Frank Baker

[jad22]

Noticed that Love of the Game Auctions pulled a Frank Baker GPC (lot 1203) for being wife signed. I have not heard of this before. Does anyone have examples of this? Thanks
Please move to Autographs.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Baker suffered from poor health (I believe it was a stroke) late in life which severely hampered his ability to write. He could still sign, but it can be easily seen that it would have caused him a great deal of trouble and effort. Latter-day signatures look so pained.

Due to this, his wife assisted in answering the mail requests that came his way in the final years. There may very well have been more people than just her helping sign things.

[Fred]

Baker had a really nice signature. I'd post a pic but it won't show up.

[Lucas00]

Here is one.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by Fred

Baker had a really nice signature. I'd post a pic but it won't show up.

Yes, when he was healthy, it was very attractive. The later ones aren't, but in spite of how much it clearly cost him to do it, you could still read every letter. !

After his stroke, it looked as though it would have taken Buck Leonard ten minutes to sign each autograph. Buck was using his non-dominant hand to sign, too, as his other one had been rendered inoperable. But you could surely read every single letter in Buck's autograph.

If any players had a reason to start signing illegibly, it would have been these two, or anyone else for whom the very act of using a pen would have been such an issue. It just makes me dislike the slop dished out by modern players that much more. But modern baseball isn't even really baseball to me, so it shouldn't matter!

[jad22]

The one that was pulled looked pre-stroke so I was surprised. Looked pretty standard to me.

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Not whatsoever. If you saved a scan of it, look more closely. So many differences. It was the wife.