Your experiences with HOF'ers

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Hot Springs Bathers

Has anyone had a positvie experience with Aaron, Koufax or Seaver in recent years?

I have never encountered any of them at shows through the years nor do I have their signatures.

Mike,

I actually had an awesome experience with Tom Seaver at a big MAB Sports event in NJ about 3 years ago. The event was called "Pitcher Perfect" and featured over 30 different pitchers that threw a no-hitter or perfect game. This was an awesome opportunity to speak to a ton of no-hit pitchers, which is a central focus of my personal collection.

Tom Terrific was sitting with his catcher, Don Werner, from his no-hitter vs. St. Louis on June 16th, 1978. I presented a full, unused ticket to Seaver to have him sign it in blue Sharpie. He looked at the ticket and said "Cool! Don, check out this full ticket to our no-hitter game!". Werner leaned over and looked at the ticket and smiled. Seaver stated that he had never seen a full ticket to this game.

I mentioned that I collect tickets to no-hitter games dating back to the early 1900's.
He asked how many no-hit games did I have a ticket to? My response at the time was about 140 different games (now 178). He did a double take and said "What??" Then he asked me what was my oldest? At the time it was Jess Haines' no-hitter in 1924. He told me "that was unbelievable and to keep working on that collecting theme".

When he finally got up from signing at the end of the session, he got a huge round of applause from all the NY/NJ patrons in attendance. As he was leaving he actally veered off his path to the exit to come over and talk to me again. What he told me was "that he is a huge fan of early baseball history and that he found my collecting theme to be both unique and unbelievably cool." He encouraged me again to keep collecting this theme. I've got to tell you that as a collector, Seaver taking an interest in my collection was really awesome! It made me very happy and proud to have gone after this collecting niche...

I can also tell you that Seaver is a huge wine nut like I am. Perhaps some of you know that he has a winery in Napa Valley. I've always found that this to be an interesting topic to him when I've had him sign items through the years.
He likes to test collector's knowledge of games and events in baseball history when he's in a good mood, FYI....