Interesting take on the modern autograph

[isaac2004]

Originally Posted by Deertick

My mom asked him to sign a team ball during spring training 1987 as he was heading to the clubhouse. He told her he would sign after he showered and dressed. She waited and waited. Then she saw a red headed guy jogging across an adjacent field toward some cars. My mom RAN HIM DOWN (after giving him a 150 yd headstart) and yelled at him. "Mr. Bigshot has to go out a back door and run away? Why didn't you just say no? And you should be ashamed, not only that you made a 45yo woman chase you, but she CAUGHT YOU!"

He apologized profusely, and meekly signed a perfect autograph.

He makes a good point about the signature readability nowadays, but its a bit silly for him to talk about integrity of getting autos given the stories above.

This reminds me of a story a guy I met gave about Ron Santo. Santo was on some radio show talking about how he used to sign for hours after Cub games, sometimes not getting home till late evening after day games. This guy remembers getting hurdled by Ron Santo while Santo was leaving Wrigley and there were a bunch of of kids outside waiting (I guess he used to sprint to his car all the time). He called into the show and chewed Santo out for stretching the truth. 1 week later, the guy got a signed ball in the mail from guess who? Ron Santo.

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by isaac2004

He makes a good point about the signature readability nowadays, but its a bit silly for him to talk about integrity of getting autos given the stories above.

Obviously his opinions have changed over time since the mid 80s. He told me the same thing about "the little kids" and the dealers (and it was obvious) when I asked him to PLEASE not smudge his signature! I had three others that each had a distinct thumb-rub, and he told me he did that to retard resale. He smudged that one, but the next time he obliged me after I told him I gave the others away, which was true.

The timeframe above for reference is 5 balls for 20 attempts at the ballpark after games.

[Cfern023]

My signature looks way too ugly, anyone know where I can go to relearn how to properly write in cursive, I'd love to learn to write my name in such a loopy way as Pete Rose or Mike Schmidt. Right now Mine is C---S F-----Z

[steve B]

Just grab a pen and start making lines of loops. Try to get them all the same height, roundness and spacing.

At least that's what they made us do in penmanship class. I really didn't help me any, but the freehand lettering in drafting class did.

Steve B

[Cfern023]

Originally Posted by steve B

Just grab a pen and start making lines of loops. Try to get them all the same height, roundness and spacing.

At least that's what they made us do in penmanship class. I really didn't help me any, but the freehand lettering in drafting class did.

Steve B

Thanks for the advice- I guess I'll start.

When in elementary, the teacher gave us a test on writing our own names in cursive. It was 1997, and I had an Alex Fernandez Florida marlins cap with his facsimile signature on the side.

Got an a on that test and another a on the next one.

I failed when I finally wrote Alex instead of Chris.

To this day it still has the same last name portion, but I'm ashamed of it.

I have a sharpie here- anyone want to send me a baseball and I'll return it with 20 Babe Ruth sigs in the process.