Mission accomplished

It may have only 16 signatures -- the minimum requirement for a team-signed ball (in my opinion,) -- but it represents a summer's worth of effort. When Fort Myers Miracle pitcher Brad Tippett signed this Florida State League baseball, it capped Colin's main project for our 2010 Summer Baseball -- getting a team-signed ball from all 12 FSL teams.

Starting in late May, with a team ball from the Dunedin Blue Jays, we've used our near-weekly boys' nights out to chip away -- team by team -- at the project. And, as of July 28, with five weeks left in the season, Colin fulfilled the project requirements.

Granted, FSL players, for the most part, are willing signers. That alone made the project easy. The hard part, if you will, was the logistics, making sure we put ourselves in front of every team this season.

We attempted this project last season, but fell one team short. This summer, however, it was an entirely different story:

Jake Mauer (manager); and

Brian Dozier, Shooter Hunt and Tippett; and

Jonathan Goncalves, Chris Herrmann, Nathan Hanson and Steven Blevins; and

Deibinson Romero, Allan De San Miguel, Evan Bigley and Matthew Williams; and

Nicholas Romero, unidentified, Ramon Santana and Angel Morales.

A minor Miracle

Most times, we try to stick to a single team when it comes to hounding at Florida State League games. Now that we're nearly the final third of our Baseball of Summer, though, we're finding it necessary, in the interest of finishing some team balls, to hound both teams.

Last Wednesday, with the Fort Myers Miracle in Tampa to play the Yankees, was one of those instances where we had to practice a little double-dipping. We still had some room on a team ball, started earlier in the season before a game against Dunedin, and we had a couple of cards we wanted to get signed.

That's why we split up our pregame hounding efforts, so we could add these to the Miracle team-signed ball, giving us a total of 18 signatures:

Joe Benson, Allan de San Miguel and Deibinson Romero, for the second time;

Estarlin De Los Santos; and

Dakota Watts and Evan Brigley.

Worth the effort

I must admit that we squeezed in a little more time than planned for the Fort Myers Miracle during last week's visit to Tampa.

Though we had decent luck with them in our first trip, when the Miracle played Dunedin in a sweltering matinee, we still had a few items, namely these cards for Joe Benson and Ben Revere.

The bat, from Rene Leveret, was a bonus, one of two he broke during the game. And though he told Colin that the team doesn't want players giving away bats, he relented and signed it for him.

Actually, it's been easy

As we began our Summer of Baseball, we mentioned to a couple of Clearwater Threshers players that one of our hounding projects would be assembling a collection of team balls. Good luck, one said, telling us that it might be a difficult project.

Thankfully, it has been anything but that, as Colin worked his sixth team ball of the season, this one from the Fort Myers Miracle, the Florida State League affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.

Using a foul ball, one of the dozen that Colin's collected so far this season, he got these Miracle players to sign:

Ben Revere, Loek (it's pronounced Luke) van Mil, Steve Singleton and Chris Cates;

Nick Romero, Rene Leveret and Kyle Waldrop; and

Mark Dolenc, Spencer Steedley, Chris Parmelee and Blair Erickson.

Another half-dozen Miracle players, including All Star pitcher David Bromberg, also signed another ball for Colin. On July 22, we'll try to put the finishing touches on this Miracle ball.

Tough crowd

One would think that Major League Baseball players would find Colin's team sheets hard to ignore. They're hand-drawn and there's no way they'd ever end up on eBay.

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Only Minnesota third baseman Brian Buscher, a native of Jacksonville, Fla., took the time to sign for Colin before the Twins' 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday at the Trop.

I'm thinking that future attempts for Major League Baseball clubs will have to follow our normal hockey-hounding routines. Instead of hanging out near the dugout, we'll try our luck at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club in St. Petersburg, where teams stay when they're in town.

Brett's FSL Report #1

Editor's note: Baseball Mondays is pleased to announce that Brett, a Fort Myers, Fla.-based autograph hound, is its Florida State League correspondent.

It was a great week when two Florida State League teams -- the St. Lucie Mets and Sarasota Reds -- visited Fort Myers, allowing me to score autographs from many of the top prospects in baseball and a Hall of Famer as well.

First up was St. Lucie, who have the New York Mets' three first-round picks from last year: Ike Davis (18th overall), Reese Havens (22nd overall), and Brad Holt (33rd overall). All three were great signers; each doing nine cards each. Davis also signed two Brooklyn Cyclones programs after the cards.

Also signing cards were Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Francisco Pena (former major leaguer Tony Pena’s son), Greg Veloz, manager Tim Teufel (who signed nine cards), Brant Rustich and Stephen Clyne.

Overall, the Mets, for being one of the FSL's most prospect-laden teams, are great signers. Not one player refused to sign, or didn’t sign what was handed to them.

Also in town watching the hometown Fort Myers Miracle was Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, a roving instructor for Minnesota. Luckily, I had this game-used ball in the car, which Molitor signed as he left the field. Molitor travels to the Twins' affiliates during the regular season, taking notes on players for the big league club.

The next team in town was Sarasota. The Reds have Cincinnati's two most recent first-round draft picks: catcher Devin Mesoraco, in 2007, and first baseman Yonder Alonso, in 2008, who's rated the Reds' No. 1 prospect as well.

Alonso, drafted seventh overall from the University of Miami, is a tough autograph for FSL standards. While most players are happy to sign and will come over asking if you need anything, Alonso will go out of his way to avoid graphers. He'll limit you to a strict one-per when he signs.

A couple of graphers from Fort Myers told me a story about Alonso from a recent road trip to Sarasota. They were waiting by the dugout, and when Alonso comes out, they ask, “Can you sign an autograph for us?” Alonso walks over and signs for one of them and walks away. The other asks him to sign, and he responds, “I signed an autograph for you, and you both are together, so share it.”

Not knowing what to expect, and seeing recent autographs from him varying from his full-name signature to an Y and a line, I asked him to personalize to get the best possible signature. It worked out as planned, with Alonso being very friendly and signing the bat beautifully with: To Brett, Best of Luck! God Bless!

The next day I asked him to sign a card and got a much different signature, and he was not as friendly as the first encounter.

The rest of team were pretty good signers. Among the players signing cards were Mesoraco, Justin Reed, Denis Phipps, Zach Stewart, Alex Buchholz, former major leaguer and current hitting coach Jorge Orta, Ben Davis (a former major league catcher who is converting to a pitcher), Jerry Gil and Neftali Soto (another one-per signer).

Getting Extended

Extended spring training (or XST) games at the Minnesota Twins' minor league facilities are great spots to score some autographs from young baseball prospects, says Brett, a Florida State League correspondent for Baseball Mondays.

For those of you new to extended spring training, it is mostly young high school age players (drafted the year before) and international players who are not ready yet to be on their own in a minor league city. One example is Cincinnati Reds prospect Yorman Rodriguez, 16, who signed last August for $2.5 million, the largest amount given to a Venezuelan prospect.

Many players at these complexes, including some big leaguers and top prospects, are rehabbing from injuries. Some sign, some don't.

Boston's John Smoltz, in Fort Meyers as he rehabs his way back to the Red Sox, wouldn't sign recently for five people. But Boston's No. 2 prospect Nick Hagadone, coming back from Tommy John surgery last summer, willingly signed.

XST's Southern Division includes squads from the Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Twins, Red Sox and Reds. Among the players to sign cards recently include:

~ Red Sox: Ryan Colvin, Drake Britton, Derrik Gibson, Yamaico Navarro, Ryan Pressley, Pete Ruiz, Christian Vazquez (Brett took the photo), Ryan Westmoreland (Brett took the photo), Bryan Peterson (Brett took the photo), Hunter Cervenka, Hagadone, Tommy Hottovy, Andrew Dobies and Tyler Yockey;
~ Rays: DJ Jones, Dustin Biell, Elias Otero and Ben Ogilve.
~ Twins: Aaron Hicks (Minnesota's #1 prospect), Tyler Ladendorf (Brett took the photo), Danny Rams and Jeff Lanning.

Minnesota Twins

If I thought that making the transition to baseball from hockey would be easy, I'd be lying to myself. Though the process of obtaining an autograph doesn't change, the two sports are worlds apart.

The biggest hurdle, I realized, was not following my own advice. If I'd had the time to do more homework, as in doing a better job of memorizing faces, I'd probably have had better luck. I failed to do that for my one trip for the Twins. It was a lesson learned.

Transportation choices are different, too. Very few hockey players take a hotel courtesy van or a cab to the rink. Some walk, depending upon the hotel's location, but most take a team bus. Any way, though, the access to hockey players is pretty easy.

All of the Twins, or at least the ones I saw, took the hotel van. I did get close enough to Torii Hunter to ask for an autograph, and he looked like he was willing to sign, but the "friendly" van driver closed the door. Requests to Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer went unacknowledged.

Timing is another issue. Where hockey teams need to arrive two hours before game time, baseball players apparently arrive four hours before the first pitch. Though my work schedule helped out with trying to hound the Twins' players, it kept me from getting Twins broadcasters Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris. Apparently, the media types follow the two-hour rule.

Bottom line, hounding the Twins was nothing but a learning experience. And, in all honestly, there's nothing wrong with that.

Greetings

Just a quick hello to welcome you to my summer hobby. From early September to early April, my primary focus in hounding autographs is hockey. To date, the collection stands at 1,275 pucks. It'll grow, too, with each season.

In my downtime, roughly defined from whenever the Tampa Bay Lightning are bounced from the NHL playoffs through the opening week of training camp in September, I'll keep my hounding skills sharp by cherry-picking certain players -- current and retired -- as their teams visit St. Petersburg to play the Tampa Bay Devils Rays.

Going forward, you can expect postings detailing successes and failures, funny moments and the occasional musings about life and sports.

Unlike my primary hockey blog, Hound Central 2.0, Baseball Mondays won't have daily briefings. In fact, the hope is to limit publications to, yes, you guessed it, Mondays. I will say, though, that the first entry will likely focus on the Minnesota Twins. Besides players like Torii Hunter, Joe Mauer and Johan Santana, the team's announcers include former big leaguers Bert Blyleven, Dan Gladden and Jack Morris.

Check back next Monday. You'll see how I did.