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Williams wielded wicked pen
By GREG AUMAN, Times Staff Writer Ted Williams is remembered this week as one of baseball's great hitters, but to hear autograph aficionados rave, his pen was as mighty as his bat. "He could sit down with a stack of photos and sign 300 in an hour," recalled Barry Finger, who co-owned a sports card store in Crystal River with Williams in 1989. "The first autograph would look the same as the last. It was like a machine was doing it. He was incredibly consistent with his signature." Consistent and prolific, much like his hitting. But unlike the frenzy for memorabilia that followed the deaths of golfer Payne Stewart and NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain in recent years, there hasn't been a significant spike in the value of Williams merchandise since the baseball great died Friday at 83. One reason, collectors say, is that Williams' death had been anticipated because of his health problems. Perhaps even more important is the sheer volume of items in the marketplace. "Ted signed for 60-plus years," said Christopher Bruce, general manager of Sportsworld, a Boston-area sports memorabilia store. "He was nice to the fans all along, signed anything you put in front of him. As a result, there's a lot of signed balls and pictures out there, and right now, there's more selling than buying." Fans looking for a piece of history can buy in bulk. One listing at eBay offers not one autographed Williams ball, but a box of 12, each with a certificate of authenticity. Bidding was at $1,225 on Wednesday night. Williams' son, John-Henry, has built a cottage industry on his father's signature. Until his stroke in 1994, Williams could sign at card shows for hours at a time, drawing up to $500 for each autograph. "I'm sure that up until the last five minutes of his life, John-Henry had (Ted) signing things," Finger said. Bruce said he hasn't raised his prices on Williams memorabilia in the last week, and the same is true for Finger, who works out of his Spring Hill home as a card-show promoter and dealer. A Williams-signed baseball goes for about $400, Finger said, while an autographed 8-by-10 photograph draws about $200. Demand has increased, but keeping up with the rising supply is a challenge. More than 6,400 Williams items are available at auction site eBay.com, up from about 1,800 whose auctions closed in the 10 days before his death. Williams fans apparently have money to spend, as 28 items have sold for more than $1,000 since Friday. A rookie baseball card from the 1939 Play Ball set, auctioned by an Orlando dealer, was bidding at $6,500 on Wednesday, while Naples collector Paul Jastrzembski posted another that was at $5,049. "I wish it was mine, but I'm selling it for a friend," said Jastrzembski, who has the card stored in a safe deposit box. "The card is pristine, like you just took it out of the pack." Baseball cards are only the beginning of what is being unearthed from closets. Offerings on eBay range from 45-rpm records of Williams' "How to Be a Better Hitter" to pop-up campers and outboard motors bearing his name from days when he hawked Sears products. There are limited-edition Leroy Neiman lithographs, unused bottlecaps from Ted's Root Beer, a pair of Red Sox pants Williams wore in 1966 and the Ted Williams Korean War Fighter Pilot action figure from the G.I. Joe Classic Collection. Memorabilia can be splintered off into the tiniest of collectibles. Consider the ball Williams hit for his 517th home run in 1960 and later autographed. Donruss Playoff, a Texas-based card company, bought the ball and cut it into pieces, embedding swatches in cards randomly inserted in packs. One card, boasting both a fraction of an autograph and seam, sold for $1,100 on eBay on Monday. The most popular keepsake after an athlete's death is typically signed memorabilia, and Williams' career and popularity put him among the elite autographs in baseball, both within his generation and in the sport as a whole. "Pricewise, they're all in the same ballpark, Williams, Mantle, Mays, DiMaggio," Bruce said. The intricacies of the autograph industry have evolved enough that Finger has a signed bat up for auction at eBay, touted as a "pre-stroke autograph." The bat is signed with his full name, Theodore Samuel Williams, something rarely seen after his setback in 1994. The stroke is also used as an excuse with forgeries, Finger said. If someone questions the authenticity of an autograph, comparing it to a real signature, he or she might be told that Williams suffered a stroke and was lucky to be able to write at all. John-Henry Williams runs a company that offers to verify autographs, using a serially numbered diamond hologram as a seal of authenticity. In the January 1998 issue of Security Management magazine, he said nine of 10 autographs said to be his father's are forged. "With (Joe) DiMaggio and (Mickey) Mantle, he's one of the three most forged men on the planet," said Finger, who does not normally post signed items on eBay because he "can't keep up with the fakes." Williams' might also have been part of the problem. In a 1996 interview with 60 Minutes, Williams admitted that long before holograms and online bidding for autographs, he had other people do some of the signing for him. "A lot of autographs out there . . . have been signed by the bat boy and the secretary and all the rest of them," Williams told the show. ". . . The clubhouse boy could sign my name like gangbusters."
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