Another Dream Come True!

If you haven’t heard enough of my enthusiastically chirping about how I was on the front page of the Beckett website, buckle in – because I’m about to say even more.   Last night, I was a bit bummed out because I was taken off the front page.  I knew it had to end at some point, but I was still bummed about it.  It was a mixture of bummed-outness and thankfulness.  I feel so incredibly blessed to have been featured on the website!

Not too long after that, I found out I was going to be in the ACTUAL magazine!  To me, this is a HUGE thing.  I have been reading Beckett Monthly since I was 9 years old.  For those of you keeping score at home, that means the first time I picked up a Beckett was about 26 years ago.

No doubt, I would be in a black and white 4″ x 4″ page in the very back, but WHO CARES???  I’m gonna be in Beckett!!!  I took a picture of me and my collection *JUST IN CASE* they wanted to show a full color picture of me with my collection.  (Would you believe it? This was the best i could come up with after 10 tries!)

To show you that I’ve dreamed of being in Beckett for a long time, here is what I wrote this on my blog back in 2013:

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Growing up, I was an avid reader of Beckett monthly. The articles would soothe me throughout the long, cold off-season. I would see articles of people who are “super collectors” of a certain player.

I remember seeing one kid who had 9 1989 Upper Deck Griffey rookies, and thought to myself “how the heck does that happen???” I dreamed that one day, my Canseco collection would propel me into the pages of my most beloved magazine.
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I know, I know.  I’m not featured with my collection.  Instead, I’m featured with my favorite player.  I will totally take that instead!

I’m not sure I can emphasize how important the hobby’s #1 magazine has been to me.  Keep in mind when I was a child, this was before the days of mobile phones, tablets, ipods, etc.  Whenever I would go somewhere that would require me to exercise patience, I would tote the latest issue of Beckett with me.

Beckett got me into studying the value of things, and was pretty much the only thing I read when I didn’t care much for reading.  It also got me through those long, hard baseball-less months from November to April.

Beckett Magazine is not only a magazine, but is also a collectible, for many.  My favorite Beckett of all time has got to be this one:

If there is one thing you should know about me, it is that I’m a BIG dreamer.  Ever since I heard I would be in the magazine, I started day-dreaming.

(Yes, I do have Angry Birds decals on the back of my office door.)  I try my best to temper my big dreaming with very conservative expectations of how it will play out in reality.

It doesn’t help my cause being a self-professed photoshop ninja, though.

 Here is what I came up with:

Like I said, I am a BIG dreamer.  I don’t know about you, but I think that would make a fine cover!  Heck, this would dethrone my previous favorite all-time Beckett cover!

After coming back down to earth, and thinking more about reality, I came to grips that while I may not be on the cover, I still feel like the luckiest man on the planet to have been able to hang out with Jose for the afternoon, AND be in Beckett … not matter how small the article would be.

But then ….

I got an email ….

Why would the editor of Beckett be tweeting Jose and me?  (Yeah, I’m nutty enough to be giddy as it is that Beckett was tweeting to me and Canseco.)  It just didn’t make sense though.  Things were not computing for me.  So, I clicked on the link … (embarrassingly enough – slightly shaking) …

Do you see that?!??!  I’M ON THE COVER!!!   No, no, no – not the dude in the Rangers uni.  Look at the very top!

I have absolutely no idea what is being displayed about me & Canseco on the inside.  Heck, even if there were nothing said about us, it is beyond amazing that we got to be on the cover.  To my knowledge it has been over 20 years since Jose was on the cover of Beckett.  For me, it has been at least that long as well.  😛

With very few card shops around in my area, I may need to hunt around for an issue when it hits the stands, but until then, I think it is going to be very hard to sleep and perhaps even harder to  remove this smile from my face.

Oh, and since I’m all about making fantasy cards that don’t exist, I figured why not make a card out of my fantasy Beckett?  (By the way, I think Beckett should totally make cards out of their back issues – those would probably sell really well!)