Hanging Out With A United States Olympics Legend!!!

My wife’s family just arrived  in town as they prepare to set sail on a cruise leaving Fort Lauderdale on Friday.  Since we’re not going on the cruise but wanting to see everyone, plus have them all meet our new baby, we agreed on dinner for Thursday night.  We decided on a local spot, Buffalo’s Southwestern Grill, since the food is good and it is not too busy during the week.

Immediately when we got there, the parking lot was packed and I chalked it up to the Florida/Oklahoma game taking place later that night.  Quickly upon entering the restaurant we saw a sign that read – “Buffalo’s Welcomes Dara Torres”!!

For those of you who are not familiar with her or have heard the name but are unsure as to her accomplishments, Dara Torres is a 5-time(Yes 5!!) Olympic swimmer for the United States.  She has competed in the 1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, and 2008 Summer Olymipc games.  In these 5 games, she has won a total of 12 medals – 4 Gold, 4 Silver, 4 Bronze!!  Extremely impressive stuff…  And in the games of 2008, at the age of 41, captured 3 Silver medals.

Dara lives in the next city over from us and was doing a little publicity stop at this restaurant.  There were a lot of kids around and it was pretty exciting to watch her interact and spend time speaking with each one of them.  By the time I got in line to meet her, the restaurant had emptied out a little, and she was still being very graciuos with every person she encountered.

Here is a picture of Dara Torres, my 2 1/2-year old son Dylan, and me.

And the picture Dara signed for me.

Wanna See What 140 Andre Dawson Cards Looks Like???

So did I.  So I bought this lot of cards on Ebay last week.

The entire lot cost me $7.98.   I couldn’t resist.  I had been fighting the urge to buy some cards for the last few weeks but wanted to wait until after Christmas.  So when I saw this I scooped it up quickly!!

Of the 140 cards, there are a bunch of doulbles(which I expected), and I was able to grab 1 more card for my 1977-1989 player collection – The 1988 Fleer base card.  This brings my needs for the Andre Dawson collection to just 7 cards.

I have shown you many of thes cards I have bought to complete my Andre Dawson collection which started  from scratch.  I thought it would be worthwhile to highlight a few of my favorites that fall out of the realm of my player collection but are great issues.

Check ’em out:

“31 in 31” – The 1970’s – Card #23

 “31 in 31” – The 1970’s – Card #23

Fred Lynn – 1975 Topps – #622

Fred Lynn quietly put together a very solid 17-season career as a professional baseball player.  It’s amazing that someone playing for some of baseball’s most popular teams(The Red Sox and Orioles) could stay under the radar but Lynn was able to do so.  While media and fan attention went to his teammates, Lynn contributed solidly.  During his first full season in the major leagues in 1975, Fred Lynn won the Rookie of the Year award as well as the Most Valuable Player award.  Not too shabby, for a rookie huh???  I’d say that it’s rather impressive!!!  In ’75, Lynn hit .331 while collecting 175 hits, scoring 103 runs, blasting 21 home runs, and driving in 105 runs.  1975 would mark the first of 9 All-star appearances for Lynn.  At the end of his career, Lynn finished with a .283 batting average while driving in 1,111 runs and scoring 1,063 times.  Fred Lynn competed in 1 World Series, which capped his amazing rookie season of 1975 – too bad that the Red Sox ended up losing that match-up to the Cincinnati Reds.