Autographed Baseball Collector Experiences Not Always Good

by Greg Johnson

It would be nice to be able to say that all of us autographed baseball collectors have had nothing but good experiences, but unfortunately that is not the case. As a collector you will find that you will run into bad experiences and these can happen in different ways. If you collect autographed baseballs for a good amount of time you will most likely buy a fake ball, get one of your balls stolen or damaged, and even run into some baseball players who won’t treat you very well when you try to get their autographs.

Regardless of what happens, you have to remember that things like this happen and you must move on.  My advice is that you do not let things like this get to you and that you move on with a smile. Personally I have not had many bad experiences but I have ran into some players that have been pretty mean about giving autographs.

Jonathan Sanchez, the Puerto Rican pitcher for the San Francisco Giants that threw a no-hitter in 2009, was actually one of my bad experiences more than once. After his no-hitter, Sanchez was a pretty popular person when it came to people trying to get his autograph. The thing was, I think I tried getting his autograph more than 10 times before then and he always ignored me. There were times when it was just the two of us standing next to each other and he still denied me. I even spoke in Spanish to him and asked him for an autograph and twice he said “mañana,” which means tomorrow.

Now I know sometimes players are busy and or have other things going on that keep them from being able to give autographs, but I doubt that was the case for all of the times that I asked. To me, it is a shame when players hesitate so much for just a simple autograph, I think it is something that they owe to the fans, after all, if there were no fans, they would have no jobs!

Although these experiences can really make a fan lose hope, I never have, and you should not either.  We have to accept that not everyone in this world is going to be nice about your hobby as an autographed baseball collector, so get out there and work at it.  The nice this is that you can build a collection without setting yourself up for disappointment.