Atlanta Braves - Jerseys Off Our Back - WINNER

[hiramman]

I went to the Brave's Jersey Off Our Backs game tonight against the Phillies. The Braves couldn't pull out the game, but I was a winner anyway. Purchased a handfull of scratchoff cards and the third one I scratched off was a winner. When I left my seat to go report for being a winner, Chipper Jones had just hit HR #401 to tie the game 2 to 2. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the rest of the game, but fortunately for me it was because I was down under the stadium waiting with 24 other fans to pick up our randomly selected game-used jerseys. Yunel Escobar was the player selected to present each of us with our used jerseys and I the number I pulled out of the selection bag was number 21 out of 25. They brought the jerseys out and stacked them on a table down on the field. Then each of us in line went up and were presnted a jersey by Escobar. The jersey on the top of the stack went to fan #1, the second jersey went to fan #2 and so on. Being number 21, I got to see all of the Braves star player get selected. Chipper Jones, Bobby Cox, John Smoltz, Tim Hudson, Brian McCann and Mark Teixeira all went before me along with many other starting players and pitchers. I had just about given up and decided I was going to end up with a back-up player when it came my turn and I realized my player's jersey was none other than last year's 300 game winner Tom Glavine. While watching all of the other star players slip away I'd completely forgotten that he was still in the stack. As you might think after reading this novel I've written, I've been on a collector's high ever since.

Here are photos of the jersey and tagging. The Braves have been wearing the Majestic Cool Base jerseys exclusively at home in 2008 and with the temp in the upper, upper 90's even tonight I guess they are cooler for the players.

[jgoldstein2000]

Beyond awesome! Congrats!!!!

[thomecollector]

Great jersey. Congrats!:D

[Swoboda4]

Thats a very good day.Very good. How many scratch offs did you buy and how much were they? I remember in 1996 that Sunoco had a Met fantasy batting practice contest with the winner getting a turn in the cage before a Met game at Shea. I mailed in about 120 contest slips rom all parts of the city and I won(along with 9 others.). Good feeling to win something like that from a Hall of Famer no less.

[bagbig]

Is the jersey for sale?

[metsbats]

Nice pickup! Could be a jersey from Glavine's final season too!

David

[BergerKing22784]

Yeah if it is for sale let me know to!

[Eric]

That's a great story. It has suspense, drama and a solid payoff. Nice work.

[tknorm]

Wonderful story and pix. Congrats! It is nice to see one of these shirts off the back jerseys go to a serious collector. As many teams that have these promotions, you would think there would be more jerseys on the market this way, but I haven't seen many myself. Enjoy it! There are many of us on the board with jersey jealousy today.

Tommy:)

[bubbrubb25]

The phillies dont do this do they?

[geoff]

Congrats on the Glavine Jersey.If you want to trade at any point let me know.

Thanks
Geoff


geof631@yahoo.com

[hiramman]

To answer a few of the questions you've asked...

The scratch-off tickets were $3 for one, $5 for two, & $10 for 5. I bought $10 worth or 5 tickets and the 3rd one was the winner.

No, it's not for sale. I've collected game-used for years and bought and sold many pieces over those years. I happen to be one of those collectors that seems to have the worst luck selling nice items that turn out later to be Hall of Famer's items. I still regret selling a game-used Yankee cap and game-used bat of Dave Winfield. So this time, I'm going to hang on to this one and hopefully in a few years, I'll have my first jersey from a HOF member.

I agree with Tommy. For some reason you just don't see many of these come up for sale. Even though the Braves have been doing this for several years, I've only seen a couple of jerseys like this for sale. Last year I bought a 2003 Andruw Jones jersey from a local seller that had won the jersey in the 2003 Jerseys Off Our Backs promotion and he still had all of the documentaion from the game(ex. the winning scratch-off ticket, photos, letter from the team, etc.) One reason may be that the winners are usually local fans, not collectors. For that reason, it is more likely that the winners hold onto the items and but don't seem to keep all of the documentation. I've seen several jerseys in the past described as being won in the Jerseys Off Our Backs promotion, but they didn't really have any proof to back up the event. Many of the winners were parents with little kids and when we left the stadium last night I saw many of the game-worn jerseys headed off to the parking lot being worn by the kids. But if I was a kid and won one of the jerseys I would have been wearing it home, too.

[jppopma]

Great jersey! I love the idea of them selling scratch off cards to those who want and will enjoy the jerseys. Most teams I have been to shirt off the back games will choose them by seat number. This ends up with alot of nice jerseys going to the fate of someone's closet or Goodwill. Also the scratch off cards aloow you for more than one try at the jerseys. With the prices of tickets, it's not worth $20-50 a pop or more to have extra chances.

Does anybody out there know if the tagging on this is the regular series Braves tagging? The shirt off the back jerseys that I do have are from the Tigers and have different tagging than the normal gamers.

Congrats on the nice grab.

[hiramman]

jppopma,

I'm not sure about the tagging yet since this is the first 2008 Braves jersey I've seen, but it looks the same as my one other Cool Base Braves jersey from 2006.

[island_style]

I had just about given up and decided I was going to end up with a back-up player when it came my turn and I realized my player's jersey was none other than last year's 300 game winner Tom Glavine. While watching all of the other star players slip away I'd completely forgotten that he was still in the stack. As you might think after reading this novel I've written, I've been on a collector's high ever since.

Heck, for just $10.00 and being lucky to have one of the 25 winning tickets, I'd be happy to get anyone's jersey from the game! That is a very nice pick-up for you! Congrats in every way!

Kind Regards,

Ron.

Rsamiano@aol.com

[cartervd]

If you ever want to sell it contact me at carter.vd@comcast.net. Thanks