I'm too shy to show you my balls.

Actually, it's not that I'm too shy. I'd love to reveal my balls to you. It's that I live on the other side of the world from my autographed baseballs.

I had quite the busy weekend, so I've been away from posting, but I'd like to return with this response to Fuji's latest question:

Do you have autographed balls in your collection? If so, do you have a favorite? Why is it special?

So, yes. I do have autographed balls in my collection!

I remember my first autographed balls. I got them back when I first started playing little league, and we had a  "training camp" before a game at the Single-A San Jose Giants stadium in, well, San Jose. I had a ball with me, and got several signatures then. After the game, I waited by the locker room door and had several more added to the ball!

Unfortunately, that ball and many of my other souvenirs from my first 10 years of collecting were lost due to my own indiscretions. I'll save that story for another day.

I've done decently well since then, though I don't have any super-standout balls. I have a few Braves signatures - Brian McCann is probably my favorite in that group, and I got it in person when he made an appearance at a car dealership near me.

It looks something like this:

Not the real thing. It looks almost exactly like this though.

Maybe my favorite autographed ball is the one I have signed by Tony Gwynn commemorating his 3000th hit. The signature is a bit faded but since it's from one of my heroes, I'm really proud to have it. 

And again, it looks something like this:

And again, not the real thing.

Again, all my signed balls are in America, and I'm in Japan, so I can't show you any of them. I'm sad.

I'm not exactly a big collector of signed balls, though in the future I would like to have autographs from Nolan Ryan and Ken Griffey Jr. 

Now, my game-used and BP ball collection, that's another thing...