TTM to now
 

Back in the 80's was my heyday for TTM autograph collecting. I remember being incredibly excited to check the mailbox when I would come home from school to see if I had one or several SASEs returned to me. This particular instance gave me pause as I felt terrible for Vic's wife. That must have been hard to write back given the circumstances and by NO means was I owed a response. It was, still, very kind of her to let me know he had passed months prior and I kept the letter ever since. A few weeks ago I won an auction for a signed Vic Raschi 8x10. It felt good to finally acquire his autograph that I was seeking since the late 80's. Naturally, I took out the letter I had written him 32 years ago with his wife's inscription and smiled...

That was nice of her to write back. I almost had the same thing happen to me with Al Dark; in early October 2014, my SASE came back with 'Unable to sign/Thank you for understanding' stamped on the back. I figured my card would be returned unsigned, but he had signed it. A couple weeks later, I saw a request from another collector get returned unsigned, then a couple weeks after that, Dark died. It was good of him to keep signing as long as he did; it couldn't have been easy towards the end.

I've heard that until fairly recently, Ringo Starr signed and returned every autograph request. It's amazing to me that so many of these ballplayers in the last 30 years or so, long after their autographs had become marketable commodities, continued to honor TTMs. They must have been so grateful for what that kind of fame had done for their lives.

I received my cards back signed by Russ Nixon two years after he passed away. It seemed the return letter was lost in some papers but his relatives mailed it back to me with the explanation that they found it.

Holy cow Jake! What a story! That was very nice of the family….

In the 1970’s, being from the Detroit area I sent Charlie Gehringer a letter asking if I could stop by his home and have some items signed. This is what came in the mail. I was able to get some items signed later at card show.

Cards
 

From 1989-1991 all I did was spend my allowance on stamps and send cards to athletes at their home stadiums. I beat the odds and got a Michael Jordan 1989 Fleer Sticker back signed in 1989 and even then at school, that was all anyone could talk about. I can still remember the excitement of seeing my own handwriting in the mailbox, knowing it was cards coming back signed, and opening them to see who was inside. WAY better than opening packs!