Waiting for a Sign Volume 2: Highlights & Inside Stories from a Lifetime of Collecting Baseball Autographs

By Kevin Keating

If you were a baseball fan in the '60s, '70s, or '80s-or if your passion for the game and its history is more recent-Waiting for a Sign will be a page-turner you can't put down. Kevin Keating spent his youth c

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Core Media Group, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781950465620

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What People Have Said About Kevin Keating and Waiting for a Sign…

The perfect read for any baseball fan or someone who just wants ‘the PERFECT read’!

–Don Larsen, World Series perfect game pitcher (1956)

A chance meeting with Kevin in an elevator led to a book taken home, read, and then shared with others! You’ll enjoy these stories—as I did—of these well-known names in the baseball world!

–Bobby Richardson, Yankee legend

Kevin Keating has captured the very essence of what every baseball fan dreams of, and that is to meet and directly interact with the greatest players of a particular era. As a young boy I was star-struck by the likes of Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Berra, and Mazeroski, among others. But never did I dream that one day I would play on the same field with and against these men and many more of the greats I so admired, and that we would also become friends. Kevin Keating has brought back some wonderful personal memories. It was an honor to play with these greats, many of whom are still my boyhood heroes. A wonderful book!

–Rico Petrocelli, Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer

We all have that one friend who can tell a story with such life and enthusiasm that you feel like you’re in the middle of the story. Kevin Keating is one of those friends. I’ve been blessed to hear many of Kevin’s stories first hand. And I am looking forward to Volume Two so I can feel his enthusiasm as he shares stories I have yet to hear.

–Doug Henry, Major League pitcher (1991-2001)

Kevin’s book is remarkable and fascinating. The kid in me who grew up wanting to meet my baseball heroes is brought to life through the amazing stories he shares. This book is a must read for all baseball enthusiasts!

–Mitch Harris, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher and United States Naval Academy graduate (2008)

Growing up a terribly conflicted Yankee fan in the enemy territory of New England, I always thought that being Babe Ruth’s grandson gave me something of an edge when it came to obtaining autographs. That doesn’t mean I appreciated them any less, however. As Kevin so aptly puts it, an autograph is like owning a little piece of the player and a snapshot in time. I can still recall the time, place, and circumstance of almost every autograph I have managed to collect over the years. Waiting for a Sign is really the story of one man’s lifelong love of baseball and how he transformed autograph collecting into a science. And along the way, what great stories of larger-than-life personalities he chose to share with us. I can’t wait for Volume II!

–Tom Stevens, fellow fan and baseball enthusiast

Kevin’s passion and love for baseball—so present in Waiting for a Sign—is inspirational! From one soldier to another: thank you, Kevin, for sharing these wonderful stories!

–Rodney Rocky Sickmann, USMC, Iran Hostage (Tehran, Iran, November 4, 1979 – January 20, 1981)

Waiting for a Sign is a beautiful collection of stories about pursuing the American dream. To have hope, an idea - a dream of how you want to live and who you want to be; to have the courage and freedom to go after that dream and see where it takes you: that’s Kevin Keating’s story and the stories of these baseball legends.

–Jamie McShane, Actor

In his masterful two-volume work, Waiting for a Sign, Kevin Keating creates a new dimension of baseball history. Instead of a compilation of abstract statistics, graphs, and charts, Kevin gives us a portrayal of the world of baseball in an assemblage of stories from his personal interactions with baseball legends. For time to come, the world of baseball will remain indebted to Kevin's many stories of our national sport palpitating with life and enjoyment.

–Calvin O. Schrag, the George Aide Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Purdue University

Collecting autographs is about securing a tangible relic from a moment in time. In Waiting for a Sign, autograph aficionado Kevin Keating recounts in wonderful detail his first-hand experiences with baseball’s biggest stars. Every autograph has a story. When Kevin Keating tells the story, you walk away feeling like you were a part of the moment.

–Steve Sloan, Chief Marketing Officer, Collectors Universe

I know Kevin Keating as an expert on Babe Ruth autographs—maybe the expert—but after reading Waiting for a Sign it’s clear that he’s a lot more. Not only does he love baseball, but he has quite literally written the book on how to get autographs from celebrity ballplayers. While this book is full of colorful anecdotes about his many interactions with some of the greatest names ever from the sport, it also serves as the consummate guide to the science behind obtaining autographs and building a collection. And Kevin has certainly done that. His book is a wonderful read that is full of history, nostalgia and entertainment. For a guy who also writes about baseball, what I particularly liked was how his book goes below the surface to reveal the little boy who is in every man.

–Jerry Amernic, author of Babe Ruth – A Superstar’s Legacy

Kevin’s stories are so remarkable that there is almost no way to describe them!

–Karson Keating, baseball fan and autograph collector

Waiting for a Sign is so good, as soon as I finished it, I started reading it all over again!

–Kolby Keating, baseball fan and autograph collector

Waiting for a Sign Volume Two

by Kevin Keating

www.waitingforasignbook.com

www.kevinkeatingbooks.com

Copyright © 2022 by Kevin Keating

Published by The Core Media Group, Inc., www.thecoremediagroup.com.

The authors are represented by WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., www.wordserveliterary.com.

Cover & Interior Design by Nadia Guy.

Cover photos provided by Kevin Keating.

Print ISBN 978-1-950465-54-5

eBook ISBN 978-1-950465-62-0

All rights reserved. This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of Elishaba Doerksen.

Printed in the United States of America.

James Thomas Keating

(Born May 8, 1932, Lafayette, Indiana – Died March 16, 2019, Lafayette, Indiana)

This book is dedicated to my father,

James Thomas Keating,

without whom these events would not have taken place.

Contents

Foreword by Paul Byrd

Prologue: Why do people collect autographs? What makes autograph collecting special?

Introduction: You don’t have to be an autograph collector to enjoy owning autographs….

Chapter One: Elmer Flick (1970)

Mr. Flick…would [have] liked to have known you….

Chapter Two: Casey Stengel (1970)

Become a Big Leaguer / Root for the NY Mets!

Chapter Three: George Sisler (1971)

Keep up these nice habots [sic] and you will become a good man.

Chapter Four: Don Sutton (1971)

Why don’t you just call me Don?

Chapter Five: Red Faber (1971)

Call back tomorrow….

Chapter Six: Roberto Clemente (1972)

…would you please sign the top two?

Chapter Seven: Stanley Coveleski (1973)

[Next time] please just send about three cards to be autograph [sic]…but not fifteen.

Chapter Eight: Harmon Killebrew (1974)

What do you want to ask me?

Chapter Nine: Mark McGwire (1987)

I’ll be there in a minute.

Chapter Ten: Bob Feller (1988)

Bob Feller here.

Chapter Eleven: Chuck Connors (1991)

Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be grateful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.

Chapter Twelve: George Brett (1991)

I want you to have this.

Chapter Thirteen: Warren Spahn (1993)

What makes a great hitter?

Chapter Fourteen: Paul Gleason (1996)

I’ll always answer the phone for you, Double-K!

Chapter Fifteen: Buck O’Neil (2000)

You love all men, not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love them because God loves them.

Chapter Sixteen: Bert Shepherd (2000)

There goes the ballgame!

Chapter Seventeen: Mike Myers and Alan Embree (2004)

I’ll keep one of the World Series celebration bottles for you—after I spray it empty!

Chapter Eighteen: Joe and Phil Niekro (2006)

I love this guy!

Chapter Nineteen: Paul Byrd (2007)

"You’re shaking hands with the luckiest man in the world!

Chapter Twenty: Ted Kubiak (2019)

Your dad was like a second father to me.

Epilogue: Chasing Aaron Judge….

Kevin’s Collecting Tips

Acknowledgments

Footnotes

About the Author

Foreword

by Paul Byrd

And they'll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game, and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.

—James Earl Jones, Field of Dreams

I first met Kevin Keating while pitching for the New York Mets in 1995. He was authenticating a jersey for a teammate of mine that Mickey Mantle had supposedly both autographed and worn in the 1957 all-star game. And quickly, there was a hint of sadness mixed with a little embarrassment that filled the locker room when Kevin rendered his verdict. Years later when I bought a signed, game-used Joe Namath jersey, complete with red clay on the left shoulder, Kevin confirmed that the dirt was some of New York’s finest pizza sauce and I was left understanding my Mets teammate’s pain. I learned a costly lesson, that when it comes to memorabilia and especially autographs, there is no better person in the world to authenticate an item and give you the history behind its signer—particularly when it’s a baseball player—than Kevin Keating. No One!

What I appreciate about Kevin is how much he genuinely loves the game of baseball and doesn’t use players for financial or personal gain or just to say he ‘knows them.’ To me that is not only rare but also means a lot in this profession. His love for playing the game is also authentic, once telling me God cursed him at birth by giving him more desire than anyone he knew to play Big League baseball, but failed to give him enough talent to stand out on his high school team.

Over the years we have become good friends and exchanged many crazy stories over coffee and biscuits on my trips to Washington, DC. We even visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center together once to cheer up a few injured US troops when Kevin coordinated a team event while I was with the Cleveland Indians. More recently, he stopped by our ranch with Walter Johnson’s grandson (Henry Thomas) for a visit, toting a U-Haul stuffed with more than 12,000 autographed baseballs, including an inked Babe Ruth gem stashed in the back of the trailer. To say I didn’t sleep well with that kind of treasure in my gravel driveway would be an understatement! I checked on it a few times that night and was happy to wake up with the morning sun and find it safe and secure. More biscuits and stories, please…!

The reason I believe you NEED THIS BOOK is because James Earl Jones is right: deep inside us, baseball—and the watching of it—is GOOD for the soul. And hearing stories about the heroes who throw the balls and swing the sticks for a living is also GOOD for the soul! Waiting for a Sign (Volume Two) is another opportunity to sit in those bleachers on a perfect afternoon and hear first-hand accounts of timeless, never-before-told stories of baseball heroes that will have you smiling and leave you childlike again. You’re about to appreciate Roberto Clemente’s kindness; know the Rifleman Chuck Connors’ charm; smile at George Sisler’s gift; learn about the shirt that came off of George Brett’s back; hear Warren Spahn’s last words; and be taken aback by the injured Marine who, from his bedside, changed a Big League score by declaring himself "the luckiest man in the world." Get ready!

Paul Byrd

Emmy Award winning broadcaster (2018 and 2020), Major League Baseball Pitcher (1995-2009), author, and Kevin’s friend (since 1995).

Prologue

Why do people collect autographs? What makes autograph collecting special?

Most people do not regard themselves as autograph collectors, but most people own autographs they have collected. If you have ever had someone sign your school yearbook, you have collected an autograph. Conversely, if you have ever written your name in a friend’s yearbook at their request, you have signed an autograph.

I am often asked, Why do people collect autographs? And what makes autograph collecting special?

Simply put, people collect autographs just as they do memories. And autographs are unique because they provide a lasting and permanent physical connection to the memory of an event, a person, and a moment in time.

Autograph seeking also provides the seeker with a generally acceptable reason to approach the sought-after signer when a natural interface might not otherwise exist. In my youth, collecting autographs in school yearbooks gave me an excuse to interact with some of the girls I was otherwise too shy to approach.

Asking for their autographs gave me both a reason to speak with them and the cover I needed to mask my adolescent intimidation. The resultant exchanges often worked well to open up a greater dialogue and also helped build my self-confidence.

Similarly, autograph collecting gives fans both a reason and a purpose to approach their idols and to interact with them, even if just for a moment. When a fan is lucky enough to score a sign, that autograph will also provide a lasting, concrete connection to the memory of that interaction.

But autographs need not be acquired in person to be coveted and valued. Some of my most prized autographs were gifted to me; others I got through the mail by writing to players; and I have also purchased many items over the years from collectors, dealers, and auctions. Regardless of how one obtains an autograph, a signed item is a tangible link to its signer, no matter how many hands it passes through or how much time has passed after its origination.

When one owns an autograph, one not only owns something its signer created, one also owns a moment of that person’s life. This personal, physical connection from the signer—through the autograph—to the collector makes an autograph a uniquely desirable collectible.

Welcome to Volume Two of Waiting for a Sign (WFAS), with more highlights and stories from my fifty-plus years of collecting baseball autographs.

My lifetime love affair with baseball began when I was ten years old. The year was 1969. One day that summer my Father came home from work with a baseball autographed by the 1969 Chicago White Sox. One of Dad’s work colleagues had given him the ball to give to me. Those were my first autographs, and I still have that ball.

The next year Randy Hundley became the first person to autograph something for me. I got Randy’s autograph when he made a promotional appearance at a local convenience store. And that was just the beginning….

By the end of 1970, Ted Williams had signed a baseball for me at Comiskey Park; Roberto Clemente had signed four autographs for me in front of the Chicago hotel where the Pirates stayed while in town to play the Cubs; and I had received multiple autographs through the mail from Hall of Fame members like Casey Stengel, Dizzy Dean, and Lefty Grove by writing to them in care of the Hall of Fame. When I graduated from high school in 1977, I had collected more than 10,000 baseball autographs both in-person and through the mail.

Like countless children, I wanted to become a major league baseball player, and collecting their autographs connected me to my heroes. Even as my unrealized dream to become a big leaguer faded and gave way to the reality of life’s natural progression, my love affair with baseball never waned. Nor has my pursuit of collecting baseball autographs, which continues to this day.

The pastime eventually became my livelihood and has profoundly impacted my life in ways I could never have imagined when it began. Along the way, I have collected tens of thousands of autographs. More importantly, I have collected friendships with some of my idols and a lifetime’s worth of memories from collecting autographs.

Here are some of those memories. I hope you enjoy them, as much as I enjoy recounting them!

Introduction

You don’t have to be an autograph collector to enjoy owning autographs….

Autographs are keepsakes, and you don’t have to be an ordinary fan to collect autographs.

Famous people collect autographs, too.

Here are three of my favorite stories about famous people signing autographs for other famous people.

Mark McGwire for Whitey Ford

A few days after baseball’s 1998 regular season ended, I got a call from Whitey Ford’s oldest son, Tommy. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had both just surpassed Roger Maris’s record for most home runs hit in a season, 61, a mark that had stood for 37 years. The home run chase that summer had been an epoch one that captured the nation’s attention. Big Mac reached 61 and 62 first; however, who would finish the year with the most 4-baggers was not clear until almost the last game. At the end, Sosa had hit 66 but McGwire banged out 70 to set the new record.

And it was the number 70 that Tommy was calling about….

Kevin, you know Mark McGwire just beat Roger’s (Maris) home run record, finishing with 70, right?

Yes, I responded. Well, Tommy continued, Dad’s birthday is on the 21st of this month (October). He turns 70. The family and I have been talking about what to get him for his big day. We want something really special for the occasion. And I was thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we could give Dad a baseball from Mark McGwire signed and inscribed, ‘To Whitey, we both hit 70 in 1998.’ I know Dad would get a big kick out of that! Can you help us make that happen?

I’m not sure, but I’ll try my best. I said.

The truth is, as much as I thought this was a great idea, I had no idea how to get to McGwire. He was the country’s No.1 sports icon and at the top of his fame, with endless demands for his time and attention. I already had a long waiting list of people who had asked me to find them a McGwire-signed baseball. But he had not done a public autograph signing in many years, and the supply of authentic examples in circulation was virtually nonexistent. Anyone who had one, it seemed, was unwilling to sell.

I knew of only one McGwire ball that had recently sold, and it fetched $1500—an astounding sum at the time for a living baseball player’s single-signed baseball. And of course, to get one with this special inscription was a whole different matter.

The Fords knew countless people in baseball, but for some reason they chose me to help with this special task, and I was determined not to let them down. Besides, I figured that McGwire would likely be happy to accommodate the unique request from the family of one of baseball’s all-time greats, if only I could get it to him.

After giving the matter considerable thought, I finally remembered that George Will had written the (now all-time) best-selling baseball book, Men at Work, in which Tony La Russa is featured in The Manager chapter. La Russa was McGwire’s manager. I had come to know George personally, and I knew that he and Tony had become good friends. If anyone could help me, it was George Will. So I phoned his assistant, Mary, who helped me set up an appointment to make my pitch to him the very next day.

Knowing how busy George was, I got straight to the point. I had barely finished my special request when he picked up his desk phone and speed-dialed Tony La Russa. George was clearly delighted to participate in my endeavor, and so was Tony who agreed to help. In less than a week the baseball arrived at my home in a FedEx box.

I immediately repackaged it and sent it to Tommy, who presented it to Whitey on his 70th birthday. Shortly thereafter, Whitey called to thank me for my part in acquiring his special gift.Years later, Whitey sold much of his personal collection, including this special ball which I now own. And it’s one of my favorite keepsakes because of its story.

Warren Spahn for President George W. Bush

Warren Spahn (aka, Spahnnie), who won 363 games—more than any pitcher since 1930—became my very good friend (see Warren Spahn story, chapter 13). During one of our last visits I told Warren that I had recently met President George W. Bush, and that I would be meeting him again sometime in the future.

I knew Warren had been good friends with the Bush family for many years. Not surprisingly, he asked me to please pass on my regards to the president the next time I saw him. That gave me an idea.

Spahnnie, I said, Why don’t you autograph a photo to President Bush and I’ll give it to him when I see him.

Good idea! Warren exclaimed.

With that, he went into his office and grabbed a copy of his favorite photo, one he reserved for special gifts. After thinking a moment, he inscribed and signed it:

To President Bush, You are in my Hall of Fame. Best wishes, Warren Spahn.

Warren passed away on November 24, 2003. I didn’t see the president again until October 25, 2005. Handing him the photo, I said, Mr. President, a mutual friend of ours asked me to give this to you….

His eyes grew wide as he read the inscription.

Aw, Laura and I were sad to hear the news about Spahnnie’s passing. He was a good man and a good friend. Do you know that he pitched against the Astros in the very first game my parents took me to at the Astrodome?!

By now, the president had grabbed my right shoulder with his right hand. He pulled me in to tell me the details of that game and his fond recollections of watching Warren Spahn pitch during the twilight of the great lefty’s career.

He also told me he had collected baseball autographs through the mail when he was growing up. He had acquired Warren Spahn’s autograph that way when he was just a boy. The president thanked me for the photo, saying it would be a proud addition to my baseball collection. And as I left he asked me to pass on the Bush family’s condolences to the Spahn family.

The autograph from Warren also gave me a lasting memory of our 43rd President.

Mickey Mantle for former teammate and pitching great Virgil Trucks

According to Virgil:

Mickey visited our home in Alabama once. [During the visit] my wife asked him to autograph our wall leading down to the basement. Mickey thought a minute and then wrote (words to this effect): ‘Thank you for having me into your home, and don’t you dare paint over this! Mickey Mantle.’

Years later when the Trucks put their home on the market Virgil was showing it to the eventual buyer who stopped to read Mickey’s writing. After Virgil explained how it got there, he added this assurance: Don’t worry; we’ll paint over it when we have the wall painted.

Are you kidding? The buyer retorted. If you do that, I won’t buy your house!¹

Sometimes a collector’s creativity and persistence employed to get an autograph are nothing short of extraordinary.

I stumbled into my favorite example of a collector’s genius and perseverance while working in my current position as Principal Authenticator for Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), a subsidiary of Collectors Universe. I was at a collectibles show in Pennsylvania in December 2017, when a collector submitted a 1943 Ranger Yearbook from Chisholm, Minnesota, for autograph authentication.

Without opening its cover, I knew immediately that the only signature of any collectible consequence contained within would have to be that of the small town’s doctor, Archibald Wright Moonlight Graham. There were more than 100 signatures scattered among the pages, including those from students and faculty. Carefully, I turned the pages, scouring each one for the coveted signature. Finally, there it was: a sign from school physician, A.W. Graham, M.D.

Graham had appeared in only one major league game (aka, a one-gamer), playing just two innings for the New York Giants on June 29, 1905 without batting or fielding a baseball.² During his brief professional baseball career he was given the name Moonlight because he moonlit as a medical student, graduating with his medical degree from the University of Maryland in the same year (1905).³

He eventually began practicing medicine in the small town of Chisholm, Minnesota, where he served as the doctor for all of the Chisholm schools from 1919-1959. His life in