I am curious if anyone has a copy in their possession or has even seen a version of this card, signed by the prospect D. Daboll, who never played in the majors? Kekick, Valle and Lefebvre are the others on the card and I have seen copies signed by the others, sometimes multiples. I would love to just see a legit copy of this card signed by Daboll.
I became interested in this after starting a project to get every possible Dodger player who was on the roster, but also any card subjects as well. Sometimes guys get Dodger cards, but never actually play. Such was the case for Dennis Daboll.
I realized at some point that I had never seen a signed copy. I would search periodically, as it was one of the few cards that I had never seen signed and since I was collecting signed Dodger cards, many cards came up over and over, but never this one. Then I wondered why. I couldn't really find much on him until I dug down one August night in 2012 and found some old archived microfilm newspapers detailing his disappearance and subsequent death. It was believed that he had gotten lost or disoriented during a sudden snowstorm, while hiking in the Grand Canyon. They found him a couple weeks after he was reported missing, at the bottom of a cliff. He had died young and tragically, not long after his baseball career ended. I ended up writing a blog entry about it and a friend of his sister reached out to me. We corresponded over the years periodically and I asked if there might be a signature of his somewhere that they would be willing to sell or donate to my collection. Eventually, I was sent a couple letters that he sent home to family when he was in the Army. As cool as those are, there was no full signature. He did sign them Dennis, as you would if you were writing a family member.
Here is the blog entry, should you care to check it out.
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/ed...23726138484105
I later found an old minor league baseball that had his signature on it and bought it, but to this day I have never seen a signed copy of this 1965 Topps card. It really makes me wonder if any actually exist. He was out of baseball by 1971 at age 24 and would die very early in 1974. Did anyone present him a copy of the card to sign while he was floating around in the minors. It seems autograph collecting was less popular then. You had to think at least one was signed, but who knows.
Even though he never played MLB baseball, I suspect if one ever came to be for sale, it would bring in crazy money. Set collectors, team collectors or just rare signature collectors would probably make this card incredibly popular. If you collect this set signed and have this one tucked away, please share an image. I would love to come full circle and actually have an image of the card I will likely never actually own signed.