Despite a light dusting of snow around St. Louis, my son and I had no problem getting back to the WWU for its final day on Monday. This time it was only a 20 minute drive from our hotel. We arrived about 8:30 to join the crowd of 100 people or so that were waiting in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency until the doors to the second floor opened at 9:00. Either the clocks were fast or the people in charge felt sorry for us because we got in about 10 minutes early. That was helpful considering we had a busier day than Sunday and 2 less hours to get things done. WWU hours are from 9-5 on Saturday and Sunday, but only 9-3 on Monday.
The schedule shows that Monday is slowest day, but not for us. We had autograph tickets for 12 different players, compared to 7 on Sunday.
Andrew Knizner made to Double A in his first season. Notice his name is misspelled on the top card. The bottom poster was given out at a Peoria Chiefs game last year on a autograph Sunday. Knizner was in Sprinfield already, so he was the only one we needed to complete it. We got to of these signed. His auto was $5 each.
Costello was a freebie who I am running out of cards for him to sign.
Mabry was also free.
This was my first time getting Politte at the WWU even though he is a regular. His auto was free.
The Benes brothers are also regular WWU signers who are free. Both are two of the nicest guys there.
Last year was the first time team officials signed autos. I got team owner Bill Dewitt II on this 2011 World Series ball last year. This year I added his son team president Bill Dewitt III. Next year I hope to add former GM John Mozeliak. Dewitt was a freebie.
Brad Thompson does some work for Fox Sports Midwest's coverage of Cardinals games. He is a regular that was free.
Robinson works in the Cardinals scouting department. He was our last free auto of the day.
Jack Flaherty was my first auto of the day. His auto was $10 each. All the paid signers had a limit of 3 tickets except for Molina who was one per. I had four things to get signed, so I bought another ticket off of Craigslist for $15.
Like Dejong and Bader the day before, I had his sign a ticket from his debut game.
Flaherty did not fair so well in the 2017 Futures game, giving up 2 runs in one inning.
During our trip to see the Springfield Cardinals last year, Flaherty was one of the pregame signers. My kids love hanging these type of pictures in their bedrooms.
Our next autographs are my favorites. I attended my first WWU in 2010 to meet Ray Lankford for the first time. He was also there in 2012, but not on a day I attended. I was not going to miss him this time. His auto was $10 each.
Lankford was scheduled to sign for 2 hours. We met him with about 10 minutes left and 30-40 people still in line, so he did not take the time to add any inscriptions. It was still nice to get his debut ticket signed. He was surprised anyone would save something like this.
I have had this game used bat for a few years now. The auto really stands out a lot better in person.
The Cardinals team store had some used helmets for $20 each. I was lucky to snag one on Sunday morning. They were all sold out by Sunday afternoon. There is not MLB hologram to tell who used this helmet. It may have only been a BP helmet, but it was for a lefthander like Lankford and for only $20 it will look good on my display shelf.
Our last autograph of the day was Matt Carpenter. I had bought this Topps 10x14 during 2016 Black Friday with the intent of having Carp sign it last year, but he did not make it to the WWU in 2017 because of an ice storm. I had to store this for a year, but one positive is his auto was $60 this year instead of $75 like last year.
Besides the helmet, I also bought a 2017 Springfield Cardinals team set for $5.
That was it besides a $2 tshirt for my son and a $15 hoody for my daughter. There were other free items besides autographs.
Fox Sports always has a booth where you can take a virtual picture behind a studio desk. They also passed out these cards. I grabbed a few of each for some other Cardinals collectors, but I bet I saw more of the Rosenthal cards in trash cans than people actually took home.
My son came away with a ton of free things. I have mentioned before about the kids room. They have inflatable games like football and baseball toss, a few XBOX games to play, and a stage that the local science museum uses to put on some demostrations. There is also have a give away table were they hand out various promotional items from previous years. We had plenty of time to spend in the kids room since we were always the last group to get in the autograph lines. Over the course of his 2 days, my son came away with all of this:
I had to stand on a chair just to get this all in one picture. He came away with the following:
2018 WWU drawstring bag
Cardinals ball glove (too small for him to use, but not terrible quality)
Carlos Martinez youth jersey
Cardinals T shirt
Cardinals wiffle ball bat and ball
Poster featuring Dexter Fowler and Greg Garcia
David Eckstein SGA Bobblehead from 2016
4 Manager Mystery SGA Bobblehead from 2017. These were given out out a game to fans 16 and older. This set of four includes Red Schoendienst, Whitey Herzog, Joe Torre, and Tony LaRussa. He got 2 Schoendienst, a Herzog, and a Torre. I hope to trade the extra Schoendienst for a Laruss so he can have the full set.
It was a great trip that we will do again next year. This was by far the least crowded of the 8 years I have went. I think several things contributed to this: the Cardinals not making the playoffs for 2 years, a lot of the same alumuni guys signing free autographs year after year, and overcharging for some of the more popular players. LaRussa signed at a show on Saturday for $50. He was $75 at the WWU. I know it all goes to charity, but people have their limits. Some other prices I thought were out of line were Wacha for $50, Reyes for $50, and new Cardinals Marcell Ozuna for $100. One of the workers said Ozuna only sold 150 of his 400 autos.
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