Michigan Garage Sale 2012: in which I buy some sweet stuff

A few of you might remember that I made the short trip last year down to UM's Indoor Track building to experience the annual craziness of the Michigan Athletic Garage Sale.  Dustin and I got to hang out for a bit there, and I also got to meet Jeff and some of his family in-person, which was cool.  All of us bought some stuff and a good time was had.

This year's version was today, and I came away with some fun stuff again.  As I've already told a few people, I just missed out on picking up some nice wood bats for cheap, and I was only able to dig up one new baseball jersey, but I still had a great time and ended up with all this:

A chest protector and shin guards.  Why?  Why not?  Definitely used, I'm just not sure if they're game-used, but they could prove useful somehow.

A composite, used fungo bat (35 inches/22 ounces).  I love going to the park and hitting fly balls, and this should be a lot of fun to use--I've always wanted a fungo bat, and not just because the name is awesome.

Five t-shirts for $5!  I'll probably be giving most of these away but may keep one or two for myself.

A size 50 gray baseball jersey.  Not sure who #34 was since nobody on a recent roster had that number--maybe a coach?  Anyway, I'd been wanting a gray jersey since I spotted them last year but missed out.  Too bad it's so enormous, but I usually get my jerseys pretty large anyway, so I'll enjoy wearing this one, and it'll be a good replacement for one I'm sending Larry at ECDG since he obviously couldn't make it all the way out here this weekend.  You gotta respect a guy who preaches the Maize and Blue all the way out in the Pacific Northwest!

The surprise of the day was definitely this autographed ball. As I was flipping through the cheap t-shirts, I noticed this ball and picked it up out of curiosity, then noticed the autograph.  I brought it to the checkout with me just in case and found out that it was just $5.  SOLD!  Turns out the signature belongs to sophomore pitcher Jake Engels.  The signature may be a bit smudged and I may not know a lot about the guy, but it's still a pretty cool piece of memorabilia to have, and at that price, too!

Next year I'm looking to get there earlier--not because the lines were bad, they moved--but to make sure I can get my hands on some much-wanted stuff, including the aforementioned wood bats and more baseball jerseys.  As for this year, I again enjoyed the craziness and chaos of an indoor grab-all-the-memorabilia-you-can-carry sale, including multiple grown men carrying closets worth of game-worn jerseys of teenagers, sitting on the floor and sorting through them in hopes of selling them at a mark-up on eBay.  Hmmm, maybe the chest protector, shin guards and bat will come in handy next year after all....