Chasing Canseco - Best Day Ever.

[Calripkenjrcollector]

Although I look at most of your posts and enjoy all your customs, I can't recall replying to any of them but, this? Wow, just WOW! Congratulations. That is awesome. We can only imagine what you must have felt the first time you shook his hands INSIDE his house. I got goosebumps placing myself in your shoes thinking about going inside Cal Ripken's house.

 

[mouschi]

I am overwhelmed by all of the comments - keep them coming! I love it, but I knew you all would respond, because y'all are great. I was very much so looking forward to writing this when I got back home, and my expectations have been exceeded.

So much happened during the trip, that it was hard to post all here, like when a guy ran out to me to ask to take a selfie with me because of my mustache. I swear, he was *this* close to either asking me for my autograph or kiss me. Thankfully, it stopped at a warm / awkward embrace and a picture.

Also, this morning, I looked at my email, and saw this:

HYPED!!!

I have had a mega busy last few days getting back in the swing of things, so I didn't want to show any of the customs just yet, but I figured I would leave this little video clip right here of us playing cards:

https://youtu.be/gD-4qLdKbX8

One other thing to note - as I regularly stock ebay now for Canseco cards I don't have, I found out that I missed out on two that I really, REALLY wanted while I was away, even though I was checking ebay as much as I could, still. How strange is that ... being bummed that you missed out on a few pieces of cardboard with the picture of the dude you have gone to hang out with!?!? Jeesh, we player collectors are a strange breed.

[UPDATE: Turns out one of the cards I wanted was picked up by a friend, so I was able to do a deal for it! If you are reading this and you picked up the '00 Stadium Club 1st Day Refractor /25 Jose, lemme know!]

Speaking of, I don't believe I have ever posted a picture of my entire collection in one shot, so here is one of my goofy mug posing with them for something else:

 

[Fandruw25]

Amazing story!

Can't wait to see what customs you come up with.

 

[predatorkj]

Damn Tanner! You hit the jackpot.

 

[mouschi]

Damn Tanner! You hit the jackpot.

I totally feel the same way, without any hyperbolizing! (I doubt that is a word, but you know what I mean.)

 

[jbhofmann]

Well deserved.

 

[mouschi]

You may or may not remember buried in this post that I had created a Jose Canseco Simpsons card from the episode "Homer at the Bat". I had to re-draw the entire thing to make sure it was nice and clear.

I just had to get this autographed, after I thought up an epic inscription, but I wanted to give a bit of back story on it all.

Remember this lovely lady?

The one and only Mrs. Krabappel.

In the episode "Homer at the Bat", starring Jose Canseco, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry and tons of other players, the script called for Jose and Mrs. Krabappel to have a torrid love affair. Jose's wife Esther at the time did not like this one bit, and insisted it be pulled. This put the writers of the Simpsons in a scramble to come up with something else last minute. They instead had Jose go into a woman's house that was on fire to save various objects from the fire.

The whole thing gave me the idea ... what if I had Jose inscribe it "To: Mrs. Krabappel" ???
I would absolutely love that, and think Simpsons / Canseco fans would go nuts over that, given the back story.

So, I handed him the card to sign:

He said "Mrs. Krabappel...that is a strange name." I said "that is the name of the teach..." and he finished my sentence "OH OH OH yeah ... the teacher on the Simpsons, ok!"

Here it is!

To Mrs. Krabappel, Jose Canseco

Step aside, Madonna! It looks like Mrs. Krabappel had his heart back then.

After it was done, I wished it had been signed perfectly in the white area, but what can I say? The man signed 170 or so items ... some are bound to not be perfect.

But then I started to think about it.

What if I redrew Steve Sax's face behind the Isotopes logo (shown at the top of this post), invert it all, erase 80% of the card and print on acetate, then overlay it on the card?

It is worth a try, right?

Here is the final product ... and might I say BAM!!!

It looks just slightly faded in the middle on purpose to have him sign there. I"m really happy how well it turned out. As a matter of fact, it is one of my three favorite inscriptions from that day, next to "Faster than Rickey" and his inscription personalized to me.

 

[A_Pharis]

Great job on that one!

 

[IndyManning18]

Well done, Tanner.

 

[IndyManning18]

You should find a photo from your 9th birthday party and phot shop Jose there and have a card made up.

 

[RStadlerASU22]

You should find a photo from your 9th birthday party and phot shop Jose there and have a card made up.

Put Jose in the wedding photos , baby delivery photos , etc...

Ryan

 

[IndyManning18]

Put Jose in the wedding photos , baby delivery photos , etc...

Ryan

Hahahahaha!

 

[AmishDave]

Absolutely outstanding !!!!

 

[sgtgregg]

Now a Jose fan more than ever! Makes my itty-bitty Canseco collection look even more petty now.

Did you at least discuss the homer off the head?

Great post!

 

[finestkind]

I look forward to your posts. Great stuff !

 

[metallicalex777]

Tanner, there are VERY few posts I have read about our hobby that literally leave me speechless. Not only has your story done that for me, but there is absolutely no way I could ever read about such a memorable experience such as yours that could be topped. I will certainly get a Canseco auto for my PC simply because you have proven what kind of person he really is off of the field. You are a very lucky dude, and you show so much pride in your collecting, pursuing of items and just sheer amazement of custom jobs that you really put a spin on our current hobby that the companies we choose to buy product/singles from/of can't even touch the quality and experience you provide to us. Seriously dude, I am still speechless after reading your whole post that this must sound like a ramble by the time I hit enter on my keyboard.

 

[Lancemountain]

WOW that whole story is pretty amazing

 

[mouschi]

I just posted this thread to the guys at Intentional Talk using the url /tinyurl.com/qjlp75n with the hash tag #ITFanShow - I suggested they do a segment about interactions between fans and their heroes. I hope this gets traction - please feel free to tweet @intentionaltalk with the the same! My handle is @tanmanbbfan . Thanks! I am in love with that show.
[MENTION=2055]metallicalex777[/MENTION] Thank you for the heartfelt response - that was great to read!

 

[mouschi]

So, it looks like my story was picked up by Beckett! I hope to be in the hard copy magazine as well.

Since they posted a few pics of some customs I had signed, I guess I'll continue on with telling about them!

In typical unorthodox mouschi form, I destroyed $20 worth of Canseco rookies to make a booklet.

At long last, here it is ... autographed! If you don't read the above link, it probably won't make sense, but for cliff's notes, a few people were nice enough to send me some of their beat up Canseco rookies for free so I could hack them up, and make a booklet which included a piece of each major rookie card from Canseco.

Hmmmm, I seem to recall Topps cutting up some weird things too for their latest minor league release.

Anyway, here she is!

Next up, is a card I took cuts from Canseco's 2 books. Here is what it looked like:

When I was done, my wife said "that looks great, but you named it ATHLETES to authors ... where is the baseball stuff?"

DANG IT.

So I re-did it and came up with this.

What I used is ALL legit Canseco stuff ... except for the ball. I got that from the game my family and I went to for my birthday. The memories were great enough that I decided to forego using a game used ball I picked up from a game Canseco was in.

So, here it is signed!

It is one of my wife's favorites. It is inscribed 6x All-Star and 2x Author. When he was done with that, he asked "Do you want me to write in Juiced and Vindicated also?"

HECK YES I DO!!!!

So he did

Oh, and for those of you interested in checking out the beckett writeup, here you go.

 

[predatorkj]

Ok, so two things. First, why not use face pics from all of his rookie cards in your above book card as opposed to the random pieces? Just curious? I know with the 86 it might be too big so that's why I'm guessing you did it that way?

Secondly, if you're in the hard copy Beckett, I'm driving up to you to get my copy autographed! Besides, we need to get some Bagwells made up. I still want that invisifractor!