2008 Upper Deck Joel Peralta

Who is this? Royals pitcher Joel Peralta.

What is this? An autograph card from 2008 Upper Deck, card number SS-JP

Where'd I get it? Sports Card Alley.

How much did it cost? Two dollars.

Why is this so special? I got this card for 2 reasons: I thought it was a rookie auto, and it was from 2008 so if the guy was stuck in low A-ball or something there would be time for him to improve. Boy was I wrong. Joel is actually a 32 year old middle reliever for the Royals and he's kind of stunk up the joint this year. He was optioned to Triple-A Omaha after blowing a couple of saves but pitched well and got called back up on the 23rd. That doesn't change the fact that he's a middle reliever for the Royals. This is a nice freaking signature though, featuring a little swirly flourish encapsulating Joel's uniform number.

2002 Donruss Dee Brown

Who is this? Royals outfielder Dee Brown.

What is this? An autograph card from 2002 Donruss, card number RC11. It is from the Rookie Crusade insert set and is serial numbered 450/500.

Where'd I get it? Out of a pack.

How much did it cost? Couple bucks.

Why is this so special? Dee is kind of a fringy player but this is a pretty sweet looking card. Shiny refractor like purple with the outline of a dragon in the background? We meed more sets like this! I never quite understood the meaning of this insert set with knights and heralds and shields and dragons and such, not even when it first appeared in 1998 Donruss, but it does look cool. The shiny card has a shiny sticker certified by an authentic stamp crimping the card. No one does that anymore and it makes me sad. Instead of putting a tiny sticker on the card or guaranteeing the authenticity of the autograph with a facsimile signature on the back, I think the card companies should hire a notary public to personally crimp each card with their little crimpy authenticating seal thingy. I'm old school like that.

It's always nice to pull an auto out of some random pack picked up at a retail store, even if they guy isn't a star. It's a much better feeling than when you spend a bunch of money on a hobby box and you find out that this is your big hit. When I first pulled the card I thought of this guy. The baseball Dee never quite made the impact as the basketball Dee, but he managed to stick in the Royals organization for 7 years and is currently trying to make the Angels' roster. Dee's signature is pretty simple, buy consistent as seen in the Baseball Almanac link up above. Dee adds on his uniform number which is a nice touch. Dee's actual signature is done in only one stroke, but once you start adding octothorpes, that really adds a lot of work to the autograph. This is one of those autograph cards that popped up at me out of nowhere. I was looking for a card to send to Chris Harris in a big trade we just pulled off (and which you will be hearing more about very soon) and while looking through my 2001 Donruss set I found this card hiding in the 2002 cards. That's one of the reasons why I started this blog, to sort out all these hiding autographs I have. No more Donruss Box for Dee though, He gets to live with all my other formerly lost autograph cards on The Island of Misfit Autos.

2006 Topps Alex Gordon

Who is this? Royals prospect Alex Gordon.

What is this? An autograph card from 2006 Topps, card TA-AG.

Where'd I get it? A Hobby rack pack of Topps.

How much did it cost? Three bucks.

Why is this so special? Full write up tomorrow - I'm worn out after this week. I wanted to keep the one a day thing going though.

So much for one auto a day. I deserve a weekend off, yes?

This card was pulled out of a hobby rack pack of 2006 Topps. When I saw that Topps had brought back rack packs and inserted vintage cards in '06, I was giddy. who cares if 90% of the vintage cards were from 1987-1990, I wanted 'em. The local hobby shop had a box and I, like every red blooded American card collector started looking through them to find one with a good card on top. Unfortunately I forgot this was 2006 and not 1986, because the owner freaked thinking I was a pack searcher. If I wasn't a regular for several years I probably would have been shot, stuffed and mounted on the wall as a warning to others. Don't laugh, this shop is in Kennesaw, GA. I was bewildered and he finally realized I was just looking through the cards on top. LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO. Sorry folks, I don't care how rabidly you're against pack searchers, rack packs and cello packs with clear plastic wrappers that you can see the top card through is totally fair game. I've been scrounging through rack packs since I was a kid at Winn-Dixie looking through 1983 Donruss packs for Diamond Kings on top. You don't want us to look, make the package opaque. It's that simple. I eventually ended up getting a pile of rack packs (one with a Mantle on top!) and vowed to do my rack pack rummaging at Wal-Mart from now on.

I got them home and started ripping. I opened a pack with a random Brave on it (LaRoche, I think) and this card popped up. I sharted my shorts with excitement. There were several reasons for this: First, it was a seriously good autograph. Great prospect, good looking card, and an artistically valid signature. Minimalist, no wasted strokes, yet with strong composition and an emotional depth like a Klee or Matisse. Second, this was pulled at the height of the Alex Gordon pulled/not pulled/cut out/Wal-Mart blasters selling for 50 dollars a pop freakout, when Olbermann was buying them all up like mad and I had a big gaping hole in my set that would never be filled. Well, now I had an Alex Gordon card for my 2006 series one set! l Lastly, if I had opened that pack at the store after rummaging around in there I would have been lynched. Narrowly escaping death is a thrilling feeling.