Before I begin this post I would like to thank Dietz for filling in yesterday. While he may not be the best blog-writer he really has done an outstanding job with these contests and will continue to have them in the months to come. With that said-I am back and ready to fill you in on the past two days. Here we go:

Yesterday morning I got on the first flight out of LaGuardia to Chicago's Midway airport. The purpose of my quick trip to Illinois was to do a private signing with our newest exclusive Mark Buehrle. Upon landing at Midway I caught a shuttle over to a hotel in Willowbrook. Willowbrook is about twenty minutes out of Chicago and is close to where Buehrle lives. While this was to be the first signing with Mark as a Steiner exclusive it certainly was not the first time we have worked with him. I first met Buehrle right after the White Sox won the AL pennant in 2005. He then signed again for us after the World Series. I was still surprised though that Mark did, in fact, remember me. (Even though I work with a ton of athletes I am always shocked that the guys remember me as they meet so many people each day). I immediately congratulated Buehrle on pitching the no-hitter. I explained to him that the Mets have never had a no-hitter and that is always on my mind when I watch games. We even went through the list of former Mets that have pitched one for another team (Ryan, Leiter, Doc, Cone......we all know the roster) The funny thing about Mark's no-hitter night was that John Maine had one going into the seventh. I was furious when he lost it and immediately changed channels and discovered that Buerhle had taken one into the 8th (and was still pitching lights out).
Anyway, it took Mark a lot more time to sign these balls versus my last encounter with him. Each of these were inscribed "No hitter 4/18/07". They came out great. I am already looking forward to our next signing with him as we will be accepting send-ins for that one. That will give you guys an opportunity to add Mark to any no-hitter multi-signed pieces that you may have. After the conclusion of the signing it took about an hour to box up all the product to ship back to New York. I then caught a cab to the airport and , to my dismay, saw that all the flights were delayed or cancelled. I am not sure if it is my bad luck or just law of averages that my travel is such an ordeal sometimes. I finally landed back in New York late last night and arrived home around midnight. I went straight to sleep as I had wake up at 6 to start getting ready for today's Curt Schilling signing.
Check back late for a recap.