My favorite baseball team is the Cincinnati Reds. Of their storied history, my favorite club was the 1990 World Series championship team, skippered by Lou Pinella and anchored on the field by a tandem of pitchers who will be forever known as the “Nasty Boys,” a top-notch starting rotation, a Hall-of-Fame shortstop, a fan favorite centerfielder, and a gritty group across the infield and outfield.

They went “wire-to-wire” that season, starting in first place in April and never looking back. A four-game sweep of the titan and heavily favored Oakland Athletics in the World Series endeared the club in the hearts and minds of Reds’ fans that -now 24 years after – is as strong as ever.

For a 13-year-old baseball fan who had only heard stories about the legendary Big Red Machine and had endured some rough seasons throughout the 1980s, this Reds club was something to be proud of.

I began collecting Reds baseball cards in the mid-1980s when card collecting reached a nadir for many young fans. I began sending some of these cards to my favorite players asking for a signature. Sometimes, I got lucky. Other times, I struck out.

The autograph collection presented on this simple WordPress site is the result of several years of collecting that began way back in the mid-1980s and ramped up this past summer 2013.

Please don’t think it’s taken nearly 30 years to assemble the set. It hasn’t. This past summer, I thought about ways to commemorate my favorite club and decided to fill in the holes of my 1990 Reds autograph collection.

All told I had about 15 player signatures as I started the project in June 2013. It was my goal then to collect the remaining players. Not just the stars. I wanted to collect them all: the opening day starting nine, key bench guys, relievers, “cup-of-coffee” guys, guys who were traded away mid-season, coaches — even television and radio broadcasters. 50 people all together.

I knew it would be a tough task. Some of these players refuse to sign these days. Some live outside of the country and are very difficult to track down. Others sadly are deceased.

To build the collection, I consulted a few address pages and sent card requests through the mail. Those I could not track down through the mail, I purchased through ebay auctions. Of the ebay purchases, I researched the signatures painstakingly to ensure the signatures were authentic. Comments on these signatures are welcome.

With the purchase of one very difficult signature to obtain, I finished the collection on February 17, 2014. It gives me pleasure to see all of the signatures side-by-side and to think about what this team means to me and fellow Reds die-hards who remember Joe Oliver’s consistent doubles off the wall in old Riverfront Stadium, who remember Billy Bates’ winning Game 2 of the World Series, and who will never forget the magic of that season.

Please scroll through the quick series of posts below to see the collection. Thanks!