We've had an interesting dilemma in our office the last few days after opening a box of UD Reserve Basketball. For more than a year now, Michael Redd has held the title of the worst autograph we've seen, but we now have a new challenger: Rodney Carney. It's a tough call, but most are saying there is a new champion.

Redd's autograph has some style to it, but it's one unidentifiable letter that unfortunately doesn't resemble any of the letters in his name. I'm guessing he's going for a symbol-type signature like the artist formerly known as Prince.

Carney's signature looks like I let my 3-year-old sign it (pictured on his first birthday) or if I got creative and tried to sign it with my foot. It gets a plus because there are two different marks indicating a first and last name, but there are no identifiable letters. If I were in charge of receiving these cards and sending Carney a check for his work I would be pretty tempted to make him sign them over, but this time with his hand.

The card companies are at the mercy of these athletes to take some pride in their work. Maybe it would help if there were certain guidelines established, including:

• Sign with dominant hand
  
• Must have at least one identifiable letter in signature
• First and last name need to be separate, even if signing with initials

If you've got your own "worst autograph" please comment on it or post it and give some input to our worst autograph dilemma. It's too close to call right now.

*****************

While I will normally refrain from shamelessly plugging our own web site, there are two articles that just got posted that you really should read. First, The Story Behind It All: Aaron's 755th HR Ball by Scott Fragale and an SCD Classic story entitled Sy Berger: The Father of the Modern Baseball Card (and barge captain) by T.S. O’Connell, which gives some great history about Topps. There's also video of an interview with Doug Allen of Mastro Auctions that I did at the Hawaii Trade Conference. If you don't read anything else on our site, read those two articles. Hopefully, you’ll find more to read though.