Finishing Off the 2009 Team USA Signed Bat

Saturday night, as many of you know I ended up going to the team USA game in order to finish getting my bat signed.  I went with my sister who bought a Team USA baseball to get signed.  I had planned this out for a few weeks now.  After the first game I went to almost a week ago (pre-final cuts), I got 18 of the players to sign.  Unfortunately only 12 of them made the final cut.  So I had a tough night ahead of me if I wanted to complete the bat.  Or so I thought . . . because that night just happened to be . . . autograph night!  Jackpot.  So just to catch you up, I had gotten:

Trevor Baur

Chad Bettis

Bryce Brentz

Gerrit Cole

Blake Forsyth

Yasmani Grandal

Rick Hague

Casey McGrew

Brad Miller

Nick Pepitone

Jeremy Shaffer

Kolton Wong

On Saturday, thanks to not many people showing up and the Durham Bulls folks moving the lines quickly I was able to add the rest of the guys:

Christian Colon

Michael Choice

Sonny Gray – Who Twitters and is one of the nicest guys, and caught some flack for doing it.

Tyler Holt

Matt Newman

Drew Pomeranz – Who had just finished warming up and I did a no no by asking him to sign but he was the last signature I needed.

Rob Segedein

Cody Wheeler

Asher Wojciechowski

Tony Zych – Who helped me get Cody Wheeler’s autograph

TJ Walz

Andy Wilkins

All 22 on the final roster and the 2 alternates (Shaffer and Segedein).  I didn’t even think to get the manager to sign and I could kick myself for not doing it (Jack McKeon).  While at the game my sister and I ran into an agent of an undisclosed agency (not Boras, although his son was there) and asked him what he thought of Bryce Harper.  His answer was simple, why the rush?  Are guys like Fernando Martinez and Michael Ynoa making to the majors any faster by signing when they are 16 (Bryce will be 17 when he signs)?  He’ll have to put the time in just like they did, but he gets robbed of his last two years of high school.  To me, I could go either way with his decision, but missing your junior and senior year of high school would suck.

Anyhow back to the game, Bauer started for the US and it was clear from his first warm up pitches that he didn’t have his usual stuff and boy did the Canadians smack him around for 5 runs in the top of the first.  After that however, it was all Team USA as they went on to score 14 unanswered runs and won the game 14-5.  Awesome pitching from the USA staff and a fun game to watch.  I have gotten a lot of questions as to what I do with all the bats I get signed.  Do I put them up on eBay? Heck no!  They sit in my man room closet: