How to Collect Sports Autographs
If you have a favorite athlete or a particular sport you love to follow, you're probably pretty savvy about where the team is playing, where your players rank in state and national competition, the latest honors they've won, and who has recently been traded to whom. Maybe you've even purchased a team jersey and a cap, joined a neighborhood team, or been inspired to start taking golf or tennis lessons. Why not take your fan status to the next level and start collecting sports autographs? Such memorabilia is not only a fun hobby but could also bring a nice profit in the years to come. Read on to learn how to collect sports autographs.
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Instructions
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Getting an Autograph By Mail
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Make a list of six to 10 autographs you'd like to have in order to start your collection. After each athlete's name, jot down (1) what you most admire about them as a person or as an athlete, (2) how long you have been following their career and (3) their latest individual honor or team win. As you can imagine, celebrity sports figures receive tons of fan letters a year; the ones that get answered are those that stand out from the rest and demonstrate that the sender is genuine and knows what he is talking about.
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Research the current addresses of each of your intended recipients before you compose your letters. Professional athletes such as football, baseball and basketball stars generally receive their mail via the headquarters office of the team for which they play. These addresses can be found by looking at the teams' official websites on the Internet. Correspondence to college athletes should be directed to their universities' public relations departments; this, too, can be found online. Individual athletes such as golfers and tennis players will either have professional managers (see "Tips" below) or will have an official website that contains their contact information.
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Compose a polite letter of request to each individual on your list. Ideally, your letter should not exceed three short paragraphs and should be neat and error-free. The first paragraph should explain why you are writing--specifically, that you admire her talent and sportsmanship and would like to have an autograph. The second and third paragraphs can reference how long you have been a fan, whether or not this is a sport you play yourself, and any comments about the most memorable game, a recent win, or your response to an especially memorable quote the player made to the media. While athletes tend to respond favorably to letters that show a personal touch, this is not the place to ramble, tell your whole life story, air all of your grievances, or ask for professional advice on how to better your own game.
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Include your complete contact information at the end of the letter. Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope to make it easier for a reply.
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Display your autographs in an album or a frame and keep in a cool, dry place. If the autograph is on a baseball, invest in a display case specially designed for this purpose.
Getting an Autograph in Person
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Attend professional and college sports events. The earlier you can arrive at the game and/or the later you can stay after the game is over, the better your chances of getting an autograph. If you know someone who works at the stadium or for the tournament association, there's a possibility that they can help you. While they may not be able to orchestrate a one-on-one meeting with your favorite athlete, the assistants and stadium ushers will sometimes act as intermediaries and acquire batches of autographs for fans.
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Be professional and polite. Yelling or screaming to get a player's attention is only going to annoy them. Likewise, running on to a playing field or golf course or trying to sneak into the team locker room will result in a call to security and removal from the grounds. If you get the chance to meet your favorite player personally, do not hog her time. If she has been gracious enough to make the time to meet her fans, the objective is to be able to say hello to as many of them as possible, not to engage in lengthy discourses with just one of them.
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Be prepared. Even if you don't think there's any chance at all of getting an autograph at a major sporting event, always carry a notepad and pen, a small autograph book, or your trading cards. Should you happen to be at the right place at the right time, you don't want to miss your chance for lack of preparation.
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Collect autographs of players who aren't (currently) the superstars. In the first place, lesser known players will be flattered to have the attention, especially if you demonstrate your knowledge of who they are. Secondly, newer players are just coming up through the ranks and are setting out to prove themselves. Over the course of their careers, that autograph could become a much sought-after piece of sports memorabilia. College athletes, by the way, seem to be especially amenable to signing autographs for fans.
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Attend card shows and sports celebrity book signings. Events that sell sports memorabilia often feature guest appearances of popular players. The competition will be fierce for the limited number of slots, however, so it's important to sign up early and to move through the line as quickly as possible so that everyone will get their turn. Has your favorite player written a book? If he is making an appearance at your neighborhood bookstore, show up early with a copy of the book in hand. Most bookstores will require patrons to have bought the book from their store in order to attend.
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Tips & Warnings
There are three great books on the market that can assist with your autograph quest. They are: "The Celebrity Black Book 2007" by Jordan Mcauley; "The Address Book: How to Reach Anyone Who Is Anyone" by Michael Levine; and "The Address Directory of Celebrities in Entertainment, Sports, Business & Politics, Second Edition" by David R. Moore .
Always address a player in correspondence or in person by "Mr." or "Ms." until such time as you are invited to do otherwise. As visible and familiar to us as athletes are in the media, only their family, friends, managers, and fellow players have the right to call them by their first names or nicknames.
An illegible letter will not get a response because it was probably too hard to read. If you don't have a computer and printer to turn out a typed request, you can write it out by hand but only if you print very neatly and in pen, not pencil.
There will often be less of a crowd scrambling to get autographs from the members of a visiting team than a home team.
If your favorite player has written a book, you might try writing a letter to her in care of the publisher. Explain that you have read the book (provided, of course, that you really have) and would like an autograph to tape inside the front cover. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for reply.
You won't endear yourself by asking a player in writing or in person why he and his team have been playing so badly lately. They already know this and won't appreciate a stranger pointing it out to them.
Be wary of purchasing autographs from collectors you don't know or websites that can't authenticate the signatures.
