tony oliva is in my hall of famer collection

i know quite a few twins fans that were very happy to hear that tony oliva was voted in to the hall of fame by the golden days committee earlier this month.  i had prepared for the possibility by picking up a certified autograph card of him for my hall of famer collection:

that's a 2000 fleer greats of the game autograph card. here's the back:

one twins executive noted that he doubted there was a baseball fan in the state of minnesota that didn't have at least two tony oliva autographs thanks to his propensity for signing and interacting with fans as a team ambassador. that assessment was true for me - i have three or four items signed by him - but i didn't have a certified auto.

one of the non-certified autographs in our home is in one of my son's team yearbooks. we were at twins' spring training in 2008, and i pointed oliva out. my son approached him to sign the yearbook and i think oliva thought i sent him on my behalf. even so, he signed the book and tapped my son on the head. since then i've seen oliva at a number of team events and most recently had him sign a 1978 topps twins team card for my half-hearted attempt at a signed set of that release.

oliva's career concluded before i began following baseball, but i had his 1974 topps card early on in my collecting days and was impressed with the text on the back that noted "led al in batting three times; led al in basehits five times; led al in doubles four times". oliva never did lead the league in any categories again, although he took advantage of the newly created designated hitter position to extend a career that was going to be cut short due to knee problems.

longtime teammate (and now fellow hall of famer) bert blyleven had long been an advocate of oliva's regarding his being deserving of recognition for the hall of fame, even to the point of annoying voters who were deciding blyleven's fate if i recall correctly. i could appreciate that risk on blyleven's part, and it made me take a closer look at oliva's numbers. i am glad that the committee did as well!

by the way, i've updated my hall of famer collection on my want site - i decided not to show it in its entirety as part of these posts anymore.