Selling Autographs: a Sign of the Times

Still a bit vague are the exact happenings at Willie Mays’ autograph party, where a $10 fee was paid for each of his signatures on baseballs and other things, after the books were sold out. This caused something of a stink, and later Willie said, “I didn’t ask for the money.”

Eileen Vaughan of Kensington, Md., said, “Oh, yes, he did.” This was after her 11-year-old son was turned away until he could come up with the required funds. When it was suggested that it was a couple of Mays’ spokesmen at the party who put the $10 price on each sample of Willie’s penmanship, an unplacated Vaughan declared, “They all did.”

The upshot was that Mays, after all the complaints, walked away from the $230 on the table, saying it wasn’t his. But that does not obscure the fact that the money had been paid over in return for Willie’s signature. And whoever laid down those ground rules was a rapacious blackguard who was giving baseball a black eye, and giving kids’ hero-worship, and Norman Rockwell and his America a kick in the groin.

Once upon a time, like beginning around the turn of the century, and in the Honus Wagner-Ty Cobb-Walter Johnson-Babe Ruth eras, baseball’s biggest stars and all the other players gave their autographs freely, and for free, to the game’s fans. It was part of life in baseball. It simply never occurred to any player, no matter how famous, that his autograph was worth more than the ball or scorecard it was written on.

They’d all be astonished now to learn how much their signatures are valued, the autograph game having exploded into an industry with a growth curve headed toward Fortune 500 ranking. Three huge companies -- Topps, Fleer and Donruss -- are purveying autographed baseball cards that, for both kids and adults in the millions, have become collectables at ever-increasing prices.

Would you care to buy a Honus Wagner, now rated the rarest of the baseball cards? Fine, just bring at least $25,000 to the next baseball card auction. That’s what a Honus Wagner went for at the last one.

Any collector priced out by the Wagner card and willing to settle for a lower level can buy a Mickey Mantle (1966) for $175, or a more valuable 1968 Mantle at $650, and the even more pricey 1963 Mantle for $1,760, all as advertised by the Baseball Card News, one of the many magazines devoted to the flourishing market. A Pete Rose rookie year, 1963, fetches a mere $500. In the beginning, in the 1940s, the players who signed those cards got peanuts from the bubble gum companies. Now, they do better.

Not surprisingly, pay-for-signatures has become a racket. One major league pitcher of a past generation, very famous, has for years made a practice of criss-crossing the country giving free how-to-pitch clinics, and telling stories of his career. And, incidentally, charging a nice, fixed fee for every autograph he gives out. Very lucrative.

At the yearly gatherings of Hall of Famers at Cooperstown, those heroes have balked at signing more than one article for each fan at the autographing sessions structured for them. They wave away those who bring more than one scorecard or ball or bat to be signed. “These kids, and men, too, are selling those autographs to other people by the bunches,” said one Hall of Famer.

Al Lopez, one of the more respected Cooperstown heroes, whose own career in the majors spanned 19 seasons, revealed that he was approached by a representative of some company “that wanted to pay me $10,000 if I would spend a day autographing in New York. If I stayed a second day, they would pay me $15,000 more.”

He turned down both offers, Lopez said, “because I don’t like the idea of having kids pay for it. The whole thing is so darn commercialized.” Lopez added, however, that he didn’t blame players who needed the money.

The eager collectors, with a knowledge of the market, go for everything: picture cards, old gloves, caps, bats, anything that is resaleable and autographed. Lopez mentioned one player, a starter in the National League outfield in the first All-Star Game in 1933, who was offered $5,000 for the uniform he wore that day. It was not an eleemosynary gesture. The guy knew that somewhere out there there was a customer for any baseball article with a history.

Willie Mays, if he was collecting a sawbuck for everything he signed, was, in this age, not doing anything particularly uncommon among ballplayers. It isn’t illegal, but with baseball enjoying a special place in America, it just didn’t seem right. And never will, to some of us romantics, and others.