at waiting for Barkley to leave the hotel 1st so he could slip past the signers... smart move.

its obvious, but its a shame for the people who get stuff signed just to sell it, that ruins the hobby for so many people.

You'd be a horrible fan too if your team constanly spent money and always sucked! Boo Mets!!! Always been a big Jason Bay fan...not really sure what to think of him now that he's leaving Boston for them...

I live about 45 minutes away from Philly and used to go into the city quite often to do autographs. There are a bunch of Ebayers that have just ruined it for everyone. These guys are pushy and rude and always show up with a ridiculous amount of items to get signed. Now I get to the city maybe once or twice a year for something that I really want.

As far as Philly sports fans, I think they are about the same as everywhere else, they just get bad press. I've been to sporting events around the country and found little differences between the Philly fans and others. To me, the worst fans that I've ever encountered were the Mets fans at Shea.

Well...thats because of the Philadelphia fans (no offense to those of you who are). But if you've ever been to a Philly game in any sport, the fans are among the most unforgiving fans you'll ever meet. They'll send you love notes one minute and want to slit your throat the next haha. Good town though with great sports organizations!

That was a good article indeed. There is one angle that always goes unwritten. That would be about the autograph collector who is in it for the hobby and gets squeezed because of the dealers and the reluctant signers.

On a side note, from what I've read and heard, the worst place of all is at the Philadelphia hotels.

This article is back from 1990...found it as I was searching the Sports Illustrated website this morning. A true testament to what a lot of the atheletes have to deal with when it comes to those fans only collecting autographs to sell them.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm