Howard jersey on ebay

[thomecollector]

Wow! There is a Ryan Howard jersey on ebay. It's signed by Howard, as well as his stats. Anybody think he'll get the $8000-$14000 he's asking ?:D

[hblakewolf]

Forum readers-
Can someone please explain to me how Ryan Howard could identify this as being from his "rookie season" in 2005? He notes in his LOA that it's from 2005/2006, yet signed it as his rookie gamer. With no specific year tagging on the shirt or special sleeve patch (i.e., anniversary, etc.), how can he specifically identify it from 2005 and not worn in 2006? MEARS looked at it in July of this year, so one could conclude it is from 2006, not 2005.

What am I missing here?

Howard Wolf
hblakewolf@patmedia.net

[hblakewolf]

Sorry-here is the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ryan-Howard-signed-Game-Used-Rookie-Jersey-Rare-MLB_W0QQitemZ130022860070QQihZ003QQcategoryZ60597Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Howard Wolf
hblakewolf@patmedia.net

[trsent]

I wonder what the MEARS grade would have been after the autograph was added. As I found with a player at a autograph session a few months ago who I handed pens to for a few hours - He was willing to sign whatever a person asked him to sign.

In other words, a guy handed the guy a bat and asked the player to sign "Game Used" which the player did, but after the guy walked away the player turned to me and told me he never used that bat.

[thomecollector]

E-x-a-c-t-l-y! I beleive in the sign it whatever, for this one. Like you said. If I gave you say, $5000 to sign a bunch of junk. Wouldn't you put whatever I wanted :confused:

[suave1477]

Well I have to play devils advocate on this one as far Howards question you ask how can he say it was a 2005 rookie Jersey well he actually never did say that. If you read the letters he says its a 2005/2006 Jersey!!! He wrote on the Jersey "Rookie Gamer" he never specified a year.

As far as players Autographing whatever you want them too that is true in some cases not all. I saw a guy pay $7,500 for an Andy Pettitte Game Used Jersey from Steiner just to have Andy sign it for him and write Game Used and the year. The guy paid the money at the signing show and brought the LOA with him to insure to Andy it was his Jersey. The guy asked Andy can you autograph the Jersey and put game used with the year, Andy was just about to autograph it until the guy asked for that insciption looked at it and refused to inscribe it and then refused to autograph it. The guy showed him the Steiner Letter but even still Andy didnt want his name on it. My point is not in all cases will a player put whatever you want.

I myself once asked a player to put Game Used on a bat for me to my dissapointment he turned around and said I can't I never used this bat. I was upset bcuz I really thought I had a Gamer of that player. Oh Well:(

[sportscentury]

Joel, who was the player and how did you become his pen hand?

I'm not surprised that you experienced this. With that said, I have seen many instances of exactly the opposite scenario. The players I'm referring to are older players, so maybe there is a generation difference, but I can think of a lot of players who are very particular about what items they sign and how they sign them - Rickey Henderson, Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, Yogi Berra, Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Nolan Ryan, Johnny Bench, George Brett, Joe Morgan, Dennis Eckersley, and Cal Ripken Jr. all come to mind. The only player I've ever seen who indiscrimately signs anything and everything any way he is asked to is Pete Rose (which is one reason why there are multiple all-time hit record-breaker bats, of course).

Howard, the answer to your question may very have been articulated by Joel. It's not good to hear this, but clearly it happens. Would it kill the athlete to "keep it real"?

Reid

[sportscentury]

The other thing to wonder about is whether the inscriptions are in Ryan's hand or were added after the fact by someone else. I'm not calling this jersey out - for all I know, it's good as gold and the seller will get his 15 grand. Rather, this is something I often wonder with respect to inscriptions such as "rookie gamer," "game used," and homerun and hit # notations with respect to all jerseys with such writing additions. For example, I've seen several AROD Mariners gamers on eBay over the years that were normal gamers but had these special notations added after the fact in someone else's hand (with AROD, it is easy to determine, because there are so many AROD jerseys out there with the notations that have come directly from AROD - so you can compare the notation handwriting and the bogus ones I've seen haven't even been close to the ones that have come directly from AROD).
Reid