Lastings Milledge's 2013 BBM baseball card

Former New York Mets outfielder Lastings Milledge signed a contract to play for the Atlantic League’s Lancaster Barnstormers this season. While Milledge spent 115 games with New York, 171 with Pittsburgh, 145 with Washington and two with the Chicago White Sox, he played in 255 games for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

When I was really into collecting autographs from the Atlantic League, I enjoyed tracking down unusual cards to get the players to sign. Japanese baseball cards were almost always a good way to get a player’s attention and start a conversation. Luis Lopez actually traded me a bat for the cards I asked him to sign.

I’m not going to go back to doing that with everyone. (These days, I find it more relaxing to take a few minutes before a game to fill out my scorecard rather than hoping players will sign autographs for me before they go warm up.)  But I still do try to get autographs from former Mets when I can… hopefully I’ll be able to add a signature to this card at some point in the next few months.