I can’t remember the first autograph I ever got from an athlete.
But I can vividly recall the first signature that truly meant something to me.
On an unseasonably gray morning on the last day of July in 1985, I walked into Wrigley Field for the first time.
My best friend, Tim Thatcher, had convinced his parents to let me tag along on a family trip to the Midwest, which would include seeing baseball games in Chicago, Cleveland and Cincinnati.
While we were excited about watching the Yankees at the “Mistake by the Lake” and Pete Rose was in pursuit of Ty Cobb’s career hits record in Cincy, the clear highlight of the entire trip was going to be the afternoon at the Friendly Confines.
I remember praying the night before that the rain would hold off long enough for the Cardinals and Cubs to play the game scheduled for 1:20 p.m. And if they couldn’t get in all nine innings, we at least hoped they’d open the park for a couple of 15-year-old fans to roam the bleachers.
The rains held off just enough, and we were lined at the intersection under the famous marquee at the intersection of Clark and Addison an hour before the gates opened.
While we waited, Tim’s mom wandered to a nearby souvenir stand and purchased three $5 “souvenir” baseballs for Tim, his younger brother, Todd, and me. A Cubs logo was printed inside the curve of the laces and the packaging said the balls were “perfect for autographs.” In reality, they were those slick, plastic-like balls from the ‘80s that felt nothing like an authentic baseball.
It didn’t matter: Tim was on a mission, and that cheap ball was critical.
To say Tim was obsessed with Ryne Sandberg would be an understatement. The Nike “Cornerstone” poster of a leaping Sandberg hung above Tim’s bed, and my friend had almost an entire binder filled with Sandberg baseball cards — even though the Cubs’ Hall of Fame second baseman was in just his fourth season at the time.
Plus, Sandberg was from Washington state — just like the two of us.
I can still picture the gates opening, rushing the usher to tear our tickets and sprinting with Tim to the front row of the stands along the right-field line.
As we caught our first glimpse of Ryno warming up with some sprints in the outfield grass, Tim started to yell out toward his hero.
When Sandberg later started to walked toward the Cubs dugout and move directly in front of us, Tim blurted out, “Ryno, we came all the way from Spokane.”
Did it matter that we technically lived 380 miles and a six-hour drive from Spokane in the sleepy Olympic Peninsula town of Sequim, Washington? Of course not.
Both towns are in the state of Washington, and that was all the creative license Tim needed to get Sandberg’s attention.
Much to my surprise, Tim’s white lie actually worked.
Sandberg came over to the stands and signed autographs for a few dozen fans, and Tim, Todd and I all emerged from different parts of the scrum with a fresh signature from the reigning National League MVP on those cheap baseballs.
We all added a few more Cubs signatures to our Sandberg balls — which is never a good idea, kids — and left Wrigley with a piece of memorabilia that symbolized one of the best afternoons of my teenage life.
When we returned to Sequim, Tim and I revisited that brief encounter with Sandberg over and over, becoming the two annoying high school sophomores who couldn’t quit talking about their summer vacation.
Decades later, Tim and I visited Wrigley twice together as adults, the last time coming in 2009 when Tim was in-between bouts with a cancerous brain tumor.
We still laughed about the “all the way from Spokane” line, and neither of us could recall what happened to our $5 signed baseballs. The only thing I know for certain is that the signature had greatly faded through the years — but it was still slightly visible the last time I tucked it away in whatever spot where it disappeared for good.
In 2012, Tim’s cancer returned, and I lost my childhood best friend.
More than 13 years later, I still have tears in my eyes as I type that last sentence.
And Monday, we lost Sandberg to the same awful disease, which caused all these memories to vividly coming flooding back.
I have returned to Wrigley many times since, usually bringing along a Sandberg jersey to wear in honor of Tim and the player we idolized as teenagers.
Eddie Vedder once wrote that “you’re blessed and you’re healed the first time you walk into Wrigley Field.”
Every visit has helped me heal, and I’ll always feel blessed with the memory of that July day four decades ago.
Back in the spring, as part of my job at cllct, I joined an autographs group on Facebook. On a page where fans share information about through-the-mail (TTM) autos, someone posted two cards that been signed and returned by Sandberg and his address in Lake Bluff, Illinois.
I figured it was a long shot, but I packaged up a Sandberg rookie and his 1984 Donruss card — the card Tim always told me was his favorite — and shipped them off with a return envelope.
Maybe I was trying to replace plastic ball. Maybe I just wanted a lasting memory of my friend and his favorite ballplayer.
Less than a month later, both cards came back autographed in my mailbox.
I am definitely going to put them in a spot where they’ll never fade.
Kevin Jackson is the chief content officer for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.