Last June, I spent $14,047.20 at Lelands Auctions on an autograph book featuring a bunch of signatures of baseball stars, including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
When I won the auction, my plan was to get each page slabbed. But when I came up to the Ruth page, it seemed like the small signature on the large paper could create a special opportunity.
Knowing I was going to be at the "Sotheby's x Fanatics" auction in September, and Tom Brady was going to be there, I thought about making a GOAT piece, adding Brady to my Ruth ... and then eventually icons from basketball (Michael Jordan), hockey (Wayne Gretzky) and soccer (Lionel Messi).
At the auction, I won a Jackie Robinson card and sat behind Brady, who didn't win any of the cards.
When he got up, I said to Brady, "Hey, I don't want you to leave empty-handed," and I gave him a ticket to "The Catch" — otherwise known as Joe Montana's epic pass to Dwight Clark — from 1982. Brady famously attended that historic NFC Championship Game as a kid.
Brady said thanks, and I asked him quickly if he could sign an autograph, and he obliged. He was going through the motions of his usual signing when he looked down on the page, and his eyes widened — all of a sudden, he realized his signature was joining Babe Ruth's autograph.
For three months, Ruth and Brady sat alone, until Dec. 31, when Wayne Gretzky's autograph joined the bunch.
It wasn't an easy task. I had gone to Wrigley Field the night before the Winter Classic to see "Gretzky's Basement," which was this awesome set up of what Gretzky's room as a kid looked like. He was supposed to be there that night. But when he didn't show, I had to do the unthinkable. I had to leave it to my friend to get it signed. You see, I was headed off to watch my Texas Longhorns beat Arizona State in the Peach Bowl the next day.
The original idea was to have the two team sport athletes whose sports didn't emanate in America — Gretzky with hockey and Leo Messi with soccer — sign on the side of the piece. I should have labeled the item with clear instructions, but when it comes to getting a free signature from The Great One, beggars cant be choosers. Gretzky signed a little big, and I needed to consider how to finish the piece in a different way than I originally envisioned.
I also wasn't there for the Messi signing. These guys are massive, it's just so hard to get close to them.
Messi held a private autograph signing, and sometimes I think the less of a deal you make of things like this, the better it is. I put my page in a FedEx box and sent it off to get signed. I don't think Messi knew what it was just from seeing the pictures of him having his hand over it.
There were a lot of naysayers who said this was going to be a fruitless pursuit because Jordan would be too tough to get.
From the very beginning, I wanted to make it apparent I was willing to sit on the piece and be patient. That being said, I put this journey on my Instagram page publicly, so it was well within anyone’s right to cover the story.
And that’s what happened: A social media clip went viral about my GOAT album page. Naturally, dozens of swindlers started trying to shake me down for money for some sort of introduction to Jordan.
I declined and decided, “If it's meant to be, it will happen.”
Someone I trusted called me sooner after and said, “Someone close to Michael thinks this is unique enough to show him.” Because this was someone I trusted, I gave him permission to proceed.
There weren’t any demands made of me and my plans with this item, but I knew it would be inappropriate to sell it — not that I ever would. And additionally I know MJ appreciates discretion with these types of things, so I didn’t want to be the one to blast it out all over the internet.
So, I thought for the last part, it made sense to have Brady publicly unveil it.
I connected with Chris Costa, the co-founder of “Card Vault by Tom Brady,” to gauge his interest in showing the completed piece to Brady. He loved the idea and made it happen when Brady was touring the Card Vault booth at the National last Thursday.
Chris — being a smart marketer — knew getting an organic reaction would be best. So he didn’t tip off Brady to what I was going to share with him.
Needless to say his reaction — he smiled and said, "No f---ing way!" — was the icing on the cake of this incredible journey for me.
But like most collectors, the end of one project just signals the start of another.
The top question I got about this piece was, “What about Tiger Woods?” Well, since this was a team sport item, it didn’t make sense to add the world's greatest golfer — despite how iconic and legendary he is.
So I’ve started a new piece for all sports GOATS. I acquired a large format Jordan book already signed by MJ and added Messi to it in that private signing.
It was interesting because doing all of this made me think of myself more as a curator than a collector. I have pieces that are "wow" pieces like Jackie Robinson's debut ticket or my Michael Jordan game-used jersey, but the truth is, this has made me realize I have too many items (mainly cards) that are being auctioned off every month. They aren't that special to me.
This is special. If I only had this piece, the only piece that all five of these icons have ever held, that actually might be good enough for me.
Patrick Ryan is the co-founder of Eventellect and an avid autograph collector.