Steve Garvey All-Star Legends Night feat. Reggie Jackson

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The Major League Baseball All-Star game and all the festivities it comes with are heading to my city of San Diego, and to unofficially kick it off, Sycuan Casino had a three night event in which former star Steve Garvey hosted a different Hall of Fame player each night to discuss the game of baseball.  The first night he hosted Goose Gossage, the second night was with Dave Winfield, and the third was with Reggie Jackson.  Sycuan Casino is a pretty good drive from my home in north county and autographs were never actually specified, but the event sounded like a good time so I drove down with my friend Lawrence and met up with another friend of mine named Nouky to see if we could perhaps add a couple of good signatures to our collection.

The event was to begin at 8:00PM, with the doors to open at 7:00.  We actually arrived around 6:30 and were the sixth people in line.  This was a good thing since it was general admission.  Through some small talk with others in line, we heard the first two nights had less than fifty people show up, but since Reggie Jackson is a pretty big star the casino was expecting 150-200 people. We were also told that the players signed autographs during both of the previous two nights.  I saw a few of the common autograph seekers that you'll see at a lot of the events, among them David from http://davidsautographsignings.blogspot.com/. 

Around 8:00 a VIP line randomly formed for certain people to get the chance to take photos with both Garvey and Jackson.  How the people got in this VIP line I do not know, nor do I particularly care.  Information between much of the autograph "community" is treated like CIA and FBI top secret info, and unless you're in the in-crowd you aren't going to ever know what they know.  This line lasted approximately 20 minutes, at which point Garvey came out and gave an introduction, then brought out Jackson.  We had seats in the second row pretty much right down the middle;
The two men shared stories of growing up, the influences they had, career highlights, the state of the game today, etc.  It was truly an experience that any fan of the game of baseball would have enjoyed, and it was such an intimate setting.  At one point, the two were giving each other a hard time about a particular play in the World Series (they opposed each other four times in the Fall Classic), and got up to demonstrate said play.  I snapped a couple of good photos of this exchange.  Keep in mind, I did not zoom in on either picture, I was really just this close...





After a Q&A session, the two men walked to the front of the stage and started signing autographs despite the PA guy telling us before the show that there would in fact not be any autographs signed on the evening.  Most people of course went for Reggie Jackson, as did I.  I was but a couple of people away when he turned back and started signing the other direction, then got a bit annoyed at some people for trying to get multiples (many of the same that were in the VIP line and got him before the show actually), at which point he quickened his pace, signed a few more, and left.  I ended up empty handed on the Jackson front, while a few others got two or three things signed.  It is annoying, but it happens a lot in this hobby.  Thankfully, I was actually the first person Steve Garvey signed for, and I asked him to add his 10x All-Star inscription.  Not only did he oblige, he added 2x MVP on there for me as well.  The ball came out pretty cool.
 


This was a cool event that I am happy I attended.  I hadn't ever gotten a Garvey autograph before, so I was happy to add him to my collection.  The man is a borderline Hall of Famer.  Of course I would have loved to add Reggie Jackson as well, since my goal it to complete an entire display case of Hall of Famers, but I'll have to wait on him.  He does enough signings where I think I will get another chance.  Frankly, even if I came away with nothing, this event was well worth my time and money, and something I would attend again if something similar happens. 

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