Several years ago I started working on a project to collect as many autographed Mets cards as I could without paying for any of them. Doing it mostly through the mail, I have sent out 369 cards to 237 players. To date, 89 players have sent 134 cards backed signed (38%). In addition I’ve acquired a few dozen more both in person and through friends.
Some of the responses have been very interesting, from the expected requests for money to personal notes.
We’ll start with Don Aase. He signed these 2 cards and sent them back in 29 days.
Whenever I see the name Don Aase, it makes me laugh. I can’t remember if it was the summer of 1990 or 1991 (I think 90) but a mate and I travelled to Montreal to see the Mets play there. Since we were teenagers, we went crazy following the players from the hotel to all different places. Even got to sit with the players’ wives when Keith Miller gave us free tix because we recognized him out of uniform. A long story short, we’re at one hotel’s pool — and see a few ladies sitting around. We asked if they’d seen any Mets players — and one woman, Judy, said no. But she was Don Aase’s wife.
In nervousness, and with ball in hand, my friend Mike asked Judy Aase for her autograph. And she gave it. We had balls with Ralph Kiner, Keith Miller, a few others — and the great Judy Aase.
She really was neat about it all. Boy do I wish I still had that ball.
Two people wanted NOTHING to do with us. Rusty Staub who refused to even stop for a photo nastily. And Kevin McReynolds. No loss really, but he told us to “stop f-ing following me,” after we saw him coming out of a bank not too long after he’d already refused to so much as say hello.
Kevin – that is a great story. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone to have a player’s wife signature. (Well maybe Anna Benson – but I don’t want to go there).
Thanks for sharing!
Dan, thank YOU for the post. I hadn’t thought about Judy Aase in ages! The best part of that trip, hands down, though, was Keith Miller’s graciousness and kindness. He truly couldn’t fathom that we’d travel from Jersey to Montréal to see his team play — and he was genuinely grateful. We already had tickets, but he wanted us to get the full experience of sitting with the wives and girlfriends. Of the WAGs, the nicest that night? Tim Teufel’s wife. And I believe he got the GWRBI that night (it was still a stat then, I believe).
Just looked at Don’s stats — it was actually 1989.