So, I just got back from the big Sun-Times show that took place in Chicago over the weekend. This was my first show that I attended this year and it went very well. We got a lot of good feedback about our website, Tuff Stuff’s new look and a lot of people had very kind words about Gavel Chat.

To my surprise, I found out that one of my biggest readers was Colts running back Joseph Addai. Here’s a picture of Addai telling me that he wanted to give me his watch (which had to have had at least 1000 diamonds in it) as long as I continued to blog every day and if I would lay off the gameusedforum.com members. Alright, Addai doesn’t really read this stuff, but I did have a great chat with him about the hobby and public signings.

He told me how awesome it was to sit right next to guys like Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith and Marshall Faulk and to get advice from some of his heroes. He looked like a kid in a candy store chatting it up with the two legendary running backs.

Addai also said that he has started collecting his own memorabilia, like game balls and jerseys. He didn’t start collecting this stuff until now, but by doing shows like Sun-Times, I think it has kind of opened his eyes up to how neat this stuff really is.

Like I said, the autograph lineup was pretty darn good. Recent Hall of Fame inductees, Goose Gossage and Dick Williams were on hand and even George “Shotgun” Shuba made his way to the SCD booth to chat with me about his time on the Dodgers and how tough and great of a teammate Jackie Robinson was.

There were many attendees at the event who commented on my recent blog about different forum members and their rants. It was nice to get their views and I got to pick their brains a bit on what their views were of the hobby, and some actions on message boards that may or may not be appropriate.

Not to jump around topics too much, but I just want to reinforce how refreshing it is to see how guys like Adrian Peterson, Charles Woodson, George Brett and others who chatted with fans at the show. These guys seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with the fans. I know that it isn’t cheap to get a signature from these guys, but all the fans I talked to had a great time.

Andre Rison was a no-show and left some Packers fans out in the cold, who wanted to get their Super Bowl XXXI helmets signed. I also wanted to chat with Bad Moon about his days in Green Bay, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.