Restoring Kingdom Builders

The year was 1967.  I was 13-years-old and lived in Anaheim, California, just two miles up Cerritos Avenue from Disneyland.

In just their second year at Anaheim Stadium, my hometown California Angels – as they were called then – were hosting the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

We played a lot of baseball in my neighborhood, and thanks to a couple of friends, we learned that when the American League teams visited the Angels, they stayed in hotels surrounding Disneyland.  At that time, the Oakland A’s stayed at the cheap Jolly Roger Inn.  The rest of the teams stayed at the Grand Hotel across Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland.

Most of the kids who lived near me collected baseball cards with varying degrees of success, so when we discovered that visiting players were staying about three miles from our community, we were curious to see if we could have access to them.

As it turns out, we could.

We’d arrive at the hotel in mid-afternoon and wait for the players to go to the ballpark, asking for their signatures.  Some took cabs to the stadium.  Others waited for the team bus.  A select few rented cars or stayed with friends or family.  We saw most of them, and 95% of them were cordial about signing.

It seems like a fairy tale now, but I once witnessed so many unbelievable things at the Grand Hotel.  Rod Carew rode a kid’s sting-ray bike all around the parking lot.  A kid named Gary – who didn’t have it all together upstairs – asked Al Kaline if he could interview him on his cassette recorder … and Kaline obliged.  Bobby Murcer needed a ride to Hollywood to be on a game show, and Gary volunteered to drive him … and Murcer agreed.  (None of us thought Murcer would return alive.)  A kid named Gordy – who got autographs with the rest of us – became best friends with Reggie Jackson.

And one time, my brother John and his friend Steve decided to ride the hotel elevator when the Yankees were in town – and Mickey Mantle stepped onto the elevator.  (And was not amused.)

Another day, actor Jimmy Durante – who was doing a show at the adjacent Melodyland Theatre – showed up in the parking lot, and we all got his signature.  (We didn’t have cameras on our phones in those days – much less phones – or I would have taken his picture.)  One day, two friends were walking to the hotel and decided to catch the tram ride from the Disneyland Hotel – and sat right by actor Fred McMurray.  Another time, I was at the hotel by myself when Hubert Humphrey came walking out – fast – with men in coats surrounding him.  He was running for President that year: 1968.  (I didn’t dare ask him for a signature.  I could have been shot.)

Back to the All-Star Game.  My best friend Steve and I planned to spend Sunday night, all day Monday, and Tuesday morning at the Grand Hotel getting autographs of players before going to the game itself late Tuesday afternoon.  Since the American League teams stayed in Anaheim during the year – and we could get their signatures anytime – we wanted autographs of National Leaguers instead.

This was before autographs were worth anything.  We never thought in terms of a signature’s value – we just wanted to obtain the autographs of people we admired.

At first, we obtained signatures on 3×5 index cards.  No one we knew was getting 8×10 pictures, postcards, or even baseballs signed.

But for the All-Star players, I went out and bought a brand-new autograph book – the kind we had our friends sign on the last day of grade school.

We also had to figure out the kind of pen we would use.  (This was pre-Sharpie.)  We tried out different ballpoint pens at home and brought several with us.

Steve and I finally discovered that while the National League players were staying at the Grand, the American Leaguers were staying at the Disneyland Hotel.

We parked at the Grand.

That Sunday night and the following day, Steve and I got the autographs of people like Jim Wynn, Fergie Jenkins, and the catcher for the Braves: Joe Torre.  But one guy in particular stood out.

We saw him walking toward us along Freeman Way.  He was resplendent in a light blue suit.  Honestly, I’ve rarely seen anybody with more presence or class in my life.

It was the great right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente.

Clemente signed something for everyone in the small crowd surrounding him – including my autograph book.  It was a moment that I’ll never forget – especially when he died in a plane crash on January 1, 1973 while taking relief supplies for victims in Nicaragua.

We also obtained the signatures of future Hall of Famers like Ernie Banks, Don Drysdale, Bill Mazeroski, Orlando Cepeda, and NBC announcer Pee Wee Reese.  I nearly froze, though, when I saw Sandy Koufax, who had retired from the Dodgers at age 30 the year before and was now Reese’s broadcast partner.  Koufax was my hero.  He signed my autograph book.

I went home for dinner and brought back the best card of Koufax I had, hoping I’d see him again.  It was his 1955 Topps Rookie card – and was in mint condition.  Koufax signed it for me.  Some dealers have told me that when I had Koufax sign it, the value of the card plummeted, but I didn’t – and don’t – care.

No dealers were advising us back then, thank God.

On Monday evening, not much was happening at the Grand.  Chris Short and Richie Allen of the Phillies came to the hotel in a cab, and I obtained my first and only signature of Allen for the next 25 years – he was that tough an autograph.

Steve and I eventually decided to go over to the Disneyland Hotel and see if we could find some American Leaguers.  We didn’t see any players we knew, but it just so happened that Major League Baseball executives were having a meeting.  When these older men emerged from their meeting, Steve and I asked them to sign our index cards without knowing who they were – like Frank “Trader” Lane and Bing Devine.

But we both knew who Stan “The Man” Musial was.  He signed two index cards for me.  What a great, great night!

The morning of the All-Star Game, the lobby inside the Grand was a zoo.  Since the bellmen worked hard to keep the kids out of the lobby, Steve latched onto someone – I think a friend of Cepeda’s – ready to say that he was staying at the Grand.  We got some more autographs that morning (like Pete Rose and Tony Perez), and when I reviewed my autograph book, I was missing five guys.

They were a big five, too: Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron.

It took me five years, but I finally obtained all of their signatures in my little blue book as well.  We didn’t have baseball card shows or conventions back then, so I had to find them and get them to sign – for free.

A friend from church named Larry invited me to go to the All-Star Game with him, and so we sat together – for all 15 innings.  In the 15th, Tony Perez hit a home run off A’s pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter and the National League won, 2-1.  I sat through the game knowing that for two days before the game, I had met nearly every player on the NL squad.

It was quite a feeling for a Jr. High kid.

Besides that, I ended up with a full ticket to the game.  It would be worth a lot today – but I traded it to a friend, who ended up co-sponsoring the first-ever card show a couple years later.

The All-Star Game is being held in Phoenix tomorrow, and I won’t be going.  (My wife is scheduled to fly in from Kenya via New York during the game.)  And I won’t be hanging around any hotels downtown, either.  (The hoardes of people hanging out at these events nowadays are just plain scary.)  I will watch the Home Run Derby tonight (they didn’t have events like that in 1967), and I’ll watch as much of the game tomorrow as I can.

If I decided to sell my autograph book today, I’m not sure it would sell for all that much.  Some of the signatures are barely legibile.  Some were quickly scrawled.  Some – like the autograph I obtained of Willie Mays the following year – don’t look anything like his signature today.

But the book represents a time in life when fans had access to their heroes (no single player made more than $200K) and didn’t have to pay $50 to obtain one cookie-cutter autograph at a card show.

Baseball is in my blood.  It provided a connection between my father and me, and later between me and my son.  There is so much about the game that I love.

Several years ago, my wife and I stayed at a hotel in Anaheim, and while out for a morning jog, I decided to run by the Grand Hotel.  It wasn’t there anymore, and it made me sad.

But when I think of my favorite baseball memory, I think back 44 years to a time when my heroes came to town.

To quote from a song by Abba, “I can still recall our last summer, I still see it all …”