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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Also, to expand a little on another of Jeff's thoughts, "...he has decades ahead of him to sign tens of thousands of autographs...". I'd like to add that, even if this Kershaw were to be struck by lightning (like Geremi Gonzalez last month) and die instantly, his autograph would still be plentiful for years to come. As many of you likely know, one area of collecting that has always fascinated me is that of players who passed away at the height of their careers. For example, take a guy like Herman Hill, who played in a handful of games over two seasons with the Twins, only to drown while swimming off the coast of Venezuela during the winter of his final MLB season. His autograph is exceedingly rare (I've encountered perhaps 7 or 8 examples over 22 years). If Hill was playing and passed away in this day and age, he would have already signed 500-1000+ minor league insert cards, another 100-1000 major league insert cards as well as a ton of other material. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that any modern-day autograph will NEVER have the opportunity to be "rare". There are too many entrepreneurs out there to let that happen.