Interesting take on the modern autograph
 

Let me start by saying I'm really not an autograph "collector," but I do have quite a few of them. I remember my Dad always telling me to take pride in my signature, that it says a lot about you as a person.

Maybe it's because we as a society don't do a lot of handwriting anymore, but I think so many people today have lost this, and I know first-hand that Schmidt's take on the modern baseball player is spot on.

Anyway, an interesting perspective:

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...172235821.html

I don't disagree that many modern day autos are pretty terrible. Autograph ID threads are pretty common these days.
Saw this story posted on an autograph forum and it was mentioned that Schmidt's paid signature is substantially nicer than his freebie. Maybe Mike should have paid for those autos. :)

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/b...u/th_Prism.jpg

I think he makes a great point. I have only a few autographs, and occasionally consider moving a few of them. But there's a smaller handful that I simply wouldn't sell. Granted most are very inexpensive, but the few that I got in a situation where I got to spend a bit of time with the player mean more. The quick show autographs less so. And the ones where the overall experience wasn't great maybe less. The very few I didn't get in person are all pretty special, but nothing like my favorites.

Feller and B. Robinson were wonderful.
Bobby Orr kind of obnoxious, but not entirely unreasonable under the circumstances. Hardware store opening, two hour line, nice but sort of unlicensed item made from a licensed item. His exact comment - "Sigh....I really shouldn't sign this junk" said as he signed and handed it back. I almost stopped him, but my hesitation around guys like him I suppose worked in my favor.

I've long thought that someone with the right connections could do very well arranging expensive events for a handful of people to hang out and talk sports, maybe watch a game with a former player and get one autograph somewhere along the way.

Steve B

Waited one night at 1210 WCAU radio in Philly for Mike to get done his radio show to have an item signed. There were about 8 people waiting. Schmidt crawled out a window on the side of the building to avoid giving autographs.

My mom asked him to sign a team ball during spring training 1987 as he was heading to the clubhouse. He told her he would sign after he showered and dressed. She waited and waited. Then she saw a red headed guy jogging across an adjacent field toward some cars. My mom RAN HIM DOWN (after giving him a 150 yd headstart) and yelled at him. "Mr. Bigshot has to go out a back door and run away? Why didn't you just say no? And you should be ashamed, not only that you made a 45yo woman chase you, but she CAUGHT YOU!"

He apologized profusely, and meekly signed a perfect autograph.

That story is absolutely hilarious. I would have loved to have seen that live.

He makes a good point about the signature readability nowadays, but its a bit silly for him to talk about integrity of getting autos given the stories above.

This reminds me of a story a guy I met gave about Ron Santo. Santo was on some radio show talking about how he used to sign for hours after Cub games, sometimes not getting home till late evening after day games. This guy remembers getting hurdled by Ron Santo while Santo was leaving Wrigley and there were a bunch of of kids outside waiting (I guess he used to sprint to his car all the time). He called into the show and chewed Santo out for stretching the truth. 1 week later, the guy got a signed ball in the mail from guess who? Ron Santo.

Obviously his opinions have changed over time since the mid 80s. He told me the same thing about "the little kids" and the dealers (and it was obvious) when I asked him to PLEASE not smudge his signature! I had three others that each had a distinct thumb-rub, and he told me he did that to retard resale. He smudged that one, but the next time he obliged me after I told him I gave the others away, which was true.

The timeframe above for reference is 5 balls for 20 attempts at the ballpark after games.

My signature looks way too ugly, anyone know where I can go to relearn how to properly write in cursive, I'd love to learn to write my name in such a loopy way as Pete Rose or Mike Schmidt. Right now Mine is C---S F-----Z

Just grab a pen and start making lines of loops. Try to get them all the same height, roundness and spacing.

At least that's what they made us do in penmanship class. I really didn't help me any, but the freehand lettering in drafting class did.

Steve B

Thanks for the advice- I guess I'll start.

When in elementary, the teacher gave us a test on writing our own names in cursive. It was 1997, and I had an Alex Fernandez Florida marlins cap with his facsimile signature on the side.

Got an a on that test and another a on the next one.

I failed when I finally wrote Alex instead of Chris.

To this day it still has the same last name portion, but I'm ashamed of it.

I have a sharpie here- anyone want to send me a baseball and I'll return it with 20 Babe Ruth sigs in the process. :)