I spent a good portion of today with Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner. While we all know Ralph from his career as a Mets broadcaster he also has a phenomenal career playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Until Ryan Howard recently broke the record, Ralph had the honor of being the fastest man in MLB history to hit 100 home runs. Kiner was immortalized in Cooperstown in 1975. Anyway, I arrived at Ralph's home at about 10:30 this morning. He lives on a golf course so we ended up doing the signing in the course's clubhouse. It took a few hours for Kiner to complete the session so we had plenty of time to talk Mets baseball. The one thing that stood out to me is that he referred to the Mets as "We" or "Us". I thought that was pretty cool as Ralph's name has been synonymous with the Mets since 1962. Ralph also told me that Doc Gooden (who was my guy growing up) was the best young pitcher he had ever seen. That tells a lot coming from a guy who faced Bob Feller and all the greats over his illustrious career. Anyway, Kiner signed some awesome pieces including MLB baseballs, Hall of Fame inscription baseballs and an incredible image of him (as a Cleveland Indian) standing with the great Ted Williams. Interestingly enough Ralph recognized the photo and told me that on the other side of Williams was Joe Dimaggio (who was cut out of the photo) He said Joe was looking in the other direction and was bored with the conversation. Even without Joe D it is an amazing photo.
Tomorrow I will be doing a private signing with 2x NBA MVP (and Steiner Sports Exclusive) Steve Nash. Check back for a recap.