First a little about my autographs. Yeah yeah, everyone in my family laughs when I break out the autographs. I'm very proud of them. All of the autographs I have were obtained via TTM. TTM stands for Through The Mail. When I was a kid I used to write a letter to various ballplayers (active and retired) asking for their autograph. In the envelope was a SASE along with a nice letter and of course, a picture for them to autograph.
You're probably wondering how I got my hands on the addresses of baseball players. Back in the day there was a book called "The Baseball Address List" and here it is (yes I still have it!!):
I'm not going to bore you with a play-by-play (pun intended) of each letter/autograph. But, I do want to show you my favorite.
My collection consists of about 50 or so autographs. I have my favorite pitcher and hitter when I was younger (Steve Carlton and Dale Murphy).
But these are not my favorite.
There's an old timer in the collection - Carl Hubbell. Also my fathers favorite pitcher - Sandy Koufax. But these are not my favorite either (awesome pic of Sandy though huh?)
One day when I was watching a game with my father and uncle I was talking about Dave Concepcion and what a great shortstop he was. While they did not disagree, both of them directed me to a shortstop (back in their day) named Marty Marion. Apparently HE was the best shortstop. So I decided to put my TTM talent in motion. A short time later I received in the mail one of the most beautiful autographs I own. He not was only a slick fielding shortstop but pretty slick with his John Hancock as well:
Thanks for reading
-Tom
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