The Ralph Winnie Autograph Collection

[JimStinson]

Someone asked me the other day about a Government postcard they had just bought somewhere and asked me if I had ever heard of the person it was addressed to on the reverse and the name was "Ralph Winnie". It occurred to me that there is probably alot of new collectors in the hobby that have never heard of Ralph so I thought I'd share this.
Ralph passed away in 2004 after a long battle with cancer. In the mid 1980’s Ralph and I developed a running correspondence and spoke regularly by phone. He started collecting baseball autographs in the 1940’s and seemed to know EVERYTHING about baseball and baseball autographs. He was modest, never boastful, never brash. Always positive, always helpful especially to new collectors . He was a virtual encylopedia of autograph facts and folklore. He began collecting by writing players through the mail and could tell you little known facts about the signing habits of the stars and non-stars spanning almost 50 years. What made his collection so unique was that after writing to most of the retired players like Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Honus Wagner etc he turned his attentions to contemporary players of the day. While most collectors could say they had a Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays in their collection, how many could say they had a Mickey Mantle signed one week after his first at bat or a Willie Mays signed two months before he played his first major league game? Since he collected everyone and anyone who ever appeared in a major league baseball game his theory was “A rookie player never turned down an autograph request” This method would prove useful too for the “cup of coffee” players who vanished or died shortly after debuting in “The Show” names like Woody Crowson, John Carden, Webbo Clarke, Wenc Gonzales, Charlie Peete & Dick Wantz just to name a few. Later in the 1970’s through 1990’s his collecting shifted to obtaining his autographs in-person at the ball park and at spring training games. He developed close friendships with many former ball players among them Red Rolfe and Bob Feller.
His collection became so massive that during the 1970’s and 1980’s many news agencies carried stories about his collection and he was a frequent guest on radio talk shows in the Pacific Northwest where he lived. Around 1990 Ralph mentioned to me that he had been thinking about selling his collection. We discussed various options and finally settled on the idea of his sending me a package every couple months or so. Since he collected by debut year the idea was to send me his collection by specific year, I’d make an offer we’d agree and I’d get another debut year when he could pack it up. We started with a package of players who played from 1876-1880. Little did I know at the time that we’d be doing that for almost 12 years ! My last conversation with him was about two weeks before he passed away, he was calling to say goodbye. We ended up talking about his favorite team the Seattle Mariners.
One of many great people I've met in this hobby. Yes there always was and still are FAR more Good guys than bad.