Out of context autographs

[baseballart]

I often look at some autographed items and wonder why the owner had the player sign the item. As a book collector, I'm not keen on signatures of players who aren't featured in the book, particularly if they are from a later era.

Here's an example of Doc Young's 1954 Great Negro Baseball Stars.

Ray Burris? Bob Lemon? (at least i think it's Bob Lemon, but perhaps not) What was the owner thinking?

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/155/381753890_71c2e35dc5_o.jpg

[Mr. Zipper]

Sometimes "more " is not better. This is one such case.

[GrayGhost]

Yeah, thats definitely Bob Lemon. At least Ray Burris is African American, but still never played in the negro leagues. Makes no sense to have either of them on there.

[howard38]

Bob Lemon was often mentioned by Larry Doby as one of the few Cleveland Indian players that went out of his way to befriend him when he was a rookie. His signature is still out of place but at least the only white player's signature isn't Ben Chapman or Dixie Walker.

[baseballart]

I wasn't aware about that for Bob Lemon; thanks.

Max

[novakjr]

Was Lemon mentioned or quoted in the book? If so, I think it fits..

[Gary Dunaier]

I often look at some autographed items and wonder why the owner had the player sign the item.

Sometimes it was just a case of "he was there."

Case in point (albeit non-vintage): In July 2010, Empire City Casino in Yonkers, NY had an event where they were to give away copies of Bill Madden's new George Steinbrenner biography, and Madden would be there to talk about Steinbrenner and sign copies of the book.

After the event was announced, Steinbrenner passed away, but the event took place. Madden did not attend, for reasons I don't recall (except that they were legitimate - I think he attended some Yankees or Steinbrenner function, perhaps the funeral). In Madden's place, Rick Cerrone (the former Yankees PR guy, not to be confused with Rick Cerone the catcher) spoke - and he signed books on request.

Basically, we had the books, and he was there.

Incidentally, Empire City Casino promised to send everyone bookplates signed by Madden that we could put in our books. We never received them.

[Den*nis O*Brien]

"Sometimes it was just a case of "he was there."

This was certainly the case for this autograph. In the summer 1961 I stopped at Bronko Nagurski's Standard Oil service station in International Falls Minnesota while in transit to a Ontario fly in fishing camp. I was reading this book on the drive and "He was there". I had slowed down on buying packs of cards and this opened an entirely new area of collecting.