This story first aired on July 8, 2017. It re-aired on Feb. 22, 2020. This web feature has been updated accordingly.

On March 19, 2013, as a rainy day turned to dusk, tens of thousands of people huddled together under multi-colored umbrellas on St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Then, just after 7 p.m., white smoke appeared through the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.

Lino Rulli and Father Dave Dwyer had the call from the Vatican for The Catholic Channel.

"You can actually see that the curtain is about to be pulled back. The window is about to be opened. And let's take a listen to the name of the next pope."

Four thousand miles away, Randy Kaplan, a Jew from Long Island, was in his office in New York — he’s a lobbyist — watching CNN with his boss and a good friend. Randy's always paying attention when a new head of state is announced.

"To me, that's my Kentucky Derby, or that's my Super Bowl," Randy says. "Absolutely."

For 20 years, Randy has been trying to do something that sounds pretty simple. He wants to get a baseball signed by the pope. And, for 20 years, he has failed.

"Very, very hard to infiltrate that inner circle," Randy says. "I tried every mechanism which I know, and I don't take no for an answer. So it's very difficult for me to come to terms with, 'It's not going to happen.' "

But, this time, Randy wasn’t taking any chances. Knowing that he was unlikely to get a sitting pope to sign a baseball, he instead started requesting signed balls from the cardinals most likely to become the next pope and...

"Before the smoke was rising from the chimney at the Vatican, I probably had about 20 of the cardinals out of about 25 or 30 who had a realistic chance," Randy says.

Cardinal Bergoglio

Nobody expected Cardinal Bergoglio to be announced as Pope Francis, not even the two Catholic Channel announcers.

"I believe it's fair to say the world is stunned," Rulli said.

"This is a stunner," Father Dwyer said.

Randy Kaplan had sent Cardinal Bergoglio — now named Pope Francis — a baseball to be signed. It had been returned to sender.

So, Randy still didn’t have a baseball signed by the pope. But he wasn’t about to give up. With help from a friend, who happened to be a cardinal, he sent a couple more baseballs to the pope’s personal secretary. But he wasn’t optimistic.

"Getting the actual pope to sign as pope — that's hitting the jackpot for autograph collectors," Randy says.

Randy Kaplan’s not just any autograph collector. His quest is to collect baseballs signed by all of the heads of state and world leaders.

So, how did a guy from Long Island dream up that idea?

A Collector Since Childhood

Growing up in the '70s, Randy collected the kinds of things kids were collecting back then: Wacky Package stickers, baseball cards...

"Aurora Monster Model kits, the glow-in-the-dark kits," Randy says.

"I have no idea what that is," I say.

"Universal Monsters licensed with Aurora Plastics company in Hempstead, New York, back in the '60s and '70s," Randy explains. "And they were the hottest thing since sliced bread for kids."

When Randy was in high school, he snuck backstage at rock concerts, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of his idols. And, because he was close to Manhattan, Randy met lots and lots of famous people.

"I asked for a couple of autographs here and there throughout, but nothing crazy," Randy says.

In April of 1993, things started to get decidedly crazier. Randy was on a business trip to Houston, and he decided to go to an Astros game. The woman sitting next to him mentioned that former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife, Barbara, came to games whenever they were in town.

"He was just out of office, a couple of months, and I've always been a huge admirer of his," Randy says. "And I did not think that they would be coming on that particular night, because there was a failed assassination attempt on the former president just a couple of days prior in Kuwait. But, lo and behold, sure enough, after the second inning begins, here comes George and Barbara Bush. And they sit down literally a row in front of me.

"So I'm, like, 'This is amazing.' Because as a kid in my teens and in my 20s, I had met everybody you could imagine — the rock stars, as I mentioned, the sports stars. I was never moved so much as when I met a president. I had him sign my scorecard. And I remember bouncing off the walls."

A couple of weeks later, Randy was visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and he saw a collection of baseballs — they had all been first pitches thrown by sitting presidents.

"And I said to myself, 'Oh, my god. What an amazing idea it would be to have presidents and world leaders sign baseballs and start a collection and share it with the world,'" Randy recalls.