Just a Note Saying Goodbye to Legible Autographs:

[MooseDog]

My two cents, not worth much but I think there are three main reasons the trend to illegibility...

1) As has been stated in previous posts, penmanship, cursive, heck writing is no longer taught in most schools. With the advent of keyboard input and texting, the need to write for most younger folks is less and less, so there is no "practice". I think even the practice of drafting, where one learned to pen perfect block letters, has been supplanted by CAD computer software.

2) In the 1990s I discussed autographs with an athlete friend of mine and he surprised me with the comment that agents were advising against signing autographs for fear of identity theft and that if they did want to sign autographs that they should develop a "mark" that was different than their signature on legal documents.

3) This is conjecture on my part, but with the rise of eBay the numbers of people seeking autographs has risen (opportunists thinking they can profit from the autographs AND/OR the perception that an autograph has some intrisinc $$$ value), and those players who do want to sign autographs have to shorten the time it takes to sign as much as they can. One can see how a player in the minors may have a semi-decent autograph but as the years go by it gets worse and worse.

In today's society, when meeting someone famous, selfies have replaced the autograph so it will be interesting to see how "social distancing" affects this in the coming years. I imagine that access to famous people will get even harder now.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

3) This is conjecture on my part, but with the rise of eBay the numbers of people seeking autographs has risen (opportunists thinking they can profit from the autographs AND/OR the perception that an autograph has some intrisinc $$$ value), and those players who do want to sign autographs have to shorten the time it takes to sign as much as they can. One can see how a player in the minors may have a semi-decent autograph but as the years go by it gets worse and worse.

I primarily work for two people, both are "famous" I use quotes because it's a hard thing to define.

One of them (I've been with him for 6 years) will sign anything put in front of him by anybody, as many as he's asked to sign, he will sign them with no hesitation. Ebayer? He doesn't care.

The other (who I've been with for 13 years) won't sign anything at airports, hotels, or entering / leaving a venue. If I take 3 things into his dressing room to get signed, I will seldom succeed completely. He won't sign a guitar or a guitar part for anybody, including me. He assumes we're all ebayers. He's the one with two signatures who I mentioned earlier.

Doug

[bjerome]

I'm not an athlete or famous, but I do utilize a work signature and a personal signature for personal business.

[packs]

This same thread gets made every month but you know what I've noticed about this part of the forum? It doesn't matter who signed it or when it was signed, this board doesn't have any trouble telling you whose autograph you're looking at. So what does it really matter?

[scooter729]

Both of the autographs pictured below were signed by Jackie Bradley Jr. of the Red Sox for me last year, signed in a casual relaxed setting at Fenway for my son.

I had the chance to ask him why such a difference in his signatures, and he told me he used to always try to sign in the very neat legible way, but it just got hard for him to do baseballs that way, so he abbreviated it when signing balls. Then it morphed into signing that way when he was trying to sign a bunch of things. But when he has the chance, he will take his time and sign in a manner where you can read the whole name.

I thought it was a breath of fresh air to at least be able to see a signature I could read, if only in one of them!

[Tom Hufford]

The last few years of his life, Harmon Killebrew would spend time with the Arizona Diamondbacks in spring training, and one of the messages he would always give, as part of his yearly talk was:

"I've never understood why you guys have spent your entire life struggling and working hard to get here and then when you do, and someone asks for your autograph, you scribble something that not even your mother can read. You're a Major Leaguer, be proud of what you've accomplished, be proud of your autograph! Sign it so that 50 years from now, a little kid might pick it up and say "Wow, grandpa met (famous name) and got his autograph!"

[Mark]

I think we would appreciate the ball on the right more if we were more sympathetic to major trends in contemporary art.

[mrmopar]

That is nice to hear. Killebrew had a great signature too.

Originally Posted by Tom Hufford

The last few years of his life, Harmon Killebrew would spend time with the Arizona Diamondbacks in spring training, and one of the messages he would always give, as part of his yearly talk was:

"I've never understood why you guys have spent your entire life struggling and working hard to get here and then when you do, and someone asks for your autograph, you scribble something that not even your mother can read. You're a Major Leaguer, be proud of what you've accomplished, be proud of your autograph! Sign it so that 50 years from now, a little kid might pick it up and say "Wow, grandpa met (famous name) and got his autograph!"