On October 8th, 2006 a close friend of mine, Joe DeMattio, attended an evening dinner event in NYC that celebrated the 50th anniversary of Dan Larsen's World Series perfect game in 1956. Many perfect game pitcher alumni were in attendance at this event.
Perfect game pitcher Tom Browning sat at Joe's table. The thoughtful guy that he was, Joe had "Mr. Perfect" sign and personalize his program for the evening to me knowing that I am a big no-hit and perfect game collector.
Over the last few years I've managed to run down the autographs of several of the pitchers that were in attendance that night with a special assist from net54's own Randall Hahn.
Anyway, I lack only Sandy Koufax, Kenny Rogers and Randy Johnson to have this project completed. They would have been the only other two living members of this group, although I'm quite sure that The Gambler was not in attendance as he was chasing down a World Series berth in 2006 with the Detroit Tigers, FWIW.
I think it makes for a great signed piece of the perfect game club.
It has special meaning to me because every time I look at it I remember my friend Joe and all the great conversations that we had about the hobby and collecting tickets through the years. Joe had the best collection of tickets to Mickey Mantle HR games going and he was an expert in the area of game used baseball and basketball uniforms. RIP Joe. You're missed...