I was pretty excited when I got some tickets to the A’s fan fest in the mail because the insert said there would be autograph opportunities. I’ve never been much of a memorabilia guy, but I took some action photos at A’s games last year that I was pleased with and I thought it would be pretty cool to get them signed. So last week I went ahead and bought a photo printer and spent quite some time prepping the files to print and printing them.

I figured there would be a few thousand people there – some tables set up around the field where you could wait in line to get autographs… not exactly.

We got to the Oakland Colesium around 10:25am (doors opened at 10:00) and saw a very long line to get in. Turns out the line around the other side was even longer! As we waited in line, another fellow told us that $10 tickets to the autograph sessions had gone on sale at 9am and were already sold out. And the $10 ticket only bought you a single signature from 2 players. And only one of the players in each tandem was a star player.

We went in for a half hour or so, then left. Very dissapointing. When I got home, I turned over the flyer I’d gotten in the mail with the tickets and saw the fine print that said that tickets to autograph sessions went on sale at 9am… I guess I’ll try my luck next month when we go to Arizona for spring training or just mail them in to the players with return postage and a note asking for an autograph. Any of you readers have tips for me?