While away on vacation recently, I was briefly reunited with my childhood signed baseball collection. Some legends, some not so much:

• Tommy John - the faded black signature, obtained in person when he was the manager of the Staten Island Yankees in 2004. The other signatures are all guys on that team. I thought I was slick having him sign in a different color to stand out, but I guess 11 year old me didn’t know much about sharpie’s fading

• Moises Alou - a gift from my dad

• David Newhan - obtained in person at Mets spring training in 2007

• Juan Marichal - obtained in person at All Star FanFest in 2013

• Pedro Martinez - a gift from my dad

• Vance Wilson - obtained at a signing sometime in early 2000s

• Bottom left ball - don’t know who this is

• Whitey Ford - a gift from my dad

• Bottom, 2nd from right - don’t know who this is

• Ty Wigginton - obtained at a signing in early 2000s

Juan Marichal outduels Warren Spahn 1-0 when 16th inning walkoff HR by Willie Mays ends the contest.
That was what baseball was like then... (& it would have been oh so much more exciting had ghost runners been placed on 2nd for each extra inning!)

Juan Marichal auto 22/65 for my San Francisco Giants PC!

Man, Fleer really nailed these vintage relics in the early 2000s.

On a west coast swing as of late, so why not one of the best pitchers of the 1960’s. Juan was a stud! But I never knew about this fun fact! One of the longest on field brawls in MLB history.

“The "Battle of Candlestick", also called the "Battle of San Francisco" or simply the "Marichal–Roseboro brawl", was an infamous bench-clearing brawl which took place on August 22, 1965, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California, United States. In what is considered to be one of the most violent on-field brawls in sports history, pitcher Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants hit catcher John Roseboro of the Los Angeles Dodgers on the head with a bat, opening a gash on Roseboro's head and starting a fourteen-minute brawl between the teams in the middle of a heated pennant race.”