By: Byron L. Buker
I have been a baseball fan from the late 1940’s. I became interested when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and I have been a Dodgers fan ever since.
In the early 50’s when postage was 3 cents and postcards were a penny, several friends and I started to sending self addressed postcards to many of the players hoping they would return them. Back then most signatures were with a fountain pen and we would lick our finger and see if the last part of the signature would smear to see if it were signed in person or with a rubber stamp. I probably had 150 or so returned autographs in my collection from the likes of Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges and Larry Doby. Once I went to college and my parents move all those postcards were lost.
Flash forward to 1995 and I retired from teaching after 35 years. My wife and I started spending some time in Florida. That’s when I took up the hobby again which included collecting both signed baseballs and signed baseball cards.
While I’m in Florida, I attend Spring Training practices and also take in several games at which time I join as many as 50-75 other autograph seekers vying for the perfect spot to snare an autograph. Over the years I have collected over 1,300 signed baseballs that has a signed card with it. And another 8,000 baseball cards signed by different players.
One of my favorite stories involve Stan Musial. He was going to throw out the first pitch at a Evansville Otter game. Evansville is an instructional league team. I called the stadium and they told me he would not sign at the Friday game but would at the dinner and auction the next day.
I decided to try the Friday night game. I arrived early and Mr. Musial had arrived in a stretch limo and was having a press conference. I slipped into the tent for the press conference to listen. At the end they asked Mr. Musial to stay and sign some items for the dinner and auction. I approached the desk where he was signing and held out my baseball and sharpie. He took the ball and signed it and rolled it back to me. As he was being escorted back to the limo, I said, “Mr. Musial could you please sign a card for me”. The person that was escorting him said, “NO”, to which he replied, “why not”. I left and came home with a signed baseball and a signed card from Stan the Man himself.
I live about equal distance between Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis so I can attend a few games in each of those major league venues each year. I also live about the same distance between a couple minor league teams (Indianapolis Indians and Louisville Bats) so I take in a few of there games each year as well.
I get lots of questions as to which team I like the best and what my favorite autograph is in my collection. This is a hard question to answer. I still bleed Dodger Blue and I root for any player that has been kind enough to take time for me and other fans.
I’ve made many friends with fellow autograph collectors which allows me to make trades of my duplicates with them. I also donate duplicate signed baseballs to local charities for auction. My collection has grown out of proportion but I don’t plan on quitting anytime soon.