[spazmatastic]

Yea, I get tired of seeing scribbles too. Griffey Jr. does have a sweet sig and so does Ozzie Smith. At least theirs are readable and obvious as to who signed it.

[lridgey]

I always thought Randy Johnson had a very nice autograph

[aquariustg]

In my opinion Andre Dawson is one of the classiest people to ever play, he wouldn't have a signature that was less than respectable. I know less about Ozzie, but I would likely put him in the same boat. It is something about this generation of player that has an issue.

[thj0011]

Tommy Manzella has a pretty great sig.

[spazmatastic]

Wow! 4 members posted while I was posting. It's really funny/odd that the post before me mentioned Ozzie while I was trying to post his AU.

[astroburn]

Have you ever thought about being famous and signing stuff multiple times a day? Just for kicks, when we gave out Napa hats at work, I signed a couple with a sharpie (which is harder than it seems on fabric). I have a pretty long last name so I dont even bother signing it. I dont think I've really signed it more than a few times since high school. So even if a player's auto is scribbly, I'd say if its consistent and near the same every time, then that should be what really counts.

Just for kicks, sign your name 20 times in a row and scan it... Lets see how we all do! Here's mine...


It has looked like this since high school. And in case you cant figure out what it could possibly be, that says "Nathan".

[talkntribe]

I wonder if they do that to eliminate someone from copying. I don't think the way they sign would bother me as much as a player having someone else sign their cards for them. If I had a player who did that;i'd drop him and get rid of his cards. Players seem to forget its the fans who pay their salaries. We are the ones buying the tickets and all mechandise out there. I understand if they get millions of request for autos or whatever.I would rather they decline me than have some family or friend sign. I guess some have egos so big they must have forgot what it's like to be the fan.

[jtulliakat0628]

I know this is not the football thread but Chris Johnsons auto is the epitame of ugly and non-legible!

[_ZENAS_]

Do not confuse penmanship with a signature. They are two very different animals. I do not expect a signature to be legible because it is not a "see how neat you can write" contest, but the making of a personally identifying mark by the signer.

Why are so many people under the mistaken impression that a signature is supposed to be the same as handwriting?

[zeprock]

Ozzie Smith's signature does look legible. Victor Martinez? Nice looking but if it didn't have his name and picture next to it, I'm not sure I'd know who it was. I do own a Dawson signature and it is pretty nice. I only dream of owning a Griffey signature. Also other than Bautista and VMat, none of the other players mentioned so far are current players.

I pulled a Clay Buchholz signature last year and it looked like a straight line with a curve at the beginning. I'm a Sox fan but I traded it away because it just didn't seem to be that nice a card to me.

I understand that a signature is not the same as penmanship. I've worked as a disc jockey for 30 years and have been asked to sign on occasion. My DJ name is not the same as my real name so it is tougher to sign something I don't write every day but I always try to make it legible so that if someone saw it out of context, they would still be able to read the name. My real signature is 14 letters long and it always seems to turn into a straight line about 8 or 9 letters in, but the difference is that's always for important papers and not for fans. I guess if I was a MLB player and I had to sign a billion times it would obviously get very monotonous but I'd like to think I would still try to make the effort to make it something special for the person I was signing for. One mundane gesture on my part could be the highlight of their life.