Baseball fan(atic

Story by Steve A. Maze Photo by David Moore

Everyone who knows me is aware of my great love for baseball. To me and my friends who collected baseball cards back in the 1960s, the players were our idols … gods if you will. I didn’t even realize they were human until I was 45 years old.

Knowing my love for the sport, Tonya, my daughter, and my granddaughters Katelin and Lauren, treat me to an annual Atlanta Braves game each year as a Father’s Day gift. That might stop, however, due to an incident I was involved in at the Braves stadium last July 3.

The kerfuffle story actually began two years earlier when I was in Atlanta to watch the Miami Marlins take on the Braves. I was hoping to get Marlins manager Don Mattingly to sign his 1984 New York Yankees rookie card I had saved just for that occasion.

In addition to getting the former Yankee first baseman’s signature, I wanted to meet the great who might be in the Baseball Hall of Fame someday.

Unfortunately, it had rained the night before and neither team took batting practice, which is normally the only opportunity to get anything autographed. I was disappointed, to say the least.

Unfortunately, the Marlins were playing the Braves last year when the girls took me to the annual game. I was determined to get Mattingly’s autograph.

While Lauren was getting Braves players to sign her cap and baseball cards, another fan noticed someone in a Marlins uniform – he looked like Don Mattingly – hitting balls to a third baseman. With my baseball cards in a notebook carrier, I beelined it to the Marlins dugout where, surely, I could get his autograph when he left the field.

Dang! I soon recognized it wasn’t Mattingly – just a coach who bore an uncanny resemblance to him.

For some reason, the area beside the Marlins dugout was blocked off. But I was determined and made my way behind the dugout. If Mattingly made a pregame appearance, I’d be in prime position to catch him.

No sooner had I laid my ball card

For an Autograph_

Fanatical fan tries for the big play ... and nearly gets ejected

The signatures Steve got from Don Mattingly were hard-won, but, at least on a personal level, the story behind them just adds to their value.

carrier on top of the dugout, than an usher promptly told me to move it. Dang! OK, so I placed it in a chair. That seemed to appease her … at least for the time being.

I stood there for what seemed like a week, the blazing heat melting my determination. I was about ready to give up when a familiar figure emerged from the dugout, a first baseman’s glove in hand. Mattingly!

He walked over to first base and began taking throws from the third baseman. I patiently waited another 30 minutes, my notebook melting onto the chair behind me.

Finally! Mattingly made his way back toward the visitor’s dugout. As he walked past the pitcher’s mound he looked my way and … waved! At me?

I glanced around. No one was behind me. Mattingly must have spotted me standing alone next to the dugout and felt sorry for an overweight, sunburned old man melting like cheap ice cream.

A gentleman holding his child walked up beside me, apparently having spotted

the Marlins manager coming off the field. To our delight, as he walked toward us, Mattingly tossed each of us one of the baseballs they’d used for warm-ups.

Thrilled and on a power-roll, I pointed toward the Braves dugout as he approached.

“I bypassed all of their players just to get your autograph!” I shouted.

He smiled at me. Yes! Surely! Mattingly would sign something for me.

I politely asked – OK, I was screaming, “Sign a couple of cards for me!”

The great sport that he is, Mattingly asked for the baseballs he had thrown to me and the kid. We eagerly handed them over, and he signed them with his ballpoint pen.

Now was my chance.

I crawled up on top of the dugout and pushed the cards and a blue Sharpie toward him. He reached for them, but they were still inches from his fingertips. Blindly, I sprawled out full length on the dugout roof, pushing my cards closer to him. Almost …

Big mistake.

“Get off the dugout!” the usher politely asked – OK, she was screaming. “Get off that dugout!”

I quickly squirmed around on top of the dugout, expecting the crack of guns from the Atlanta SWAT team, which probably had my splayed out body crisscrossed with laser sights from atop the stadium.

But it was just the usher. She was down by my feet now. She had to understand my simple desire!

“I’ve been waiting two years to get Don Mattingly’s autograph,” I tried not to scream. “So help me, I’ll jump inside this dugout with him if anyone grabs my ankles and tries to yank me back into the stands!”

By now, I could see a squad of reinforcement ushers heading my way.

I was outnumbered, my dream of card autographs dead in the water.

Actually, I was granted a reprieve.

“Look,” one of the reinforcements calmly but firmly told me, “if you just climb back off the dugout, I’ll get your cards and ask Mr. Mattingly to sign them for you.”

I was suspicious but reluctantly agreed. And he did, indeed, retrieve my cards.

To my amazement, not only did I get the items back with autographs, but Don Mattingly, the Yankee legend, also included the pen he used.

I hugged the first usher, who actually turned out to be a very nice lady, then quickly got lost in the crowd in case anyone in a SWAT uniform was trying to follow.

When I finally got to our seats, to my chagrin I learned Tonya and Katelin had shot pictures of the entire episode – albeit from half way across the stadium – while simultaneously covering their faces in embarrassment.

Adding insult to injury, they politely asked me – OK, they were screaming at me to go stand at the railing near the top of our section so no one would know I was with them.

At least it was in the shade.

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