May 18, 2013 - FC Dallas (MLS)

Hotel - Seattle, Washington

I didn't have a whole lot for FC Dallas. They had visited Seattle late last season, and I had gotten the majority of my cards signed for them before that game. Despite this I still eagerly headed downtown before Saturday's match against FCD to work on my custom 4x6s. Only two other local graphers joined me, and the players exited at a manageable pace for the most part. I missed a group of guys when Kenny Cooper signed. I wanted to make sure I got Kenny on a couple of Portland Timbers 8x10s that I've had for a couple seasons. One of them depicts the starting lineup from the Timbers' first ever home game in 2011, previously signed by Eric Brunner, Jorge Perlaza, Adin Brown, and Jack Jewsbury.  Another highlight was the acquisition of both FCD goalkeepers on a custom 4x6 (Goaltending Department), another custom 4x6 project I designed for this season showing the starting and second-string goalies for each MLS team.  I didn't recognize Raul Fernandez at first, and had him sign an index card. Head coach Schellas Hyndman walked out of the hotel, chatting with rookie Walker Zimmerman. I needed Walker on my MLS Draft custom 4x6, so I went after him first. He had nice things to say about the photo, and signed it very neatly. The MLS draftees are always exceptionally cool about autographs, something that definitely can't be said on a consistent basis for the major four sports.  Coach Hyndman was also cool, signing a custom 4x6 for me and an MLS All-Star program for one of the other graphers.  David Ferreira was one of the last out, and was in a considerable hurry. Last season, he signed pages of cards. This time around, he still signed but didn't hit everything shown. I only had one item for him, but the other graphers were a bit surprised at the limit.

David Ferreira signing; note the stylish manpurse.

Overall, not a bad hour of autographing.  On a side note, I wasn't able to get to Starfire the following day for the NWSL matchup between the Seattle Reign and Sky Blue FC. I was surprised to hear from fellow collector Ritch that a few of the Sky Blue ladies were a bit tricky to get on arrival to the stadium. Christine Rampone was an 0/3, Kelley O'Hara 1/2, and Jillian Loyden 2/3. Rampone later signed 2 of 3 on the way from the clubhouse to the stadium for warmups, but apparently she wasn't too thrilled about it.  I haven't made it out to an NWSL game so far this year and probably won't until next month, but I do expect to have some pretty good success given the easy autograph access at Starfire.

Stats

FC DALLAS (17)
Jair Benitez 1/1 4x6 photo
Fabian Castillo 2/2 4x6 photo, card
Kenny Cooper 2/2 8x10 photos
Raul Fernandez 3/3 blank index, 4x6 photos
David Ferreira 1/1 4x6 photo
Jackson 2/2 index, 4x6 photo
Zach Loyd 1/1 4x6 photo
Chris Seitz 2/2 4x6 photos
JeVaughn Watson 1/1 blank index
Walker Zimmerman 1/1 4x6 photo
Schellas Hyndman (head coach) 1/1 4x6 photo

Scans

Dallas - Custom 4x6 Photos

Raul Fernandez & Chris Seitz	Jair Benitez
Fabian Castillo	Raul Fernandez
David Ferreira	Jackson
Zach Loyd	Chris Seitz
Walker Zimmerman	Schellas Hyndman (head coach)

Dallas - 8x10 Photos

 Kenny Cooper

2011 Portland Timbers First Match (added Kenny Cooper)

Dallas - Cards

Fabian Castillo

Dallas - Index Cards

Raul Fernandez	Jackson
JeVaughn Watson

Mail from last week (May 6, 2013)

I have a P.O. Box near my office that I use to receive autographs through the mail. I check this box once per week (usually every other week during the hockey offseason). I'll be checking it tomorrow, but just to get things started, here's what I got last Monday (May 6).

Hockey

Ryan Garbutt c/o Dallas Stars (practice facility)
2/2 RIC, custom index, 398 days

It's always uplifting to see a long-lost request make its way back to my mailbox! I had sent to Ryan c/o the Dallas Stars' practice facility in Frisco, Texas near the end of the 2011-12 season. Ryan signed both my Rookie Index Card and the AHL custom index I was making that season for teams I was seeing in person (I had gotten the Texas Stars to sign at the Seattle airport that season on their Abbotsford roadtrip, but missed Garbutt).

Ryan Garbutt

Ryan Garbutt

Peter Mueller c/o Florida Panthers (NHL)
2/2 RIC, custom index, 51 days

Peter was always such a gracious signer in the WHL. I got him to sign several times here, and when the Phoenix Coyotes and Tampa Bay Lightning played an exhibition game in Everett in 2009, many local fans were looking forward to seeing him. Alas, he was a healthy scratch that game. He spent a whole period signing autographs for fans in the concourse, which goes to show how cool he is. I have started trying to get 2012-13 OPC Retro cards signed, since they have lots of whitespace and look amazing signed. This is the first one of those back; I sent a blue Sharpie along with my request. Peter also inked two Everett Silvertips team set cards from 2005-06 and 2006-07. At the time I wasn't collecting these sets signed, but am trying to backfill those years now. Pretty solid success overall!

Peter Mueller	Peter Mueller
Peter Mueller

Soccer

Danny Koevermans c/o Toronto FC (MLS)
1/1 custom 4x6 photo, 22 days

A Dutch striker who played in the Eredivisie with several clubs (Sparta Rotterdam, AZ Alkmaar, and PSV Eindhoven), Koevermans joined TFC in 2011. He signed my custom 4x6 photo in black ballpoint. When I was up in Canada last month to graph the Toronto Marlies and Abbotsford Heat in the Fraser Valley, I made sure to prep a large amount of autograph requests to send out from within Canada. I highly recommend this tactic if you plan on going across the border; it'll result in some savings on international postage.

Danny Koevermans

Blake Smith c/o Montreal Impact (MLS)
1/1 custom 4x6 photo, 22 days

This was another request sent from Abbotsford, BC last month. I am trying to get the entire first round of the MLS to sign custom 4x6s, and this was a somewhat inauspicious start to that effort. I had accidentally selected a photo of Brad Stuver that came up in a Google Image search for Blake Smith, and I didn't vet the photo closely enough. Blake was nice enough to sign, but included a short three-word note pointing out the goof. I'll probably re-send a corrected version to him with "Oops, my bad!" on the same note.

Blake Smith

Oops....

May 11, 2013: San Jose Earthquakes (MLS)

Hotel - Seattle, Washington

This blog will serve as a one-stop source for all my autograph adventures. I post on several different boards, and it became a bit too overwhelming to try updating my recaps everywhere. Now I can do all that here without worrying about site-specific formatting.  Anyways, my hometown San Jose Earthquakes were in town to play the Sounders in a 1pm tilt, so I headed down to the team hotel before the game. I've been making custom 4x6 photos this season, and had mistakenly only printed about 3/4 of the photos I intended (and last-minute attempts to print them resulted in epic failure). Also, I royally screwed up on a couple of my custom photos: in my normal rush to create them and send them off to be printed, I had saved Sam Cronin's image with Ramiro Corrales' picture, and Dan Gargan's with Ty Harden. In more uplifting news, Topps is releasing an MLS set this year, around mid-July. That's a pretty late release, but if Upper Deck still had the license then it would be never rather than later.

Players started filtering out to the bus about two hours before the game, and they were all very cool about stopping and signing. Jon Busch and "Wondo" (Chris Wondolowski) were especially talkative to us, and have become accustomed to signing for us over the past few seasons. I didn't get a whole lot else signed this time around, but I anticipate having a chance to see these players again in person over 4th of July weekend when I'll be back home visiting family in San Jose.

Stats

SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES (17)
Mehdi Ballouchy 1/1 index card
David Bingham 1/1 index card
Jon Busch 2/2 4x6 photo, 5x7 photo
Cordell Cato 1/1 index card
Sam Cronin 1/1 4x6 photo
Mike Fucito 3/3 4x6 photo, cards
Alan Gordon 1/1 4x6 photo
Jason Hernandez 1/1 index card
Adam Jahn 1/1 4x6 photo
Justin Morrow 1/1 index card
Shea Salinas 1/1 index card
Chris Wondolowski 3/3 4x6 photo, 5x7 photos

Scans

San Jose - Custom 4x6 Photos

Jon Busch	Mike Fucito	Alan Gordon
Adam Jahn	Chris Wondolowski

San Jose - 5x7 Photos

Chris Wondolowski

Chris Wondolowski

San Jose - Cards

Mike Fucito

Mike Fucito

San Jose - Index Cards

Mehdi Ballouchy	David Bingham	Cordell Cato
Jason Hernandez	Justin Morrow	Shea Salinas