2011 Yankees Universe Special Event

So as a member of the Yankees Universe Fan Club, we were invited to attend a special event.  The special event is a meet and greet with some previous Yankees players from the past.  It was a pretty good event which included field level seats in the outfield.  So for all you fans out there who are members or thinking about joining let me give you a detailed description of our day...

So the event was scheduled for Aug 23, 2011 at 2:30pm.  Now if your from the tri-state area, you'll also know that this was the day of the earthquake.  My wife and I did not feel anything.  Maybe it was because we may have been on the GWB or maybe we were just excited.  Anyway we arrived at around 2-2:15pm. After parking we cross the street and see this long,long,long line. It was from gate 6 to gate number 4.  So if you frequent at the stadium, you realize how long that is.  The line did start moving at exactly 2:30 but moved along slowly.




















We got to the gate around 3:30 received our tickets and passes.  As your walking in, you start to see tables set up with players.  They stated that we should stop at each table take pictures and get autographs.

The first person we met was John Flaherty.  He seemed pretty nice and chatted with people during the signing and pictures.

He seemed to be happy to be there not like the other player mentioned later.  We chatted up a few things.  I asked him if he was calling the game today and he said he was actually off.  Like I said it seemed like wanted to be there.  Would you want to go to your office if you were off??.


After Mr. Flaherty, my wife asked me who was the next guy at the table.  It was hard to tell cause I could not recognize him.  I told my wife that I wasn't sure but we should still get his autograph and take a picture. Can anyone guess who he was?

Finally realized who he was when I read his autograph.  He signed it with number "45".
That's right, Cecil Fielder.  He looked different from the last time I saw him on TV or even the Yankees classic games on YES.  He didn't seem all to happy to be there but he was nice but not as talkative.

Then came the next player.  This was the guy I was excited to meet and take a picture with.  I saw him since we were outside in the heat waiting on line.




















TINO MARTINEZ

 

Tino was really nice.  I told him that it was cool that he hit that homerun during old-timers day. He said that it felt really great to hit one and run around the bases.  I shook hands with him before and left and took this picture.

The last person who was there was Brian Cashman.  I wasn't sure how I felt about this but he to was a nice guy who chats it up.  I wanted to ask him all these questions but I knew he wouldn't answer so I just ask a simple question...Whats next for you?  He just looked at me and smiled.

After Cashman, one of the employees told us what was next.  We can sit in the field level between section 12 and 110 in right field.  So here is my advice.  If you want to try to get more autographs, you are better off trying to get to the front row in section 12.  When we were there David Robertson signed some autographs.  I did not get one cause by the time I went from RF to that side it was already packed.  By the time I got to the bottom he was already done signing.  My plan was to try to get at least one baseball hit or tossed to me.

So while standing in Right Field seats, came close a few times but it was crowded.  I did get a ball tossed to me by Hector Noesi.

Here are some of the autographs I got from that day.

So overall, it was worth the paying for the membership since you get to go to an event and watch a game  plus they give field level seats behind home plate at a different game.

So here is some information you will want.

Parking is a whopping $35 at the parking lot
Get there early so you can be ahead in the line.  Cashman left early and some people only got 2-3 autographs.
Only one food stand is open until the stadium opens at 5pm.
Bring water if its a hot day.  Cause you will be out in the sun while on line.
You are allowed at your sits at 5pm so if your tickets are for left field, start walking towards there so you can try to get a ball from the players before anyone else is there.


Hope this was somewhat informative.

Wow 10 years???

I realized that I have been a Registered Nurse for 10 years now.  Wow 10 years! As I see how far I have come in my career, it amazes me that there are so many things in this field that you are not shown or taught to  you in school.  So for all my friends out there who are new to the nursing world here are few opinions and advices that you will realize one day.

1.  If your doing this for the money, you will realize really quick that you are not paid enough in what you do.  Yeah,  you get overtime if your working in a hospital setting, but still not ENOUGH!  All of my colleagues I graduated with will attest that no matter how many blood transfusions, medications handed out, admissions, suture removals, codes, call bells answered and any other so called "nursing responsibilities" you will not be compensated a salary that you feel is sufficient to what you do.  So if you are in it for the money and you do not enjoy helping people, you will soon find out that nursing may not be for you.

2.  Patients in the book are polite, slight agitated or a bit unpleasant.  Sure most of the time you will have someone who appreciates what you do for them but always remember that for every good patient there are 6 bad ones to follow.  I have dealt with crazy patients that we had to call security every time the call bell rings.  Family drama that you can dragged into just because you end up being off a few days and the other staff does not want to deal with it anymore.  Patients who are "frequent fliers" will try to manipulate you into getting what they want.  As you will see, there are some many other types of patients, just remember that you need to help them so that they can get better and be discharged faster.

3.  Older nurses are not as helpful as they say.  Depending on the nurse, they will pass everything and anything to you so that they do not have to work.  Many believe that just because they have been doing this for so long that they are deserving of this. Don't get me wrong not all older nurses are like this and I'm positive that I will not turn out like this and neither should you.  I have worked with older nurses because I've always been the younger one but I've been lucky to have worked with great nurses. Unfortunately there are a few who are not so great.

4.  In the beginning, always get your Med/Surg, ER, floor experience, or ICU experience.  With this background you get jump into different specialities.  At least do one year of any.  If you start in a speciality area you might be stuck there for the rest of your career.  Always remember that there are so many different specialties and different fields in nursing.

5.  Final advice from this topic is this:  Always remember that you are there for the patients but find a way to leave it behind once you swipe out.  This was difficult for me when I first started.  I always ended up thinking "did I hang this medication, did I do this, did i do that" so I had to find a field in nursing that I loved.

Overall nursing is a great field.  You find self achievement, satisfaction, and hopefully happiness in the field.  There are so many more advices that I can tell you but you will experience it yourself.  So just remember this: there is still alot of things you will learn and hopefully you pass it along when you have been a nurse for 10 years.

Any questions or comments?

Autograph Collecting, Memorabilias, and Authentication

I share my thoughts on how to get autographs from players, TTM autographs, and purchasing online.  These are just some of the ways I have obtained most of my collection.  Also the importance of authentication in this hobby.

Lets start off with the old fashion way, in person autographs.  Nowadays, you can go to shows that have current and former athletes who sign for a fee. Some are pretty reasonable prices while others are out of this world.  The more popular and the more rare the more expensive.  Always remember that because if your getting a "to good of a deal", it may not be authentic.

If you're  going to a game always bring something easy for the players to sign. A baseball, ticket stub, picture or even a baseball card.   My favorite autograph obtained was of course Derek Jeter, but I've been lucky a few times to get others.  Here are some of the things I got autographed while at a Yankees game.

I got to ask Jeter for an autograph which is really rare to get one like this.

One small word of advice.  Always use a regular ballpoint pen for autographs on baseballs.













This is now what this ball looks like because I used a sharpie.

As you can see the sharpie tends to run its ink as time goes by.

Johnny Damon I think is one of the nicest guys out there.  He will always try to sign for the fans.

The best way to get these autographs are the following:

-Get to the stadium as early as you can.  Players tend to sign more during warm ups and batting practice then any other time.  They will never sign during a game and rarely sign after.

-Look around and see where the players are entering and leaving the field, I hang out by the dugout because no matter who it is, its the only way back in.

-Be polite when asking.  These guys will not sign if your rude and pushy.

-Never throw anything at them to sign, unless they tell you or made eye contact with them.  You'll lose your chance at an autograph and so will the other people around you.

-Don't be greedy.  They know if they signed something for you already.

-Finally, say thank you.

While I'm sure I will not be selling any of my stuff in the near future at least I can be sure that it was pass authenticity when the time comes.  Here are some places that will authenticate your autographs.

Professional Sports Authenticator

James Spence Authentication

Now the next type is TTM or through the mail autographs.  This aspect of collecting is limited to what you can get signed.  Some guys have a fee or request donations for their charities and some do it for free.

All you need are the following:

-Address of the players ( you can send it to the team address or if your look it up their home address on different website that may provide them).
-Self addressed stamped envelope( so that they can return it to you)
-item to be signed ( usually a baseball card is best. Very simple and cheap to ship).
-and of course the stamp.
Right now, it would probably cost you a total of $1.80 excluding the card you put it.

Always remember that once you ship it, there is a high probability that you will not get it back but there have been occasions where you will be get a nice surprise.




















Best time to send them out is before or during spring training.  Players have more time and less stress during this time.


And finally the most expensive is purchasing online or memorabilia stores.  This is probably the trickier ones if you do not purchase from a reputable place, but if you do purchase always get a COA "certificate of authenticity" from one of the mentioned above.  Always be careful when purchasing from eBay, cause there have been a few sellers who have tried to trick and sell people who do not have knowledge in collecting.  Here is a sample of a "COA"

My favorite website or company is Steiner Sports.  They may be expensive but at least your getting good quality on your purchase.

steinersports.com

Whatever the reason for your collection, personal, investment, buy and sell, make sure you do your research to make sure you are getting what you paid for.

Here are some pics of my personal collection.

Leave a comment  or question.

Derek Jeter 3K and 15 games beyond...

The DEREK JETER 3K documentary by HBO premeires tonight. 

Fifteen games after he became the 28^th player in history to join the 3000 club the hype continues.  As a Jeter fan, I will enjoy seeing this aspect of jeter’s life that he has protected through his 15 year career.   This will further help the sales of every DJ3K product in the market which we will discuss as another topic.  From autograph balls, t-shirts and other apparel things will continue to sell as they continue to market DJ3K.  Here is the link for the documentary.

 Derek Jeter 3K

Now as for his performance on the field since becoming  Mr. 3000 has not really changed.  He’s 14 for his last 55 AB which comes to a .260 batting average.  Everyone was hoping that he starts hitting or at least become a 300 hitter again but doesn’t seem like it. Out of the 14 hits, 3 have been for extra base hits.  He has become more productive with runners in scoring position so that is an upside.  He has 10 RBIs in the last 14 games.  Many Yankees fan will be happy with production like this.  There so much criticism about where he bats, his fielding, lack of production but people need to realize that for a 37 year old shortstop, he’s still being a productive yankee.  As Brian Cashman stated before, Jeter is there BEST option at shortstop. 

For the criticism to stop, he and the Yankees will need to win another World Series with him as a starting shortstop.

Is that really the standings?

As you will find out when following me on this blog, that I am a NY Yankees fan! Ive been watching for years since i was a kid in  the 80's. Left the team in '86 to jump on the bandwagon of that other team in NY.  After my favorite Mets player was traded, I found myself changing the channel from WOR 9 to WPIX.  Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't jumping on any bandwagon at that point cause the Yankees had a record of 71-90 that year.  So things eventually changed, as we all know that the Yankees had a great dynasty in the late 90's-2000. With that said, I bring up the topic that has a buzz going.  The Pittsburgh Pirates, YES, the Pirates are only 1.5 games behind in their division.

Now it could be just luck that the Brewers and Cardinals are not playing a level where everyone is expecting them to play but it is baseball.  You can look good on paper but once your on that field its a whole different story.  Last year, they started to make some noise.  As i watch MLB network and Baseball Tonight, I start to see and hear these new names coming from these "analyst".  Names like McCutchen, Tabata, Hanrahan, Maholm, and Karstens.  I'm far from saying these guys will be 2011 World Champs but if things continue the way they are going these Pirates will be making some serious noise in a few seasons.  A season with three All-Stars may soon be more than you would have thought.

With that said, turn on a Pirates game and give them a look.  You'll be surprised on what you see.

New Venture...

If your like me, and you read blogs about anything and everything you definitely want to stick around and follow us. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on this venture. Jayare and I are just two guys who are great friends but we find ourselves debating on almost everything. I'm a Yankees fan and he's the other New York team fan. I find things one way, he finds it the opposite, he loves cheese and well you get the point. Probably opposites but thats good for a blogging venture. Our topics aren't just one type or category but topics of everything we feel like discussing, reviewing, commenting or informing. It's anything that a typical non-celebrity young guy can think of or come cross. So hopefully you guys will enjoy and continue to read. You can follow Jayare at freshdeluxe.blogspot.com