Yesterday was one of the busier signing days that I have had in quite a long time. It began at 7:15 AM when the great (yes he is still great) Mariano Rivera came up to our office for a private signing. I was actually pretty surprised when Mo said he wanted to sign that early. Most athletes wake up after twelve as long as they are not playing in a day game. Anyway, Mo was awesome. He gave us a solid two hours of his time and the signatures were the best I have ever seen (not that they are ever bad, but they were especially crisp yesterday morning). Interestingly enough Mariano, who we all know has one of the greatest signatures, noticed how neat John Havlicek's sig is. There happened to be a few Hondo basketballs left in our conference room and, as soon as it caught his eye, Rivera began to comment on them.
This early morning session gave us an opportunity to restock our inventory with all the different sizes of the entering the game photo. This has become one of our greatest sellers and the staple piece of our Mariano Rivera Collection. Aside from signing that image, Mo also signed three new amazing photos including one from the 2000 World Series (the image brought back painful memories for me).

Mariano left at about 9:30 which gave us less than an hour to clear out the room and prepare for Andy Pettitte. Andy came up at about 10:15 and knocked out the signing in no time. He is extremely fast, especially when signing baseballs. Pettitte has pitched great so far this season (which he must continue to do if the Yankees have any hopes of catching the Red Sox). We spoke a little about the upcoming Mets/Yankees series at Shea. It looks like Andy will most likely be pitching in one of the first two games. Pettitte, knowing that I am a huge Mets fan, jokingly asked if I will be rooting for him (He laughed when I said not a chance but that I would consider it if he had a perfect game in the 9th.... I don't think I could bring myself to do that anyway) Andy signed some incredible product for us including game-used balls and a really cool new image.

As soon as Andy completed the signing Eddie Giacomin came right in and began his work. I have done a ton of signings with Eddie before but this was the first one on private. It has always been difficult to get a lot of product signed by Giacomin at a public appearance. It is always packed and that, of course, makes it hard to get a lot done in two hours. This time was different. Eddie gave us almost four hours of his time. In that four hour window we are able to get a ton of sick product. Giacomin signed a few new photos as well as a bunch of the "Jason" masks. All the items got the HOF '87 inscription and came out incredible. During the entire day of signing one side of our conference room was set up with product for Henrik Lundqvist to sign. The Lundqvist signing from Tuesday has been postponed until Friday. Rather than lug all the equipment back to our warehouse we kept it all staged on one side of the room. The reason I bring that up is to illustrate the difference in the mask style from the one Eddie wore to the one that Henrik wears. While Giacomin was signing his style mask he was commenting on the new Rangers goalie mask (which offers a lot more protection than the "Jason" one...which gave almost none). It always amazes me how football and hockey equipment have progressed over the years.
Later today I will be doing a small private signing with Mets superstar Carlos Beltran. Check back for a recap.