This one is entirely open for interpretation. Insight is welcome.

So I get home this afternoon and lo and behold there is another TTM return envelope sitting here waiting for me, this time with the name “Mauer” written on it. I write the last name of each player I send to on the return envelope because I save them all; it helps me 1) know whose returned my envelope before frantically ripping it open, and 2) keep them organized later. So I knew this was from Joe Mauer. Now what was inside was unexpected — sorta. Mauer is a superstar. Period. When I send to players of his caliber, there is a 2 percent chance I get anything back, and if I do it’ll be a pre-printed postcard … which is what was within and pictured to the right.

BUT … before you click away thinking my success is really a failure, you have to read the back of the card and then pay attention to the blue ink at the very bottom. Whether that is REALLY signed by Joe Mauer is open for interpretation, but this signature — well, partial, anyway — has three things going for it: 1) Most players who are rejecting your auto request would not go through the trouble of personalizing a post card. 2) This was returned within two weeks of the All-Star break, meaning that it’s entirely possibly that Joe actually spent half a day or so returning fan mail. 3) It’s Joe Mauer, whose documented to be a pretty nice guy.

So take from that what you will. Personally it goes down as a partial success. Much like any signature obtained through mail, there is no way of telling for sure who really signed it. But that blue ink is indeed ON TOP of the printed layer and it does say Joe.

You can see my entire through the mail request/success list here.

This entry was posted on July 29, 2010 at 4:29 pm and is filed under TTM Success with tags baseball, baseball cards, Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins, Nice Guys, sports, TTM Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.