Your experiences with HOF'ers

[thenavarro]

I've met a ton of HOF'ers in different sports over the years, celebrities in other fields, Presidents, etc, but Ali has been my favorite. I met him on a few different occasions from a couple different card shows, to bumping into him at Notre Dame a time or two. My favorite time was meeting him at a show circa 18 years ago. While waiting to meet him, they had video monitors up playing highlights of his legendary boxing career with sound bytes. I signed up for a photo op, so that was first. When I first met him, I was kind of sad as he moved pretty slow and talked real soft, however, he was a showman when we were taking pictures, and we took a couple different poses, much different than the hurried photo ops that the promoters push you through today. One of the poses was him punching me on the chin and me looking like I was recoiling in pain, very cool. One thing I asked him was how it felt to be "The Greatest". He smiled and bent down in my ear and spoke in classic Ali, "It feels good", very neat moment for me. This is my autographed photo from that photo op:



After the photo op, we had to wait in another line to get autographs on our other items. As I approached in line, I would watch him sign and move pretty slow, but every now and then, a young kid would approach and Ali would throw out several fast shadow punches, or do a magic trick or something. Very cool and highly entertaining. I got up there to get my glove signed, and he signed it "Muhammad Ali AKA Cassius Clay" for me, and then he stood up in front of me, started leaning toward me, and he started writing on my chest. He was autographing the shirt you see me wearing in the picture above while I was wearing it (you can't see it in the pic as it wasn't signed for the photo op) very cool experience.

[Mr. Zipper]

Very nice, Mike. What a great encounter.

[CharleyBrown]

Haven't seen Whitey Ford mentioned in the thread yet.

Found out Whitey Ford was signing at the Long Island national last year, and decided to go. My grandfather was a childhood friend of Whitey, and I had always wanted to meet him.

Anyhow, he signed my item, and chatted with me for a good five minutes about his childhood. After walking around the show with my 2 year old son and wife, I mentioned to one of the dealers that I wished I asked Whitey for a photo to show my grandfather. They were kind enough to walk me back over with my son, and Whitey was more than happy to pose for a photo with my son and I. After he was done signing, Whitey ran into my son and I as he was heading out, and stopped for a few minutes to play with my son. My son got a few laughs, and Whitey shook my hand and patted my son on the head before he went on his way.

I met Juan Marichal at the White Plains show... his line was virtually empty (where as Lenny Dykstra's extended forever). My father-in-law grew up in the Dominican Republic, and idolized Marichal. Marichal had a nice conversation with us, and posed for a photo with my son and my father-in-law.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by thenavarro

I've met a ton of HOF'ers in different sports over the years, celebrities in other fields, Presidents, etc, but Ali has been my favorite. I met him on a few different occasions from a couple different card shows, to bumping into him at Notre Dame a time or two. My favorite time was meeting him at a show circa 18 years ago. While waiting to meet him, they had video monitors up playing highlights of his legendary boxing career with sound bytes. I signed up for a photo op, so that was first. When I first met him, I was kind of sad as he moved pretty slow and talked real soft, however, he was a showman when we were taking pictures, and we took a couple different poses, much different than the hurried photo ops that the promoters push you through today. One of the poses was him punching me on the chin and me looking like I was recoiling in pain, very cool. One thing I asked him was how it felt to be "The Greatest". He smiled and bent down in my ear and spoke in classic Ali, "It feels good", very neat moment for me. This is my autographed photo from that photo op:



After the photo op, we had to wait in another line to get autographs on our other items. As I approached in line, I would watch him sign and move pretty slow, but every now and then, a young kid would approach and Ali would throw out several fast shadow punches, or do a magic trick or something. Very cool and highly entertaining. I got up there to get my glove signed, and he signed it "Muhammad Ali AKA Cassius Clay" for me, and then he stood up in front of me, started leaning toward me, and he started writing on my chest. He was autographing the shirt you see me wearing in the picture above while I was wearing it (you can't see it in the pic as it wasn't signed for the photo op) very cool experience.

Awesome Ali story, Mike!!