta Braves cards - I was really hoping to get my lone card of his signed during my Arizona Fall League trip, but since it's a Braves card, so I didn't even bother.

Just just to say I got him though, I had Gregg sign a 2012 Topps Heritage Kansas City Royals team card - since he is the hitting coach for their AAA team in Omaha.

Gregg's Major League cards picturing him in a uniform other than the Braves - include his 1988 Donruss #203 and 1988 Score Traded #69T.

He also has a 1988 Fleer Update #U-113 - maybe Gregg won't sign a Braves card, but he'll sign one of his cards that pictures someone else.

Though Fleer did have the correct picture for Gregg in the 1989 Fleer set as shown above - cue the semi-racial remark about how stupid Fleer was to put a picture of a black player on a card of a white guy.

Featured autograph - Mark Davis

Like Carmelo Martinez in the previous post, I remember Davis mostly through the junk wax cards I found - Davis seemed to be a little more notable because he and Storm Davis were kind of highlighted in the 1990 Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue I remember reading once upon a time.

Neither key free agent signing were really as good as their superficial numbers from the previous seasons [before they signed with the Kansas City Royals] suggested and both flopped - I don't know what their on the field failures truly meant to me, except perhaps groaning a little more when I came across their cards.

I was able to get my cards signed by Davis [currently a coach in the Royals minor league system] at Royals instructional league camp this year - he was accomodating and I asked him to inscribe the card shown with a 'Cy Young' notation, since I felt it was the only appropriate card I had.

If I had my eyes peeled, I could have gotten Storm too, who is a coach in the Chicago Cubs minor league system - I had several cards for him as well ready to be inked up in case I saw him at Cubs' instructional league camp.

As an in-person autograph collector, I don't get more daps by get 'extra guys' like Davis - but it's sometimes fun to be a nerd, finding out which MLB organizations have former MLB players coaching and rounding up cards to try and be autographed in-person.