The Day We Met the Hit King & Lefty

I shook hands with Pete Rose and Steve Carlton yesterday.

Doug and I attended the Fanatics Authentic Sports Spectacular in Oaks, Pennsylvania yesterday and I splurged on "photo opportunity" tickets to meet two of the most iconic players from my childhood. "Opportunity" is a bit of misnomer here since that implies you may or may not come away from your experience with an actual photo.  But we did, and I digress.

The price for the tickets was hefty.  However, while I'll soon forget the amount I paid for the tickets I'll never forget the look on Doug's face as he greeted these two all-time greats.  He stammered out a "hello" to each of them and they were both very pleasant to him.  Carlton was actually more conversational with Doug than Rose, which surprised me a little.  Also, Carlton is very large man with a no joking around firm handshake.

The rest of the show was secondary to meeting Rose and Carlton, but here are a few highlights:

• Doug came away with many more cards than I did.  He completed his 2015 Topps Update set and I sincerely appreciate the deep discounts he received once the dealers realized these cards were for an eight year old's set.  I made it a point to get the more generous dealers' business cards and I'll have no problem throwing some future business their way.  Doug also added to his Mike Trout collection and he picked up some cheap, recent Phillies game-used memorabilia cards.
• I added the 1980 and 1981 Phillies Media Guides to my collection.
• I also crossed another 16 cards off my 1971 Topps want list and I added a few Phillies high number cards from the 1960s.