SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED : At Jamison, Pa., Autographs Pay Off Big for Name Players

Baseball players can make money doing almost anything. They can sell major appliances on TV, open shopping malls, spray-paint a park bench or pose for underwear layouts. Which is good, because what ballplayer couldn’t use the money, having only seasonal work?

Now comes the breakthrough firm of Certified Autograph to really help these guys through the winter months, or, worse, through retirement.

After all, if there’s one thing we know, it’s that you can’t lounge in your briefs much past the day when you can no longer beat out the slow hopper to third. The legs really are the first to go.

So, this may be the best yet when it comes to earning that supplemental income. All the player has to do is sign his name, which many already know how to do, and he gets paid.

Used to be, only doctors could make money off their bad handwriting. But now almost any player worth his weight in pine tar can add to his income with just his autograph. A George Brett, for example, fetches $29. Somewhat lesser lights, such as Joe Torre, get just $19. Mickey Mantle is worth $29.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

To Jamison, Pa., headquarters for Certified Autograph, scrolling for dollars. DiMag gets $39. They don’t all him the Yankee Clipper for nothing.

To be sure, Brett doesn’t get $29 a pop, nor does DiMag get $39 with each DiMag he signs. In fact, the players get only between $1 and $5 a signature. But, unless your name happens to be Carl Yastrzemski, you’re still in for some easy money. Pete Rose hustled into Jamison and knocked off a thousand autographs in 3 hours 13 minutes, about the time it takes to play nine innings these days. He

got five grand.

Of course, no player dreamed this up. It comes from a retailing type named Paul Lehman, who operates a cluster of stores in Furlong, Pa., which is not so far from Philadelphia. Lehman, himself a modest collector of autographs--he has John Hancock’s you-know-what--got to thinking that autographs might really be worth something if you could just be sure they were bona fide.

“Once when I was a kid, I went to an A’s game to see Bob Feller pitch,” Lehman said. “I went to the bullpen and dropped my scorecard. He signed it and passed it up. You know what? None of my friends believed it was Feller’s autograph.”

Lehman, a Little League coach, got to talking this over with former major-league pitcher Bobby Shantz, who runs the dairy bar all the Little League coaches take their teams to. Shantz told Lehman that his friends’ skepticism had been justified. All those autographed balls? Shantz told Lehman that the clubhouse boys signed them.

“For a young kid, it may be enough to know he walked up and got George Brett’s autograph,” Lehman said. “As a collector’s item, it’s not worth anything.”

The reason Lehman’s autographs are worth as much as $39 is that he sits his players down with notary publics to certify that, yes, Yogi really did sign this. The notary public dates and signs below the autograph and then applies his seal. This, plus a photo of Yogi and the notary public on the back, certifies the autograph and makes it worth, well, at least $29 in Yogi Berra’s case.

As Lehman says in his four-color brochure, “They weren’t available back then, but what if they were . . . WHAT WOULD A BABE RUTH CERTIFIED AUTOGRAPH BE WORTH TODAY? . . . What would it sell for? 10 times more? 100 times more? WHO KNOWS?”

That these are indeed sound investments is indicated by a photo in the brochure. A doctor is showing his patient, who is perhaps scheduled for brain surgery that afternoon, several certified autographs hanging next to his degree. Everyone knows that doctors appreciate value, especially when it comes to furnishing an office. Besides, who knows how many patients those certified autographs have reassured.

We should pause here, should probably have paused earlier. A Certified Autograph is not just a certified autograph, a name you hang in your examining room. It is much, much more. There is the player’s name--signed with a special $3 pen that is good for no more than 30 autographs--his lifetime statistics and major achievements, and a full color photo, all on a special 8 by 10 acid-free paper. Would you pay $39 for this?

Would you pay $39 if it came in a real wood and glass frame? Lots already have. Advertising in publications such as The Sporting News--why not the AMA Journal?--Lehman has apparently tapped an already existing market. The orders have been rolling in.

“About 70% of the people that buy one buy a second one,” Lehman said. “And 50% on our list take the whole series.”

Oh, right, the series. It’s like the Book-of-the-Month Club. Every month a Hall of Famer is sent along. The advantages are in getting a guaranteed price and availability, plus the same registration number throughout the series. Same advantages go for the Future-Hall-of-Famer series.

Lehman couldn’t get any of this in motion until he had a star. He went after Mickey Mantle and, with the help of Shantz, signed him to sign. Mantle went in mostly because of his friendship with Shantz. Other players fell in line soon after.

When Ted Williams was finally signed up, DiMaggio came aboard. Willie Mays is just a matter of time. The only player to resist so far has been Stan Musial. Lehman thinks Stan the Man will join eventually, too.

After all, how tough a gig is this? Robin Roberts showed up, had some coffee and doughnuts and signed the day away, stopping to tell yarns.

If you can’t make it to Jamison, they’ll arrange to do it at your home. They trucked a notary public up to Yogi Berra’s racket club in New Jersey.

Johnny Mize didn’t want to leave Demorest, Ga., so he was allowed to find a hometown notary public. Trouble is, there isn’t one in Demorest, population 1,029. So Mize’s autograph is the only one witnessed by a bank president. How about that for an investment?

The players were surprisingly easy to line up. As Lehman said: “It’s darn interesting for ballplayers to make money by signing something.”

What’s next, as more and more marketing frontiers are penetrated. What about the air the athletes breathed, the dirt they trod? People are already paid vast sums just to play a game. Now one wonders just what the players will do when the meter’s not on. Anything?