SoCal Autograph Odysses

 Last week I had two through the mail requests returned to me on the same day, both from NHL Hall of Famers. I already discussed the Mark Howe but the other card came back from Frank Mahovlich. Mahovlich played for the Canadiens, Maple Leafs, and Red Wings over his career and accumulated 1103 points, good for 66th all time on the leading scorers list. This request went out to Canada and came back with Mahovlich's HOF 81 inscription. Any time I can get an old timer's autograph on an older card I am happy with the success. Thanks Frank!

 A hockey through the mail success came back earlier this week on the same day as another one, but this post specifically is about the card I got signed by Mark Howe, hockey hall of famer and Gordies' son. Mark was a Hall of Fame defenseman who played for the Flyers, Whalers, and Red Wings throughout his career. This request took about a month to come back to me and as a reminder, you can check the TTM tracker on this blog for any and all information on requests I send. Thanks for reading.

 One of the best hockey players of all time, former Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers center Mark Messier recently had a signing. I saw this one advertised months ago and decided to participate and send a rookie card to get signed. I think the result was really solid, and I'm always glad to add a huge name on a rookie card.

 We're going on a bit of a throwback journey with this post in the fact that this autograph harkens back to the earlier era of this blog when a lot of the additions to my collection were acquired via the through the mail part of the hobby. As I've added most of the active Hall of Famers that sign through the mail to my collection already, I've had fewer opportunities to send to athletes that I don't have in my collection yet. The athlete I'm about to discuss here isn't a Hall of Famer but does play goalkeeper for the US Women's National Team as well as her club team, the Chicago Red Stars. Alyssa Naeher, one of the better keepers in women's US soccer history was kind enough to send an autograph back on a Pitch Queens card I got out of a pack. This card will go straight to my daughter's collection of soccer autographs, and I appreciate Alyssa taking the time to respond to fan mail. 

 I recently talked about Topps not having the license for the NFL, and the same holds true for the NBA as well. That didn't stop people from buying up products and trying to hit a Victor Wembanyama rookie auto since Topps is the only company that had his autos in it. I'm not much of a basketball fan so don't buy a whole lot of the product but on a recent trip to Target I did see they had a mega box, which is rare to find locally. I tried my luck and ended up pulling a rookie auto of Brooklyn Nets forward Jalen Wilson. I heard it's hard to pull autos from this product, so I am happy to have had luck this time around. I don't know much about the player, so here's hoping he has a good career.

 Some more soccer autographs came through the pipeline recently, all colored autos, two of which also happen to be numbered. The first is another legend auto from the really nice Copa America set. It is another Green Wave auto. This is Javier Mascherano, Argentine midfielder who spent a good amount of time playing for Liverpool and Barcelona. The second auto is /199 from the new Topps Chrome set of former Liverpool forward Michael Owen. He was considered among the very elite goal scorers for a short period of time and still talked about often by Liverpool supporters. Lastly, I made a trip down to my local card store over the weekend and tried my hand at a hobby box of Topps Chrome. It was a dud of a box overall and my auto wasn't a huge hit, though Jarrod Bowen is someone I'm very familiar with in that he plays for West Ham in the Premier League and is actually a good player. This auto is numbered /199 as well, same as the Owen above.