Sign here please: The request for sports autographs started when I was 9

There's still something special about the contents of an old manila envelope that I have stashed away in the bedroom.

It’s funny, when you think about it, the impact of the memories we have over getting someone’s signature.

You remember your first autograph?

January 21, 1973.

Not only was that the date of the first Red Wings game I attended in person, it was also the day I got my first autograph. A two-fer!

It was a Sunday afternoon.

The Red Wings played a noon start time, which was unusual. The game was nationally broadcast on NBC, and NOT blacked out at home.

Our old friend Teddy Lindsay was in town, doing analysis opposite Tim Ryan’s play-by-play. Tim, by the way, was an outstanding hockey and boxing announcer. I wasn’t a fan of his football work, for whatever reason.

So my folks stopped for breakfast at a Big Boy on Michigan Avenue on the way to Olympia. I had pancakes. Crazy what you can remember vs. what you forget, isn’t it?

For those who don’t know (and for those who do), Olympia had an escalator with an angle of, I swear, 80 degrees. Seriously. You had the feeling that if you leaned backward an inch, you’d tumble all the way to your death, taking dozens of people with you.

After getting off that escalator of terror, we had some time to kill before finding our mezzanine-level seats. And it was during that pre-game time where we ran into Budd Lynch.

Budd was, at the time, broadcasting Red Wings games on TV and radio along with Bruce Martyn.

I think it was I who spotted Lynch before mom and dad did. Even as a 9 year-old, I was very observant. But I think it was dad who suggested the autograph request.

My parents had bought me a game program (Red Wing Magazine with defenseman Larry Johnston on the cover) minutes earlier and I offered it up as something Budd could sign.

Mom, of course, had a pen in her purse. What mother didn’t?

There was a bistro-style table in the concourse and mom took my program and placed it there so the one-armed Lynch could more easily sign it for me.

We exchanged some friendly words, long since forgotten, and Budd was on his way—likely to the press box.

So that was autograph #1.

I don’t remember in which order the others came, but there were quite a few.

Dennis Rodman. I caught him at the old Ginopolis on 12 Mile Road in Farmington Hills (a favorite Pistons hangout) in 1990. He was sitting in a booth and while I was no longer a wide-eyed 9 year-old, I was nonetheless a little intimidated because the Worm could be…unpredictable.

In fact, after I asked him to sign my napkin, Worm fixed a stare at me that almost caused me to run out of the restaurant, then and there. But then he smiled and obliged me. Whew.

Barry Sanders. I was the programming manager at Barden Cablevision in Detroit in 1994 and Barry used our studios for a photo shoot for a men’s clothier that he was promoting. During one of his suit-changing sessions, I was brought in to meet him.

“Mr. Eno,” he said, extending his hand. I asked Barry if he’d sign, but to our 14-month old daughter Nicole, not to me. He did, very graciously.

The entire 1979-80 Red Wings team. Actually, the 18 skaters and 2 goalies who played in the final NHL game at Olympia, on December 15, 1979. The Red Wings played Quebec and fell behind, 4-0 midway through the second period. But an amazing comeback, culminating with Greg Joly’s game-tying goal with less than 3 minutes to play, brought the roof of Olympia down. I’d never heard a stadium so loud.

After the game, my friend and I waited outside the Red Wings’ dressing room, along with many other fans, and we were duly rewarded. I was 16 years old.

(L to R): Budd Lynch and Bruce Martyn: two Red Wings announcers whose autograph I got under two distinctly different circumstances.

Eventually the entire team emerged, all dressed in suits and topcoats—including Bruce Martyn. Many were smoking celebratory cigars, as if they just won the Stanley Cup. I filled the cover of my game program with signatures. I think I got every player who emerged, plus Bruce.

Speaking of hockey, I have an autographed photo of the Production Line—one of my treasures. It was gifted to me when I left a job as a going-away present.

I also have a baseball signed by Bob Gibson and Denny McLain. Yes, a cynical collector will tell me that the ball lost value because it included the signature of a non-Hall of Famer, but to that I say, “Those two were also the 1968 Cy Young Winners!”

Today, I keep all my autographs stashed away very unceremoniously in a large manila envelope, not including those on game programs and such. At least I still have them.

More Olympia stuff. As kids, before the game we would walk down to the lower level as the players (didn’t matter which team; whatever end of the ice we could gain access to) warmed up. There, we would hang our game programs (and pens) over the glass, hoping a player—any player—would take us up on the unspoken request and sign.

I got a few signatures that way.

One night in 1973 at Tiger Stadium, the Angels were in town. Before the game, a crowd of kids had gathered near the Angels bullpen. My parents said that it looked like a player was signing autographs. So I headed down, clutching my Tigers yearbook.

I remember a very young-looking player was the one signing. I literally didn’t know who he was, but I offered my yearbook anyway.

Turned out that it was lefty Andy Hassler, who was 21 years old at the time. From that point on, I became a Hassler fan, following his career, which was 14 years long. Have left arm, will travel.

Andy Hassler died in 2019 at age 68. On Christmas Day. Ironic, because getting his signature before my 10th birthday was like Christmas morning to me.

He had a lifelong fan in Detroit and didn’t know it.