Sports Cards And Autographs

As far as autographs go how many of the autographs in your sports card collection have been given to you as opposed as to you purchasing them? I can tell you that I have both in my collection. I have the ones I purchased, the ones I have received in person for free, and even the ones that I have received in person and I had to pay for them. Mostly the way of a collectible show. Although I have been asked to pay once, while not in a show. Kind of crazy, but there are always different circumstances for different autographs. What is the craziest amount you ever paid for an autograph?

Pictured here in this post is my Mark McGwire autograph. I received this autograph in person in the then called Joe Robbie Stadium, a stadium that was at the time being leased to the Florida Marlins so that they can play baseball in Miami. I am sure you have since heard of the their new stadium and the changed name to Miami Marlins.

While working in the capacity of a vendor for the stadium, I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the St. Louis Cardinals Mark McGwire on a Marlins home stand. What a night it was. This gentle giant, hit two monster home runs that day, in fact the second one still has not landed. The year was 1997. After waiting for an ungodly three hours for Big Mac to finish his post game rituals, which I am sure included plenty of time in the training room, and perhaps some rub down time, and what not. After the entire bus had already loaded. My opportunity came.

Mark McGwire Baseball Autograph Of A Lifetime!

I approached Mark McGwire, and right as I did my supervisor came out of nowhere just like if he was watching me. As I handed the blue sharpie and baseball card (a 1996 Leaf Mark McGwire) to him and asked him ever so nicely for an autograph. My supervisor recited the employee manual on approaching baseball players a big no-no and I knew it. They harp a big deal about this for a reason. These ball players do not want to get into the whole autograph thing behind the scenes. Besides they also don’t want the employee getting any ideas of selling autographs to pad their already low salaries. But they put nothing in there about the collector and our warped sense of needing more and more collectibles.

My supervisor threatened me with ending my career as a Joe Robbie employee. Believe me I needed the job. I was holding down three jobs at the time. My wife had just had my first of three children, and I could not afford to lose this job over a Mark McGwire signature, even though the thought of owning it, does and did make me shake nervously. After all this was never an easy autograph and he just did not sign much. Again he was one of those spoken out players about people profiting over his name.

As I was getting threatened and told by my supervisor that I was through with the company, and I had better not get that card autographed. Something happened that I will never ever forget. To Mark McGwire I am sure he never thought of this incident again. But I will never forget that he looked my supervisor right in the eyes, and told him that I had better be back tomorrow night for the third game of the series, or else. That was it. He didn’t have to say much else. The weasel, I mean my supervisor rode off in his little golf cart and I got to keep the autograph, and more importantly my job. Although It pains me to ever state that the job I had been more important than this autograph to me. This autograph was recently submitted to BGS (JSA) authentication, not for me. I always knew the card was legit, but you must admit this gives my story a better boost, knowing that the autograph is legit. Thanks for reading. Have a story like this? Please share it with me.