Gordie Howe Didn’t Make An Old Fan’s Day July 28, 2008
A fellow at work told me a very sad story the other day, and I was surprised yet not so surprised. It just reinforced my belief that the Rocket was better in many ways than Gordie Howe.
My friend’s father is a lifelong Detroit Red Wings fan. So much so that he went out and spent almost $500 on a Red Wings jacket with the felt and leather and all that.
A few years ago, the father, wearing his Red Wings jacket, was at the Vancouver airport for whatever reason, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. Because in the crowd, he spotted old number nine, Gordie Howe.
Wonderful occurrences like this don’t happen every day. Gordie Howe. His boyhood hero. Heck, even Wayne Gretzky’s hero.
So the guy went up to Howe and politely asked him if he would sign his beautiful $500 Detroit Red Wings jacket. How great would that be?
Gordie Howe refused to sign it. He told the guy he would probably just turn around and sell it.
The lifelong Red Wings and Gordie Howe fan went away disappointed. And he now looks at Gordie Howe in a different way.
What do you think about this?
All I know is that when I met Rocket Richard about 16 years ago, (which I’ll write about in the fall), he was charming and accommodating and pleasant, and I got the feeling that he wouldn’t have minded signing anything I asked.
And when I told my wife this Howe story, her one question was: Even if the guy would’ve turned around and sold the jacket, so what? When people sell these things, maybe some of them actually need the money.
And aren’t the fans what it’s all about?
It would have been almost no effort whatsoever for Howe to sign the jacket. He would have made the guy’s day.
In my book, he blew it.
DK,
UH? GH was always mean. He wasn’t called Mr. Elbows for nothing.
I collect autographs, and this sort of thing is becoming more and more frequent, not just with hockey players, but all sorts of celebrities.
There are a few reasons. One is that some stars do autograph signings, and make money from it. If they never made a lot of money playing, then this may be their only source of income now, and signing it for someone else to sell it doesn’t seem right to them when the could be the ones making money from it.
If you look at ebay, there are 82 items for “Gordie Howe signed”, plus 483 from those with eBay stores. One of them is for $10,000 (includes a Wayne Gretzky auto as well).
Plus, Howe offers signed items on his web site, including a jersey for $999, but also has books, ties, posters, etc.
Howe’s not the only one that charges for autographs. Bobby Orr has a web site up, selling his stuff. Apparently, any autograph you may have gotten through the mail of his in the past 15 years may be fake (signed by a secretray).
Ted Linday offers signed items on his web site, but the money goes to autism. Gretzky does the same. So does Stan Mikita. And there are plenty of others in the same boat.
The last reason may be that maybe the guy caught Howe on a bad day. The guy is 80 years old. His wife has a type of dementia. He’s allowed to be cranky on some days. He can’t always be in a good mood, even if buddy is a lifelong fan. Imagine having people come up to you every single day you go out in public, asking you for an autograph for about 50 years or so. There are going to be days when you’re not in the mood to sign, and just want to be left alone. Maybe Howe had one of those days.
Tom,
Interesting. Despite the wishy-washy new-age bs that `judging’ is in and of itself bad, we all judge and rightfully so. Society turns on the trust created by myriads of judgements we all make on a daily basis. For example, every time I get on a bus I’m judging that the driver is sane, that it is his intention to get me to my destination safe and sound barring the proverbial act of God. No, there is nothing wrong with judging. Any sin incurred in this way stems from inflicting gratuitous harm on the basis of faulty and/or self-serving judgements. This, of course, raises the question of what is meant by `harm’? Was I doing `harm’ to GH by judging him to be mean? Hmmm, as a hockey player, I think not, but perhaps in this arena, i.e. the biz of celebritydom, I was unfair. Why? First, I think that the human frailty explanation is valid especially when balanced against numerous counter-examples, and I know about hyper-aggressive auto-hounds who give an expletive deleted less about their target or what they do except in terms of monetary value to themselves and that this can result in suspicion and distrust on the part of their targets/victims. And, I do know that celebritydom has been morphed into a huge profit-generating web that sells image rather than substance thereby doing us all a huge disservice by reducing all and sundry willy-nilly to fungible slices of pieces making personal identity and authenticity even more valued. Nevertheless, part of a celebrity’s job description includes awareness of this and at the very least a tacit agreement to contribute to the continued success of the enterprise by actively espousing the mechanisms which support it which in this case entailed an auto. Still, duh, I hadn’t realized to what extent this industry has created spin-offs and how this development also impacts on the designated `celebrity’. For me, this aspect renders GH’s judgement of said fan and subsequent `elbowing’ of him as described by DK as less mean than understandably confused. In other words, I like to think that GH, if made aware of the `gratuitous harm’ that his actions inflicted on a genuine fan, I am sure that he would do whatever is necessary to get himself `out of the sin-bin’, as it were.
Thanx, Tom. Points made and taken.
Oops! “…fungible slices of pizza’.
Gordies always been controlled by his wife(contracts endorsements etc.)so this does not surprise me in the least,but then on the other hand these guy’s were screwed over by Eagleson & their pensions could’nt buy them a Big Mac.
Cheers from the East GO HABS GO !!!
Maurice Richard to me is Mr. Hockey forever! Yes, met him many ties when he came to Southern Ontario and he would sign anything and was a pleasure to talk to and have your picture taken with.
As for the putz Gordie Howe, an arrogant SOB! Had some photos to be signed at a St. Catharines hotel and he told me to speak to his agent and would not sign when he passed the lobby! Good riddance Mr. Howe!
Dennis, a wonderful blog my friend! Keep up the great work!
Thanks! I had my picture taken with the Rocket too! And I’m not surprised at Howe’s behaviour.
And thanks for the nice words.