Monday, December 7, 2015

LAWIG: Everything has to go!

As anyone that lives in the northern half of the continent can attest to, one of the sure signs that spring has arrived is the sings pointing to a garage sale. You folks down south get those year round, along with flea markets. Here, they usually stop around November and start to reappear come April. For us, garage sales mirror the baseball season.

A couple times a year, the White Sox throw a garage sale (awesome segue FTW!). I have wanted to go in the past, and finally made the trek to Comiskey (I'm still calling it that - screw naming the field for a cellular company you can't even use in the park it's named after without roaming!). One sale is held at the Sox convention in late January. The other is usually not long after the season has ended. A little bit of everything is available at the sale. I should have taken more pictures, so you are stuck with my descriptions.

My wife tagged along, and we got there right when the sale started. Still, there was a line about 150 or so people deep. The sale is held in a break room about 20x100, but they still limit the number of people going in at one time, which is a great idea. Not overly crowded sorting through all the items for sale. Fortunately, for those in line, Southpaw showed up. Or "White Sox Mascot" for those of you following along with Topps Opening Day Cards.

It's not that hard to find my name. It's right on the website.
It took just over an hour to get to the room with all the items. While waiting, they wheeled in 3 turn styles for sale. Two were from the current park ($350 each) and one from Old Comiskey ($1000). Yeah, both were out of my budget range. However, when we got inside, there was plenty to be had. Old, discontinued t-shirts and other items were along one wall, but nothing my size. Abreu bobbleheads, but I am not a bobble collector (bobblector?). Then had unused lineup cards for sale for a few bucks, but I passed as where would I display one. The used cards were also available, but again - out of my budget. Along one wall - nothing but used jerseys. Price range mattered based on the player. I thought for sure a jersey was out of the question, but there were plenty for $40. And these are not replicas.

 
They are the Majestic Cool Base with sewn logos, numbers and name plates. I decided on this one, based on my wife reminding me 64 was the year of her birth.


With the memorial patch on the right sleeve, I know this was a uniform from the 2014 season. There were high hopes for Rienzo, but he just never panned out here, and he's not doing well in Miami either. Still, great uniform. You could have gotten away jerseys, BP jerseys and the 80's Sunday throwbacks.

Across from the uniforms was a square of tables with game used caps (still had the players number written on the underbill), cleats, bats (expensive) and other game used items. The caps were super cheap, $5 for a fitted New Era cap, but I couldn't find one for my head. How does no one wear a size 7.5 cap? Oh well.

Coming around that, you had some autographed baseballs and pictures. I had one of each in my hand. The pictures were just $2 each and certified with the MLB trackable hologram. I picked up one of Brent Morel.


Nice image for the wall. I like Morel and wish he panned out better on the south side. The ball I had was of De Aza, but I put it back when this counter had baggies of game used baseballs. Sure, $20 for a game used seems silly, but since I can never seem to snag one, I need to take one when I can.


Yup, That's a brick next to it. There are still bricks from old Comiskey available, and $10 is a fine price to pay in my book. According to the hologram, the ball is from the April 24th game of this year against KC and was a single by Avasail Garcia off of Danny Duffy in the bottom of the first.

All total, I dropped $72, and each penny is a write off for charity. My main reason for going was to possibly score some of the memorial patches for Billy Pierce from this season, but none were available. But since I scored a DJR patch, maybe the right jersey at the next garage sale will have what I am looking for.

9 comments:

  1. The Cubs hold these periodically too. I went several years ago and was able to get my own brick (from the Wrigley bleachers pre-2005) and a whole bunch of oddball, team issued cards. T'was a good day. Looks like you had yourself a good time too!

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  2. What a fun day! You can't go wrong with a $40 game-used jersey or a $5 hat. Wow!

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  3. Great pick ups! The D-Backs have a garage sale at Fan Fest, but season ticket holders get in an hour before everyone else, so it's usually pretty picked over by the time I get there.

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  4. You can deduct it even though you are getting that stuff in return? That doesn't sound right...

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  5. Sweet haul! You can also add me to the list of people who still call it Comiskey.

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  6. Man, I've always wanted a brick from Wrigley. Nice snag there!
    Bobblectors? I like it!

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  7. Morel got a couple chances with the Pirates the last couple of years, but made nothing of it. It forced the Pirates to trade for Aramis Ramirez. Back when he debuted with the Sox my buddy predicted he would win the Rookie of the Year award. I still tease him about that. Every new Pirate that debuts leads me to ask him if he'll be as good as Morel

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  8. I've always wanted to go to one of those but I figured it would all be very pricey, now that I know there are other things to be had, I might have to check one out.

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