congrats on the success's i have been looking to send a baseball off for torii to sign. i do agree that he is not all about the money when it comes to baseball. he was great as a twin also. if you ever have had a chance to read some of the reasons he got into baseball is he took after alot of the older ball players, especially kirby puckett. :) i had the kids and we were close to game time when we got to target field, but we did make it for a paul molitor signing along with photo op. {up}

This past week I visited 3 road games for the Detroit Tigers - one in Kansas City and two in Minnesota. I was able to get Torii Hunter, Joaquin Benoit, Phil Coke (x2), Evan Reed, and Luke Petkonen. All of them were inside the ballparks EXCEPT Torii Hunter in KC.

The Royals have a public "autograph area" where the players come out of the stadium. Their parking lot and buses are barricaded so you have to stand on the other side of the fence and they have to come to you. Almost all of the Royals walked by and none of them stopped to sign - Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Billy Butler, Alex Gordon - Not a single one stopped! Of course Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander just walked by too. I was about to give up and walk away and then Torii Hunter came over to sign for some kids. I rushed over there and he signed for me and a few others when he was done signing for the kids. Class act - Torii Hunter is now my favorite Tiger!

Minnesota was very hard to get outside the ballpark because player parking was underground and you could not even get close to them. I got Benoit, Coke (the 2nd time), and Luke Petkonen inside before the game after they were done with their throwing sessions. I yelled at Benoit when he came out there to throw and he looked at me and nodded his head. I stuck around and he came over to sign for me when he was done. Very cool guy also!

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