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Vol. 6

I collected baseball cards when I was young. Out of every box of 500, there were 498 that were non-distinct. But those other two were priceless gems. Before my memory fades, I am going to try to chronicle some of my favorites.

Jim Wohlford
1980 Topps - Card #448
wphlford

My dad told me a story once. He was in a bar and a guy came in and sat down next to him. That's not the story. That would be like saying it got dark one night after the sun went down. But he said the guy was Jim Wohlford, outfielder for the Milwaukee Brewers. He said he had just finished up a their game at County Stadium. The somber Wohlford had just gone 0-for-4 and didn't have a particularly good game in the field, so he thought he'd stop for one before heading home. His looks, the time of night, and the proximity of the bar to the ballpark all added up. This was indeed Jim Wohlford.

They sat and talked - mostly about the Brewers. My dad claimed that Jim was extremely knowledgable about baseball and was telling him stories about things that only a player would likely know. Before they left, My dad asked him for an autograph to give to his son who loved baseball and was a huge Milwaukee Brewers fan. Wohlford obliged.

When I saw him next, my dad gave me the autograph (on the back of one of his business cards.) He told me the story and relayed some of the tales that Wohlford told him. He also gave me a small investigating assignment.

* * *

This was one of the few actual autographs I ever had. I was never of the mind or place to seek them out, and autographs weren't really my thing. Most of them just look like scribble to me. I especially never liked the preprinted autgraphs that they sometimes printed on baseball cards. I always wondered to myself if they were fake. Afterall, who would know? But this time I could find out. I knew that there was a Jim Wohlford baseball card somewhere in one of my boxes. I did what my dad asked me to. I dug for it and found it.

I held it up next to my dad's business card and compared the writing. On the baseball card was the adequately legible rendering of Jim Wohlford's signature that you see above. On the business card was written, in a somewhat similar style:

J - i - m W - o - l - f - o - r - d

He spelled his own name wrong. He didn't write the "h". He wrote it 'Wolford.'

I told my dad and we joked about it for many years after. He never knew if the guy in the bar was the actual Jim Wohlford, or the imposture, Jim Wolford.

I always said to myself that if fate ever had it that I somehow crossed paths with the actual Jim Wohlford, and I got up the guts to, I would ask him if he ever remembered signing an autograph on the back of some guy's business card while sitting at a bar in West Allis on a summer night after he had had a rough game as County Stadium. But, of course he would remember that. He probably did it 100 times. Or else he wouldn't remember. Why would he? Either way, I would never know.