Allow Me to Introduce Myself...

My name is Dan. I live in St. Petersburg, Florida. This isn't my first time creating a blog. I currently maintain Daily Autograph. That's mainly a "hey, look what I have" site that gets a lot of traffic, but not much interaction. With this one, I plan to create posts about current baseball cards, things from my personal collection, and anything else that may come to mind.

Here's a little about me and how I came to love, then hate, and back to loving this great game.

I've been a baseball fan since 1982, when my dad took me to see my very first Major League game at Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York. The Mets hosted the San Francisco Giants. It was a family vacation that brought us from Florida to New York that summer. My dad really wanted to take me to see his boyhood team, the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium, but unfortunately for him, they were on a west coast road trip that week. So, off to Shea it was.

I think from the moment I saw the field I instantly embraced the Mets as my team. Or, perhaps it was the Mr. Met doll that my dad bought me. I still have it.

It was at that game where I received my very first autograph. I have no idea how I got so close or if someone helped me, but Mets pitcher, Brent Gaff signed my program. I thought for sure I still had it, but I can't find it anywhere.

The Mets ended up losing that game, but I still went home a fan.

Screen grab courtesy of baseball-almanac.com

Thanks to cable TV coming to our neighborhood the following year, I was able to watch the Mets play on WOR from my living room in Florida. That was the debut season of who would become my all-time favorite baseball player, Darryl Strawberry.

I faithfully followed the Mets year after year, especially loving that 1986 season and then enduring my first heartbreak with the team 2 years later.

In 1990, my cable provider dropped WWOR from its lineup. The only time I got to watch the Mets was when they would play the Braves on TBS, the Cubs on WGN, or be the national game on ESPN. It got harder to follow my favorite team, and for several years I stopped caring about MLB in favor of Minor League Baseball, where I attended numerous Florida State League games.

It wasn't until 2012 that I got back into following the Mets. Oh, MLB.tv, how I do love thee. It's been fun learning about all these new players and an entirely new broadcast team that I had to get used to. Gone were Tim McCarver and Ralph Kiner. Now I'm listening to Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez, who were both still playing for the Mets when I last saw them.

I'll make my next post about how I got into baseball cards and what kind of collector I was.