Pete Rose is Back in Cincinnati to Watch Stephen Strasburg Pitch

Pete Rose is back! Well, for one night anyway he was at the Reds/Nationals game to see Stephen Strasburg pitch.

I didn't think Pete was allowed anywhere near a baseball field. I wonder if he signed autographs for people saying, "I'm sorry I bet on baseball" at the Reds game.

Jimmy Johnson Survivor - And He Thought Valley Ranch Was Tough

Jimmy Johnson may have survived the Dallas Cowboys, but can he survive Nicaragua? Jimmy is on the CBS "reality" show Survivor: Nicaragua.

The show began taping in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua in June.

Jimmy joins former Cowboys quarterback Gary Hogeboom as the only other ex-Dallas player to appear on the Survivor series. At least Jimmy isn't going on Dancing with the Stars like Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin.

I'd like to see the following people on the show with Jimmy Johnson:
- Jerry Jones
- Buddy Ryan
- Barry Switzer

Win the Autograph Jersey from Cal Ripken Jr's Back at the National

The National Sports Collectors Convention has done a much better job offering incentives and promotions to get people to attend the show. Their latest efforts is from DACardWorld.com.

"The Luckiest Kid in Town" contest is giving away a few moments with Cal Ripken Jr. and an autograph jersey of the Iron Man.  The winner will also receive 4 VIP passes and packages. Two runner-ups will receive autograph Cal Ripken Jr. bats.

More information here.

Use Foursquare to Get Free Autographs

The Columbus Crew (MLS Soccer) is offering a free autograph poster.

The next foursquare "mayor" of Crew Stadium will receive a free autographed Columbus Crew schedule poster. To become the mayor, you need to have check-in to Crew Stadium more than anyone else in a 60 day span.

Why Care About Foursquare?

I'm new to the foursquare adventure, but I'm really into it.

I've only been working with it a few weeks. If you're new to foursquare, it's a pretty cool application that gets loaded on to your smart phone. It allows you to tell your friends where you are (or you can choose not to) and awards badges, titles and points as you check-in to different locations via your phone. Your friends/followers can get notified of your doings via Twitter, facebook or friends on foursquare.

So far, it seems there are 3 basic types of foursquare users:
1 - Those that use it as a game. You get points for "checking in" to locations and receive different badges based on where you've checked in an how many times. Think of it as XBox 360 achievement points. A couple of great blogs dedicated to this are: the 4Square Badges Blog and the About Foursquare blog.

2 - Those that use it to see where friends are and hang out. When you check in to a location (which is simply launching the app from your phone when you get to the bookstore, bar, mall, etc, and select 'check in) you can choose to notify your friends on foursquare, twitter and/or facebook. The application will tweet or send a facebook wall posting saying where you are. If you're following me on twitter you'll see that I'm a huge Dunkin Donuts coffee fan!

3 - Marketing professionals should love this application. As a marketer, your biggest challenge isn't always getting new customers, but it's getting repeat customers and turning them from customers into evangelists. Recently, companies are offering discounts to people who have 5+ check-ins at the American Eagle store, or Ann Taylor in NY is offering 25% discounts to mayors (those who check-in the most in a 60-day span).

What does this mean for the sports card/collectible hobby? It means card store owners need to embrace this new mobile marketing faster than they started to embrace social media. Card stores are perfect for this... you can reward returning customers and allow them to tell their friends when they are at the store.

I blogged about how sports card stores can, and should embrace this a few months ago. They should launch incentives for % off packs and boxes. Becoming the "mayor" of a location is a huge badge and a sports card store could offer the mayor a framed photo in the store, 1/2 price for a box, special discounts, etc. Signing up on foursquare > businesses, they'll send you some free window clings like the image in this blog post.

I think the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore should use this for their next show. Here's a great article about using foursquare at a convention to bring people together and get everyone to check out the booths. 

There are some other mobile marketing 'check-in' applications like gowalla, but I haven't tried it yet. If you have a smart phone, give foursquare a try. If have a smart phone and you're on twitter, then dive right in. If you own a business or market for one, get listed and add foursquare to your next campaign.

Gary Carter's All-Star FanFest Fiasco

I think the fan here is trying to set up Gary Carter on this one. Gary is one of the most personable people I've met when getting autographs. You can see in the beginning of the video that Gary is talking to a fan about the spacious stadiums he played in.

I went to the MLB FanFest in Pittsburgh a few years ago and they didn't have any restrictions on what you could signed. Apparently that policy has changed and the fan in the video doesn't like the new policy.

George Steinbrenner's Passing - New York Covers

The best way to get the local reaction to significant events is a glance at the local newspaper covers.

Here are the covers of today's NY Post and NY Daily News.

Something is Missing on my Cowboys Card

Where's the star! You can't have a Dallas Cowboys football card without the star can you? What's going on here?

This is a 1980 Topps football card of Butch Johnson. Is there a reason Topps didn't include the star?