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.

My bad

I should've been paying more attention. But, I wasn't. It was an 11 a.m. start, there were hundreds of kids armed with squirt guns (Camp Day at Dunedin Stadium) and it was hot, with a feel-like temperature of 100-plus degrees.

That's how Colin's so-called Florida State League All Star player ball gained a few signatures from Fort Myers Miracle players who didn't participate in the game.

Really, though, it's not a big concern. It was, and still remains, all about Colin having fun. An autograph is an autograph, no matter what's signed. Right?

Besides, we have one panel remaining. The next time, I'll try to pay more attention.

Good or bad, mistakes or not, here's who Colin added to the ball:

David Bromberg, who was named to the FSL All Star Game, Allan de San Miguel and Santos Arias; and

Jair Fernandez, Tyler Robertson and Henry Arias.

A Fort Myers Miracle team ball, however, does contain autographs from some of the Miracle's other All Star Game representatives: Chris Cates, Chris Parmelee, Ben Revere, Steve Singleton and Spencer Steedley.

Brett's FSL Report No. 2: Fan Fest

When the Florida State League All-Star Game rosters were released a few weeks ago, it looked as if it would be a great event with many future stars on hand. But, one by one the so-called stars began to get promoted to AA.

From Sarasota's Yonder Alonso, Fort Myers' Carlos Gutierrez, St. Lucie's Brad Holt, Jupiter's Michael Stanton, Clearwater's Dominic Brown and Kyle Drabek, and Tampa's Jesus Montero, the FSL has lost a ton of talent in the past few weeks. All in all, there have been 21 players named to the original roster who either were injured or promoted.

With what was left on the original roster, and the replacements, I made out better than I expected during the FSL's All-Star Game Fan Fest. The event, held at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, was well-organized by the host team Miracle, with many games for children to play, live music, food and player autographs.

For most of the event, players were just hanging around, mingling with fans, playing games with children and signing just about anything. Most everyone signed next to their player bio in the program and I got plenty of cards and other miscellaneous items signed. In total, I was able to get 206 autographs (editor's note: Jeezum crow!) altogether from this year’s All-Stars.

Among the players signing cards , shown above, were Tampa’s Austin Romine, Fort Myers' David Bromberg and Ben Revere, Palm Beach’s Adam Reifer and Shane Peterson, Jupiter’s Jeff Allison and Matt Dominguez, and Daytona’s Starlin Castro and Jody Davis.

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).