Wednesday, October 13, 2010

TTM's #24 and 25! Great Old School Successes!

Hey guys, Drew back here. Just days after pulling the coveted Strasburg autograph redemption, I received 2 TTM successes! Check these out!



First up, former baseball front office executive Lee MacPhail signed a Hall of Fame Card for me! Lee was a director of player personnel for the Yankees, a general manager for the Orioles, the chief aide to the commissioner William Eckert, and the American League President during his 45 year career in baseball! He made the controversial call about the Pine Tar Game, when George Brett was caught using too much pine tar on his bat after hitting a big go ahead home run in 1983. Today the ALCS MVP award in the postseason is named the Lee MacPhail award in his honor! He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998, joining his father Larry MacPhail as the only father/son members in Cooperstown!

MacPhail took 8 days to sign, a very fast return for the 93 year old! The signature is a little shaky but still nice to have!

Our next success was also very cool...



Former Tigers, Browns, White Sox, Athletics, and Yankees pitcher Virgil Trucks sent us back some mail! Virgil pitched 17 years in the majors, winning 177 games and striking out 1534 batters. He threw two no hitters in the same season, joining only Nolan Ryan, Roy Halladay, Allie Reynolds, and Johnny Vander Meer as the only 5 pitchers to throw 2 no hitters in the same season!



Mr. Trucks also signed my index card, "To Drew, With Best Wishes, Virgil "Fire" Trucks"! I love how he signs "Fire" in red ink, while the rest is blue, just kinda a cool thing about it. He also stamped the fire truck, the no hitter dates, and the pictures of him. Looks pretty awesome!



Here's where things began to get interesting. He included 3 more things, and here are the first two. The top one is a card that's a little bigger than the standard 2.5 x 3.5, commemorating his 2 no hitters in the same season. The bottom piece is a paper with his career stats on them, inscribed "2x All Star 1949-1954, WS Champs 1945, Virgil 'Fire' Trucks" with the fire truck again. On the back is an advertisement about his book, if anyone is interested in ordering one shoot me an email and I'll send you the information regarding it. The book costs $30, but only 500 hardcover books were printed so get yours soon!



And lastly, possibly the greatest thing any signer has ever done for me, Virgil Trucks himself handwrote a letter to me! Wow! Go ahead and click on the picture if you wanna read it, it doesn't have much personal about it. It may be a little hard to read but I made it through with few pauses. This is so cool, I never imagined how good of an idea it was to send to Mr. Trucks. For 93 years old, being able to put this much effort into each letter is unreal, a truly unbelievable man.

If you guys want to get a really fun through the mail back from Mr. Trucks, I suggest you do so soon! Both of these guys were really awesome to me and even though I doubt they're reading, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

See Ya!

3 comments:

  1. Drew, that's awesome! I think the letter from Trucks is so cool. I'd definitely put it up!

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  2. Virgil Trucks is awesome, a really great guy. Congrats!

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  3. Mr.Trucks is the best signer out there.... I've wrote to him three times and the last one was the best. I sent him a baseball and he put all his stats on there for me. A class act.... i wish there where more like him out there!!

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