TTM Returns: Matt Thornton & Mark Loretta

• Matt Thornton 3/3- The Red Sox reliever signed cards from the 10 Upper Deck, 11 Topps, and 13 Topps Heritage sets.  Sent 7/15 (63 days)

• Mark Loretta 2/2- Mark certainly took his time with this return.  He signed cards from the 09 Topps and 09 Upper Deck sets that I sent out during last year's spring training when he was with the Padres.  Sent 2/24/12 (591 days)

End of (Regular) Season Update

I've been pretty busy over the last month or so, with little luck when it comes to graphing.  At the last three games I went to during the regular season, I only got one auto at each game:

Yankees @ Red Sox, 9/15 (Mariano's last game at Fenway)

• Hiroki Kuroda- 08 Allen & Ginter RC

Orioles @ Red Sox, 9/17

• Jonathan Schoop- 11 Bowman Chrome

Orioles @ Red Sox, 9/18

• Larry Lucchino- Red Sox 100th anniversary schedule

I was away last weekend when the Rays were in town.  I had tickets for a Game 5, but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), that game never happened.  I won't be around for any of the ALCS either, so hopefully I'll have a shot at some postseason graphing if the Sox make it all the way to the World Series.

Tigers @ Red Sox, 9/3- Best Day of the Year!

I usually like to compare autograph seeking to fishing; it's a lot of standing around and waiting, sometimes with little or nothing to show for it.  And then there are some days, like yesterday, that make it all worthwhile.  Yesterday was definitely a season highlight for me, for both autographs and a great game to watch between Scherzer and Lester.  There was definitely an element of October in the ballpark last night.

• Brandon Snyder- 11 Topps RC
• Andrew Miller- 07 Upper Deck RC
• Clay Buchholz- 10 Allen & Ginter
• Andy Dirks- 13 Topps Postseason Highlights
• Joaquin Benoit- 12 Topps
• Nick Castellanos- 10 Topps Tigers team card
• Torii Hunter- 09 Topps U&H
• Prince Fielder- 09 Topps U&H
• Justin Verlander- 09 Topps U&H

Tigers @ Red Sox, 9/2

• Alex Avila- 13 Heritage
• Rick Porcello- 13 Heritage

Orioles @ Red Sox, 8/27

Rough day for a team that used to be easy.

• Troy Patton- 12 Topps
• Nick Markakis- 08 Allen & Ginter

TTM Return: David Mantle

• David Mantle 1/1- The "Son of the Mick" signed his dad's card from the 09 Topps set, as well as a few index cards.  Even though I'll probably never complete this set, it's nice to get one done that probably wouldn't have been completed any other way.  Now I need to find a few Ryan Freel's from this set as well.  Sent 5/28 (90 days)

Box Break: 2012 Bowman Chrome- Xfractor Hot Box!

I haven't indulged in pack breaking in a few weeks, but I went to Target today and saw that last year's Bowman Chrome offering was on sale for $12.99.  I don't usually buy Bowman Chrome due to it having only 3 cards per pack, but I figured it was a decent enough bargain for 7 packs plus 1 "bonus" pack.

I started out by opening the "bonus" pack, which I assumed would be three refractors of some sort.  As expected, I found these:

I broke into the first official pack and found this trio:

Sweet, another cluster of xfractors.  Somebody must have messed up and thrown a few extra in a regular pack.  Surely there couldn't be more...

But the xfractor train kept rolling along, leaving me with a total of 21 xfractors, including the following additional players:  Jason Motte, Matt Dean, Forrest Snow, Colby Rasmus, Tom Milone, Manuel Hernandez, Justin Masterson, Aroldis Chapman, Wilsen Palacios, J.D. Martinez, Donald Lutz, and Shaun Marcum.


There were only three cards in the box that weren't x-fractors; two normal refractors of Ted Lilly and John Hellweg, along with a Futures Game insert of Yordano Ventura.  I know that none of these cards are worth much, but for someone that doesn't do much box breaking, it was pretty cool to have almost an entire box of x-fractors.