Oh, Brett Favre.
Rays, dreams, basements, and drafts

Autographs and my favorite book

So my sportswriting hero, Joe Posnanski, wrote a post about autographs and Willie Mays. I think about autographs a lot; I guess that comes with the territory of seeing ballplayers sign for all kinds of people, day after day.

Sure, I have a few signed objects - a couple of tickets stubs and hats, and a few really off-the-wall objects including a souvenir popcorn bucket and tiny personal fan. And then there’s a bat that Mike Sweeney used to use, which he signed and gave to me one day last summer. That bat is probably one of the Top 5 things I would save in the event of a house fire. I like those items, and I like remembering the rush of getting to talk to some of my favorite ballplayers, then excitedly telling my parents about every word that was said. (”I told him, ‘good game,’ and he was like, ‘thanks!’ It was SO COOL!”) I love watching the next night’s game and thinking, “I met that guy!” whenever someone whose autograph I had just gotten came up to bat.

You don’t get any of that if you pay for a signed card or picture on eBay, so what’s the point? I’m not judging; but like Joe and several of his commenters, I’ve just always tried but failed to see the appeal.

Anyway, none of that is really my point anyway. My point was that I wanted to pass along a story that Paul White told in the comment section of the Posnanski post…my mom e-mailed me and described this comment as  “must-read.” I agree, so here it is:

On a broiling hot day in the summer of 2005, I stood in line with my son outside The K to get Buck O’Neil’s autograph on Negro Leagues Appreciation Day. We got there extra early because we knew they wouldn’t be signing for long. In fact, we missed out on his autograph at the same event the year before because they cut the line off after 30 minutes. This year, we were going to be sure.

So we stood there and sweated bullets for an hour or so, just waiting for the guys to show up. Some dude was selling bottles of water nearby and must have made a fortune that day, from me alone.

The players finally arrived, and Buck’s line, naturally, was quite a bit longer than the others who came out that day. I felt bad for them until I realized that they likely wouldn’t have been there at all if not for Buck’s efforts to keep the Negro Leagues alive in our memories so many years after they folded. The entire time we were waiting, I told my son Buck O’Neil’s story, and he was genuinely eager to meet this guy that he’d never heard of before.

So we get to the front of the line, and my son hands him his baseball. Buck, who had been signing away without comment for several minutes, head down, probably exhausted in the stifling heat, saw that it was a child’s hand giving him the ball. He looked up, and gave him the classic Buck O’Neil smile.

“How you doin’, Home Run?”, he asked my son.

“Fine Mr. O’Neil.”

“Are you a ballplayer? You look like one to me.”

“Yes, I play baseball.”

“Well tell you what,” Buck replied, as he handed the signed ball back to my son. “Your next game, you hit one out for old Buck.” Then he winked.

Needless to say, my son was pretty much floating when he walked away. Buck then signed a ball for me, and my son and I walked back to the car to lock them up so we wouldn’t ruin them during the game. Later, when the Negro Leagues players were introduced before the game, the video board ran a clip of the autograph signing. What did they show? My son getting his ball signed by Buck O’Neil, right down to the wink at the end.

The next year, when I told my son that Buck had passed away, he cried like he’d lost someone in the family.

So now, as a 40-year old man with a signed Buck O’Neil ball proudly displayed in his rec room, do I feel a bit silly for having stood in line for an autograph as a grown man?

Not in he least.

(For more greatness about Buck O’Neil, read this book.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 12:58 am and is filed under Baseball, Minda's Take. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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