In her 65 years, Coleen Brown has been to only one Major League Baseball game.
But she has more autographs and memorabilia than most long-time season ticket holders, and all it took was a little gumption and a roll of stamps.
Brown will display the quilt she made using autographs from dozens of players and managers at LaGrange Appreciation Days, which starts today and continues through Saturday.
The garment is making its Northeast Missouri debut. It will be showcased with other quilts from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at the LaGrange Youth Center across from Washington Park.
"I'm just thrilled to pieces that it's drawn so much attention," Brown said. "This is really causing a lot of comment."
The project began in 1978 as a present to Brown's son, Monty Clark, who was eight years old at the time.
Brown read a newspaper quote from Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda about an experience he had.
Lasorda told the newspaper that when he sought the autograph of a player he admired, he was rudely turned away.
Several years later, Lasorda was pitching in the big leagues and the player who had turned down his request came to bat.
The crafty Lasorda offered a little chin music. When the batter asked why, Lasorda reminded the player about the long-ago brush off.
"He told the boys on his team that if anybody ever came up to them and asked nicely, to give them an autograph," Brown said. "I was impressed by that."
Faith and fastballs
Brown admits she wasn't a big baseball fan in the 1970s.
She family lived in Florida at the time, and the closest pro team was the Atlanta Braves.
One day, Brown picked out five players and the managers from all 26 Major League teams and sent each two circles of white cotton fabric with a request for their John Hancocks.
"I didn't go into it with any expectations," she recalled. "I had no idea it was an impossibility. The ballplayers weren't charging for their autographs then."
Balls and strikes didn't appeal to Brown, but she didn't go in with eyes closed. Each note was handwritten specifically to the player or manager, and the message was simple.
"I told them I was making a quilt for my son," Brown said. "I did it on faith."
Brown consulted schedules to find out when teams were going to be on the road. She'd been told visiting players often relieved the boredom of hours between games by answering fan mail.
"I got quite a few responses from the town the guys were in at the time," she said.
Each player also was asked to have at least one teammate respond. So, by the time Brown finished, more than 250 Major Leaguers had been contacted.
*Every time the mail came, it was like a big celebration," she said.
Big names, big hearts
To Brown's amazement, 135 players and managers sent autographs, and some included memorabilia.
Pat Zachary, a New York Mets pitcher, apologetically wrote that his letter had not included the two circles of cloth.
"He said 'If there's anything I can do to help you out, let me know,'" Brown said. "I sent him two more patches and he signed them and sent them back. Now, that's cool."
Rusty Staub, who was with the Detroit Tigers, sent a team patch and a booklet about historic Tiger Stadium.
Even the teams were cooperative. All-Star pitcher Mark Fidrych died recently at age 54 in a farm accident, In 1978, he had just been sent down to the minors when Brown's letter arrived, but the Tigers sent it on to him and he replied with two autographs.
Brown stitched over each name in black, single-strand embroidery thread. Each swath also featured team logos. The Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles were the most difficult to sew.
"They're the birds," Brown said of the teams' insignias at the time.
The quilt reads like a Who's Who of 1970s stars. Willie Stargell, Johnny Bench, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Joe Torre and Thurman Munson, who was killed a year later in a plane crash.
And then there's Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader and former manager who has been kept out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on baseball.
Brown is among the many who think Rose's off-field conduct should be ignored, especially when other Hall of Famers have gotten despite dubious personal conduct.
Batter up
Brown, who ran a quilt shop in Florida, displayed the 94-inch-wide by 108-inch-tall baseball garment at a show there once.
She clipped out an article done by the Pensacola newspaper and sent it to all of the players from whom she had heard.
Gary Carter, who was a catcher for four teams and later a minor league manager, sent back a thank you for the article.
Brown put together a scrapbook to accompany the quilt, but had not had a chance to display either since she and her husband moved to LaGrange last year.
That changed when she talked with members of her church about having a show.
Rita Cox, an Appreciation Days organizer, said the quilt is unique.
"It's a one-of-a-kind that can never be made again," Cox said. "Nobody's going to ever get 135 baseball players to sign anything today without paying them. They're pretty unapproachable."
Technically, the quilt still belongs to Brown's son, Monty. He lives just up the road in Canton, but has asked his mother to hold onto it.
As for that one baseball game Brown attended, well, she couldn't have picked a better one.
The St. Cardinals beat her Atlanta Braves with a grand slam home run in the bottom of the ninth.
"I didn't care who won, even though I was cheering for the Braves," Brown said. "Everybody was high-fiving each other on the way out of the stadium. To be a part of that was incredible."
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