All-Star

It's not too often that a Hall of Famer asks for your autograph. It happened to me once, though. Back in the winter of 1974-75, when I was eleven and cared for nothing but sports, there was a newspaper strike in Cleveland. It must have been my earnest listening to the legendary Pete Franklin on his nightly "Sportsline" show on WWWE 1100 that clued me in about Frank Robinson's appearance at a local jewelry store (J.B. ROBinson's, naturally). Robinson had just been named baseball's first ever black manager. And while I'm certain that I was proud of that fact, I was probably more excited that Robinson (I knew him from those great Baltimore Oriole teams of the early 1970s, but was too young to remember his days with the Cincinnati Reds) would be a player-manager, which seemed really cool and old-fashioned at the time. My mother, gracious as ever, took me down to the mall a couple miles away from our house the Saturday morning of Robinson's appearance. I was worried that the place would be a mob scene and the line too long, so I wasn't completely counting on scoring what would be the best autograph I could get to add to my modest collection. As we walked down the mall, though, and approached the jewelry store, the place was pretty empty. And then I saw him: the handsome slugger now baseball trailblazer, sitting behind a table with a PR flak and nobody else around (I've always thanked the paper strike for the scant crowd). Now I was nervous. If there had been a line I would have been able to learn how to act, how to interact with baseball royalty. My social improvisation skills at the time were seriously lacking. It must have been a sight for Robinson, sitting there all alone, probably wondering what kind of hick town is this where no one comes out to see a legend and trailblazer, seeing tiny, redheaded me shyly approaching his table.

"Can I have your autograph?" was, I think, all the words I could muster, probably not even a hello.

"If I can have yours," I will never forget, was his reply. Geez, it was tough enough having to converse with a baseball great one on one, now I had to display my nascent (and nasty) penmanship skills? The flak pushed an index card and a pen at me, so I dutifully scripted out my name (did I stick with Dan, or go with the formal Daniel? I don't remember. Could I possibly have gone with what everybody called me then--Danny?). When I was finished I looked up and Frank was holding out his index card, with the most beautiful writing this side of my grandmother's: Frank Robinson. We exchanged the cards, I hope and think I was polite enough and conscious enough to say, "Thank you," and that was it. I turned around and walked away, not believing that I had just met and spoken to/been spoken to by Frank Robinson, that I had gotten his autograph, and that I had been asked for mine, by FRANK ROBINSON!

Of course now I realize I could have stood there and chatted with an all-time great for a while, asked him all sorts of questions, ingratiated myself enough to get some tickets, had him sign dozens of index cards I could have sold....Nah. It was a great moment. Part of me wishes I was indeed the only one to show that cold Saturday morning during the newspaper strike, that as he left the mall that day, Frank Robinson had only the memory of me, a shy redheaded boy trying his best to write his name out legibly on an index card. Who knows? All I know is I still have that index card with the impeccable handwriting, stuffed away in some old scrapbook. And it's still the most famous autograph I have, and the classiest writing.

In case I was too shy and awestruck back then, thank you, Mr. Robinson.