TTM Monday's: The Beginnings

Another new feature here on my blog. TTM stands for Through the Mail. What this entails is you send mail to a celebrity, athlete, etc. with a self addressed stamped envelope and ask for an autograph. A lot of people will gladly sign a picture, trading card, baseball, etc. for you and send it back. It's always something that's been of interest to me. I decided to pick up this hobby when I found a ton of old trading cards in my parents basement this spring. I've been doing it since the end of April and I have 81 successes from doing this to date. I've stuck to just sports.

What this Monday post will be is just be posting a couple of pictures of my successes and showing how long it took to get. I may even talk about the person in question, why I sent to them, why I like them, etc. I plan to post this every Monday as a sort of feature. I usually send out at the minimum a handful of letters a week and at worst I seem to get 2-3 back in a week. So I should have a constant stream of pictures to share on here.



Chris Iannetta was the catcher for the Colorado Rockies the year they made it to the World Series. Super memorable season as the Rockies had low expectations and just caught fire in the second half of the season and rode that momentum through the playoffs, just destroying everyone in their path until the Red Sox swept them out of the World Series. I have a real fondness for this Rockies team as they were just such an unlikely World Series team. I sent this out on April 27th and got it back on May 6th for a total of 9 days. Speaking of that Rockies team...



Jeff Francis was also on that team. He had a 4.22 ERA and a 17-9 record for the Rockies that year. Francis had an interesting career. He's a good what if pitcher. He spent the majority of his career in Colorado which had a huge impact on his ERA. If he spent his career elsewhere would he have been more remembered? I sent this one out on July 16th and got it back August 1st for a total of 16 days.



Jed Lowrie is the current shortstop for the Oakland A's. His stats of right now are .292/.357/.418 with 8 HRs and 44 RBI. He's about the higher end of average offensively which is really good from the SS position. He's been a huge upgrade over what Cliff Pennington gave them last year. He's also a good defensive SS. He's been part of the reason the A's are 64-46 and in first place right now. I sent this one out on May 13th and got it back on May 31st for a total of 18 days.

That's it for this week. Check out this blog next week if you want to see some more of my recent autograph successes. My guess is I will share 3-5 of them a week.