2009 Redsfest!

Tonight my son and I went to the 2009 Redsfest, and we had a blast! We came away with autographs of Mario Soto, Leo Cardenas, Jim O’Toole, Chris Dickerson, Joey Votto, and Tom Browning. We also had fun visiting the different booths set up by the Reds Hall of Fame and other local organizations. Check out some of the photos below…

It’s no secret that Mario Soto is one of my favorite players of all-time, and he was the first table we hit at 4:00 when the doors opened. Joshua was armed with a 1986 Donruss card that he wanted signed…

…and I decided I wanted to get my 1986 Texas Gold card signed…

The next booth we hit was the Reds Hall of Fame, where Leo Cardenas and Jim O’Toole were signing…

Also hanging out in the Reds Hall of Fame area were some guys dressed kinda funny…

These guys actually play games by 1800s rules during the summer. We are planning to attend a game or two in 2010 (I didn’t find out about them until late 2009). Check out 1869reds.com for more information.

Chris Dickerson was in the “kids only” line at 5:15, but we didn’t bring any Dickerson cards with us.

Luckily, he was one of the special cards printed up by Topps just for the Redsfest, so Joshua got him to sign this limited edition card for him…

We got a whole set of these cards. I thought it was cool that they used the 2010 Topps design this year. Last year they used the 2008 design. I’ll post the rest from this year soon.

At 6:15 they had a special introduction at the main stage introducing several of the players, past and present, that were appearing at the Redsfest this year. Especially cool was the introduction of the 1990 World Series team, including now-Cubs manager Lou Piniella, Eric Davis, Barry Larkin and others. I’m uploading these introductions to Youtube and I will post them to the blog later.

Then it was time to wait…and wait…..and wait…….for Joey Votto. He was scheduled to sign at 8:15. We got in line around 7:00, and just barely got through in time.

(Joshua’s card)

(My card)

After we got our Votto sigs, we spied Tom Browning off in a corner signing some stuff. So we ventured over there and snagged a couple from Mr. Perfect…

(Joshua’s card)

(My card)

I thought it was cool of Browning to take time to sign these things even though it wasn’t his “official” time to do autographs. He was very friendly to everyone who asked as well.

The 2009 Redsfest was a lot of fun, and I look forward to going again next year!

Check out omgReds’ report on the event!