I bought a mailing list of home addresses of retired baseball stars, sent 'em a blank index card, an SASE and a hand-written request for their signature. I'd wait anywhere from six days to six months and — voila! — I'd get an envelope addressed to me from Stan Musial or Phil Rizzuto with the card signed and my day made.

The process was a little different for current ballplayers. I didn't have to send blank index cards, because I had their real baseball cards in my possession. I also sent to the budding stars before they got too popular and deluged in requests. Such was the case with Barry Bonds.

I came across this autographed 1986 Fleer Update Barry Bonds rookie card in my collection just a few days ago. I'd forgotten I'd even had it. I must've sent the card to Barry around that time, and he must've sent it back signed. Try doing that today.

There have long been stories of clubhouse staff signing autographs in the names of stars, but a few things lead me to believe this is Barry's real signature:

1. He wasn't a big star then.
2. The sig is clean but I see where the ink streaks some. It's not a stamp, nor a sloppy fake.
3. Most importantly, it matches authenticated Barry Bonds autographs for sale online.

In a day when there are tiers of high prices at autograph signings — to the point where it costs $140 to get Bart Starr to sign a mini-helmet and $70 to take a photo with Eric Dickerson — it's nice to find a remnant from a simpler collecting era.

I attended last week's East Coast National sports card show in White Plains, N.Y., where an autograph-authentication service told me it would cost $30 to certify my Bonds signature as real. Thirty bucks to learn that my free autograph is real. Or to hear that it's not!

Maybe someday I'll get it authenticated. But what the certification will always leave out is how I got it: not by paying $150 on eBay, but by sending a note to a promising ballplayer who made time to answer his fan mail in a Pittsburgh clubhouse.