Another TTM Success, Football Style
November 15th, 2009 by slangon

The last few months I started to get really into football and I started to get really into trying to score Through the Mail autographs. It made sense to me to combine the 2 and try to get some football autographs through the mail.

One conclusion that I came to as I experimented with the TTM thing was that I much prefer to just get my own custom cards signed. Was I worried about sending “real” cards and possibly not getting them back? Maybe initially a little bit, but I don’t think so. When I did send “real” cards, it was usually if I had a double and they weren’t anything spectacular to begin with. When I would get them back signed, they just weren’t very exciting to me.

I started sending out my own cards because I wanted particular guys’ autographs but sometimes just didn’t have cards of those guys. When I started to get those back, I ended up loving them. I think it’s because I could customize the card to particular reasons why I wanted a particular guys autograph. Like I always loved the story of Jimmy Piersall hitting his 100th home run and running the bases backwards. So I sent him a card of him trotting into home backwards. I liked that Monte Irvin played in the Negro Leagues for the Newark Eagles, so I sent him a card in an Eagles uniform instead of the Giants. I think you get the gist.

Anyway, all the baseball cards I made and sent out were based roughly on the 2010 SlangKo Heroes of the Diamond design, which is cool for baseball guys, but I wanted to do something different for the football autographs I wanted to go after. This sparked the idea for my second set of cards, SlangKo Sport Stars. I’ll get more into that set at a later date (I should probably finish the Heroes of the Diamond first, but what can you do?), but I have made a handful of them already and sent them out to get signed. This is the first one I got back.

09SLANGKOsanchez_autoIt’s Mark Sanchez, rookie quarterback for the New York Jets. This was actually the second time I got this back. Apparently the first time I didn’t have the right address for the Jets training facility so it got returned. I found the right address and resent it and now it’s here again, this time signed.

I like how he incorporated his jersey number into his signature. I love when dudes do that. I’m actually really fascinated by signatures like that. It always makes me wonder, when guys with crazy signatures like that first realize they have a shot at becoming a professional in whatever sport they play, do they sit down and “design” their signature. Do they do it themselves, or is there some kind of signature consultant that they hire? Do they have a regular signature that they use for signing checks or credit card receipts? If Mark Sanchez sends a birthday card to his Grandma, does he sign it like this? What will he do if he gets traded to team where he can’t have #6? These are the things I think about.

Anyway, awesome signature, Mark. Good luck with the Jets.

2 Responses to “Another TTM Success, Football Style”

  1. Nice autograph!

    Pro athletes are advised to develop a different signature for autographs than the one they use for official purposes, so why not have fun with it.?

  2. Holy crap! That’s awesome!

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