The Autograph Collector
The Autograph Collector
Paul C. Rosenblatt
In 1949 I bought a cheap autograph book with a beige cloth cover, and became a hunter of Chicago Cubs autographs. I was ten years old and a fanatic fan of the Cubs. Everything any Cub did fascinated me. Not only what they did on the field, but their practices and warm-ups, their chatting and being playful with each other, how they combed their hair, everything. I wasn’t interested in autographs of visiting team baseball players, only autographs of Cubs.
My first autograph hunting territory was at the bottom of the stairs from the Cubs Wrigley Field clubhouse to the concrete area under the left-field grandstands. After a Cubs game I would lurk there, along with 50 to 100 other kids, waiting for players to come out of the clubhouse and down the stairs. When any player reached the bottom of the stairs, I joined all the other kids in thrusting my autograph book at him, along with a pen, pleading for an autograph and following him toward the exit from the ballpark.
As the season went on I moved to a new autograph approach for getting Cubs autographs, waiting during the hour before batting practice at the enormous door that opened from Wrigley Field onto Waveland Avenue. The door was under the north end of the grandstands, a remote area for most fans, but a conveniently close entry for ballplayers heading for the clubhouse. I had fewer competitors for autographs there, and that got me more success.
I loved every autograph I gathered. I even loved the duplicates. Dewey Adkins was not a Cub player for long, but I was proud to have three autographs from him. The autographs of the stars were precious to me, Phil Cavarretta, Andy Pafko, and Hal Jeffcoat. Jeffcoat’s autograph was especially precious because, as a great athlete, he would easily outrun a mob of autograph collectors. Sometimes he would swing down from the catwalk outside the clubhouse, rather than take the stairs down from the clubhouse. That way he would avoid the kids at the bottom of the stairs. But even though he was a reluctant signer of autograph books, I succeeded in getting his one morning when he was heading toward the clubhouse.
When my father realized how important autographs were to me, he told me about double postcards. With a double postcard, I could mail a request to an athlete asking him to sign the attached card that I had self-addressed, detach it from the request card, and mail his autograph back to me. When I learned about double postcards I decided to collect autographs of the most famous players in baseball, no matter their team. Sometimes I would send double postcards to players on other teams in care of their home ballpark, and sometimes I would send double postcards to them at Wrigley Field or at Comiskey Park, where the Chicago White Sox played, when I knew they would be there. Doing that I received some postcard autographs that were great treasures. I was especially proud of Joe DiMaggio’s autograph.
When Babe Ruth was going to make a guest appearance at the 1950 All-Star Game at Comiskey Park, I sent a double postcard to him there, and was thrilled when the return card came back with Babe Ruth’s signature. Later that season I sent a double postcard to Ted Williams, in care of Comiskey Park, a few days before the Boston Red Sox were due to play. What a thrill it was to receive the return card back with the autograph of Ted Williams. But the thrill wore off in less than a minute, when I realized that the handwriting for Ted Williams was the same as the handwriting for Babe Ruth. Someone at Comiskey Park, someone with very good handwriting, had signed for both Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. It made me wonder about the validity of postcard autographs. So I stopped sending out those double postcards, believing that I had to see a baseball player signing an autograph to know that it was actually his signature.
I stopped going to Wrigley Field when my parents bought a television set, because with television I could watch Cub games in the comfort of our apartment. That meant I was no longer a seeker of autographs, but I kept my autograph book and autographed postcards, safely stored in a wooden chest beside my bed. The chest, leftover from my early childhood, was decorated to look like a Disney idea of a pirate’s treasure chest. Mine contained many treasures besides my autographs: toys that had been favorites, comic books, science fiction books, and interesting stones I collected over the years. There were also many dustballs and fragments of broken toys in the chest.
When I was 18 I went to live in a dormitory at the University of Chicago. I didn’t think I was giving up ownership of what I still had at home, but my parents decided to move to a smaller apartment and in the process my father trashed the wooden chest and all that was in it. Gone were my precious autographs.
I still feel nostalgic about my autograph collection. I would love to have those autographs as reminders of athletes I admired and my adventures collecting autographs. I don’t blame my father for guessing that a neglected pirate chest filled with dustballs and pieces of broken toys probably wasn’t valuable to me and could be safely garbaged. Luckily, I still have clear visual images in my memory of some of the autographs, including Phil Cavarretta’s, Dewey Adkins’, and those from Babe Ruth and Ted Williams that were in the same beautiful handwriting.
Paul C. Rosenblatt is an emeritus professor whose teaching, research, and academic writing have focused quite a bit on individuals and families dealing with losses and other difficulties. His literary writings have appeared in The Twin Bill, October Hill, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Shark Reef, and other venues.