Childhood autograph hunting
 

Let's have your stories of childhood autograph hunting....

In 1982, I was 14 and living in Dallas. The Texas Rangers were certainly not the best team in baseball. In fact, it was pretty easy to understand why Dallas was a football town. Even with a W-L record of 64-98, I enjoyed going to the games a few times a year with my family. My father always liked to leave games early to "beat the traffic" so there was no chance that I could hang around to get autographs as the players left the ballpark.

(I must have been 20 before I saw the bottom of the 9th inning at a MLB game).

But in the summer of 1982, the traffic was in our favor and I got to Arlington Stadium early. We had pretty good seats on the 1st baseline. But the most important thing to me is that I was in touching distance of the dugout. While the players warmed up, there was a swarm of kids trying to get autographs and a set of determined security guards trying to stop us. Seeing that this wasn't going to work (and that my dad wasn't going to call me back to my seat shortly), I needed to come up with a better plan. I ran along the dugout towards home plate and then climbed on-top of the dugout itself. I managed to dangle myself over the dugout and hand my program to one of the coaching staff who passed it along the bench to get the autographs for me.

When the security guards came to get me, they had to wait until I got my program back. I still have the program. I don't think the Rangers won the game (and my dad made us leave after the 8th inning) but I was buzzing anyhow.

Nice!

Rose
 

So when I was about 9 I waited at Busch stadium for the Reds players to come out and get on the bus....Pete Rose came out and I asked politely, Mr. Rose, can I have your autograph? The man replied...sorry--I'm not Pete Rose.....then Jack Billingham came out and I asked him for his autograph...he signed my program...and then said to the other person--hey Pete--save me a seat on the bus. End of story.

Nice Story.

My favorite was Brett Butler. I used to go to Montreal Expos games at Olympic Stadium and would often go to the visiting team's dugout before games to try to get autographs.

I was doing that one day when he was with the Giants and standing in a gaggle of other kids reaching out with various things to the players as they went by. Butler stopped to sign stuff and I gave him my card and a sharpie. He signed it but my pen was running low on ink. He looked at his autograph on the card, frowned, and didn't give it back to me. Instead he wandered over to another guy, asked to borrow his pen, then signed my card a second time over the original signature which had been too faint for his liking. Then he came back over with a smile on his face, handed me my card and pen and in a kind voice said I should try to get another pen.

It was only a few seconds of his time, but he gave it to me and it made a big impression. My 1990 Donruss Brett Butler card with two Brett Butler autographs on it is one of my favorite in my collection.

Obviously we need to see that card...

Thanks for the prompt :)

That's great!

The year was 2002. I'd just turned 16 years old and went to spring training with my dad in Florida for the first time. We went to Yankee camp and it just happened to also be media day that day. There were camera crews everywhere and we had a great spot on this fence between fields.

Yankee camp has always been just about the worst place to be for a variety of reasons, namely that it attracts an insane crowd and hardly anyone on the Yankees signs autographs. BUT because it was media day, the big boys were a lot more approachable. One by one all the big players came out and stopped to sign once they saw the cameras on them. I was able to snag three of the Core Four plus Joe Torre in one day for free. I later added Pettitte at a show to complete the Core. Easily the best single day I've had hunting:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d13c307585.jpg

HOWEVER, like I said, it was 2002. The Yankees had just signed former MVP Jason Giambi. And I made the fateful decision to get his autograph first and then used the same ball for the Core Four later on. Giambi (thankfully) is on his own panel though. But how could I know what was coming? I happy just to land Giambi when it happened.