A Thing of Beauty

Back in November I ran into Buddy Gilbert at a SABR meeting.  He was an attendee and I was a speaker.  We've met a few times before.

Buddy and my Dad

He's a hoot.  So's my dad.  They didn't get a chance to talk for any length of time.  Buddy was telling me that he was about out of his baseball card.  The place where he usually purchases them just had a few and they wanted $4.00 a piece.  I told him I'd see what I could do.

Off I went to COMC and was able to snag a mess of them for about a dollar each.  I called him to see if he wanted me to purchase them.  He was tickled about it.  I ordered them during their Black Friday sale for the free shipping.  They arrived in mid December.

My daughter, Caroline, and I delivered them to him.

He told her some corny jokes and they laughed a lot.  He's got a booming voice that scared her a bit.  She got over it quickly and now they're friends.  I asked Buddy if he had any memorabilia from his time in baseball.  He pulled out a few boxes of signed balls and started to tell some stories.

But this is a card blog, so back to the cards and the title of this post.  I asked Buddy to sign two of the cards for me.  He pulled out his special signing pen and went to town, being careful not to put them back in their penny sleeves until the ink dried.

Look at those signatures.  This, from a man who is 81 years old.  It is a thing of beauty.

In the coming weeks I'll be headed back to Buddy's house to talk more baseball and to help him digitize his scrapbook.  I'm guessing I'll have more stories to share.