During my collecting journey, I’ve made some pretty good friendships with others.  Two of them are very close to Canseco.  One of them pitches to him before games to warm him up and in home run derbies.  At Jose’s 51st birthday party, he mentioned the poker cards I made him.  Canseco said “Oh yeah, Tanner made these for me – I love them – they are my favorite!”

To hear that your favorite player say something like that about what you made for him AND remember your name (oh yeah, my name is on the back of the cards) – words can’t describe 🙂

My other friend hangs out with him fairly frequently whenever he is in his neck of the woods, and was able to get me some more autographs.  A few didn’t come out all that well during the signing (hey, not all can be perfect when signing 170+  items, right?)  A few of them came back the other day!

Here is a goofball cameo card.  Can you spot who is all in the background?  (Hint: 2 are famous, and the other 2 are me and my son.)

Here is my favorite in the bunch.  I just sent over the front of this one and Jose signed it.  When it came back, I put together with a very nice patch from a jersey I had him wear.  I think it came out great!

This next one isn’t one from my friend at all, though.  As a matter of fact, it isn’t one that I was even going to do anything with.  I found it in my “scrap” pile and forgot about it.  It was based off of a football design, if I remember correctly.

It struck me as nice, but I thought it would REALLY pop if I tweaked the colors a bit.

Much better, I think!  Then I took a bit of a patch from a game used jersey:

Man, wouldn’t it be sweet if I had him sign it when I was at his house?  Oh wait … I kind of did!  (I got a few sticker blanks signed by him for projects such as this.)

Here is the end result:

I cannot believe this card was going to be dumped!  I really love how it turned out.  I think the colors complement the design nicely, and the patch selection is perfect for the box.

As a side note, The National is coming up.  If anyone is able to snag the card of Beckett magazine that they made, please let me know!  The same goes for their random Beckett card of Canseco that was autographed by him.  I’m mega interested in both!