PHOENIX – As Arizona Diamondbacks players make their way onto the field for batting practice, dozens of fans can be heard shouting their favorite players’ names.
“Corbin!”
“Ketel!”
“Geraldo!”
The railing quickly disappears beneath a sea of outstretched arms. Fans press shoulder to shoulder, stretching baseballs, jerseys and cards as far as they can over the padding. Some weave through the crowd searching for an opening, hoping their item will be one a player chooses.
Mixed into the crowd though are autograph hounds, fans carrying backpacks stuffed with baseballs and stacks of cards with the intention of reselling signed items online.
From a distance, the fans and the hounds look the same.
This has created a unique dilemma: Every time a player steps toward the crowd of fans, they are forced into a split-second judgment. A signature might become a lifelong memory for a child or a product listed online within minutes.
“I’m usually pretty open to sign as long as I’m not warming up to pitch in a game,” Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Ryne Nelson said. “I try to take care of the kids first. I remember when I was one of those little kids asking for autographs.”
Nelson said he’s aware that some of what he signs will be resold, but trying to separate fans from resellers is not something he worries about.
“I feel if I turned people away, I would be turning away people who want them for the right reasons,” he said.
Not all players are in agreement with this approach however. Longtime NHL beat writer Mike Russo revealed that the player in question in this tweet was Hall of Famer Pavel Bure.
The autograph economy
For longtime collector and Texas native Mike Moynihan, the dilemma players face today is the result of a hobby that has grown far beyond what it once was.
Moynihan began collecting autographs and baseball cards in 1981, a hobby that quickly turned into a lifelong passion.
“I’ve always loved autographs because they create a different kind of connection,” Moynihan said. “Knowing a player actually touched that card or interacted with someone to sign it makes it feel more personal than simply owning the card itself.”
Back when Moynihan first started collecting autographs there wasn’t much money in it.
“I remember going to shows where you could get Joe DiMaggio’s autograph for five dollars,” Moynihan said. “If we could all go back in time, we’d all hop in our DeLoreans for those opportunities.”
Back then, autograph shows were smaller, often held in malls, VFW halls or community centers. Today, the scale has changed entirely.
“There are simply far more card shows than there used to be,” Moynihan said. “You can find a major card show somewhere in the country almost every weekend.”
That growth has pushed prices higher across the board. Hall of Famers and modern stars alike now commonly command triple-digit fees for signatures.
That change is rooted in simple economics.
“If David Ortiz is charging $400 for an autograph, it’s because people are paying it,” Moynihan said. “If nobody paid that price, it would come down.”
For Moynihan, the hobby hasn’t changed nearly as much as the business around it.
“The biggest difference is the amount of money involved now,” Moynihan said. “In many ways, that’s taken some of the joy out of it.”
For companies operating inside the memorabilia industry, that growth has been impossible to ignore.
Jared Kavlie has watched the hobby evolve from both as a collector and business owner. Kavlie started collecting autographs as a teenager in Arizona before founding and becoming the President of Pristine Auction with his wife in 2010.
“I took my collection that I’d accumulated all those years and that’s how we started,” Kavlie said. “Then it turned into a consignment-based business from there.”
What began in the couple’s spare bedroom has grown into two facilities spanning more than 60,000 square feet in Phoenix.
“We sell over a million auction items per year,” Kavlie said. “We ship over 1,000 packages a day.”
The company’s growth shows just how quickly the memorabilia industry has grown.
“Before 2020 we were under $100 million in annual sales,” Kavlie said. “A couple of years later we exceeded $100 million, then reached about $120 million last year, and we’ll exceed $150 million this year.”
Source: Pristine Auction President Jared Kavlie.
Kavlie saw an increase in sales during an unexpected time.
“We saw a massive boom during COVID,” he said. “Honestly, I expected the opposite. I thought people would stop buying collectibles because of all the uncertainty.
“I guess people were stuck at home shopping online, and collectibles really took off.”
Kavlie said prices are increasingly shaped by investors and real-time market data.
“The industry works a lot like the stock market,” Kavlie said. “It’s driven by comparable sales.”
Kavlie doesn’t believe the demand for sports memorabilia will slow down any time soon.
“Could the market soften? Sure,” he said. “But once values become established, it takes something significant to bring them down, and right now we’re seeing the opposite.”
Different players, different rules
For many players, there is no perfect way to handle autograph requests. Instead, there are personal rules shaped by comfort and circumstance.
Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald said his approach is entirely dependent on where he is at the moment.
“The people who ask at the team hotel aren’t going to get my autograph,” Sewald said. “That’s my time.
“Also people that hound me when I’m trying to get coffee or just going to get lunch with my family, they are not going to get one from me either.”
NHL star Connor Bedard suffered a similar fate in the tweet Russo referenced above when he was harassed on the street by an autograph hound. Bedard has been a willing signer of autographs in the past, and that’s a point that Sewald emphasized: right place, right time.
When Sewald is at the ballpark, he said his mindset changes.
“We spend a lot of time at the field, so if you want an autograph, get one there,” he said. “The time on the field is part of the fan interaction.”
Sewald said it’s easy to spot people who are only there to make a profit. They carry backpacks full of cards, baseballs and multiple photos of the same image, but he does not make it his responsibility to judge intent.
“I don’t mind signing one or two for them,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s none of my business.”
The interactions that mean the most to him though are the personal ones.
“When someone has your jersey and is excited to see you, it’s something really special,” Sewald said. “The people who actually really want my signature are the reason I stop and sign.”
While most autograph seekers respect those boundaries, some take their pursuit too far.
In 2025, a fan harassed Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase on a flight because he didn’t sign an autograph for him.
After Chase declined to sign, the fan began to record Chase and announced, “Everybody say hi to Ja’Marr Chase on your way out,”
The video also included the text, “Should’ve signed that auto and I wouldn’t have blown your cover.”
Similarly in August 2015, an autograph seeker followed Warriors guard Stephen Curry in his car for nearly 30 miles.
Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage has drawn his own line.
As mail requests have become increasingly common, he has decided not to participate.
“I mean, people send me my cards in the mail to sign and send back, but I don’t sign them,” Yesavage said on The Hobby Never Sleeps Podcast. “If you send them to me, you’re not going to get them back.”
Unlike autograph requests at the ballpark, mail requests can often feel intrusive, blurring the line between fan interaction and a player’s private life.
Baseball greats reflect
On the opposite end, MLB Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins has come to appreciate those types of requests.
“People often include letters when they send autograph requests to me,” Jenkins said. “They’ll mention that I won 20 games six years in a row or just talk about my accomplishments and how much I meant to them.
“When someone remembers your career, it’s really rewarding.”
Playing alongside Cubs legends Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo, Jenkins became one of the faces of Chicago baseball in the 60s. Still, he never viewed signing autographs as a chore.
“It never really bothered me when people asked for my autograph during my career,” Jenkins said. “I always considered it an honor.”
Over the past decade, Jenkins has started to notice more of a demand for his autograph.
“I think things have changed because we’ve lost so many Hall of Famers lately, Whitey Ford, Tom Seaver, Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson and so many others,” Jenkins said. “There simply aren’t as many Hall of Famers from my era left.”
With this new demand, Jenkins has noticed how autograph seekers have changed since his playing days.
“When they see me at the ballpark during spring training, they come running over with all their items,” Jenkins said. “I know most plan to sell them.”
Rather than refusing outright, Jenkins limits the quantity just like Sewald.
“I don’t mind signing one for them,” he said. “But I won’t sign half a dozen baseballs or stacks of photographs because I know many of those are headed straight to the marketplace.”
One lesson from fellow Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew has stayed with Jenkins throughout his life.
“He said, ‘If you can write your name clearly so people know who signed it, they’ll treasure it much more than some scribbled signature,’” Jenkins said.
For Jenkins, an autograph isn’t simply a signature. It’s part of a fan’s memory.
The 1982 and 1983 National League MVP, Dale Murphy, shares the same perspective.
“I started playing in the late 70s, and autograph collecting just wasn’t nearly as popular back then,” Murphy said. “It used to be just a hobby for people, now it’s a business”
Today, Murphy signs thousands of autographs a year through agreements with Topps and Fanatics. He enjoys the personal interactions the most though.
“I’m fortunate people still want my autograph after all these years,” Murphy said. “If I have the opportunity, I’m happy to sign for fans.”
More than a signature
For all the changes in the hobby, Moynihan believes the reason people seek autographs has never really changed.
“It’s still about the connection,” he said.
That connection is why after four decades of collecting, his most treasured item isn’t his rarest or most valuable one.
It’s a baseball his father carried to games for years.
“My dad would go to the ballpark and he never really knew what to get signed,” Moynihan said. “He carried the same baseball with him for years, and today it’s the centerpiece of my collection. It’s the one item I would never part with.”
The baseball bears the signatures of some of the greatest names in baseball history, including Mickey Mantle on the sweet spot, Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson, Don Drysdale and Phil Rizzuto.
Eventually, his father began bringing baseball cards.
“He’d walk into a card shop and say, ‘The game’s coming up. I need a Phil Rizzuto card,’ or a Harmon Killebrew card, or an Al Kaline card,” Moynihan said. “He’d just buy whatever the shop had available and take it to the game.”
Moynihan still owns every one of those cards.
For him, the cards and baseball aren’t valuable because of what someone else might pay for them.
“They remind me of my dad,” he said.
That’s why he hopes players never lose sight of what an autograph can mean to the person asking.
“There’s nothing better than watching a kid at a ballpark get an autograph from a player,” Moynihan said. “That’s one of the most special experiences in sports.
“Most kids don’t care if it’s a superstar or a role player. They’re simply excited that a player took the time to acknowledge them.”
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