Why don't more autographs tell stories?
Here's another example of the unexpected virtue of letting the mind wander.
What’s your favorite autograph?
I don’t have many, but there are two that come to mind.
One is this signed copy of college hoops legend Jerry Tarkanian’s memoir, written by one of my all-time sportswriting idols, Dan Wetzel. The year was 2006, I was piss-and-vinegar at my college paper at UMass, and Wetzel was in town to pay a visit to his alma mater and give some career advice to aspiring writers like myself.
After speaking to journalism students for an hour, Dan and his old classmate Matt Vautour (MassLive’s home run sports columnist) took a few of us out for drinks. We listened as they traded incredible war stories about being on campus at the height of John Calipari and the Refuse To Lose era.
My other favorite autograph is in the photo that leads off this column.
Here’s the story. My grandmother used to work at a pool supply store in Abington, Massachusetts. One of her coworkers was dating Patriots running back J.R. Redmond, who was coming off his rookie season and had just started his own line of workout clothing, JR (Just Run) Sportswear. He came by the store one day and asked if anyone wanted anything signed.
Naturally, my grandmother was all over it. I got a couple of Just Run sweatshirts and his rookie card, all signed and personalized “To Brendan.” A few months later, JR caught three passes on the iconic final drive of Super Bowl XXXVI that set up Adam Vinatieri’s immortal field goal.
Some of you might have more extraordinary autograph stories. But the point of me telling this is to remind you that, without “To Brendan” on that card, that autograph’s value has a monetary limit. But that little piece of cardboard became priceless the second it was personalized, because it’s got a story that’ll carry on JR’s legacy long after everyone forgets what he ever did on the field. And besides, what use could some autograph collector named Brad have with it?
I bring this up because Tom VanHaaren (who I had the honor of trading recruiting notes with frequently as colleagues at ESPN) has an awesome story on a Colorado Rockies prospect who’s having way too much fun signing baseball cards.
Bored from signing thousands of cards as part of endorsement deals, Benny Montgomery decided to get weird with it:
Signing thousands of cards over and over can get monotonous and, as Montgomery describes it, mind-numbing. Through his contract with the four companies, he's required to sign certain cards and get them back to each company in a certain timeframe.
Montgomery had gotten bored after signing a few hundred cards and decided to write a different name on one of them. He's a fan of the Borat movies, so he signed the card as Borat and sent a picture to his agent.
"I realized people don't do this, so I was surprised by that because it seemed like a creative way to show your personality," Montgomery said.
From there, it took on a life on its own. The Borat card spawned a conspiracy theory about whether or not a second person was helping him sign the cards, which only drove him to double down on the weird. There was Bennie and the Jets. “Sign Here”. Even using friends’ signatures.
Just another example of the unexpected virtues of letting the mind wander. Benny Montgomery has yet to take a major league at bat and he’s already made himself a collector’s item.
How come more athletes don’t do stuff like this? Whether it’s personalizing, or doing something utterly bizarre like drawing a mountain range where you’re supposed to sign. Because this guy’s legend is going to live on forever, long after anyone forgets if he ever made it to The Show or not. Those cards are always going to be worth something to whoever’s holding them.
P.S. — This reminds me of a roommate at UMass who used the memo space of his rent checks to write a message to whoever was processing it downtown. It always started with “Hey Mr. Bank Guy” and then an encouragement to download whatever new music he’d been listening to at the moment. It was never not laugh-out-loud hilarious. This was the height of the MP3 era, when pirate websites were how we acquired new tracks for our iPods. I’m proud to say that goofy SOB grew up to become Best Man at my wedding, and a corporate attorney in California.