Card Show and Pro Shop Finds

Today my sons and I headed out to Har Mar Mall in Roseville to check out a card show there. It was smaller than usual so at first we were disappointed. However, we all found things we were interested in. My older son found a couple of inexpensive vintage cards to send out for autographs, including a 1949 Bowman Marty Marion and a 1958 Topps Bobby Thomson. He also found a nice 8x10 of Mark Buehrle that he plans to send out and a great 11x14 black and white shot of Harmon Killebrew hitting his 500th home run. He plans on getting Killebrew to sign that at TwinsFest next year.

My younger son found a few items of his favorite player, Johan Santana. He got a Stadium give away Cy Young Santana figure, a few jersey cards, and an 8x10 of Santana in a Mets uniform. When we got home, we made a Santana display in part of his room, including a jersey that I bought from a fellow collector. Not a game used jersey, just the type you would buy in a store.


I bought about 35 cards to send out to be signed, including a good amount of 1965 Topps and several 1959 Topps.

After the card show we went to the Twins Pro Shop in Roseville. We don't get over there too often so we were hoping to see some different game used items than the same old stuff we see at the Apple Valley store. They had several game used bats, but they were pretty expensive. Redmond was $100, a Gomez bat that was completely broken and taped back together was $100, and they went up from there. They actually had an Ortiz bat from when the Red Sox visited earlier this year. That was $400. Ouch. We didn't get any bats.

They also had some game used jerseys. At $150, they weren't too outrageous, but the selection was slim. They were mostly from guys not on the team any more, like Livan Hernandez, Adam Everett (who I like) and Bobby Korecky. They also had a few of the younger guys like Duensing and Buscher. We weren't willing to spend $150 on those guys, but I did get a couple of game used caps. They were tough to sort through because they didn't have names on them, just the player's number. I don't know the players numbers by heart, so we had to go look at the jerseys and t-shirts in the store to see who was who.

I bought a Brian Buscher cap from a game on September 7, 2008 when the Tigers visited the Twins at the Dome. The Tigers won 7-5. Buscher was 1-4 with an RBI but also committed an error.


I also bought a Joe Crede cap from a game played on July 3rd of this year at the Dome, also against the Tigers. Again, the Twins lost, this time 11-9, in 16 innings. Crede went 1-8, but his one hit was a home run in the 6th inning with nobody on base.


The caps were a reasonable $20, which is less than many of the new caps they sell. I might write down all the players numbers and head back to see who else is there. We know there weren't any Morneau, Span or Punto caps. They did have Cuddyer and Nathan caps for $30, which I am contemplating.