[scooter729]

Slightly off-track, but worthy of sharing I thought.....

One of the hottest prospects in baseball right now is Roman Anthony, who was recently called up to the Red Sox. My kids had an opportunity last week to spend some time at batting practice on the field and meeting the players, one of which was Anthony. He was very nice and signed a few things for them.

I don't collect modern cards (other than to buy a few for the kids to get signed last week), so I wasn't familiar with Anthony's autograph. There are tons of his signed cards on eBay, and the signature on all of those looks like what you see in the first pic - an illegible squiggle. These players likely are signing hundreds (or likely, thousands) of cards for the companies at a time, so the autograph becomes a quick scribble to get through the massive pile they need to sign.

Now compare that to the two cards he signed for my kids. Not exactly Williams or DiMaggio, but totally legible.

I'm the first to squawk about how players don't take pride in their signatures any more, but after seeing the different versions Anthony used and considering the vast quantities they likely have to sign, it did make me think about it a bit differently for a bit.....