Saturday Signings

I have been a member of the Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum for 3 years now.  I first signed up at the 2019 Winter Warm Up after attending a few presentations where the staff gave out some nice bobbleheads.  That was a big draw for me as the bobbleheads are very nice and can be hard to come by.  They are only given out to members or a few people who attended the presentations.  

Another benefit is early access to Saturday Signings.  If the Cardinals have a home Saturday game, the Museum will bring in a former player to sign autographs.  I have attended a couple of these before, but never when they had a popular player.  This past Saturday Chris Carpenter was in town as part of the 2011 World Series reunion.  Autograph prices were $40, but Museum members were able to buy them for $20.  I bought 2 tickets a few months ago.  The signing was at 2:00.  

My son and I left the house about 7:30 that morning because we wanted to hit a flea market about 20 minutes from St. Louis.  I saw a Facebook post from a vendor who would have some Cardinal items for sale.  The main one that caught my eye was a Memphis Redbirds Dylan Carlson bobblehead that was given out the night before to the first 2,000 fans at the Memphis game. 

I picked this one up for $30.  It is very well made for a minor league give away.  I saw one other vendor have them for $50.  We walked around the flea market for about an hour after buying the Carlson.  There was just about anything for sale that you could collect.  Old signs, beanie babbies, legos, you name it.  We saw a lot of other Cardinals items, but I only bought 1 other thing.

Hard to pass up a bobblehead for $4.  The packing is torn to pieces, but the bobblehead itself is in great shape.  After grabbing lunch and hitting up a couple of stores, we arrived in St. Louis about 1:15 for the Carpenter signing.  He came out promptly at 2 and starting signing away.  We had tickets 39 and 40 so we did not wait long.

Inscriptions were not allowed, otherwise I would have requested Carpenter add 1st ASG to the 2005 All Star Game ball on the left.  I also had him sign a 2006 World Series Ball.  He got the win in game 3 giving up 3 hits and no runs.  Both balls turned out great.

After leaving the Museum, we killed another 1.5 hours before attending another signing.  I found a post on Twitter detailing a small 2011 celebration in Ballpark Village.  It stated Jason Motte and a few other players would be signing autographs for free from 3:30-5.  I never found out who the other players were until the walked out on stage.

Daniel Descalso and Jake Westbrook also signed.  Autographs were limited to 1 person, so both my son and I received a card.  Pretty nice autographs for free.  

After going through the line, I meet up with another member of a Facebook bobblehead group.  I traded him a David Freese bobblehead in exchange for this nice Jack Buck.

If you press down on the binoculars, you will hear Buck's call of the 1985 Ozzie Smith home run against the Dodgers and the final out of the 1982 World Series.  

We also had 2 tickets to the Cardinals game that night.  Gates opened at 4:15 and it was another David Freese bobblehead giveaway.  My son was pretty exhausted already and decided he did not want to go.  Normally I would not be in favor of this, but he had 2 soccer games on Sunday.  I went through the gates twice to get our new Freese bobbleheads.

Not a bad depiction of Freese getting ready to cross home plate after hitting the home run in game 6 of the 2011 World Series.  These were limited to fans 16 and older, so my son did not go through the gates.  Instead he went back through the autograph line for the 3 players and received this ball.

These balls were handed out to fans who did not have anything else to get signed.  I was a little surprised there were still some left with only 20 minutes to go in the signing.  I was more shocked that my son got through the line so quickly.  All 3 players signed the ball.  I must note that local gas station chain Phillps 66 sponsored the free signings and game away the ball.  Their logo is on another panel. 

We left St. Louis shortly after 5 and got back home in time to hear Tyler O'Neill hit the go ahead home run in the 8th inning.  It would have been fun to be in the stadium that night, but I think we still had a pretty good day.