The Yogi Berra Experience

[steve B]

I don't do autographs often at all, I think maybe about eight total in person.

But they've all been really good. A couple were average because of the show setup or the size of the crowd. Orr, Rice, Evans.

The others have all been great

Especially Feller.
Dad took me to see him pitch a home run derby between games of a AAA doubleheader. Pretty amazing since he was a bit older, late 50's and still had a lot of speed.
During the second game he came out into the stands with a big stack of printed pictures with some career highlights on the back and started signing them. Being a bit shy I hung back and was one of the last lids in line. Got a couple pictures and a scrap of paper for dads autograph album. He asked if I played and what position. When I said I wanted to pitch but my league didn't allow pitching if you were over 12 (They went to being T ball a year or two after I became too old.) He started explaining what the pitcher in the game was doing and why apparently the guy in the game had some speed but not great even for the mid 70's so he mixed his pitches a lot. during all this kids kept coming up for more pictures but they were making paper planes out of them! I asked if that bothered him and he said "they're kids, it's what they do" I must have been there about two innings getting a lesson in pitching from one of the best before he said it was fun talking but he had to leave. That never really sunk in until I was telling someone about it maybe 20 years later.
It didn't help my pitching, which was hampered by a serious lack of raw talent, but it did very much improve my understanding of the game.

Brooks Robinson was also fantastic.

The other two really good ones were Neil Gaiman, and Chris Hadfield (Graphic novel author and Astronaut respectively)
Hadfields book signing schedule was pretty insane, having already done one about 3 hours away earlier in the day but he gave a nice talk answered questions and was really pleasant. We had a nice exchange since the two books I was getting were for my daughters and he remarked that the names didn't seem like mine. I mentioned them and that one of the great things was having made a part for the space station and being able to watch it go over with them and telling them that light was a spaceship that daddy made a piece of. Nowhere near as cool as going there, but as close as I'll likely ever get. I was surprised that after so long a day he asked what piece and when I told him he apologized for not recalling it. When I said I wasn't surprised because they had thousands of bits of equipment he just smiled and said yes we do.

Steve B