Larry.org

Laura's work had a special show they were sponsoring and Wade Boggs was a guest. So Laura asked me if I wanted to come along. I brought a baseball just in case, and my friend Chris came along too. As you might expect they protected the guests from the great unwashed at the beginning of the show. So we had no chance to get the balls autographed. The taping was, as they tend to be, quite boring. It was constantly interrupted by retakes and general production issues. Chris and I were pretty bored after we figured we weren't going to get any shot at an autograph. I took Chris home after about the first 90 minutes and came back so that I could give Laura a ride home when the whole thing was over.



When I got back, about 15 minutes from the scheduled end of taping, they were only about two thirds done. It was fairly obvious this was going to go at least 1 hour over. So Laura and I are sitting there and one of the other guests, Tiger Woods' golf instructor, came over near our section to sign autographs. Well both my father and father in law are huge golfers so I ask Laura if she thought it would be a good idea to get him to autograph something for them. She thought it would be a good idea and hands me her 'staff access' pass and says, see if he can sign that.



Well this is when the light goes off in my head. Wade Boggs is still standing around waiting for taping to end, and Laura just gave me her credentials so I can now walk right up to him. I ask Laura if she'd mind if I used her credentials to do this. She slaps her forehead, giving me permission and sharing in my embarrassment that we didn't think to do this earlier.



So now I'm standing right next to Wade Boggs, I have a Rawlings baseball in my pocket, and a black ball point pen. Here's a tip by the way, you generally want to use a black ball point pen for baseball autographs. You might thing you should use a scripto permanent marker but the baseball's leather cover will actually spread the permanent markers ink over a period of years. A ball point pen will always look nice and clean and readable. It's also easier for the ball player to sign with a ball point as it feels better on the leather.



I don't know if you've ever asked a ball player to autograph a baseball or not. I've done this a few times. It's actually quite an odd thing to do. It's especially odd if you are a grown adult. It's not that I'm shy it's just that it's very uncomfortable for me to walk up to another grown adult man, and ask him to sign a baseball. I haven't been able to figure out a way to do this without feeling embarrassed. So I usually try to come up with something to say. This preoccupies me and moves me through the process because now I have a question to ask, and oh, by the way, a baseball to sign.



I steel my courage, walk up to him and say:



Me: "So are you having a good time tonight?"

Mr. Wade Boggs: "Yes"



If you are ever in this situation, I suggest you don't ask a "yes or no" question.



Then I can't pull the ball out of my pocket, cause I'm still embarrassed, and my question didn't exactly establish a conversation within which I can casually, introduce the baseball autograph. I even start thinking, well it's pretty obvious that if I ask him to sign the ball now that I didn't really care if he was having a good time or not.



He walks a few steps away as any sane person would. I'm trying to figure out how to proceed when, to my great relief, another person on the floor walks up to him with a baseball and asks him if he would mind signing it. He happily signs it. The ice is now broken. I walk up to him again:



Me: "Mr. Boggs I'm really sorry to bother you with this, but would you please sign my baseball?"

Mr. Wade Boggs: "Sure"



He takes my baseball and I hand him my black ball point pen. He bends over to sign the ball and I haven't removed the cap from the pen. Here's another tip if you ever ask a ball player to sign a ball, always remember to remove the cap from the pen before you hand it to them.



Me: "Sorry, I always forget to do that."

Mr. Wade Boggs: "Here you are."

Me: "Thanks very much! I really appreciate it."



I walk away and it's not till later that I notice he's not only signed the ball, but also written in the date he hit his 3,000 base hit, and the date he did it (8/7/99). I am now very excited. I went by the collectible store and got a clear case to put it in and looks great on my shelf. The great thing about getting a baseball autographed is clearly not getting the autograph, but rather, having gotten the autograph.