'89-90 NBA Hoops Autographs

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i started this ambitious project off by pursuing the first player alphabetically in the 1989-90 NBA Hoops card set: Mark Acres. Acres was actually featured twice in the set--once for Boston, and then again for Orlando after getting picked up in the expansion draft. 

A little online sleuthing led me to find out that Mr. Acres was currently working as a middle school P.E. teacher in Southern California. I sent his basketball card to him at his school along with a note explaining my project, and then waited. For about a year, nothing. 

With the lack of response, I kind of lost interest in the project. I never sent any other cards to players. However, today I opened my mail and found an envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting. I had no idea what it was, until I opened it and found the above signed card enclosed. I had completely forgotten about sending it, so it was a great surprise.

Thank you, Mr. Acres, for the response--even if it took a year! What a great start to this project. Maybe I’ll send out a few more after all. Next up alphabetically? Michael Adams. We’ll see if I can track him down and get a card in the mail to him.

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One night after a Blazer game, my dad took me over to the players’ parking lot outside the Memorial Coliseum. We managed to time it just right so we got there as some of the players were getting into their cars. I saw Jerome Kersey getting into a nice sports car and went over to him, asking for an autograph. He looked me square in the eye and rolled up his tinted car window, and I never got a Kersey autograph. (I don’t hold it against him. By all accounts Jerome was a great guy. Maybe he was just having a bad night. RIP.)

After my Kersey failure, I saw Terry Porter getting into his car. It was not a sports car, but a Toyota Camry. Porter stayed and signed autographs for the half dozen or so kids who were out there, and was really nice to us. This was in the middle of the 11-game winning streak to open the 1990-91 season, and some kid asked him if he thought the team could go 82-0. Porter laughed and said maybe. If any Blazers team could have, it would have been that one. The 1990-91 Portland Trail Blazers were unquestionably the greatest basketball team of all time (just take my word for it).

Thankfully I used a Sharpie for this autograph and not a ball point pen like with my John Stockton signature. Unfortunately I must have been a bit too excited when I got it and not been paying attention, hence the smeared ink. 

This is the last of the four autographs I had before starting this journey. I’m curious to see how many more I can track down.

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Mark Bryant was a young backup power forward on the great Blazers teams of the early ‘90s. He worked hard and was willing to do the dirty work, so Blazers fans liked him. I remember, though, that he always seemed to take forever to shoot free throws. Once I think I saw him get whistled for not shooting in time, and that’s not a common call. 

I do not have any specific memory of getting this autograph, but I am guessing that I got it the same night I got John Stockton’s (see last post), based on the fact that it looks like it was signed with the same pen. I am guessing I got it during pregame warmups, since I would have remembered Mark Bryant coming out of the locker room after the game. 

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One night, after attending a Blazers game with my dad, we decided to hang around the building as long as we could after the game ended. I recall watching the workers tear down the equipment in the Memorial Coliseum, including dropping the jumbotron from the ceiling to the floor. Once we waited long enough, eventually players started coming out of the locker room and back into the arena. On that night I was able to snag Alaa Abdelnaby’s autograph on a piece of paper (so I know this happened between 1990 and 1992, when he played for Portland). I also got John Stockton to sign this card.

He came out of the locker room in casual clothes and was visiting with people. He was a friendly enough guy, and I remember watching him standing next to my dad and thinking that he didn’t look any more like an NBA player than my dad did--which is to say, not at all. And yet this unassuming, slightly dorky white guy was one of the greatest point guards of all time.

The autograph was unfortunately made in ball point pen rather than Sharpie, so it doesn’t show up all that well, but it’s there, and is without a doubt the best autograph I ever got from a visiting player at a Blazer game. I was fortunate growing up that my dad often got tickets to Blazer games through connections made by being in the car business, so we got to go to a lot of games and sit in good seats. But for some reason it feels like almost half the games I went to were against Utah. I am sure that I have seen the Jazz play more than any NBA team besides the Blazers.

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Let’s start with Clyde Drexler, my favorite player as a kid. When I attended Blazer games at the Memorial Coliseum, I used to stand by the court as players entered for warmups and I would try to get autographs. Clyde never came on the court with the other players, but always arrived a little later, after they cleared us kids out. I don’t think this was because he was arrogant or untouchable, but simply because his presence would have been too great a distraction and would cause a scene among the autograph seekers. But either way, I was never able to get his autograph at a game. So I resorted to mailing this card to him via the team address, requesting an autograph, and hoping it would come back to me. My older brother had a lot of success trying this; I remember him getting autographs though the mail from Tony Gwynn, Jerry Rice, and Andre Dawson. But it never worked for me--except this time. This card came back from Clyde a few weeks after I mailed it to him. And although it is a bit banged up on the top and has a slight crease on the bottom right, it is one of my favorite autographs. (And could NBA Hoops have picked a worse picture for Clyde? Here was one of the most dynamic, athletic players in the league, with a penchant for awesome slam dunks, and you got him shooting a free throw? Disappointing.)

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A New Quest

Last week I purchased a complete set of 1989-90 NBA Hoops basketball cards on Ebay. My goal for this set, which I intend to chronicle on this blog, is to get every card autographed. I chose the 1989-90 NBA Hoops set because it was my favorite set when I was a kid, and it represents an interesting time in the league’s history. Also, I have a bit of a head start on this set, as I already have four of the cards autographed, two of which are by hall of famers. I’ll be sharing these in the days to come.

In some cases it will not be possible to get a new autograph since some of the players from the set are deceased. In these instances I will have to purchase the autographed cards, trade for them, or have them given to me. In all other instances I hope to get the autographs however possible.