Meeting a World Series Champion

Back in June , I had the honor of meeting Johnny Antonelli , 1954 World Series Champion and 6x All Star. This gentleman has been very elusive as far as TTM's go. I started TTM'ing this year and my first thoughts were to collect from Rochester Athletes. Joe Altobelli being my first success , I looked hard into finding Mr. Antonelli . Unfortunately , the TTM sites that I use had nothing but failures.

Fast forward to May when his book that he has been working on " Johnny Antonelli , A baseball memoir " is released and that he is doing mini book signings in the Rochester and Santa Fe area ( his winter home I believe ) . So off I went to sit with my son Kyle to listen to stories about his career and hopefully get my 1st Baseball Auto.
It's amazing to me how you can think about things you want to ask someone and when the time comes how intimidating it is to go and possibly bother someone.Knowing that their have been a lot of TTM failures , my gut feeling was he was done signing for one reason or another. So i had emailed the co-writer and asked him what he thought about bringing a baseball. He said Johnny would be OK with it.And that he was. My son got the book and I got the ball. He had a lot of stories which honestly were in the book but I do recommend that if all possible ,  pick it up. He even set up Willie Mays for a meeting with the Firestone Tire Execs ( Mr Antonelli became one of the most successful Firestone store(s) owners in our area and beyond ) and well I will let the book tell that story.

He was a great guy and was very humble about his career and life in general. I was glad Kyle was able to meet him and see that 54 World Series ring. My only mistake was leaving the camera behind..DOH!!