The Adventures of a Ten Year-Old Chasing Autographs in the 1950s
Hounding baseball players for their autographs was never easy. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't like getting up at four in the morning to deliver the Bronx Home Post, or carrying stuffed cardboard boxes of white bread, canned fruits and vegetables, and quart bottles of Ballantine and Schlitz beer from Silver's Grocery, up five dark flights of apartment building stairs.
Actually, living only five blocks from Yankee Stadium made autograph collecting pretty accessible.
Waiting for players to emerge from their safe confines at the Concourse Plaza Hotel, and walking with them – or more like trying to keep up with them -- a couple of blocks to the Stadium was neat. They’d even talk with you every once in a while. However, waiting at the top of the subway stairs as they arrived at the ballpark, or standing in the parking lot looking out for team buses to pull in from some downtown hotel, became a crapshoot for some, but a well-honed art for others.
As a 10-year-old, I was mentored -- and escorted around -- by my friend's older brother, who after four or five years of autograph collecting knew the lay of the land.
Although he was only 15, he attacked autograph hunting with professionalism way beyond his years. Although his preparation checklist wasn't written down, it was precise: "Are your cards sorted by the team in town?” he’d ask. “Do you have enough ball point pens? Do you have your scrapbook of glossies? How about a pad for players you don't have cards or pictures of?"
After a day of autograph hunting, I’d sit on my bed late at night in my third floor-walkup apartment and took inventory. Most of the time, nothing of note had happened that day, but if I scored an autograph of Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays, you were in heaven. And, the next day, when I’d met up with fellow autograph-seekers, there were stories to tell, moments to be revisited.
I was in an exclusive club.
Being in that club separated me from the other kids in the neighborhood. I understood the intricacies and, the inside baseballedness that my friends weren't privy to.
We were single-minded in our pursuit of autographs. Perhaps an occasional elbow would nudge our fellow autograph-seekers out of the way. We were, after all, going after my target with reckless abandon, at least as reckless as a ten-year-old could muster.
I never thought of ripping off the other collectors for an autographed card, no matter how rare that card or autograph was. I never imagined forging autographs – although there probably was guys who did that -- to trade for real ones. There was a mutual respect for the skills of those standing besides you as you geared up for the hunt. In our small universe there was elation and disappointment, and unbridled passion, but you never saw your competitors as the other, so outside your own sphere that you demonized them.
My days of standing out in front of the Concourse Plaza Hotel, hanging out at the 161st Street IRT subway stop, and running through parking lots when the player buses arrived, were numbered. My mentor would soon join the Air Force. I was grappling with the fifth and sixth grades; wrestling with how not to get on the wrong side of Mrs. Castilla and Mrs. Maher.
At some point during my teenage years I put scotch tape over most of the autographs, and they are now, as they say in the business, “degraded.” Other autographs – especially the ones signed in pencil – are fading with the years. What’s left of my collection of baseball cards is in a box in my closet. But it doesn’t take much for me to bring down my scrapbook and share a few stories with family and friends.