Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson doesn’t mind signing autographs. However, the former Seattle Mariners star will only sign jerseys under special circumstances.
During a recent autograph signing, Johnson shared the heartwarming reason he won’t sign jerseys for fans.
His explanation came after he was asked by a couple of guys why he doesn’t sign jerseys.
“Because the one thing that I don’t sign, because the one thing that can raise money for charities, my charities and other people’s charities, because there’s not a lot of them floating out there,“ Randy Johnson said. ”You don’t see too many singles signed unless I’m signing for somebody and someone bought it from an auction. I’ve been doing this way back, a long time ago. So that’s why.”
The 62-year-old Johnson made the All-Star game 10 times during his MLB career. He won the Cy Young Award five times and helped the Arizona Diamondbacks to the 2001 World Series.
His autograph is sought after by collectors, but they are unlikely to come across one of his autographed jerseys.
“I mean everything else I’ll sign,” Randy Johnson said. “But one thing that might raise a little bit more money for a charity… I do cystic fibrosis here. I do a lot of stuff with the homeless in Arizona.
“There’s things that people will ask, ‘Well, I’ll sign a jersey because that will hopefully raise more money.’ It doesn’t always but that’s my theory.”
Randy Johnson played 22 seasons of Major League Baseball, spending time with the Expos, Mariners, Astros, Diamondbacks, Yankees and Giants. He compiled a 303-166 record for his career, striking out 4,875 batters in 4,135 1/3 innings pitched.
Johnson had a 3.29 ERA and 1.17 WHIP while appearing in 618 games and making 603 starts.
He won the CY Young Award in 1995 and every season from 1999-2002. He also led baseball in ERA four of those years and led the majors in strikeouts nine times.
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