“Holy shit, look what I found.”
That’s probably what was going through my head, I just can’t remember exactly because the years are starting to pass by and I was pretty young when I was going through a box at my great-grandmother’s place and happened upon a book that said “Autographs” on the cover. At the time, I was busting up the baseball card market, trying to get my hands on Griffey Jr. rookies so I knew a little bit about the autograph market and had seen a few important signatures.
I’m still not sure why I was going through grandma’s boxes. She might’ve been throwing out stuff. No idea. All I know is that I was looking around and hit the motherlode. I was probably 12.
There were the names. Berra. Bench. Palmer. Rose. Tony Perez. Musial. Aaron. Killebrew. I’d seen these autographs on old baseball cards and in Beckett magazines. This autograph book had been stashed away for nearly 30 years and grandma didn’t even realize she had it.
Thelma and great-grandfather Paul Moodler liked to do a few things: Party, shoot pool, watch baseball and follow the Cincinnati Reds. Of course they combined their passions into vacations. They eventually became members of the Rosie Reds, sorta like a sorority and frat for Reds fans. The group was founded in 1964, which was around the time Paul would’ve taken this autograph book to Spring Training. There are 1964 date references in the book. Eventually the book made it back to Dayton, Ohio and didn’t seem to be that important, because it was put in a box and virtually forgotten about. Paul died in 1972.
I can’t seem to remember there being much discussion on what should happen to the book once I found it. There were no family fights amongst sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. The book just became mine to take care of. I wasn’t even a teen and here I was holding an autograph book with the signatures of multiple Baseball Hall of Fame members. It became the best Christmas gift I’d ever received without even realizing it at the time.
The book would eventually survive multiple moves as a child, the college years, a stint living in Pennsylvania and a few more moves in Ohio.
I still wonder why I found that book. It was the best history book I’ve ever owned. As a kid, I would pour over the book from time to time and just see if I recognized new names. Hank Bauer? I never heard of Bauer until years later when I started to learn more about the old Yankees. Tony Oliva was a foreign name to kids of the 1980s and 1990s. I’d ask my dad about players. I’d ask my grandfather about players. American history was never so fun for me.
My great-grandmother passed away in 1990 before the Reds went wire-to-wire to win the World Series.
The autographs:
Vin Scully
Pete Rose
Johnny Bench
Tony Perez
Jim Palmer
Yogi Berra
Tony Oliva (one vote short of making 2015 HOF)
Harmon Killebrew
Stan Musial
Hank Aaron
Don Larsen
Frank Robinson
Si Burick (J.G. Taylor Spink Award, HOF writer, Dayton Daily News)
Boog Powell
…and pretty much every member of the 1964 Reds.
Best Christmas Gift I Ever Got: Autograph Book Loaded With Hall Of Famers
