This signed R.A. Dickey 2011 Topps card was added to my collection as a result of a spring training autograph request last year.
Spring training is almost here – Seattle Mariners’ pitchers and catchers report on Saturday and have their first workout scheduled for Sunday. Other teams will follow about a week later.
Normally around this time of year, I’d be getting ready to mail out a bunch of letters asking players to sign baseball cards for me. Except this year, I find that I’d rather spend the time playing Final Fantasy XIII-2 or watching Doctor Who episodes. Maybe it’s a product of a dull New York Mets off-season… but I think it has more to do with my success rate last year. In 2010, nearly three-quarters of the players I wrote to sent back signed cards. Last year, out of 73 players, just over half did.
So this year, I’m just going to write to the new Mets players and maybe mail out a few of the rookie cards from the pack of 2012 Topps baseball cards I bought last weekend.
If you’re thinking of requesting autographs by mail this spring, the Grapefruit League and Cactus League websites should have the addresses. (And you can check out my Guide to Collecting Autographs Through the Mail if you need more detailed advice.)
To my fellow through-the-mail autograph collectors, how did you do last spring? Are you planning to send out more, less, or the same number of letters this year?
I’m down to less than ten per spring, if that much. The last few years my success rate is down and I think that’s due to the proliferation of talk about who signs on the internet and the amount of people dropping multiple cards on the players at spring training.
I actually did pretty well, I’d say about 70% return. And I did finally get Mariano RIvera after 3 years of ST TTM failure.
My first two letters are going out in the mail tomorrow to Seattle Mariners pitchers Jason Vargas and Steve Delabar. Not sure how many more I’ll send out next week.
So far, only sent one to Josh Thole. (He was down in PSL for early workouts)