When I was growing up, I loved hearing about the 500 home run club. I dreamed of going to the reunion show in 1988 or so, and still love that Ron Lewis print.
I posted on here awhile ago that when my grandmother passed away in 1988 that her neighbor gave me two signed baseballs as a thank you to the family for everything she did for him. She cooked for him a lot. One was a 1978 San Diego Padres team signed ball (sort of random but a good amount of HOFers on the ball: Dave Winfield, Ozzie Smith, Gaylord Perry, Billy Herman). The other one was this:
Then, as I have mentioned here numerous times I used to attend HOF Induction Weekend with my Dad every year. I don't remember the order of how I picked these up, but the Eddie Matthews, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson and Reggie Jackson were all obtained at paid signings in Cooperstown during HOF weekend - sometime between 1991-1994 or so (also when inscriptions used to be free!).
Then I hit a bit of a lull, only about 20 years or so as high school, college, etc. got in the way. I picked the Gary Sheffield up through Meade Chaskey in 2007 or so:
Then about another two year lull, as I picked up a Jim Thome TTM during the summer of 2009:
In the fall of 2013, I knocked off two in a hurry when Tom Orr on Sports Collectors.net had both Mark McGwire and Willie McCovey at the same time:
Then last summer I picked up Eddie Murray in person at MAB's signing during HOF weekend. Very disappointed however, as they also had Ernie Banks appearing that weekend but not on the day I was in town.
I already have a ball/order in for Manny Ramirez during the National, and I plan on adding Frank Thomas during MAB's signing HOF weekend next weekend; bringing the total to 12. 12 down in about 25 years or so....not too bad huh?