Bonding with my Boy w/ TTM Autograph Requests at Spring Training

[Clark7781]

Hello fellow Forumites! I just wanted to pass on a tradition I started with my son shortly after my wife died in 2010. My son, Ewan, was five when his mom passed away. I have always been an avid baseball card collector and autograph hound and my son and I now share a yearly tradition that I hope continues for many, many years. When Topps releases its newest product in late January, we buy a couple of boxes, put the set together and keep the duplicates.

When it is a week before pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training, we take an hour, each day, to organize our duplicates and send out cards and autograph request letters to the players in Spring Training. Our time together naturally turns to talking about the players and about the upcoming season. He's nine now and tonight was the first night that we started writing letters. It is a great time of year for me that lasts almost two months. Next we will work on the other positions when they report to spring training in hopes to get some returns in the coming weeks.

Does anyone else do anything like this? I just wanted to share.

[slidekellyslide]

Sounds fun...what kind of response have you gotten in the past? What's the best one?

[MyGuyTy]

Paul that's a really great story to hear. These are memories he'll always have with you. Very sorry to hear about your wife. It seems you and your son have a great bonding relationship with baseball, hopefully he'll maintain that love of the game as he grows older :)

Keep up the good work!

[theshleps]

We homeschooled our son and when he was junior high and high school age. We started spending 3 weeks in AZ for a total of 7 years at spring training and also 3 weeks at Arizona fall league. We collected cards to get autographed and all the time it entailed- ordering, sorting, dusting, etc and then the weeks together going to all the camps. My son also got to batboy- for team USA with Frank Robinson as manager, the Brewers (and got to be batboy at Price Fielders first spring training game for the Brewers) as well as some Fall League Teams. We probably collected 10,000+ autographed cards which we still have and took pictures of him with numerous players. We have some amazing memories and hundred of stories that we will always remember. Now that he is graduating from chiropractic school he doesn't do in person autographs though after he retired when he entered college I kept it up for another 5 years. We also sent to 100's of plyers every year.
So sorry about your wife but so glad you are building precious memories.

[packs]

My dad and I had gone to Spring Training in Florida every year from the time I was about 13 to 20. My grandmother lives down there so it was also a good opportunity to spend some time with her once a year. I would not trade those days for anything. The time I spent with my dad is something I'll always remember.

This year we're going to Arizona for the first time. We leave on February 16th and will spend the next week down there visiting camps we've never been to before. I'm not much for hounding players anymore, but I'm looking forward to spending the week with my dad.