Who’s the most famous athlete you have ever shaken hands with?

Dave99B

Lenny Wilkens.

Dave

SDSportsFan

Ted Williams

Oh, and Mickey Mantle


Steve

Mercury10c

John Elway. He used to be our company spokesman, and I met him at a party we had.

IrishMike

Did a catalogue for Gayle Sayers as he lives just down the road.

Morgoth

I not only shook Willie Stargell's hand, he let me try on his 79 WS Ring, it was about 10 sizes too big.

SDSportsFan

<< <i>I not only shook Willie Stargell's hand, he let me try on his 79 WS Ring, it was about 10 sizes too big. >>





That reminds me of being at a card show back in the early 1980s, and being allowed to try on one of Lou Gehrig's world series rings

Oh yea, and as luck would have it.....it got stuck

After some cajoling and twisting, I did finally get it off my finger



Steve

WinPitcher

Harry Carsen


Steve

thegemmintman

Nobody memorable, but my Dad shook Babe Ruth's hand. I always thought that was the coolest thing imaginable.

BobaFett72

Jim Thome, Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Yaz, gregg jeffries, mike hargrove, casey blake, charles nagy.....

F1ferrari

Richard and Kyle Petty. Really nice fellows.

lawnmowerman

Michael Clayton ( washed up yucs wr ) and Kurt Abbott ( never really made it mlb player ). Why Kurt Abbott you ask? Okay I'll tell you. We went to grade school together and ended up working at the same JC Penny store one year

onlyanumber

Joe Dimaggio

80sToyguy

I used to be a blackjack dealer back home and we had an independent baseball league called the Northern League (I believe Darryl Strawberry came back after playing in this league for about 25 games--I believe he hit 12 or 14 homers in those 25 games).
Anyways, the big team was some small town in the states, and they had Jack Morris and Pedro Guerrero on their team (this baseball team was staying at the hotel that the casino was in). So Guerrero comes over to my table with about $250 in chips and proceeds to loose them in about 5 minutes. He was with some sort of advisor (bodyguard maybe, although the guy was much smaller than Guerrero), and was a bit drunk, so after realizing the guy he was with wasn't going to give him anymore money he put his World Series ring down in the middle spot! He stared at me for about 5 seconds waiting for me to deal before the guy he was with picked it up and walked away--Guerrero followed.
I look back and wish I had played that hand...
Oh, and he actually never shook my hand.
Jay

cardfan07

Sat a couple tables from Muhammed Ali at a Planet Hollywood in Manhattan. He was nice enough to hand out pre-signed autos. I believe they were facsimile. But he also allowed people to take pictures with him. Very gracious as his meal with his fairly large group was interrupted quite often. I've got a pic with me, my g/f at the time time and Ali.
Pretty cool.
Worst part: there were people that were probably my age or right around it (25 at the time) who didn't know who he was. I always thought some athletes were bigger than their sport and were recognized by everyone, just as a matter of pop culture.

Brian48

George Bush Sr. Well, he played college ball anyway. He visited us during Desert Shield/Storm.

Actually, Luis Tiante is probably the most famous pro I've ever shaken hands with. Met Jon Lester a few weeks ago too during a signing of the new Red Sox DVD.

KalineFan

Tony Gwynn...............

He was at the Long Beach show in the days when they did cards and he was signing FREE
autographs.

As unbelievable as it seems, nobody was around him hardly at all....I just went up, shook his
hand and talked with him for about 10 minutes. What an absolutely great human being.
Extremely friendly and showed respect for me as I did for him. I don't think I have ever
met anyone at a show more friendly, although........

Tony Oliva was an excellent one I met at a local card show.

I also met Zolio Versalles as well.

Met Mickey Lolich when he had his doughnut shop when he had it in my (THEN) home of
Lake Orion, Michigan.

Still have not met Al Kaline.............

Tony

iamthegreatcornholio

Yaz at a card show.

I used to talk with John Rocker all the time when I was in high school working at a sporting goods store. I'd get banned if I mentioned half of what he'd talk about... and no steroid talk wasn't the other half.

bigfische

Bob Feller, Brooks Robinson, Andre Dawson, Tony Larussa, Yogi Berra, Wade Boggs

frankhardy

Former 80's Cardinals pitcher Danny Cox. My dad taught me how to shake hands like a man, but Danny Cox about crushed mine.

jradke4

Bart Starr
Brett Favre
Reggie White

prscott933

Dave Winfield

JeremyDie1

Mike Ditka,Bill Walton,Roger Staubach,Don Shula,and Scottie Pippen.
Edit to add I have shaken hands with several great athletes at card shows, but I had to pay for those.

ArnyVee

Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Raphael Palmeiro, MC Hammer (he was a batboy, it counts, right?)

Bottom9th

Johnny Unitas, Johnny Bench, Gale Sayers, Deacon Jones, Brooks Robinson, Don Shula and many more memorable meetings.

illini

Not a sports figure but I had dinner over 20 times in the late 1970s with Meyer Lansky. My grandmother was good friends with him and lived in the same retirement building in Miami Beach. Very cool guy and funny as hell. One time we were eating and his friend Don king came in to see another elderly person. I shook his hand as well.

metalmike

1969 Pete Rose's- dad a badass sob from the Westside........ Aurora Indiana High school Reds vs. the teachers.......he was sitting next to me and my Dad.

Wondo

Gordie Howe at a late 1960s Detroit Auto show.

RipublicaninMass

George Foreman before he fought Holyfield

yankeeno7

I have met a lot of baseball players. Among my favorites were Mantle, Dimaggio, Bench, Jeter, Bernie Williams, Musial, Rizzuto, and Bob Feller

Least favorites I have met: Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Lawrence Taylor

taka

Wayne Gretzky (twice)
Julius Erving
Magic Johnson

jay0791

I have met and shaken hands with many famous athletes at card show over the years. Many years ago during a blizzard Johnny Podres...who is a local boy......had plenty of time to talk to us at the show. He was a very nice guy. Got a very nice personalized 8x10.
I could not believe how small Yogi Berra was.....but the most remarkable was Ernie Banks. He came out from behind the table and held everyone up for at least 6-7 minutes and talked to me. Shaking hands...he still has wrists that could ripe a phonebook in half......
Ernie was a great player, hofer....but what a great person. He will always be a favorite of mine.

biged128

George Brett and Y.A.Tittle

IrishMike

Jeremy you jogged my memory. 20+ years ago we had Ditka in for a fundraiser for Boy Scouts. He cost us 20k back then. So So speech, but man he is a big dude. Got his autograph and as happenstanch sometimes occurs I found it the other day digging through some old boxes of papers.

bifff257

Mike Singletary ,

At a mens retreat at my church...



Also Sam Wyche, when he was coach of the Bucs

baseballfan

hank aaron (twice)

rube26105

like fred hank, mantle,tittle/dante lavelli/alot of other back a long time ago, id have to look at autographed balls anf mini helments to know,babe ruth in a dream one time-true story lol

Rangerman

Handshake------- Harmon Killebrew, Ahmad Rashad

Played golf with; Charles Coody in 1973; and Tom Sturdivant in 1961.

Woodwind

Chris Webber. We happened to attend the same comedy show in Las Vegas about 5 years ago, and as the theater emptied out I shook his hand. He was accompanied by a very beautiful woman who may very well have been Tyra Banks.

Back in 1989 I had the opportunity to shake hands with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but since I was on a paid music gig I didn't think it was appropriate to do so.

zippy

Warren spahn

interchanges

Dennis Rodman.....he was very cool

Carew29

Met O.J. and Nicole at the Pacific Design Center (The Blue Whale), back in 1988. Looked like the loving couple back then.

A friend of mine was one of the arresting officer's of Charlie Manson---so in a way, their hands met. Charlie was hiding under the porch of the house. My friend Jack, was a canine officer and helped Charlie out of there with the dog.

JrMacdaddy

Mossy Cade and Mark Chumura

mj23kg21

Shook hands with Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Pete Rose, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Bill Terry, Lefty Gomez, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Pee Wee Reese, Harmon Killebrew, Kirby Puckett, Leo Durocher and numerous others. I would say Harmon Killebrew was the nicest and Willie Mays was the worst. Bill Terry and Lefty Gomez would have signed for me all day but I was a youngster and didn't know that signatures would one day be worth something.

OSClabs

Tom Landry (FCA meeting during high school)
Bart Starr (lives in Birmingham but met him as a guest speaker at company meeting in New Orleans)
Roger Staubach, Bob Hayes and many Cowboys (special event in Dallas)
Dan Jansen and other Olympic stars (special event in Dallas)
Pete Rose (auto signing at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas)
Shaun Alexander, Coach Gene Stallings and many Alabama players (A-day/fan day auto signing)
Harvey Martin (National Sports Convention in Houston)
Michael Jordan (while playing baseball in Birmingham)
Robert Newhouse (ran into him at a Hooters in Dallas... he bought me a beer)
Jay Buhner (with his parents at a hotel in Vegas)

many more... but these guys were all super cool!