Tell us about your close encounters!
Once upon a time, many years ago, in the sweltering heat of a Kansas City summer, I tossed a ball to Phil Coke, and he very obligingly signed a baseball for me. Now, being a fool, the only pen I had with me was ballpoint, and the signatures I collected from Coke (and Gene Lamont!) are both moderately smeared, and Phil gave a sort of apologetic shrug to the next person to ask for an autograph as if to say “I don’t know, man, she gave it to me.”
It was mortifying, but hey, I still have that slightly smudged ball, signed by a relief pitcher that almost no one will remember in another ten years, but that memory will stick with me until my dying day.
A moment like that couldn’t happen now, largely because of the mandatory netting at all fields, and for me it’s also because I now feel vastly too old and grey to queue up to ask for player autographs. But I’ve met players in other scenarios and managed to pretend to be a cool person, hurray!
Have you ever encountered a Tigers’ player? Either at the park, in the wild, or as someone you might know in your real life? Today’s open thread is all about sharing our interactions with a player! (Failing a Tigers’ player, any baseball player will suffice, but I won’t get into my Pete Rose story here….)
Let’s hear your player interaction stories!