I know it is really long, but if you read it you will enjoy it.
By Joe Posnanski
When I was still a kid in this crazy sportswriting racket, I drove several hours with a friend to see Mickey Mantle sign autographs at a baseball card show. My friend actually wanted to buy Mantle’s autograph — he was a photographer and as I recall he really wanted some photo he took signed. I just wanted to see what kind of person (other than desperate photographers) would spend fifty bucks to get something scribbled on by Mickey Mantle.
It’s not exactly that I’m opposed to autographs. I’m not. I have my autograph stories. I’ve told my Jim Kern story here before — I was 8 years old, I think, and I was waiting patiently before a game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium for Kern’s autograph, there were probably five or six kids around. Of course, I stood meekly in the back. And then when I was the only one left, Jim noticed that the game was about to begin. “I”m sorry,“ he said to me, ”I’ve got to get with the team.“ And I must have had started crying — not the wailing kind either, more like the pitifiul ”I’m trying not to cry but I can’t help it,“ whimper — and he looked back at the plate, back at me, dropped his shoulders and said, ”Oh, it’s OK, come on, I’ll sign it real quick.“ And he signed my piece of paper. I was SO happy. I mean, along with getting my first microscope set (which I played with for at least seven minutes before getting bored), along with winning my fourth grade spelling bee (losing in the school-wide bee to the two sixth graders!), along with making three three diving plays at shortstop in a Little League game, along with finally getting that 1976 Boog Powell baseball card — along with those and a few other big moments, getting Jim Kern’s autograph was one of the thrills of my childhood.
Trouble is, then I went back to my seat and tried to show my Dad … and I couldn’t find the autograph. It was gone. I had, of course, had Jim sign the paper in pencil (hey, I was 8, I had No. 2 pencils*). And as I’ve also mentioned, many years later, after I wrote this story for the first time, I got a baseball signed by Jim Kern. It read: “Joe, here’s your autograph. Stop whining. Jim Kern.” It has a prominent place on my bar mantle, next to my Bill James bobblehead doll and a very large and unopened bottle of vodka that someone once gave me — I don’t drink vodka. That bottle will outlast us all.
*I’ve often thought about the No. 1 pencil. What a sad failure. There it was, first out of the gate, all the advantages in the world, and no, it couldn’t hold on to the job, the Wally Pipp of pencils.
I also remember as a kid writing letters to my favorite players and also letter to every team in the big leagues. I think all kids should be forced to do something like that. It doesn’t have to be baseball, but they should all be encouraged to write letters asking for stuff. I’m going to have my oldest daughter do that … she’s six and doesn’t have much interest in baseball, but I don’t care, she can write to the cast of High School Musical if she wants. I’m being slightly serious for a moment: I would say that writing those letters back then was just about as valuable a lesson as I ever learned as a child. It taught me stuff.
1. It taught me the proper and respectful way to make a request. This is pretty big. There’s no doubt in my mind that kids today are much smarter, more savvy, more plugged in, better prepared for this crazy world that I was. BUT I am constantly surprised how often I will get a letter like this (and I promise you I’m not exaggerating):
Dear Joe,
I have to do this assignment in class where, like, I have to write about someone who has a job I would like to have. And even though I really don’t agree with you much, and I don’t really like your writing, you have a pretty cool job, so I need to ask you a few questions. Give me a call at this number or email me back.
That really is a pretty fair representation. Some letters/emails are slightly more pleasant — most are more pleasant — but some are actually worse, and a stunning number of them have that attitude. Hey, I don’t MIND some 13 year old kid thinking he or she could do my job better than me, that’s great, that’s part of BEING 13, but you probably don’t need to include that bit of info in letters requesting an actual FAVOR from somebody. I think this is a direct consequence of these people never writing autograph letters as kids.
2. It taught me that, with the right words and a little effort, people often WILL respond. That’s an important lesson too … people (and companies) are approachable. I can remember getting packets of stickers from teams like the Blue Jays, and I remember getting a letter from Dale Murphy, and so on. Every mailbox day was a new adventure, and I think every kid should experience that (and also the disappointment of NOT getting back an autograph or letter — thats part of life too). Years later, when I hit the crossroads of college and had no idea what to do with my life, I wrote bunches of letters to bunches of different people asking for professional advice. I’m convinced that is directly connected to writing those autograph letters as a kid. I got letters back from great people, from Bob Costas, from the people who ran Bill Mazeroski Baseball, from Joe Falls, from the good people at the baseball card magazine Beckett Monthly (my first sportswriting job!), a little later from my hero Leigh Montville. One of the letters I got back was from Frank Barrows, then the Sports Editor of The Charlotte Observer. That’s how I got into this goofy business.
It all really comes back to my childhood autograph seeking. So, yes, I’m all for autographs.
That said, I did have it wired in my mind that autographs, like Trix, are for kids. I’m not passing judgment here … to be perfectly blunt, I have no problem with athletes, especially retired athletes, charging for their autograph. It gets tiresome signing your name again and again, and it’s time consuming, and it’s clear that autographs are worth some money in the free market. I think they deserve to get paid. And I also have no problem with adults spending as much as they want on autographs — it’s their money, and if collecting autographs is their thing, hey, there are worse hobbies. I’ve seen “Silence of the Lambs.” But I will say I don’t really get the thrill of paying for an autograph.
OK, so back to the original story. We drove down to get the Mick’s autograph and see what this stuff was all about. This had to be around 1988 or ‘89 — the Mick showed up, and he looked terrible. At least that was my impression. He was limping around, his shoulders were slumped, his eyes looked bloodshot. I had seen him up close once before, at the event where Costas crushed me, and he looked pretty beat up then. He looked even worse now.
And I watched him closely. I watched his response — or lack of response — when people got close to them. These were middle-aged men, for the most part, and they were almost in tears. Some could not even speak, they were so nervous. Some wanted to introduce Mantle to their sons (a couple who were named Mickey, if I’m not mistaken). Some went into long soliloquies about the real Yankee Stadium and watching the Mick hit home runs from both sides of the plate and how he was the most important person in their whole, entire lives.
Here’s what I remember most: There was something dead in Mantle’s eyes. Maybe he was hung over. Maybe he was uninterested in being in Atlanta (or Richmond or Raleigh … I can’t remember where we saw him — which tells you something, heck, even I can’t remember). Maybe, maybe, maybe … I just remember feeling so sad for Mickey Mantle. I suspected that he could not hear them anymore. He had heard too much. He was loved too much. The guy who was telling how Mantle had changed his life, well, he was about the 12 millionth person to say that to Mantle. The ones who had named his kid Mickey, well, lots of people had named their kid after the Mick. The people who saw Mantle and were taken back to a few childhood days from 1956, well, it seemed to me that Mantle could not hear them anymore. There was nothing left, nothing inspiring, nothing surprising, nothing new under the son.
You know when I thought about the Mick? Strange. I thought about him on my wedding day. We didn’t have an especially big wedding, certainly by most standards, but we had a hundred people or so. And you know this if you’ve been married: For that one day everyone wants to talk to you, everyone wants to know you, everyone wants to ask how you feel, everyone gathers around you — it’s numbing and confusing and you have to go here for a picture, go there for a dance, go back for a picture, hang out with the guys, check out how the parents are doing, talk to some relative you didn’t know, tell a few stories, shake more hands, take another picture. Meanwhile everybody’s saying more or less the same thing to you, everyone is telling you some story about your childhood, and it’s great, and it’s exhausting, and it’s numbing, and after a while I found that I simply couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t hear anymore, and I thought, “this in the smallest way must be what Mickey Mantle has felt every single day since 1955.” Imagine that — having it be your wedding day. Forever.
I thought about the Mick at that card show one more time this week. I thought about it when Josh Hamilton ran out of the dugout for the beginning of the All-Star Game, ran out to Willie Mays, and was entirely unable to get his attention. Numerous people have wondered if Mays snubbed Hamilton, and maybe he did, I obviously don’t know. In the first chapter of my book (still only $5.99!), I write about Willie Mays. He’s a tough character to sum up. He’s in pain, he has trouble seeing, he has some of the old Say Hey kid freshness, but he also seems to have a lot of bitterness that he can’t quite let go.
Still, if I had to guess, I don’t think he was snubbing Hamilton at all. I just think that he, like Mantle (though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent), has been living a perpetual wedding day. To quote the Boss, there were the same ghosts in his eyes. He seemed disoriented in the moment — like a computer that simply powers itself off when there are too many things going on. The man’s 77 years old. There were so many people surrounding him who were just honored to meet him, who wanted to tell him what a great man he is, who wanted to get his autograph. If you look at the video you see that Mays seems to be talking to someone else, and over the years I think he’s learned in these sorts of moments to block out everything around him, to make himself deaf to the constant, “That’s Willie Mays!” chatter that surrounds him, to turn off to the hero worship that can deaden you inside. I really do just think he shut down. And Hamilton, who was obviously dying to meet him, could not get him started up again, at least while the camera was on.
The day after the All-Star game, I heard a great story about Mays that more or less confirmed what I was thinking. It seems that sometimes during All-Star week, Kenny Rogers (of all people) ran up to Mays and asked for a couple of autographs. I don’t know why Rogers was there, but this is the way I heard the story. Rogers introduced himself, Mays nodded, grumbled a hello, rather brusquely signed the autographs and started walking away. He was in the mode. If you had seen that scene, you might not have thought much of Willie Mays. But after he had taken a few steps, Mays suddenly stopped. He turned to someone and said, “Wait a minute! I know who that is. I just wish I could be younger, grab a bat, and take a few swings at the junk that guy throws.”
By Joe Posnanski
When I was still a kid in this crazy sportswriting racket, I drove several hours with a friend to see Mickey Mantle sign autographs at a baseball card show. My friend actually wanted to buy Mantle’s autograph — he was a photographer and as I recall he really wanted some photo he took signed. I just wanted to see what kind of person (other than desperate photographers) would spend fifty bucks to get something scribbled on by Mickey Mantle.
It’s not exactly that I’m opposed to autographs. I’m not. I have my autograph stories. I’ve told my Jim Kern story here before — I was 8 years old, I think, and I was waiting patiently before a game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium for Kern’s autograph, there were probably five or six kids around. Of course, I stood meekly in the back. And then when I was the only one left, Jim noticed that the game was about to begin. “I”m sorry,“ he said to me, ”I’ve got to get with the team.“ And I must have had started crying — not the wailing kind either, more like the pitifiul ”I’m trying not to cry but I can’t help it,“ whimper — and he looked back at the plate, back at me, dropped his shoulders and said, ”Oh, it’s OK, come on, I’ll sign it real quick.“ And he signed my piece of paper. I was SO happy. I mean, along with getting my first microscope set (which I played with for at least seven minutes before getting bored), along with winning my fourth grade spelling bee (losing in the school-wide bee to the two sixth graders!), along with making three three diving plays at shortstop in a Little League game, along with finally getting that 1976 Boog Powell baseball card — along with those and a few other big moments, getting Jim Kern’s autograph was one of the thrills of my childhood.
Trouble is, then I went back to my seat and tried to show my Dad … and I couldn’t find the autograph. It was gone. I had, of course, had Jim sign the paper in pencil (hey, I was 8, I had No. 2 pencils*). And as I’ve also mentioned, many years later, after I wrote this story for the first time, I got a baseball signed by Jim Kern. It read: “Joe, here’s your autograph. Stop whining. Jim Kern.” It has a prominent place on my bar mantle, next to my Bill James bobblehead doll and a very large and unopened bottle of vodka that someone once gave me — I don’t drink vodka. That bottle will outlast us all.
*I’ve often thought about the No. 1 pencil. What a sad failure. There it was, first out of the gate, all the advantages in the world, and no, it couldn’t hold on to the job, the Wally Pipp of pencils.
I also remember as a kid writing letters to my favorite players and also letter to every team in the big leagues. I think all kids should be forced to do something like that. It doesn’t have to be baseball, but they should all be encouraged to write letters asking for stuff. I’m going to have my oldest daughter do that … she’s six and doesn’t have much interest in baseball, but I don’t care, she can write to the cast of High School Musical if she wants. I’m being slightly serious for a moment: I would say that writing those letters back then was just about as valuable a lesson as I ever learned as a child. It taught me stuff.
1. It taught me the proper and respectful way to make a request. This is pretty big. There’s no doubt in my mind that kids today are much smarter, more savvy, more plugged in, better prepared for this crazy world that I was. BUT I am constantly surprised how often I will get a letter like this (and I promise you I’m not exaggerating):
Dear Joe,
I have to do this assignment in class where, like, I have to write about someone who has a job I would like to have. And even though I really don’t agree with you much, and I don’t really like your writing, you have a pretty cool job, so I need to ask you a few questions. Give me a call at this number or email me back.
That really is a pretty fair representation. Some letters/emails are slightly more pleasant — most are more pleasant — but some are actually worse, and a stunning number of them have that attitude. Hey, I don’t MIND some 13 year old kid thinking he or she could do my job better than me, that’s great, that’s part of BEING 13, but you probably don’t need to include that bit of info in letters requesting an actual FAVOR from somebody. I think this is a direct consequence of these people never writing autograph letters as kids.
2. It taught me that, with the right words and a little effort, people often WILL respond. That’s an important lesson too … people (and companies) are approachable. I can remember getting packets of stickers from teams like the Blue Jays, and I remember getting a letter from Dale Murphy, and so on. Every mailbox day was a new adventure, and I think every kid should experience that (and also the disappointment of NOT getting back an autograph or letter — thats part of life too). Years later, when I hit the crossroads of college and had no idea what to do with my life, I wrote bunches of letters to bunches of different people asking for professional advice. I’m convinced that is directly connected to writing those autograph letters as a kid. I got letters back from great people, from Bob Costas, from the people who ran Bill Mazeroski Baseball, from Joe Falls, from the good people at the baseball card magazine Beckett Monthly (my first sportswriting job!), a little later from my hero Leigh Montville. One of the letters I got back was from Frank Barrows, then the Sports Editor of The Charlotte Observer. That’s how I got into this goofy business.
It all really comes back to my childhood autograph seeking. So, yes, I’m all for autographs.
That said, I did have it wired in my mind that autographs, like Trix, are for kids. I’m not passing judgment here … to be perfectly blunt, I have no problem with athletes, especially retired athletes, charging for their autograph. It gets tiresome signing your name again and again, and it’s time consuming, and it’s clear that autographs are worth some money in the free market. I think they deserve to get paid. And I also have no problem with adults spending as much as they want on autographs — it’s their money, and if collecting autographs is their thing, hey, there are worse hobbies. I’ve seen “Silence of the Lambs.” But I will say I don’t really get the thrill of paying for an autograph.
OK, so back to the original story. We drove down to get the Mick’s autograph and see what this stuff was all about. This had to be around 1988 or ‘89 — the Mick showed up, and he looked terrible. At least that was my impression. He was limping around, his shoulders were slumped, his eyes looked bloodshot. I had seen him up close once before, at the event where Costas crushed me, and he looked pretty beat up then. He looked even worse now.
And I watched him closely. I watched his response — or lack of response — when people got close to them. These were middle-aged men, for the most part, and they were almost in tears. Some could not even speak, they were so nervous. Some wanted to introduce Mantle to their sons (a couple who were named Mickey, if I’m not mistaken). Some went into long soliloquies about the real Yankee Stadium and watching the Mick hit home runs from both sides of the plate and how he was the most important person in their whole, entire lives.
Here’s what I remember most: There was something dead in Mantle’s eyes. Maybe he was hung over. Maybe he was uninterested in being in Atlanta (or Richmond or Raleigh … I can’t remember where we saw him — which tells you something, heck, even I can’t remember). Maybe, maybe, maybe … I just remember feeling so sad for Mickey Mantle. I suspected that he could not hear them anymore. He had heard too much. He was loved too much. The guy who was telling how Mantle had changed his life, well, he was about the 12 millionth person to say that to Mantle. The ones who had named his kid Mickey, well, lots of people had named their kid after the Mick. The people who saw Mantle and were taken back to a few childhood days from 1956, well, it seemed to me that Mantle could not hear them anymore. There was nothing left, nothing inspiring, nothing surprising, nothing new under the son.
You know when I thought about the Mick? Strange. I thought about him on my wedding day. We didn’t have an especially big wedding, certainly by most standards, but we had a hundred people or so. And you know this if you’ve been married: For that one day everyone wants to talk to you, everyone wants to know you, everyone wants to ask how you feel, everyone gathers around you — it’s numbing and confusing and you have to go here for a picture, go there for a dance, go back for a picture, hang out with the guys, check out how the parents are doing, talk to some relative you didn’t know, tell a few stories, shake more hands, take another picture. Meanwhile everybody’s saying more or less the same thing to you, everyone is telling you some story about your childhood, and it’s great, and it’s exhausting, and it’s numbing, and after a while I found that I simply couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t hear anymore, and I thought, “this in the smallest way must be what Mickey Mantle has felt every single day since 1955.” Imagine that — having it be your wedding day. Forever.
I thought about the Mick at that card show one more time this week. I thought about it when Josh Hamilton ran out of the dugout for the beginning of the All-Star Game, ran out to Willie Mays, and was entirely unable to get his attention. Numerous people have wondered if Mays snubbed Hamilton, and maybe he did, I obviously don’t know. In the first chapter of my book (still only $5.99!), I write about Willie Mays. He’s a tough character to sum up. He’s in pain, he has trouble seeing, he has some of the old Say Hey kid freshness, but he also seems to have a lot of bitterness that he can’t quite let go.
Still, if I had to guess, I don’t think he was snubbing Hamilton at all. I just think that he, like Mantle (though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent), has been living a perpetual wedding day. To quote the Boss, there were the same ghosts in his eyes. He seemed disoriented in the moment — like a computer that simply powers itself off when there are too many things going on. The man’s 77 years old. There were so many people surrounding him who were just honored to meet him, who wanted to tell him what a great man he is, who wanted to get his autograph. If you look at the video you see that Mays seems to be talking to someone else, and over the years I think he’s learned in these sorts of moments to block out everything around him, to make himself deaf to the constant, “That’s Willie Mays!” chatter that surrounds him, to turn off to the hero worship that can deaden you inside. I really do just think he shut down. And Hamilton, who was obviously dying to meet him, could not get him started up again, at least while the camera was on.
The day after the All-Star game, I heard a great story about Mays that more or less confirmed what I was thinking. It seems that sometimes during All-Star week, Kenny Rogers (of all people) ran up to Mays and asked for a couple of autographs. I don’t know why Rogers was there, but this is the way I heard the story. Rogers introduced himself, Mays nodded, grumbled a hello, rather brusquely signed the autographs and started walking away. He was in the mode. If you had seen that scene, you might not have thought much of Willie Mays. But after he had taken a few steps, Mays suddenly stopped. He turned to someone and said, “Wait a minute! I know who that is. I just wish I could be younger, grab a bat, and take a few swings at the junk that guy throws.”
