Thought I would share mine and my daughter's (Maven) 2012 Texas Rangers autograph projects. She and I share a season ticket package with another family, and we love to spend time up at Rangers ballpark. She's a great 8 year old, and is a lot of fun to take to games.
Last year on this board, I saw a member that had a big baseball glove, and thought it would make a neat autograph project to get my favorite team on, so I bought one to get signed this year. My daughter has a favorite Rangers hat, and she wanted to do her own autograph project, so she collects them on her hat, while I get them on my glove. This hobby is infinitely more
fun, when you can share it with your kid, when you both genuinely enjoy it.
The Rangers seem to enjoy their fans, and the organization as a whole is very fan and family friendly. The players have been really nice to my daughter, and some of them like goofing around with the big glove. Very cool year so far. Hopefully they go one strike farther this year and actually WIN the World Series instead of "just" getting there.
Here's my daughter and Manager Ron Washington
Me posing in the Rangers dugout using my big glove to cover my big gut,
Me and Yu LOL, he's the guy to the right of my head warming up
The glove and Maven's hat hanging out by the game towels
A random shot from inside the park
During one game, my boyhood idol, former Rangers catcher Jim Sundberg was visiting a couple that sits a couple rows behind us, and we waited for him to finish his visit and as he was leaving, asked to get a photo with him, and he signed my old school Rangers hat as well. We chatted a minute and he was a neat guy.
Maven's hat as it now stands, it's running out of room to sign and Josh signed it inside of Yu's big curve in his first name (at least he didn't write over Yu)
Autographs that I have on my big glove
Gary Pettis, 1st base coach
David Murphy
Colby Lewis
Ron Washington, Manager
Brandon Snyder
Koji Uehara
Mark Lowe
Yu Darvish
Joe Nathan (was the 1st to sign and I got it in silver. Decided to go with black sharpie and have since erased the silver and he resigned in black)
Alberto Gonzalez
Mike Adams
Yoshi Tateyama
Scott Coolbaugh, Hitting Coach
Robbie Ross
Scott Feldman
Adrian Beltre
Leonys Martin
Tanner Scheppers
Craig Gentry
Martin Perez
Justin Grimm
Matt Harrison
Neftali Feliz
Josh Hamilton
Roy Oswalt
Michael Kirkman
Micheal Young
Mitch Moreland
Jackie Moore, Bench Coach
Mike Maddux
Yorvit Torrealba
Derek Holland
Alexi Ogando
Andy Hawkins, Bullpen Coach
34 down and 8 players and 1 coach to go, I still need:
Elvis Andrus (real friendly, willl throw you baseballs, jokes, etc, doesn't sign too much)
Ian Kinsler (relatively tough to get)
Nelson Cruz (signs a lot, just haven't been in the right place at the right time yet)
Mike Napoli (signs a lot, just haven't been in the right place at the right time yet)
Geovanny Soto (early indications are that he signs easily, but only been on the team a few days now)
Ryan Dempster (early indications are that he signs easily, but only been on the team a few days now)
Mike Olt (signs a lot, but just came up from minors)
Louis Martinez (in minors now, might have to make a 2 and a half hour drive to get him, but I'm a complete freak, so if I have to, I will)
3rd base coach, Dave Anderson (I need to famillarize myself with what he looks like, haven't tried to get him yet)