Chasing Canseco - Best Day Ever.

[mouschi]

Last thursday morning marked the start of our 4,000 mile / 10 day family road trip. The plan was to go to hoover dam,the beach in California, LEGOLAND, carlsbad caverns, visit a friend in the mountains, roswell (yes, I am an alien nerd!), the grand canyon and several other things. The most important one for me, however, was to go to Las Vegas and have my customs signed by my childhood hero, Jose Canseco.

As you may know, the flip quests I do are inspired by the red paper clip story - where one person goes from trading a red paper clip and ends up getting a house. I didn't want to just flip for a card or cards. I wanted something different ... something special. During my lastFlip Quest, I thought it would be cool to raise the money to have Jose sign all my customs.

As I was returning from last year's baseball card show, when the thought came in my head driving down the road, I couldn't shake the idea. Could all these customs I had poured my heart and soul into actually get signed ... in person? The first customs I had made, I brought to him to be signed at a show here in Houston, and it was cheap, but still cost me $150 total to get 6 items signed, if I recall correctly.

When I got home, I decided to reach out to his manager, and he promptly gave me pricing, terms, etc. It was way over my budget, so I asked for a "lite" version ... which was more doable. He mentioned that he would be in the Houston area in a month or so, but for me - that would not work, as I wouldn't have nearly enough items ready to have signed. Plus, I still had to get my head around the lunacy of having a private signing for ... me. Whenever you hear of someone doing a private signing, you hear about others coming in and paying for autographs, etc.

Over the next few months, I slowly made a number of other customs, which was very enjoyable. Sharing my work with everyone online, and hearing all of the compliments has more than made this all worth it ... signed or not.

The next several months were full of uncertainty. After some things fell through, I began to lose hope that this was going to happen. There were rumblings that there was a chance he may never do public signings again (which, as far as I know now, are completely baseless.)

During this time, Jose had shot himself in the finger. When I first heard of it, all I had heard what that Canseco got shot. My first worry was that my childhood hero was dead. Then I heard it was his finger, and was completely relieved, but did wonder how this would affect the signing. That may sound selfish, but that is where my brain went after I heard that he was okay. I should probably mention the 30+ suggestions that I received from others about making a card out of his finger - yuck! I've heard of (and had) some twisted ideas for cards, but that takes the cake.

I made the decision to send the customs to a signing he was having up North. It would be a tragedy to make all these customs, and not be able to have them signed! It would have been much better to have been able to show him my art pieces in person, but I didn't want to run the risk of holding out for something that may never happen.

I figured I'd check with his manager again to see if there was any chance of a private signing to happen, and he simply said something along the lines of"don't send the cards to the signing - wait until in person." This information came *right* in the nick of time just before I was about to send them out.

Could this signing really happen???

During Jose's home run tour last year,it looked like he was going to be making it to Texas (albeit a long ways away from us). The plan was to meet up with him there. His manager called me (the first and only time I spoke to him on the phone, though there are countless emails between us) and told me the details of the event. He said my son and I could shag fly balls in the outfield during his home run tour! Yeah,I know there were probably going to be tons of others that would be out there too, and I may not be able to say much to Jose, but how cool would that be!!! Who gets a chance to shag fly balls being hit by Jose?

I got mega hyped up for this, and as the date drew closer & closer, I grew a little anxious, because I hadn't heard anything. About a week before we were about to leave, I emailed to ask for the details so we could wrap up our plans. He wrote and said the promoter cancelled.

Sadness. Frustration. Pure, all out bummed-outness.

Just like that, I was a week away, and yet again - my dreams were dashed. I reached out to his manager again to see when Jose would be in the area. Over the next several months, several things fell through.

My wife mentioned to me "why don't we see about driving to him?" (She is a road-tripaholic). His manager said that would work, and after about a month, we figured out the day. The whole thing was nerve-wracking due to what had happened in the past.

A week out, I emailed to confirm, and his manager said yes Saturday is a "go". I didn't know where I was to "go", but I knew that we were going. He said he would let me know where the signing would happen later. I need to explain a bit of how this felt. It was like I was playing a video game, and got to a really hard part where I always die (a week away from leaving). Once he said yes, I felt like I had beat another level.

During this week, I felt an urgency to get everything ready, and to almost have a "script" ready of what to sign, how, what pen, etc. Knowing that all that would be out the window, and out of my head anyway, once I was with Canseco, if it truly was happening.

Here are a few pictures of some prep work I did involving the game used bat I cut up.

I decided to lacquer up some pieces so the signature would look better on them.




I also LOVE how black bat barrel pieces look, so I figured, why not? I inked some of them!



From there, I wanted to make sure Jose would sign only in areas of the bat pieces that would work well for creating a card, so I mocked up some blanks and mounted the pieces in them ...



I see lots of jumbo bat barrel cards in my future!





I also decided to do some instructions on some to make sure I didn't forget. Some of these inscriptions are what you have seen before, while others are inscriptions that have not been seen by Canseco before.



If you recall last year on my flip quest, I showed several teaser pictures of my purchases, but did not reveal what was in them



These boxes had memorabilia for me to have Jose sign. There it is - the big mystery is revealed!

When all was prepared, I took all the customs and memorabilia to be signed, and loaded it all up in a green tub



The time finally came for us to leave. As the start of our road trip began, I couldn't fathom that we were on our way to have Jose Canseco sign several things of mine. Don't stop reading yet, because this does get a little bumpy. I had a hard time swallowing the fact that I was driving halfway across the United States without a definite meeting place and time.

Yes, that's right - we had no idea where we were going, or what time - but when this opportunity pops up, you don't dilly-dally - you GO FOR IT!

Still, there was a lot of doubt and concern. What if, when we get there, (after 20+ hours of driving) he cancels? What if I just never hear from his manager? What if Jose has to make some sort of trip out of state for a more pressing obligation?

And then more thoughts came to mind - what if Jose was in a bad mood and just signed everything then walked off? What if he signed with shades on and ear buds in? What if he was just a cold jerk that would not be willing to do any inscriptions I had requested? What if the private signing takes place in public, and he spends the entire time talking and signing for others who come up to him? I had no reason to believe any of these things, but I always do end up painting various worst case scenarios in my head.

After driving for 20+ hours, you have a lot of time to think about these things (not to mention the year leading up to this!) As you can see, there are a billion things that could go wrong here. Would I be having a fire sale of my beloved Canseco collection if he is horribly rude to me and my family? What would happen then? How would that affect the rest of the trip for me? How would I feel about the incoming cards that would await for me at home?

(Actual picture of incoming cards I had waiting for me.)


continued on the next post ....