Hall of Fame and Shame in Autograph Penmanship

The 'Give Up 'Graph' vs Those That Take Pride in Their Signature
Andre Dawson autograph with Inscription
Andre Dawson autograph with Inscription / Jeff Baldner

If you're of a certain age, you were likely taught cursive in school. As you grew older, you likely practiced your signature(autograph), before you settled on one you liked. Now, if you're a collector of autographs, yours may have evolved over time to match the flair of some of the people whose autograph you obtained. I'm in my early 50's and I've had the same signature for 35 years now.

In our digital age, teaching cursive doesn't exist everywhere anymore, and I feel it shows in some of the more current athletes who sign cards. I'm also sure it is, in part, driven by the almighty dollar. When said athlete gets paid X dollars to sit and sign 2500 autographs on stickers, I imagine it could become monotonous, and the time value of money is not lost on me, but at what point should someone take pride in their signature? Another variable? It's very possible the signer just doesn't care, maybe never having collected cards or autographs.

I think you'll sense a theme in some of the autographs shown here, the veterans or old timers took pride in showing almost every letter in their name, much more aesthetically pleasing than just a set of initials or a squiggle.

Mariano Rivera autograph New York Yankees reliever and unanimously Hall of Fame elected
Mariano Rivera-widely considered one of the nicer current day signatures / comc.com

Just like most sports' Halls of Fame, my opinion of the nicest autographs and not so nice autographs is subjective. When there are baseball writers that can't see Ken Griffey, Jr. should've been a unanimous 1st ballot Hall of Famer, there's only so much one can do to help see the light. I believe most of the autographs shown here are fairly obvious for what "good looks like" and what's downright lazy!

Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees auto
Derek Jeter autograph-one of the busiest signatures out there! / Jeff Baldner

You would be wrong to pigeonhole just one sport as having either excellent or poor penmanship, it runs the gamut across all sports, though again, generally speaking, it's the younger athletes that seem to take the easy way out with initials or a mark on a card or sticker.

WWE Superstars Roman Reigns and Undertaker dual autograph
Roman Reigns and Undertaker dual signed card, where Roman just gives you the "RR" and Taker spells out Undertaker, as much as the sticker allows anyhow / ebay.com

I collect cards and autographs across a variety of sports and celebrity. My main focus has been on my Missouri Tigers, which is likely 95% of my personal collection. Unfortunately, more than a few of Mizzou alum have definitely lent themselves to the "Scribble here" club.

2 bad autographs, with just an initial or scribble
J'mon Moore and Ennis Rakestraw Jr. When J'mon's auto's were coming out of 2018 product, numerous breakers referred to him as "J Dot", which simply consisted of his signature. Current year, I'm chasing Ennis, whose auto looks almost like "EWW", likely what some people feel when they see it! / Jeff Baldner
Missouri Tigers RB Cody Schrader currently on the LA Rams team
Cody Schrader and the evolution of an autograph in less than a years time. He has a very nice "full auto" and a very simple "give up 'graph" with just a "CS7" / Jeff Baldner

About 5 years ago, I bought a collection that featured a lot of signed index cards from players that were generations older than me, I was mesmerized to just look at some of the autographs, as they almost bordered on calligraphy, but in almost all of the cases, you could read every letter in their name!

4 Hall of Fame Autographs
4 Hall of Famers from 3 different sports-football, golf and baseball, all featuring beautiful and ornate signatures / Jeff Baldner
Easily read autographs of old time baseball players
If you had NO idea who signed these, you could easily figure it out, by simply reading every letter in their name, Ewell Blackwell, Birdie Tebbetts, Judy Johnson and Carl Erskine all appeared to take pride in their penmanship / Jeff Baldner

I don't want to be the "old man yells at cloud" guy, but with this digital era we're in, people can have conversations with just emojis or acronyms, personal interactions are wildly different, let alone the nostalgia of a good looking autograph, IMO, FWIW IYKYK!

Former NFL running back Vernand Morency lazy autograph
The GOLD standard of what a bad signature looks like, good ole Vernand Morency, some would say it's a V, others would say a check, it really doesn't matter as he actually received a check for this nonsense! / comc.com

By all accounts I've heard and read about Freddie Freeman, he's a better human being than he is a baseball player, which is saying a lot, because he's a virtual lock as a future Hall of Famer, but his current day autograph leaves him enshrined in my Hall of Shame for autographs, especially when compared to his early career auto's.

Dale Murphy Chipper Jones Freddie Freeman triple autograph of varying quality
The Good, The Mid, and The Ugly! Dale Murphy's prideful signature, Chipper's distinctive(at least there's that) auto, and if I didn't know Freddie Freeman wore the #5, I would think he just signed "77's", indicating a team I didn't know existed or that he played for / ebay.com

Then there's Arnold Palmer. I'm an avid golf watcher(definitely watch better than I play), and every year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational the announcers tell the story that Arnold would make a point to the younger players to make time for fans and sign autographs, BUT he didn't want to see sloppy/lazy autographs, he implored them to take extra time to sign every letter in their name, insinuating it's the least the players could do for the people that are there supporting them! In fact, when Palmer was alive he set aside an hour of his day to simply sign fan mail, I was lucky enough to obtain his signature just weeks before he passed, still one of my favorites!

Arnold Palmer Autographed $1 bill, Golf Hall of Famer
One of my favorite autographs I own, plus if you play liars poker with $1 bills, not a bad hand! / Jeff Baldner
Jack Nicklaus autographed picture
Another one of golf's all time greats who signs with intention in taking pride in his signature, The Golden Bear, Jack Nicklaus / Jeff Baldner

I'm no longer a prospector when it comes to cards, but one of this years top prospects has one of the sloppiest signatures I've seen recently. Junior Caminero's autograph looks like he was drawing a two runged ladder and forgot to connect the top rung!

Junior Caminero rookie auto 2024 Topps Chrome
Junior Caminero drawing a short ladder, my apologies, this is JC's autograph! JC indeed! / Jeff Baldner

I could list another 50 less than acceptable "autographs", but here's the reality I guess. We're not entitled to having a loopy, bold, distinct, free flowing signature. That would be nice, but when the manufacturers have decided this is acceptable, it will be tough to put the toothpaste back in the tube! Conversely, I could list exponentially more beautiful signatures, but those mostly come from eras gone by. If you're my age, you likely can rattle off 20 without much thought, from Mantle, Koufax, Rollie Fingers, Jackie Robinson, etc. I guess I AM the "old man yells at cloud" guy after all!

How long does it take to sign 50 autographs
The idiocy that is me, timing myself and doing a quality check on 50 of my autographs! / Jeff Baldner

For my own curiosity, I decided to sign my name 50 times, and I timed myself doing so. At 10 autographs in, it took me 45 seconds. To sign my name 50 times, it took a total of 4 minutes and 17 seconds, and I was numbering them for illustrative purposes, so I could likely shave 20-30 seconds easy. Looking back at all 50, I would say that 5 don't meet my QA standards, but no one is paying me for my autograph!

An initial autograph rather than full name
I mean, isn't that a beautiful "autograph"?!?! NOT HARDLY! But that is a lot of what you get in current day athletes signing their name! / Jeff Baldner

Lastly, to be "fair", I decided to see how long it would take to sign 50 "autographs" containing only my initials, much like a lot of today's autographs. Court is in session, a verdict is in (you read that as if you were singing the Creed song, right?). It took me 2 minutes and 1 second, so I cut my time in more than half from a full name signature! So Topps/Fanatics, sign me up and send me some stickers to sign, as my claim to fame will hopefully be the guy that pulls the 2024 Topps Chrome Update Paul Skenes MLB Debut Patch Auto!


Published |Modified
Jeffri Baldner
JEFFRI BALDNER

I ripped my first pack of cards at 6 years old and pulled a 1977 Topps Tony Dorsett rookie, a huge bonus in that I was a Cowboys fan. I then began to build team sets of my favorite teams. As I grew older, the nuances of collecting and beginning to invest engulfed me. As a sports junkie, cards became a natural conduit to feed my passion for collecting and investing in the stars I saw on TV and read about in box scores. While in high school, I began to set up at card shows and reinvest profits into more cards, for both the PC and additional inventory. Fast forward to the present day, I'd like to think I have one of the biggest Mizzou alumni collections in the world, collecting across any sport where I can find a Mizzou alum on cardboard(not always an easy task to find). I could never get any of my 3 daughters to share the hobby with me, but as a new "Pops", I can't wait to share the hobby with my grandson, he just doesn't know it yet!