Best Autographs You Ever Got

Are you sure Ambrose signed it himself?

 

Duke Tomato.

 

Best:
Art Fleming. Got to play Jeopardy! at a sporting goods press event some years ago. He signed it, "Thanks for remembering."

Worst: When I was 14 and Dan Driessen(!) promised me he'd sign and asked me to wait outside a hotel bar in Houston. After an hour I walked in and found him at a booth in the back. I loudly asked when he planned to sign. The guys he was with looked startled, so he up and signed a napkin. Prick.

 

I feel the pain. Our house was flooded about 11 years ago and in the flood among the things my father lost were his law school books, an antique refrigerator and 1) a photo of my late grandfather and Joe DiMaggio taken in New Castle, PA, and 2) a lunch counter check from Miami that bore the signature of Muhammad Ali.

 

Wow, what a prick. :

 

In 1981, the Rochester Red Wings visited my hometown for a minor league game. Being an avid Orioles fan (even then as a kid) I went out to find Cal Ripken Jr. We were down by the third-base side when I got an autograph from Mark Corey. I asked him where Cal Ripken was. Mark motioned out to a guy taking grounders (I'm sure I had no idea what Ripken looked like back then) and yelled to him "Cal!"

Ripken stopped taking grounders and came over to sign my piece of paper (and then of course stuck around to sign others as they filtered down). I've never been an autograph person (I maybe got one or two in my life after this - maybe), but I still have that paper.

 

This reminds me of my three most memorable autograph stories.

1.) Spring training 1989. We went to West Palm Beach because my dad liked the idea of seeing two teams (the Braves and Expos) and being in a cool area instead of going to Hell Port St. Lucie to see my favorite team, the Mets. It took nearly 20 years for me to realize my dad was never more right about anything in his whole life. Anyway, I went down there with every Expo and Brave card I could find and got some great autographs...Tim Raines on a "Rock Raines" card and Pascual Perez on an '89 Donruss. I should have gotten him to autograph an atlas. I remember getting Bruce Benedict on a Score card on our last day there. I put the card in a binder as the car pulled out of the stadium and felt a bit melancholy as I realized life could not get any better than spending a week in Florida at baseball games.

Anyway, I was bound and determined to get Ron Gant, who was a 20-20 stud in the making for the Braves. The locker room, I believe, was accessible from the first floor concourse, by the concession stands and stuff. So after the stars left the game, I bolted down to try and get Gant.

Gant's nowhere to be found but Tom Glavine comes out and is signing. I find my 1988 Topps Glavine rookie and get into line with a handful of kids looking for an autograph. But Gant shows up and kids flock him. I want to dart to Gant, but I feel like it'd be rude to just leave after Glavine was taking the time to sign for everyone around him. So I eventually got Glavine...and Gant was gone. I was so pissed. Why didn't I just stake out Gant? Now I've got this autograph from a guy who went 7-17 for a 100-loss team last year. Fucking great.

Eighteen years and 281 wins later I'm pretty happy I stayed in line for Glavine instead of bolting for Gant.

2.) Brooks Robinson: My Uncle Joe--my dad's closest living relative when I was a kid--sent me a personalized Brooks Robinson Hall of Fame lithograph for my 13th birthday. Very, very cool.

3.) Mike Schmidt: In 1987, the year Schmidt hit his 500th homer, my parents went to some high-falutin charity dinner/auction organized by my dad's boss. They basically went because my dad wanted to curry favor with his boss. So imagine my surprise when Dad comes home and gives me an autographed Schmidt bat that reads MIKE SCHMIDT 500.

No idea what he paid for it, except it was enough to cause the biggest fight my parents ever had. Later in the auction, someone put up for bidding a walk-on role to Kate And Allie--which was the favorite show of my mom and sister. My mom starts bidding and it gets deep into four digits. My dad says "That's enough." Mom says "No we're bringing home a bat to BYH, we're going to bring home something for SYH too." Dad says "No, we're not spending thousands of dollars for a walk-on role for Kate and Allie." Mom says "Oh but it's ok to spend a fortune on an autographed bat?" They didn't talk for the next two days.

Dad likes me more than he likes my sister!!!

 

I'm sure there are many jokes to be made from this list, but I'm probably not the man to make them -- suffice to say that I never knew Walter was Jewish.

 

Mickey Mantle, Don Larsen and Elie Wiesel.

 

I almost forgot that I got Neil Lomax and some of the old St. Louis football Cardinals to sign my stuff one year at training camp in Charleston, Ill. They held camp at the school where I later graduated. I have no idea what happened to those cards. I probably traded them for a Playboy or something when I was 13.

 

Here's my question. Why do we (or did we) want these. In my guise as a mild mannered radio morning man (you know, the guy many of you hate ;D) I am asked for my autograph from time to time. I have been in the same job at the same station for 11 years and I can't keep myself from asking "are you sure" every time someone asks for mine. And it never fails to crack up my wife and daughter.

So after I sign, they just have a piece of paper with my name on it. And those of us that have these autographs have pieces of paper with someones name on it.

I know I am much older now, but what's the draw?

 

When you're a kid it's an excuse to meet - and proof that you met - someone famous ... I just took the young'in to Disney World and you'd think the best part would be the rides, etc ... but no, it was meeting the Princesses and having them sign her autograph book ... didn't matter to her that we had to wait in line for 3 hours ...

Added: As an adult I don't want anyone's autograph. Well, maybe a photo, if it's a hot celebrity ... hell, it was almost tempting to pose with "Ariail" in a bikini when the kid was done ...