Craig Lindgren hits AZ

We have more from Craig Lindgren as Craig writes about his spring training in Arizona!

A couple weeks ago I made my first Spring Training trip down to Glendale, Arizona to watch my Dodgers get ready for the upcoming season.  I hopped on the Allegiant Air flight from Ogden to Phoenix for $100 round trip!  I was all loaded up with 7 pearl Official Major League Baseballs, a few game balls from various leagues that were in good shape, a few cards from my collection and a few cards from RS’s
collection.  I would like to apologize to RS again for only getting one of your cards
signed, but I’ll have better luck next time!  Believe me, I learned a few things on my
first Spring Training trip that lasted 4 days.  I got to see the Dodgers practice 3 times
and I caught three games, Mariners/White Sox, Cubs/Dodgers and Angels/Dodgers.

On day 1 I wanted to soak up as much as I could about Spring Training.  I wandered around Camelback Ranch checking out all the practice fields and the recently added Dodgers features.  First off was the giant Tommy Lasorda bobblehead that sits in front of the ticket office, I had to get a picture of me standing
next to Tommy.  They also have giant baseballs that include Dodger greats such as Clayton Kershaw, Kirk Gibson, Ron Cey and Tommy Lasorda to name a few.  I made sure to get a close view of all the players and got to see Adrian Gonzalez teaching young prospect Kyle Jensen the art of fielding first base.  It was incredibly fun to listen to him interact with the youngster.  Adrian makes it look easy! Then I watched Adrian, Justin Turner, Howie Kendrick and Kyle Jensen take BP.  It’s
impressive seeing those guys up close and hearing the pop off their bats.  No autographs on day 1 of practice as I was walking around in awe all morning.  I made my way over to the stadium after practice to get a good spot on the third baseline in hopes of getting a few Seattle Mariners autographs prior to the Mariners/White Sox .
I found a good spot on the baseline where the Mariners were going to walk
by on their way to the dugout.  I was standing next to a gentleman who said he
played high school baseball with Mariners Manager Lloyd McClendon.  Not only is
Lloyd in the 89 Topps set he is also in the 89 Topps Traded set so I was excited at
the opportunity to get both cards signed.  Sure enough the guy standing next to me
hollered at Lloyd and he walked right over and started talking to him.  As he was
finishing up his conversation, I asked Lloyd to sign my card and he did.  He only
signed the one card, but I’m not going to complain!  I also got Mariners minor league hitting coach Cory Snyder on an 89 Topps card.  Then Brad Miller stopped to sign for a few fans and I was lucky enough to get a Top 100 card signed for RS.  I thought I was going to get two signed for RS right out of the gate, but DJ Peterson stopped signing just before he got to me!  Turns out that’s all the luck I would have getting autographs for RS!  Snyder will be easy to get later this year in Salt Lake...

Meet Craig Lindgren

We have a guest column today from Craig Lindgren.
Craig is a friend and trading partner of mine from Utah.
I'll have another post from Craig soon!

Hey ya’ll, my name is Craig Lindgren and I’m new to blogging about autograph hunting, but not new to blogging about sports so here we go!  With the help of my new friend RS, hopefully I will be blogging on a somewhat regular basis about my autograph hunting experiences.

 I will start with an intro blog telling you all about myself, my history of collecting autographs and my current projects. Then I will start blogging about my autograph hunting adventures and successes.  I currently live in Ogden, Utah and have close access to two minor league baseball teams.  Ogden, Utah is the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers affiliated Ogden Raptors who play in the Pioneer League, which is a short season rookie league.  The second team I have access to, the Los Angeles Angels AAA team the Salt Lake Bees who play in the Pacific Coast League.  My work is located directly behind the center field wall of the Ogden Raptors so baseballs are very easy to obtain.  I
started Joc’s LF Hecklers in 2011 when my friends and I started interacting with current Dodgers CF Joc Pederson while he was in rookie ball.  We stood up above the LF wall and chatted with him about various plays and situations during the game. This is what really got me started collecting autographed baseballs and they are all game used which is awesome.  Check me out on Twitter @JocsLFHecklers!

I’ve been collecting autographs since I was 8 years old and I’m now 33.  I started collecting hockey autographs, but have since been much more interested in baseball.  I have 100’s of hockey autographs, with the most notable one being Gordie Howe on a Tri-City Americans hockey program I got in the late 90’s.  My hockey autograph collection has not grown much at all recently, but my baseball collection has exploded over the last couple years.  My most notable baseball autographs are
all on baseballs including, Mark McGwire, Don Mattingly, Tommy Lasorda, Steve Garvey, Dale Murphy and my current favorite baseball player Joc Pederson.
My favorite project has to be my collection of game used autographed baseballs.  Because of how close I am to minor league baseball teams I mainly collect MLB top prospects.  I really enjoy getting these autographs because the players haven’t hit the big time yet and are really approachable and friendly.  I also like getting these autographs because the players have the potential to be huge stars and I enjoy watching them make their way through the system.  My other main project is
getting as many 1989 Topps cards signed that I can along with helping RS with his
88 and 90 Score sets.  I really love the design of the 89 Topps card and I have access
to many of the players from that set who are now managing minor league teams.  I
also try a few TTM’s, but it’s too early to tell how successful that will be.  Tune in to see if the TTM’s work!

Hopefully this is the first of many blogs here and I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog.  Please comment and follow my future blogs.  Next up is my Spring Training recap where I got 6 baseballs and 12 cards autographed.   Adios for now!