Best Autographs You Ever Got

I have it on an index card. My great goal is to get Neil Armstrong to sign the same card, which I will then frame.

 

That would be cool as hell.

 

Oh yeah, biggest a-hole award goes to Eddie Murray. Tried to get his autograph (he was talking to a friend or something so maybe it was warranted) when he was with the Dodgers but he was a total jerk about it. I did get Tommy Lasorda to sign a ball on that same outing.

 

I got one pre-journo career from some minor-league spare part named Matt Morris.

 

Dizzy Dean and Joe DiMaggio at an old-timers game at the Astrodome.

 

My autograph tales are tales of loss. :'(

I was at a charity softball game in about 1978 and got John Montefusco and Willie Mcovey to autograph my glove. A glove I then continued to play with for the next 10 years or so. Both of the autographs faded away.

My grandmother was the lost luggage person for Greyhound. After trying to find the person who left the luggage, it was all put into boxes for auction. One of the job perks was that she could set up her own boxes and then bid on them. She gave me a big red machine autographed ball. George Foster, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, all of them. I was proud of it and put it on my shelf. No plastic bubble around it. Took it down to show people. Today, you can barely tell that it was signed by anybody.

When I was about 12, I wrote to Nolan Ryan (then with the Angels) asking for his autograph. I knew he would give it to me because I was his biggest fan. Months went by and nothing happened, then, magically, he came through. Hand signed picture. I kept that through move after move. I last moved 7 years ago. The picture is no where to be found.

Sigh.

 

Earl Campbell, Houston Oilers legend. My mom snagged it for me in a restaurant.

And, like Dogbert's claim, I have Jesus' signature on a baseball.

 

April 1968, Jet Stadium, Columbus Ohio. Exhibition game between the Tigers and Reds. I was ten, and had never seen major leaguers before. Got Freehan, Rose, Bench, Kaline (he hit a home run during the game), Lolich, McClain, Nolan, Lee Maye, Tommy Helms, McAuliffe, Northrup etc., about half the guys on each team, mostly as they went to the bus after the game.

But what I remember most is Tony Perez telling me to fuck off. I'd never heard the word before, and had to ask my older brother what he meant. You can't put a price on memories like that.

 

And you have Terry Puhl's.

 

Muhammad Ali, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Joe Frazier, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Walter Cronkike.

 

And Dickie Thon's.

 

And didn't you get Hakeem's?