The Lunatic Fringe

This comic came around from this tweet via @SFGiants:

Signed, Sealed, and De-twitt-ered

Holy heck!!!  That is way too many signatures!  My hand hurts after I write just half a page these days.

When I was a kid, my father ran into both Joe Montana and Jim Plunkett (look it up, kids) on the same day at SFO.  He got their signatures on the back of a single business card.  I was a little young, and it kind of confused me, but he was really excited about it, so I got excited.

But I got turned off of signatures when, one day, I was getting a ride with my best friend and his mom when she started going nuts because she saw Montana driving the other way.  And no kidding, she did a u-turn in the middle of the street, followed him to his house, and asked for signatures on his driveway.  Joe, being the class act that he is, signed away on the slightly-soda-stained piece of binder paper we found on the car floor, but I looked at him, and I just felt bad for him.  Since that day, I’ve never been one to ask for signatures.

People go nuts for them, and to a point, I get why.  But I respect the players for continuing to sign them, even when you see middle-aged men with binders of cards, and bags of memorabilia, asking players (even low-level prospects) to sign several items at once and then literally checking off a list like they were walking down the detergent aisle at Target.  I’m a hardcore fan, but even I have a point where these things are pretty outrageous and  just a bit disgusting.

That said, I still bought an autographed World Series ball by Buster Posey for my Dad, for our World Series display.  I may not have gotten it signed myself, but it still brings me back to the excitement he gave me over that business card.  That means more to me anything.