twins fest, day one

last year at the twins annual summer autograph party, my son and i bought a grab bag while standing in line for michael cuddyer's autograph. it included a poster of cuddyer, morneau, and mauer at the target field construction site. usually we have players sign my son's twins yearbook, but he decided to have cuddy sign the poster instead. of course, that meant that mauer and morneau would have to sign it as well.

day one of twinsfest offered that opportunity, as the m&m boys were signing together at 7pm. arriving at the dome at 4 on friday, i was probably about 150 people from the gate, where we stood in very cold temperatures. the signing was in the football press box (right field) and the two gates that were open were home plate and left field. i was in left field, and it felt like i was running on stumps when the doors opened and all heck broke loose. i ran to get in line, but was probably about 400 deep by the time i got there. this meant that i would not make it, but i stood stubbornly just in case. i should have cut bait. the bad thing is that i ran past killebrew's station with only about 20 people queued up while trying for mauer/morneau.

i couldn't let my 4 hours wasted be in vain, so i headed down to the field to check out some cards. bob feller was there again, and fergie jenkins as well. i was not prepared for any autos other than mauer, morneau or a couple of select former twins, so i kept going.

there were quite a few dealers, maybe a tad more than last year but not as many as in years past, it seemed. they had mostly twins cards to offer, along with a lot of novelty crap. i did find a couple of tables with some honest to goodness vintage and set building inventory. i decided to kill my 2008 allen & ginter want list first, and did ok except for the sp's. he wanted 3 bucks apiece and wouldn't budge as he claimed to have spent $1.50 for them. no thanks. i did pick up most of the non-sp's that i needed, including former dodger derek lowe. i also made a couple of impulse buys - a 2007 topps james loney auto and a 2004 playoff honors tandems arod and canseco jersey. i am guessing the common thread here was 40/40, but i suppose it could also be lusting after jose's wife. zing!

i moved on to vintage, and picked up a few 52's to complete my "one of every team" quest. the indians (i love how chief wahoo is looking up proudly at george) and phillies.

next up, 1954 - done! featuring the yankees and a dodger.

finally, i hit the 1970 high numbers quite successfully. i picked up a good number of cards, including a couple of dicks.

by this time, twinsfest was shut down, and i hadn't looked through the 76's yet. with mauer and morneau signing again on saturday (separately) and my wife at work, i decided to head back and try again...