CHICKEN SCRATCH: Who in the world signed my card?

Welcome to another edition of "Chicken Scratch". This is where we take a look at an athlete's signature and give it a sharpie rating based on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being a lazy signature (a horse could sign better with a pen in it's mouth) and then a 5 being a signature of a nice crisp clean legible signature. On very rare occasions we also have a special reserved 6 sharpie salute for perfect signatures.

Today's star athlete signature is brought to you courtesy of Gabriel Arias who's the shortstop of the Cleveland Guardians. This card below I pulled from a blaster of Absolute baseball (from gamestop of all places - it was in the bargain bin) and I was rather most surprised to pull an actual autograph 3 piece jersey card and not just a single piece jersey card as my luck with blasters is not that great.

Let's take a look at some of his signature across other cards (not mine) since the Absolute autograph was on a sticker.

 

So it would seem that he really has to cram his signature style together when he's signing on small areas as opposed to larger signing areas. Some folks do that and some do not while others just make a straight line at times. Look at those loops in his signature when he has the space to write.

His "G" is very consistent and his "A" is as well across the signatures.

It would appear the "G" and "A" in his signature is consistent on a baseball as well.

The ball player appears to take a little time to make his signature appear legible with at least 2 letters. I could see the "G" but I would never guess that his name was Gabriel or his last name was Arias from the "A". Some athletes will take the time to make a nice crisp signature and others will just write out their signature in letters. IMO......Gabriel makes an effort in his signatures with emphasis in the first letters of his first and last name and then scribbles out the rest of his name For this reason....the Big Kahuna and the tribe feel that he will be the receiver of 2 sharpies for his efforts.

Chicken Scratch: Captain Kirk Edition

For this lovely edition of Chicken Scratch I have decided to look at one of the autographs of NY Mets outfielder "Captain" Kirk Nieuwenhuis.

When you look at this autograph you can easily make out the "K" in his first name and the "N" in his last name. He even added his jersey number which is clearly legible. As for the rest of the letters........good luck on figuring that one out. In his first name you have a "K" and it looks like an "A" almost at first glance. Take a second glance and you might even see, "HA". 

Here's another version of his "younger" autograph:

As for the last name portion.....well......the "N" is visible and the rest of it ends on a long loop. It could also be possibly going "NS" as well. Not really sure what he's communicating but it looks like, "HA NL". Maybe he's saying, "HA! I play in the National League." All I know is he's barely getting 2 sharpies for his poor penmanship!

BEHOLD THE POWER OF MY DAUGHTER..... and her mighty pull hand!

My beautiful daughter and I decided to take a trip on Saturday to the "dreaded" local card shop as I needed some supplies for the card sets that I am working on and I had run out of penny sleeves and jersey card holders and the last time I was at Wal Mart they were out of those things. Off we go! We get inside the local hobby shop dungeon and all you see is stuff on the counters from 2010, 2009, and 2008: all TOPPS products. As I gaze upon the boxes of hobby products and I see some of the prices he has written on them with black sharpie I suddenly have the urge to lay on the floor in a fetal position and cry out to "make it stop" as he is not one to really bargain on anything and swears a loyal oath and a blue streak by the most "unholiest of foul wretched price guides"....BECKETT (high column mainly). However not all hope is lost in this hobby dungeon of lost cards souls as one of a few bright spots is that he does have good supplies such as sleeves, containers, dividers, etc at really good bargain basement prices. So as I am gathering the much needed supplies to take back to my village, the little kahuna has been looking over the TOPPS seeds and had spotted 4 boxes of Topps Chrome 2010 baseball. She grabs me by my arm and asks if she could get a box since she has not had any cards in a while and that she got a very good report card and because Daddy loves her. Well....I do love her but I really did not want to pay 65.00 a box for Chrome but she has earned it and when I went to pay for it I only ended up being charged 50.00 for it. I felt as if I had slayed the dragon and ran away with the golden egg! This man never hardly budges on his prices. Perhaps it was my daughter's charm or the fact that this guy really needs the business. I didn't ask and he didn't say.

So we came back home and Caty rushed into the house and immediately opened up her new-found box of joy and let me tell you something.....when your daughter comes to you with what she had in her hand....well I'll just let the picture do the talking:

There was a 4th autograph as well: Cole Gillespie regular rookie auto version. This was all from one box mind you! The Gonzalez 1/1, the Castro refractor rookie auto, and the Stubbs, English, and Gillespie autos were all in one box. She brings me these cards and asks if she pulled anything good. Needless to say I pooped my pants at what she pulled. This brings me to another issue: Topps quality control. Was it a hot box? Did some think of themselves as of an air traffic controller and feel asleep at the insert/press machine? The box does say, "2 auto's per box". I guess Christmas came a little early this year from Topps.

I would also have to say that the "little kahuna" has a hot hand in the "big pulls department" as of lately.

In the immortal words of Charlie Sheen:  WINNING!

The magical touch....at WAL MART

I took a trip today up to the local WAL MART for some much needed supplies and toilet paper and I figured since I was there I would pay a little visit to the dreaded retail card isle. Let's just say I'm glad that I bought some TP!

I picked up a blaster box of 2010 Topps Chrome football (I'm working on completing the set), a blaster of Playoff Contenders 2010, and a pack of 2011 Topps baseball. Here's what I pulled:

and then I also pulled this little ol' short print variation also:

I was very pleased with the Sam Bradford considering it was numbered 555/555. Lately I have pulled the chrome blue refractor jersey numbered Tim Tebow card along with 3 1/1's, 4 different player jersey numbered cards, and a total of 9 autographs in the last two years from my local Wal Mart. I was surprised at pulling the Kyle Williams autograph because that is a short print as far as I know. The Thurman Munson was sticking to the back of the Hellickson card a little so that was a nice surprise to see as well.

Overall I'm not too impressed with the Playoff Contenders cards. Seems like there's too much white on them and they were hap haphazardly designed . I still prefer to have the autograph on card and not a sticker autograph as seen on the Kyle W. card.

The MOJO Fairy has brought me a Tim Tebow EBAY Special

It would appear that the "MOJO FAIRY" has paid a trip to WalMart. The children and I headed up to Wally world to grab a few things and in the checkout isle was one box of 2010 Topps Chrome. I figured....."what the heck...why not!" I really liked what I pulled so far until the very last pack in the box. The last card was a very nice and shiny blue refractor card of one Denver Bronco Tim "monk" Tebow. It was serially numbered (oh wait......I gotta pee from all of the anticipation.......ok....oh wait the dogs have to pee now........ok.... oh wait the kids have to pee......OK...it was serially numbered 15 / 199. OH MY...15 is his jersey number! It's an EBAY 1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1/1 to the six power special! It's probably worth an estimated shabillion turkish franks or 50000000000000000 grams of beer. Or maybe it might be worth two hot dogs and beer with some sauerkraut!

Yes it's a nice pull. The rest of the box panned out rather quite well and it was loaded and I do mean loaded with rookies.