We had 3-5 inches of snow last night and the temperature was 5 degrees above zero this morning. I woke up at about 5:00 a.m. and decided I wasn't willing to make the 45 minute drive and stand outside in the freezing cold to get Mauer's autograph. My boys can't go today because they have a baseball clinic to go to. We probably would have gone if they were able to attend as well.
I already got his autograph twice this weekend and am running out of things to have him sign. I have him on balls, pictures, magazines, bats, mini helmets, bobbleheads and cards. He's a great player, but do I want to freeze outside for 45 minutes to get my 12th autograph of him? I decided no.
Other than Mauer, the other sessions weren't enough to make me want to make the trip either. I really don't like how they mixed the prospects with the current players this year. This resulted in us going through fewer lines the days we were there, and is the main reason I'm not going back today.
For example, one session today has Oswaldo Arcia, Scott Erickson, Caleb Thielbar and Chris Colabello. I got Colabello twice already this weekend, once on a card and once on a picture of Target Field because I didn't have any thing else for him to sign other than another copy of that same card. I think I also had Thielbar sign a picture of Target Field. I have several Scott Erickson autographs, but could have gotten him on a Metrodome baseball I guess. And I don't have any pictures or cards of Arcia.
Maybe that's my issue: so many of these guys are so new that they don't have baseball cards or pictures out yet. Had I gone today, I would have been going through lines that had 1, maybe 2 people I wanted to get, and had nothing for the others to sign.
In past years, I've tried to work on team sets such as the previous year's Topps Heritage or Allen & Ginter sets. I got a few of those done this year, but since the sessions were so mixed, it was really hard to make much progress on these sets or find a line that had a decent number of players in it that I needed.
Even though my younger son went with us this year, we spent much less than we have in previous years. Even if I had gone today, we would have spent much less.
However, I do think Target Field is a viable venue for TwinsFest. It's not nearly as good as the Metrodome, but it will work. I really liked how you could see a huge portion of the event on the Metrodome floor. But at Target Field, it's spread all over. In order to get to the different levels, you could take the stairs between the Suite and Club levels, but had to use the elevator to get to the Service Level (where the card show was). Surprisingly, I never had to wait more than a few minutes for an elevator, and each elevator had a TwinsFest volunteer in it helping you find what you were looking for.
They need to find a better location for the Sports Collectors Show, because the dingy, sub-basement hallyway was awful. I wonder if many of those dealers will be back next year.
Each year we seem to find some special item or project that makes TwinsFest really fun. This year, it was the Metrodome seat backs that my sons bought and got signed. Of the people attending TwinsFest this year, I think the only one they should have sign them that they didn't is Tom Kelly, and that's because he is only signing today.
Later today and other the next several days, I will be cataloging and posting the items we got signed. I don't have many pictures of the players signing this year, because my hands were already full holding the items I was getting signed.
Anyone else have opinions on how well Target Field worked out?
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