Best players I ever saw in person:
Baseball: Barry Bonds, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter
Basketball: Kobe Bryant
Hockey: Bobby Orr
Football: Any of the superstars on the 1979 Steelers (I went to the Super Bowl in Pasadena)
Boxing: Lennox Lewis or Vitali Klitschko (I went to their fight at Staples Center)
Best I ever met: by that I mean had a conversation with not just got a signature from:
Baseball: Eddie Murray. He was sitting next to me on the flight home after the 2019 National. Here's the story on my flight next to Eddie Murray:
My Flight With Eddie Murray
I treat myself to first class whenever I go to the show. Besides being a fat bastard I am 6'4" mostly legs and coach is torture, even in extra legroom, so I will book the upgrade unless it is grotesquely expensive. In my case, it ends up being less than $300 round trip when the fees for extra legroom and boarding priority (aka put my cards overhead and not get gate-checked) is factored in, so yeah, I do it.
I always book an aisle seat because I am prone to leg cramps and circulatory issues and I like to get up a lot. Since I am a righty and sometimes write stuff on the plane, I prefer the right side of the cabin so my writing hand is not the one on the aisle. I also don't like the first or last rows since the first row has the bulkhead and the last row doesn't recline. So I usually shoot for seat 2D on the A321. Yeah. I have this down to the gnat's ass.
Anyway, I get on the plane, find my seat, and start loading my bags of cards into the overhead. I pull out the stuff I need (laptop and such) and start arranging my seat. To do so I have to duck down. I hear a voice behind me:
"Don't sit down yet, I have to get in there and I have a bad knee."
I turned to tell him not to worry about it and I am staring at Eddie Murray. Recognized him instantly and he sees that I recognized him instantly.
He sits down and I do too. I then ask him if he was at the convention. He says yes but doesn't say more, so I ask what he was doing there. He says:
"Well, I signed a few autographs, you know."
I said I thought you looked familiar, Eddie Murray, right? He says: "I am sometimes" and smiles. He then starts fumbling with his ear buds to shut me out so I say "Don't worry about it, I won't harass you."
The boarding finishes and he's trying to get the movie started but they won't work. I tell him it is because they don't run the entertainment until we leave. The boarding announcements start and I ask Murray if he ever flew PSA. He says sure, all the time, they were the best on time. I ask if he remembers their boarding announcements and he doesn't. PSA used to do a humorous, sarcastic version of the safety announcements: "for those of you who haven't been in a car since 1970, this is how a seatbelt works...put on your oxygen mask first then help your child--if they've been good" and so on. I run through the material for him, he laughs, and it breaks the ice. We chat about flying issues, specifically the sucky-ass service and lack of direct flights to venues where the show is located. I tell him I won't even go to AC next year because of it. Plus, I started bagging on AC's hotels and restaurants and he loves it (I reserved at Caesar's and when I got there I found out it they don't even call it a "Palace" because it is really Caesar's Dump, and so on). So now we're talking.
Later he is having trouble with his phone charger so he asks to borrow mine, and I tell him about a quick fix for it if the charge port is dirty with lint, which is often the case. We then start talking about various topics. I'll recap each:
The NSCC: He filled me in on how it is to attend as a signer. The promoters bring them in the day before signing, put them up for one night, then fly them home the next day. They report for duty early in the day to sign mail order and the promoters stuff. It is part reunion with former teammates and fellow HOFers but mostly it is wading through several large stacks of mail order items and stock photos. Then they go onstage at the pavilion and sign their live signings, then they can leave. He opts to go home immediately.
The Dodgers: Murray hates the organization because he feels they mistreated him. He said that when they hired him as batting coach they had the weakest hitting team in the league, and he turned them around that year to the point where they won the division. Next season the team was struggling and they canned him, for no reason. He said he will never set foot in Dodgers Stadium again.
Baltimore: understandably this is the organization he likes the most. His biggest complaint is that it is very hard to get there from his home in Canyon Country (an LA exurb).
Perks: He can walk into any ballpark any time and anywhere in the country for free and sit in the owners' box or corporate level seating.
Pranks: He told me that every player who comes over in a trade has to go through some sort of team initiation. The worst one was where two big guys would grab you, the team would strip you down, and then they'd douse you with the worst spoiled foods in the clubhouse fridge: days old tuna salad, gatorade, etc. And they do it right before the game. He recalled once having to take four showers to get the stink off him before he went on the field because there was no way he was going to play stinking of old tuna.
Now as we are landing I tell him about the NSCC from the collector's side: show, dinner party, bar, bed, repeat. I then mentioned the N54 banquet and that I'd done a set, and I start running material for him. He is cracking up and tells me that I should be a comedian. When I tell him I do stand-up on the side, he says that when he first saw me he thought I was Brian Posehn but when I said I was a lawyer he thought I might take it the wrong way, so he didn't mention it (I get that all the time here in LA; one of these days I am going to have to go to a show where Posehn is performing, sit in the front row and see what happens). He then was asking me about where I'm from, what I do, etc. I even invited him to the Burbank Comedy Festival that week where I was performing. At the end he offered me a handshake.
