Well, That Didn’t Take Long

I have collected numerous signatures over the years. My two prized signings are a Dwight Evans batting practice jersey I had signed when I met him at a golf tournament, and a Carl Edwards jacket he autographed for me at a race.

I have dozens of NASCAR autographs, though I only really display ones I have gotten myself. Likewise, my Red Sox signatures tend to only get displayed if they are the result of a meeting.

QOTW: I have gotten many autographs at fan functions for the NewJersey Devils. I usually got the current yearbook autographed. My favorite autograph I ever obtained was from a ball player mentioned a while back in this blog: Roy White. This one was easy to get as I attended a baseball camp he ran when he was a Yankee and I was a kid.

QotW: My family and I had season tickets to the Philadelphia Phillies for 6-7 years during the final years at the Vet. I was about 8 when we started going and our first years was 1996. We were lucky enough to be selected to receive tickets to the All Star game that year. My Dad and I went early for batting practice, and I caught a foul ball hit by Ozzie Smith that nearly took my head off. He came over later on that night and signed the ball I caught. The next year, when the Toronto Blue Jays returned to Philadelphia for the first time since 1993, I had Joe Carter sign my 1993 National League Championship Hat. I never forget he looked me square in the eyes and said “You sure you want me to sign this”. The last story is one September the Eagles were at the stadium for a meeting, and there was a restroom and concession stand down by their locker room. I went down there as they were all coming out to watch the game that day and had 15 of them sign a baseball, which I still have.

That mariachi ski suit design is the brainchild of the “Prince” Hubertus character name-checked in the body of that article. Who’s about as Mexican as that American skier is.
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I was bigger into autographs growing up, not so much anymore. I have a few of the current O’s players like Adam Jones, Chris Davis, and JJ Hardy, as well as Nick Markakis, but I don’t have the ball with all of them on display, it’s kind of a whatever piece to me. I have another ball I’m more proud of with Robbie Alomar, who was my favorite player growing up, but there are a lot of other signatures on it of players who aren’t really important, so I doubt the ball is worth much of anything.

I have two different footballs on display with Joe Paterno’s and Hines Ward’s autographs, but I did not obtain those autographs myself, but rather my aunt did and got them for me as gifts.

And hardly any of that combine gear has the combine logo on it! How am I supposed to feel compelled to buy any of it???

“… . … UC Riverside’s sports teams are known as the Highlanders (because of the campus’s high altitude), so the school’s logo is a bear with a Scottish hat (from Phil). …”

The elevation of UC Riverside is at 1100 feet above sea level, towering over the 850 feet elevation of downtown Riverside. I get that altitude is experienced as a relative phenomenon, but c’mon… And the name for that “Scottish hat” is a Glengarry.

I’m in a grouchy mood this morning (can you tell?), so now let me address the QOTD. The whole autograph thing — which now manifests itself in mini-mobs of clamoring beseechers surrounding ballplayers in the hope of securing a scrawl that they intend to sell later on — has lost its erstwhile innocence and charm. I do, however, keep one very special autographed color photo of my uber-hero — “Best Wishes to the Connie Family, Joe Namath” it says — but the handwriting belongs to a guy I used to work with. Next step, I think, will be an autographed photo of Abraham Lincoln with “To Connie and kin: big thanks for hanging in there for The Last Great Hope.”

The link to the hockey advertising on the boards was excellent. However, it did not take into account that some of the arenas post ads over the ads between periods, so that rinks like Montreal get three in certain places, usually those are in view of the TV cameras

QotW: I interned in the Strength and Conditioning program with the Brewers in 2003. My job was to basically run through pregame stretches with the pitchers and go through any workouts with any starters on days they weren’t starting, throwing bullpens, etc. At the end of the year I had every pitcher, bullpen/pitching coach, etc. sign a ball for me. Now I’ve got 10 signed balls, but one from Joe Torre and one from Trevor Hoffman, as both of them have come through my work for dinners, etc.

In the summer of 1989 former Browns played former Steelers in a flag football game (!) at Baldwin-Wallace in Berea, Ohio. Before the game, players were available for autographs. I had saved old Kardiac Kids prints given away by Shell Oil during that wonderful 1980 season and was eager to get many of them signed by those who were playing that day–especially my favorite player, Brian Sipe. Instead of setting up tables or having some sort of system for signing, however, fans essentially mobbed the players as they entered the field. Sipe was a popular player so the scrum around him was the biggest. I waited and waited withstanding the shoving and general claustrophobic conditions until I finally got up to the former QB. I handed him my print and asked, “Could you make that ‘To Jason’?” He signed and handed back the paper. Protecting my possession the best I could, I made my way back through the throngs still awaiting their turns. Once past the crowd, I took a moment to examine my prize. Sipe had misheard my request and apparently only the long “a” sound resonated. The autograph read: “To Dave Brian Sipe 17.”

Not big on autographs or meeting famous people, however back in 1989 I did wait in line to get my copy of Home Game signed by Ken Dryden, as he was one of my favourite goalies when I was growing up. It happened over the Christmas break at a bookstore, and I still have the book.

Re. ticker item on UC Riverside mascot. Tam o’Shanter (Tam) is the name for the ‘Scottish hat’.

I took my son to the Pro-Am day for the Quail Hollow championship. It’s a lot of fun for kids to get signatures from golfers and athletes. He had a pin flag with a dozen signatures, including the eventual tournament winner.

The big prize was Cal Ripken Jr, and we had an authentic goofy bird hat for him to sign. My son was standing at the rail just holding out the cap, hoping… Cal’s playing partner, Ollin Browne grabbed the cap and signed the top of the bill. WTF!

Cal passed him up, but some young women we had been talking to took the cap and got him to sign it. Cap has Cal on the underbrim, and Ollin Browne on top… got to be one of a kind.

So…are those a bunch of Spalding logos on Dwight Howard’s jacket?

I mean the old Spalding logo (link), not the new one (link).

I have a copy of Bear Bryant’s autobiography. What makes it even more special to me is that it is personally signed for my grandparents (as my grandmother’s brother was a professor at the University of Alabama). With both of my grandparents passed away, I look at it more of a treasured family item than your traditional autograph, but it’s still a one-of-a-kind item.

QoTW: Mookie Wilson spoke, signed and posed for photos at the most recent Queens Baseball Convention. My older son was in Washington, DC on a class trip and I lent him my camera. Most of the time I live in the 20th Century – I don’t have cable, internet or a smart phone. Since I didn’t have my camera, I whipped out my trusty flip phone for my photo with Mookie. Everyone fell out. After signing, as I posed for the photo, Mookie pulled me aside and said, “When’s your birthday cause you might want to ask for a smart phone as a present.”

I have a lot of autographs but getting Cal Ripken Jr’s when I was 12 was the best.

I bought a 2,131 ball with the orange laces like the used in the game for like $30 at then “New Comiskey Park.” I used to go to a lot of White Sox games to get player’s autographs from the other team.

This was special because he passed me in the line twice and hurried down the line as I could tell he was finishing up. I stepped on 2 other kids and got it. Their parents yelled at me and I said, “if they wanted it bad enough they would have done the same.”

I still have it displayed as my favorite piece.

QOTW: Oh wow, I might have to categorize these.

When I was a kid there was (and still is) a AA baseball team in my hometown of Midland. Used to be for the Angels, currently affiliated with the A’s. Me and my dad used to buy packs of minor league cards and look for top prospects and try to catch them before the game. The visiting team guys were much easier to catch. The ones I can think of in this group are Carlos Beltran, Carlos Beltre, Johnny Damon, Troy Glaus, Benji Molina, Fernando Tatis, Juan Encarnation, and Scott Eyre. There were probably a few others, but those are the ones I can remember. Damon was the coolest, and played catch with me before warmups. Glaus had never seen the card I asked him to sign and offered to pay me to keep it, I pulled out a second identical card and told him he could keep one if he signed the other for me.

I got a few through promotions like Mike mentioned, Ed “Too Tall” Jones and Drew Pearson had events around my hometown. My dad was once responsible for picking up Bobby Richardson from the airport for a speaking event, and so I got his, and we talked about Yogi Berra and watched a AA baseball game with him. That was awesome.

Others, me and my dad would send off for. Some guys would sign and send it back others wouldn’t. Some would do it for a fee, and that was fine. Through this method, I got Hank Aaron, Lance Parrish, Bob Lilly, and a few others, although I drawing a blank on those.

Like Mike, I was gifted a Nolan Ryan signed baseball. In similar fashion, I went to an Astros game as a kid and sat next to a lady that claimed to be Shane Reynolds neighbor. We gave her our address not expecting much but after a few months, boom, Shane Reynolds signed cards showed up. I know I’m leaving some out but they’re all in storage at my parents house so it’s been a few years since I’ve gotten them out. My ultimate autograph would be Ken Griffey Jr. I’ve tried a few times but it hasn’t worked out.

I’m proud to say that I have never received, nor requested an autograph from an athlete.
I can’t think of a situation I might be in where those circumstances might change.

Lee

Not uni-related, but in the spirit of the Natinals, the Conklin pen company released a new line of American-made fountain pens with engraving that reads, “Toledo, Hoio, USA”:

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I met former White Sox slugger Bill Melton at a card/memorabilia show about 20 years ago. I tagged along with Mom, a long-time Sox fan herself.
Found out there was a one autograph per person limit, so the lady in front of us asked if I could get one for her son. My mom said I could; she’d get one for me.
So I shake big Bill’s hand and say, “Hi, I’m Frank.” Got the signature and stood to the side as my mom is talking with Beltin’ Bill Melton as if they were classmates in school. She asked him about the commercial he did for an auto manufacturer where he and a couple of teammates were in the shower singing about it, while Mom sang the jingle for him.
Bill got embarrassed, then laughed about it. “You know, when we shot that commercial, it was 32 degrees on location and it took a few takes. That was quite an experience I don’t miss.”

Definitely my favorite autograph experience.

QoTW:
I have an Arena League football signed by Ron Jaworski and Jon Bon Jovi (back when they co-owned the Philadelphia AFL franchise) which I received as a gift.
Back in ’83 (IIRC) a friend and I wanted to attend an open house/autograph/picture day being held by the Philadelphia USFL team, so we got ourselves down to the Vet via SEPTA. I can’t recall what I did with the signatures I obtained, but I know I still have a photo of Sean Landeta in an album somewhere.

QOTW: I’ve never been one to seek out autographs. I’ve wound up with a small handful over the years almost in spite of my apathy. Very few even stand out in my memory.

Perhaps the most notable is an autographed photo of Steve Largent and me when he was a U.S. Congressman. A work colleague arranged the photo session for a few of us in the office, so I went along with it because, well, why not? I also have an autographed photo of Hayden Fry during his days as Iowa’s head football coach. My dad interacted with him with some frequency for work, so at my dad’s request, Coach Fry signed photos with personal messages for everyone in my immediate family.

My favorite autograph, though, is from a fairly obscure former AFL defensive back. Several years ago, I helped a woman with a dead car battery jump start her car. I complimented her on her Denver Broncos sweatshirt, and she mentioned that her father had played a couple of years with the Broncos a few decades earlier. We chit-chatted for a bit and parted company. A few days later, I received a copy of link in the mail with link autograph and a personal note thanking me for helping his daughter.

I was never into autographs. Definitely not into standing in line (or a mob) to get one. Even in one-on-one situations, I’d usually just nod at a player or something. But I did get two autographs in my life: Cliff Robinson’s (the Cavalier, not the Trail Blazer) and former Pirates broadcaster Lanny Frattarre’s. Cliff’s was on a little piece of paper that I’ve since lost. Lanny’s is in a 1990 Pirates program, which is in my little corner of the basement.

Qotd: Not really an autograph guy. The only athletes’ autographs I have are 1) Joe Namath and 2) Joe Klecko on minihelmets. I didn’t meet either person, just bought the signed helmets. More recently, I went to two book-release events here in town and one of the perks was an autographed copy of the books. I didn’t wait in line or meet Jim Gaffigan, but got his signed book. The other was my son and I met Al Michaels at his book signing. Pretty cool, very nice fella.

When I was in High School I was in an airport in NY coming back from a ski trip and was waiting with my family for luggage. Coincidentally, Dan Marino and Curt Warner (the Seahawks RB, not the Rams QB) were also awaiting their luggage at the same location. It was quite late, and for some reason we were the only ones there. I got both autographs on a stupid piece of small note paper since that’s all I had. It’s long since lost.

Non-sports: I attended a drummer’s clinic over a decade ago and met/got autos from Dave Weckl, Dave Garabaldi, Steve Smith and Alex Acuna. I don’t expect anyone but a fellow drum geek to know who those folks are, but I still have those mounted on my wall at home in my drum room.

Question of the Week (2):

I already posted, but I don’t know how I could have possibly forgotten this one.

I was probably in the 6th or 7th grade and a buddy of mine hits me up on AIM instant messenger (dating myself as a early millennial) saying hes got an extra ticket to the Rangers-Yankees game at the Ballpark. He and his folks come by and pick me up and my buddy tells me they got the tickets because their cousin is a reliever for the Yankees, and they missed him getting traded from the Dodgers during the winter. So he set them up with tickets. The game ends in a Rangers loss (very typical for that time) and my buddy’s cousin actually got to pitch the 9th. So we go down to the tunnel to meet up with him and he hands us each a baseball and a pen. Jeter and A-Roid were long gone, but we got to chat with Mariano Rivera, Tony Clark, Gary Sheffield, Kenny Lofton and a few others and get their autographs. Mariano was absolutely awesome, and Sheff was 10x nicer than I thought he would be. I swear that ball still smells like his cologne and I got that ball probably 10 years ago.

The mariachi-inspired ski suit is FREAKING awesome!

The font on the Long Beach State TARK patch look like the original Star Trek logo font. (Looks like it; isn’t it.)

My second autograph story touches me on more of a personal level than the Cal Ripken story simply because it involves my favorite team/club – Internazionale (Inter Milan for the common folk)

I live in Japan but have followed Inter since living in Italy as a kid in the 80s. I go back to Italy with some regularity to go see a match or two whenever I can, but I never try to get autographs because it’s just impossible to get near the big stars of the big European clubs when in Europe. Your best bet is sometimes to head to their training grounds and hope that they adhere to their tentative training schedule or if they’re even in the mood to sign autographs.

But back in 2009, Inter decided to go on a summer tour of the US. Now I have friends and family in the US, so I decided I would use it as an excuse to go on a holiday, catch up with friends, see a couple of matches and perhaps have a better chance of getting an autograph of all my favorite players. After all, a significant percentage of European football players go unrecognized by the US population. A lot of them take vacations in the US in the summer and just stroll around like average folk in Miami with most people not knowing who they are.

So anyway, I decide to see a match in Los Angeles and another in Boston. I have friends in both places so it seemed to work out great. Not only that, but my friend in Los Angeles was able to get me some VIP passes, which increased my chances even further of being able to meet my favorite players and get some autographs.

I could write a book about my experiences but needless to say, I got everybody’s autograph that I wanted. Not only that but I got to meet my favorite player (Esteban Cambiasso) and was even able to shake his hand while he was walking back out onto the pitch for the second half.

Highlights were:

Marco Materazzi signing my friend’s Chelsea F.C. flag! Haha! I was outside of the locker rooms at the Rose Bowl getting Inter player autographs for myself, but also collecting Chelsea player’s autographs for my friend back in Japan. He had given me a Chelsea flag and just told me “if you can get some autographs, great. If not, no big deal.” So I brought it with me and got about ten Chelsea players to sign it. I was holding it in one hand when Marco Materazzi came out of the locker room and I asked him to sign a gagliardetto. He signs it and then pulls the flag out of my other hand as if to sign it. In Italian, I say “No no, that’s a Chelsea flag!” thinking that maybe he thought it was also Inter memorabilia because it was blue. He just shoots me a cheesy grin and continues signing his name on the Chelsea flag! To this day, my friend doesn’t know one of the autographs on his flag is not a Chelsea player!

Another highlight: Only a few minutes later, I walked out of the Rose Bowl via the player’s bus exit and Didier Drogba was just standing outside chatting with a couple of family members/friends. By that time of the night, I had got EVERYTHING I had wanted out of the night and was so happy and didn’t care what else happened. I think it was because of that reason, I had the audacity to put my arm around Didier’s shoulders and as if a close buddy, I say to him “Didier, come on… Come to Inter!” Him and his friends chuckle a little bit and he points to the woman that was with him and says “talk to my agent!” In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that but like I said, I had got everything out of the night already and I was already walking out of the stadium so what was the worst they could do? Kick me out? It was all in good fun and Didier realized it and flashed me a genuine smile to go with the laugh.

My ‘white whale’ was getting Jose Mourinho’s autograph outside of the hotel the team were staying at in Boston. I can’t remember the name of the hotel, but my friend had dropped me off out front only minutes before the bus arrived and had shot off to try to find parking while I tried to get autographs. Again emphasizing how unknown Inter was, the team bus just parked out front of the hotel and walked out right onto the sidewalk with no security or anything. I get a couple of autographs and JUST as I thought everyone was off the bus and I was walking away, Jose Mourinho rushes out of the bus. I thrust my limited edition club-published Inter book at him and beg him to sign it. He keeps walking and at first shrugs me off with the typical “I’m busy” wave of his hand. But he then glances down and sees the book. The book is a BIG book, expensive and it’s limited to only 1908 copies. Now in my mind, my conclusion is that he looked down at the book, realized “wait a minute, this isn’t just some dumb autograph hunter, he looks like a genuine supporter.” And with that he quickly stops, signs the book RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE, which is just so typical of his personality and walks off into the hotel. Needless to say, I was as giddy as a schoolgirl.

Low point of the trip – Inter Milan played AC Milan in Boston and AC Milan’s hotel (which I’m pretty sure was the Four Seasons? I’m not sure) was only a few blocks away. So once I had caught up with my friend, I said we should go over to Milan’s hotel and see whether we can meet/get autographs.

Hooooooooly hell. They had the entire front section of the hotel lined off and had all sorts of security personnel. It was ridiculous. The crowd was huge too. We stood around maybe for a half hour and finally the Milan bus turns up. The fenced off area kept all the fans at least 20 yards away from the bus, so when the players started getting off the bus, even with a crazy crowd, almost NONE of the AC Milan players signed autographs and simply headed directly into the hotel. From memory, Gennaro Gattuso signed one or two things, as did Andrea Pirlo… but that was it. The entire bus full of staff and players might have spent a grand total of 15 seconds signing four autographs for a crowd of many hundreds and then ran off into the hotel. I felt REALLY sorry for the Milan supporters. My friend and I got to talking with some of the Milan supporters and showed them how successful I had been meeting the Inter players and getting autographs. We explained how Inter had no security around their hotel and how they were all very happy to sign autographs for the ten or so fans hanging around the front of the hotel. Many of them were really jealous (in a good way, not a mean-spirited way) and were disappointed with how little fan service they had received.

Anyway, I got many, many autographs, photographs and memories and they all serve as a very wonderful reminder of a thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

I mostly have music-related autographed stuff (one I especially like is an issue of Trouser Press with Joey Ramone on the cover). Here’s a shot of Mark Lindsay (lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders) autographing an album for me at a rehearsal studio we were using in prep for a short tour about two years ago:

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The only “sports-related” autographs that I have are an 8×10 color glossy photograph signed by the circa 96 rasslin’ Four Horsemen. WHOOOO!

I never seem to have anything for athletes to sign (hat, shirt, program, card, whatever) when I run into an athlete, and I’m not really into just having them scrawl a sig on a napkin.