Mell Ott Auto

[Archive]

Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

None of the 500 HR Club members' autographs are tough. There are tons of each out there, but lots of fakes, too. If you absolutely needed to label one of the club members as being "tough", then, yes, Ott would be your man. There are thousands of Otts out there, though. He was a wonderfully obliging signer. His widow continued his tradition of kindness to fans by sending out signatures removed from Ott's cancelled checks to fans who wrote and asked for one.

Come to think of it, perhaps I should edit this to say that Foxx and Ott are likely of equal rarity. Foxx outlived Ott by nine years, but was out of pro ball for several years prior to his unfortunate encounter with a piece of steak. Foxx was also an obliging signer, but would occasionally employ his brother Sam to sign mail requests in his early days. There were at least three separate individuals who ghost-signed mail requests for Foxx during his career.

Both Ott and Foxx had clubhouse variations throughout their careers. The most common "clubbers" found on Foxx date from the late 1930's when he played with Boston. Ott's clubhouse signatures were most prevalent on team-signed items signed during WWII (balls and team sheets, mostly from the 1942-44 period).

Both players had rubber stamps bearing their signatures. Although he did not seem to employ his stamp very often, Ott seemed to originate the tradition of Giants managers having these stamps. This practise spanned from Ott-Herman Franks (1940's-60's). I have only seen perhaps three instances of the stamp being used, all on Giants team-signed balls. The discovery of the Ott stamp is actually fairly recent (perhaps within the last three years). Foxx, on the other hand, had more than one rubber stamp, and used them to honor mail requests in his later years. Thankfully for us, Jimmie didn't employ the stamp all that often, either, although he used it much more than Ott did his.

Ott remained in the game his entire life, leading to more in-person autograph opportunities. Although not unheard of, through-the-mail secretarial examples of Ott are few and far between. Foxx, on the other hand, spent many years outside of pro ball, thereby limiting in-person opportunities. It also seems as though there was a period of time in the late 1950's-early 1960's where the collecting world failed to have a valid address on Foxx, judging by how few through the mail items can be positively dated to that era.