Best Autographs You Ever Got

I'm sorry I thought this was sportsjournalists.com, no?

Write Brained, I don't know why you think I was looking down on anyone from my post. I even went out of my way to say I wasn't trying to offend anyone, I was just saying that I don't get it. I don't have any problem with anyone getting autographs. If that's your thing, go get some signatures. All I was saying is that, even if I wasn't a journalist, I don't need a name on a piece of paper for proof that I met someone, it's not like I'm going to be out on the schoolyard bragging about it and have someone doubt my story (OK that last sentence was written in a "looking down my nose" tone).

 

I coached little league teams for 8 years. I have recieved plaques, dinner certificates, trophies, and a key ring one year. I also have 8 years worht of signed team balls. And two high school teams that I helped out. Those are what I have on the shelf. The rest of the stuff is put away.

And now that many of the kids I coached are about to graduate from high school, I wonder when I got so old.

 

I'm loving all these stories!

Couple more quickies:

Ex-girlfriend worked at a country club and when REM was in town she got Peter Buck and Mike Mills to sign a napkin. Mike Mills drew eyeglasses with his signature. I don't think Michael Stipe tees it up.

Have the entire Ohio State 2002 championship team on a poster, with the offense all in red and the defense all in silver. Chris Gamble signed one in each color.

Getting to meet Charles, one of my all-time favorites, and getting him to sign a Rockets jersey.

Yeah, it's a dorky thing to want someone's autograph, but it's a fun hobby to me.

The only two I want that I don't have are Michael Jordan on a poster of the free-throw line slam dunk that I own, and Eddie Vedder on anything.

 

Worst: Bob Feller. It was a joyless, somewhat depressing experience. It was so mechanical for him. I didn't even get to finish asking him for it. He just took the ball, signed it and said nothing.

Best: Stephanie Seymour.

 

Mike Lupica- asked him to sign Travel Team for a friend of mine named "Boom". He gave me a funny look then signed.

 

My mom got me Peyton Manning's autograph when he was at the Derby one year.

And in my freshman year when the Ravens won the Super Bowl, I got Brandon Stokley to autograph one of the pictures the local paper (that I know work for) ran that next day. It was a picture of him catching one of the long touchdown passes in the game. I had been emailing him off an on for a few weeks after the game and asked him if he would autograph it for me. He did and a couple of days later he was traded to the Colts. I got the picture back laminated and signed, and it's still hanging on my wall at home.

 

Did he stand up in a chair and give you an Irish jig while doing so?

 

Y.A. Title
Carmen Basilio
Nelson Rockefeller

 

willie, mickey and the duke.

 

Ah, ballplayers can be charming, can't they? I was hanging around the batting cage once when some kid yelled to Tito Fuentes, "Can I have a ball." To which Tito loudly replied, "Sure, kid. Which one you want, left one or right one?"

 

You got the story right, but Russell's policy went to hell when he started doing a limited number of shows and signing for several hundreds of dollars per signature.

 

Mr Bastard,

Spoke to Sir Edmund -- he was listed in the NZ phone book -- for an obit of a Canadian mountaineering guy (whose claim of acquaintance with SEH was less than the departed had advertised).

Scott Young (Neil's father, my predecessor in a former job, a boyhood hero) autographed one of his books (that I had taken out on loan from a library and that I've never returned).

Budd Schulberg would be up there (first edition of What Makes Sammy Run). JR, I drank beer with the Rocket in '84 at a head table of some function -- Dick Beddoes was on the other side of me. Bookwise, Mordecai Richler, Morley Callaghan and Joe Mitchell, whom I went to lunch with a couple of times.

YHS, etc