Not all Yankee fans are bad

A few weeks back, Judson of My Cardboard Habit asked me on Twitter if I minded sticker autos. Of course not, I said. While I prefer on-card (who doesn't?), there are plenty of places for stickers in my collection.
He agreed.

That was followed up by an email that simply said "It's coming" with a collection of numbers. Those numbers, of course, were a tracking number.

Fast forward a few days, and this card showed up:

Whoa! Now, as you'll see in my most-wanted section on the right hand side of my blog, Brett Gardner is an autograph that I didn't have in my collection, and really wanted. He's been a very good Yankee since 2008, one of the few that has actually had an impact from the horrid drafts of the mid-2000s.

I'm not sure why I didn't have his auto. I guess they aren't that easy to come by, and he doesn't sign TTM. So it just sort of escaped my collection. Until now.

However, that's not all. Equal to the kind gesture of the card was a post-it note. I've only pictured a snippet, but man, how powerful is that? The truth is, I feel the same way. Some of my best trading friends have turned out to be from rival teams. Judson is a Rangers fan, the same Rangers that knocked the Yankees out of the 2010 ALCS. And it's not just the Rangers. A few of my favorite traders are fans of the Boston Red Sox. I've found guys like Matt Perry and Mark Hoyle to be some of the best card-collecting dudes out there.

On the flip side, I know Yankee fans are despised all over the country, but hopefully you've been surprised that some of us are a civil bunch, and that your experiences with me, Zippy, Drew, Tim, etc. have made you realize that not all Yankee fans are bad.

Judson, thanks for not only the awesome Gardner auto, but also for being my friend.